Black Friday SMS: how many texts to send, and when

How many texts should you send for Black Friday?

Four to six, spread from the night the sale opens to the last hours of Cyber Monday. That's my starting point for a brand with a normal SMS list. If your list is small and highly engaged, you can lean toward six. If you've barely texted all year, stay closer to four.

Here's the logic. BFCM is when people are most willing to hear from you. I see BFCM emails typically get 2 to 5x the results of a regular campaign, and the range varies a lot by brand. Text revenue grew across Klaviyo brands too: Klaviyo reported that over BFCM 2025, text revenue for brands grew 25% year over year as send volume rose 34%. So brands sent a lot more texts and made more from them.

But SMS is a sharper tool than email. It's timely and urgent, it buzzes in someone's pocket, and it builds very little brand awareness on its own. Every text should have a reason to exist. If you can't say why this text has to go out right now, it's probably an email.

When should each Black Friday text go out?

Here's the plan I'd start with. Adjust the days to your own sale window.

If you're running an early access window for VIPs or SMS subscribers, the first text can go out a day or two before the public sale. I cover that in Black Friday early access emails.

Notice what's missing: a text every few hours. Your email schedule can run tighter because email is easier to ignore. A text is not.

Should Black Friday texts and emails say the same thing?

No. They should work together, but they do different jobs.

Email is where you explain the offer, show the products and build the brand. Text is the tap on the shoulder. One of the most useful Black Friday texts is simply: "Our Black Friday sale is live. Check your inbox for the full lineup, or shop here." You're using the text to get the email read.

That pairing seems to pay off. Klaviyo's BFCM 2025 report found that shoppers who engaged with both email and text placed 11% more orders than other shoppers. That's correlation, not proof that adding texts causes more orders, but it's a good reason to plan the two channels together instead of in separate spreadsheets.

A few rules I'd hold to:

• Send the email first, then the text. If the text says "check your inbox," the email needs to be there.
• Don't repeat the full email in the text. Offer, end time, link. That's it.
• Use plain language. Say what they get and where. Clever wordplay costs you more in a text than anywhere else.

For more formats you can borrow, see my SMS marketing examples.

What are SMS quiet hours, and do they apply on Black Friday?

Yes, they apply on Black Friday like any other day. Klaviyo's guidance is to send in the recipient's local time and avoid sending before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. Klaviyo notes that in the US, most of the country is covered by the TCPA, which allows sending from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., and that several states, such as Florida, limit sending to between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.

How Klaviyo handles it:

• In flows, a text that hits quiet hours waits in a queue and sends at the next allowed time.
• In campaigns, Klaviyo checks each recipient against quiet hours at the moment their message would send. You can choose to delay the message to the next allowed time (the default) or skip it.
• Time zone can be based on each profile's location, or you can choose the more conservative Eastern time zone option.

What this means for your plan: don't schedule your "ends at midnight" text for 11 p.m. Eastern. It will either sit until the next morning, after the sale is over, or skip your West Coast and Florida subscribers in ways you didn't intend. Send the final reminder in the afternoon or early evening, and write the end time into the text.

This is general information, not legal advice. If you're unsure what applies to your list, ask whoever handles compliance for you.

Should you turn off Smart Sending for Black Friday SMS?

On multi-send days, yes. I keep Smart Sending on for normal campaigns. I turn it off for restocks, deadlines, launches and multi-send BFCM days, and on automations, so people don't miss the reminders that matter. On heavy send days I don't change anything in my flows. I just make sure Smart Sending is off.

If it's on, someone who got your launch text in the morning may be silently skipped for your afternoon reminder. That's the whole reason you planned the reminder. I explain the setting in more detail in Klaviyo Smart Sending.

Should your Black Friday texts include a discount?

If the sale is the reason you're texting, the text should say what the deal is, in plain numbers. "25% off everything through Monday" beats "Our biggest sale is here."

For automated texts outside the sale, like abandoned cart, I think the first text can be a simple reminder, and any automation after that first text should include a discount. Over BFCM your sitewide offer often does that job already, so make sure your automated texts don't promise a different, smaller deal than the one on your homepage.

And keep offers honest. Klaviyo's BFCM 2025 data showed average discounts fell from 29.6% to 26.2% while same-site sales still grew 11%. Brands don't need to scream the biggest number in the room to have a good weekend.

Don't forget the shipping cutoff text

Black Friday gets the attention, but December has a deadline that's even more urgent: the last day to order for holiday delivery.

My rule there: at least one text on the cutoff day or the day before. If you have spare credits, send one a week or two ahead so people see it coming, then increase the cadence as the date gets close. The full plan for picking your date is in the shipping deadline email post.

What if you just turned on SMS?

Then don't overthink it. Send your highest-leverage marketing and see what works. Your Black Friday launch text and your Cyber Monday last call are about as high-leverage as it gets.

Two things to get right before the weekend:

1. Make sure people actually opted in. SMS is a more acute form of marketing, so commitment to the list matters. Only text people who gave you consent to text them.
2. Check your credits. Five texts to your whole list adds up. Count the sends before you schedule them so you don't run out on Cyber Monday afternoon.

If you're still deciding whether SMS is worth it at all, start with should I add SMS marketing. And for the email side of the weekend, see my BFCM email strategy.

FAQ

WRITTEN BY Jack White

Founder of Bardown Digital, a Chicago-based Klaviyo email and retention agency for Shopify brands. He's worked with brands doing $500K to $100M a year, with $100M+ in email-attributed revenue across them.

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