Black Friday is a great opportunity for small businesses, and email is one of the ways to reach customers with your best offers. But before you hit send, it's worth checking a few things. From outdated email addresses and broken discount codes to security risks, small mistakes can cost you sales when you can least afford them.

Key takeaways:

• Clean your email list so your offers have a better chance of reaching customers.
• Check your discounts, links and checkout process before sending.
• Make sure your emails are trustworthy and easy to recognize.
• Secure your marketing accounts and prepare for potential scams.

Black Friday email campaign checklist: 8 things to check before sending

Here's what to check before launching your Black Friday email campaign.

1. Clean up your email list before Black Friday

If you've been collecting email addresses for years, some may no longer be valid: customers change jobs, abandon old inboxes or simply stop using certain addresses.

Sending your Black Friday campaign to those addresses can increase your bounce rate and hurt your sender reputation, making it harder for future emails to reach customers.

What to do before you send:

• Use an email verification service to identify invalid or risky addresses.
• Remove addresses that have repeatedly bounced.
• Review subscribers who haven't engaged with your emails in a long time.
• Make sure your email marketing platform is processing unsubscribes correctly.

To have a successful Black Friday campaign, you need an email list that reaches people who are interested in what you're selling. You can achieve that by doing an email health check.

2. Don't add people to your list without permission

It's tempting to reach as many people as possible during Black Friday, especially when you're competing with bigger businesses offering huge discounts. But buying an email list or adding people who never agreed to receive marketing messages isn't a good shortcut.

Unsolicited emails are more likely to be ignored, marked as spam or reported. Depending on where your customers are located, sending marketing emails without the required consent can also violate privacy and marketing laws.

Before sending your campaign:

• Check that your subscribers have given the necessary marketing consent.
• Don't assume someone wants promotional emails just because they bought something from you.
• Include a clear, working unsubscribe option.
• Avoid purchasing email lists, even if the seller promises thousands of potential customers.

Black Friday may bring new customers to your business, but you don't want to start that relationship by sending them emails they never asked for.

3. Make sure your Black Friday emails don't end up in spam

You've spent time choosing your offers, writing your message and preparing your website. The last thing you want is for your campaign to land in the spam folder. Email providers look at several factors when deciding whether a message belongs in the inbox, including your sending reputation and whether your domain is properly authenticated.

That sounds technical, but you don't necessarily need to handle everything yourself.

Most email marketing platforms can help you set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC. These are security checks that help email providers verify that messages sent from your business domain are legitimate.

What to check:

• Is your business domain properly authenticated?
• Are you sending from a recognizable business email address?
• Have you tested whether your messages reach the inbox?
• Are you avoiding misleading subject lines and unnecessary spam-like language?

Related: Inbox Security: How Not to Become That Business Whose Emails Go to Spam

4. Double-check your Black Friday discounts and offers

Before sending your Black Friday campaign, double-check that all your offers are accurate and ready to go. A discount code that doesn't work, an incorrect price or a product that's already out of stock can lead to lost sales and unhappy customers.

Go through your offers and make sure everything works as advertised.

Check that:

• The prices and discounts in your emails match those on your website.
• Discount codes work and apply to the right products.
• Your offers have clear start and end dates.
• Any exclusions, minimum purchases or other conditions are easy to understand.
• You have enough stock or capacity to fulfill the orders you're hoping to receive.

If you're offering services rather than physical products, be equally clear about what customers are buying, when they can use the offer and any limitations.

5. Test every link and your checkout process

Your Black Friday email might look perfect, but what happens when someone clicks the "Shop Now" button? Check that it opens the right product page, that the page loads properly on mobile and that customers can complete their purchase without problems.

Before hitting send:

• Click every link in your email, including buttons, images and social media links.
• Open the email on your phone and check how it looks.
• Test the checkout process from start to finish.
• Make sure your payment options work.
• Check that your website uses HTTPS and that customers aren't redirected to unexpected pages.

6. Write a subject line customers can trust

There's nothing wrong with creating excitement around a good offer. However, misleading discounts, exaggerated promises and fake urgency can damage customers' trust in your business.

For example, don't write "Everything 50% Off" if the discount only applies to a handful of products.

And don't tell customers an offer ends in one hour if you're planning to extend it for another week.

A few things to remember:

• Be specific about what you're offering.
• Make sure your subject line matches the email content.
• Use urgency only when there's a genuine deadline.
• Keep your sender name recognizable.
• Avoid making promises you can't keep.

7. Plan your emails instead of sending everything at once

Planning ahead gives you time to build interest and helps you avoid sending too many messages in a short period. Depending on your business, you might send an early announcement, your main Black Friday offer and a final reminder before the promotion ends.

But think about how often your customers actually want to hear from you.

An early announcement and a reminder can be useful, but sending too many emails in a short period may annoy subscribers and encourage them to unsubscribe.

What you can do:

• Create a simple email schedule before Black Friday.
• Decide which offers deserve a separate email.
• Consider sending different offers to different customer groups.
• Check your scheduled messages for outdated prices or expired promotions.
• Leave yourself time to respond to customer questions.

And if your campaign is already bringing in orders, keep an eye on your inbox. Customers may have questions about delivery, payments or the offers themselves.

8. Secure your email marketing accounts before the campaign

Your email marketing account also needs protection, especially before a busy sales period like Black Friday. If scammers gain access to it, they may be able to steal customer information, change your campaigns or send fraudulent emails using your business name. They could even replace legitimate links with ones leading to fake websites designed to steal payment details.

This could put your customers at risk and damage the trust you've worked hard to build.

Start with these simple steps:

• Use a strong, unique password for your email marketing account.
• Enable two-factor authentication wherever it's available.
• Review who has access to your marketing platform and remove anyone who no longer needs it.
• Be suspicious of unexpected emails asking you to verify your marketing account, update payment details or urgently reset your password.
• Keep the devices you use to manage your business protected and updated.

Be especially careful with messages that appear to come from email marketing services, online stores, payment processors or delivery companies.

Protect your business beyond Black Friday

Black Friday is a busy time for small business owners, and scammers may take advantage of it with fake notifications about payment problems, suspended accounts or urgent issues with marketing campaigns.

Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security helps businesses with 2–25 employees protect their devices, online accounts and privacy against phishing, malware, scams and other online threats, without needing a dedicated IT team.

It also includes Email Protection, which helps detect and flag dangerous emails in your inbox, and Scam Copilot, which can help you identify suspicious messages and scams targeting your business.

Keep your business protected during Black Friday and throughout the year.

Try Bitdefender Ultimate Small Business Security free for 30 days. No credit card required.

You may also want to read:

• Your business uses MFA. But are you using it on the right accounts?
• How to protect your small business from buyer scams
• What to Do if an Unexpected Payment Appears in Your PayPal or Business Account
• How to tell if your small business is properly protected

FAQs

When should I start sending Black Friday emails?

You can start promoting your Black Friday offers one or two weeks in advance, depending on your business and customers. Consider sending an early announcement, your main offer on Black Friday and a final reminder before the promotion ends.

How many Black Friday emails should a small business send?

There's no fixed number. For many small businesses, two or three well-timed emails may be enough. Focus on relevant offers rather than sending frequent reminders that could annoy subscribers.

Should I send Black Friday emails to customers who haven't opened my emails in months?

Be careful with inactive subscribers. Sending a large campaign to people who haven't engaged with your emails in a long time can hurt your sender reputation. Consider a separate re-engagement campaign or removing persistently inactive addresses, especially if they haven't responded to previous attempts to reconnect.

How can I tell if my Black Friday emails are going to spam?

Check your email marketing platform's bounce rates, delivery reports and authentication settings. You can also use an email deliverability testing tool before launching your campaign. Keep in mind that an email marked as delivered hasn't necessarily reached the recipient's inbox.