Klaviyo BFCM Guide: Prepare Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Preparing BFCM in Klaviyo breaks down into six topics: the send calendar, audiences, email content, send settings, flows and SMS, then monitoring during and after the peak. This guide gives the key points of each topic and links to the article that covers it in detail.

TL;DR. Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, November 26, 2026, Black Friday on Friday the 27th and Cyber Monday on Monday the 30th. In our view, the send calendar and audiences come first, then the send settings (Smart Sending, domain, volume). Each section below points to the detailed guides.

Want an outside view before you build? We offer a free BFCM audit: 30 minutes, no strings attached.

The dates to keep in mind in 2026

The Federal Reserve K.8 calendar puts Thanksgiving on November 26, 2026 (Federal Reserve, K.8 calendar). Black Friday is the next day, Friday, November 27, and Cyber Monday is Monday, November 30: these two reference points are calendar conventions that the page does not mention. Our Q4 2026 promotional calendar sets out the key dates and the email and SMS volumes week by week.

1. Send calendar and strategy

This is the first decision: how many sends, when, and for which audiences. The day-by-day BFCM send calendar runs from D-10 to Cyber Monday, with the cadence, the Klaviyo settings and the Gmail and Yahoo thresholds to respect. The Black Friday email checklist lays out the schedule from D-60 to D+7, and the article on Black Friday e-commerce prep covers strategy: a single offer, reinforcements, the trade-off between October and November.

Monday needs its own approach: Cyber Monday 2026 deals with a list that is tired after four days of sends. One week before the peak, the Klaviyo flows at D-7 before Black Friday say which flows to switch on and which to drop. The 7 Klaviyo flows to run before Black Friday serve as a starting base.

Cancel or Reschedule a Klaviyo Campaign in the Middle of BFCM

A scheduled or sending campaign can be canceled from the campaigns list, and a cancellation cannot be undone. Mid-send, Klaviyo cannot unsend messages that have already been sent: cancelling stops the ones still waiting to be processed, but messages already being processed may still send. A fully sent campaign can no longer be canceled. To edit a scheduled campaign, you revert it to draft (Revert to draft) then schedule it again. If its earliest send time is in 15 minutes or less, you must cancel and clone it. (Klaviyo source)

Resend a Klaviyo Campaign to Non-Openers: A Method for BFCM

The automatic follow-up email exists only for email campaigns, requires a deliverability score above 50, and targets only profiles that opened or clicked in the last 30, 60 or 90 days. The delay runs from 2 days (48 hours) to 30 days. It is not available with an A/B test. In our view, the automatic follow-up is only worth using during BFCM if the offer is still valid 48 hours later. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Campaign Calendar: Check Your BFCM Sends

The campaign calendar can be set to day, week or month view, and filtered by channel, status, audience, tag, A/B test or archive. Sends appear in the account's time zone, except sends scheduled in the recipient's local time, which are placed at the local time, and Smart Send Time sends, placed as an all-day event. A draft appears on its planned date but does not go out: if it is still a draft when the date passes, the campaign is not sent. (Klaviyo source)

2. Audiences and segments

Audiences are built before content. The 9 BFCM Klaviyo segments cover VIPs, buyers, prospects, winback and inactive profiles. The article on exclusions, overlaps and skipped profiles explains how Klaviyo builds a campaign's audience.

Two levers for collection and early access: the Black Friday waitlist, with form, consent and confirmation flow, and unique coupon codes, whose stock must be planned before sending.

Last Year's BFCM Buyers in Klaviyo: Dates and Time Zone

Klaviyo's documentation lets you segment on a metric such as Placed Order with the Between dates period, which includes both the start date and the end date. The segment builder works in UTC, whatever the account's time zone: the bounds fall at midnight UTC, not at your local midnight. A relative condition such as "in the last 30 days" is recalculated once a day for some of the profiles, whereas a fixed-date period, in our view, is not concerned. A segment does not necessarily carry opt-in criteria: in our view, last year's buyers cannot all be reached. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Unengaged Segment: Build It Before BFCM

The Klaviyo page builds the segment with four conditions: can receive email marketing, at least 5 emails received, 0 opens and 0 clicks over 90 days. That duration is an example, to adapt to your sending frequency. For an old list, the page uses 365 days and suggests splitting it. The sunset flow tags profiles that did not respond, but does not suppress them: suppression is a separate step. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo BFCM Segments: How Fast They Update Before a Send

Klaviyo processes most segments in close to real time, but a manual update can take up to 15 minutes and a monitored segment up to an hour. A relative time condition can add or remove a profile through the passage of time alone, once every 24 hours. Finally, a campaign determines its recipients at scheduling (the default setting) or shortly before sending, and later changes may not be included. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo RFM Groups: Avoid Over-Discounting at BFCM

Klaviyo places each customer in one of six RFM groups (Champions, Loyal, Recent, Needs attention, At risk, Inactive) based on three scores from 1 to 3. The help page suggests testing smaller discounts, or none, for Champions and Loyal, and larger discounts for Needs attention and At risk, while checking each group's engagement separately. The group is stored in a profile property, which you can use in a segment, a content variant or a flow split. Prerequisites: at least 500 customers who have placed an order and 180 days of order history. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Frequency Segments: Finish BFCM Without Overload

Klaviyo describes a three-step method: ask the subscriber for their frequency on the preference page, store the choice in a profile property, then build one segment per frequency and one for those who chose nothing. The property records a preference, it does not schedule or limit any send: it is up to you to align campaigns with each segment. Official benchmark: under 0.3% unsubscribes per email campaign. (Klaviyo source)

3. Email content

The 30 BFCM email subject lines are sorted by calendar phase, with an A/B test method. The preview text is set in campaigns as well as in flows. Before each send, testing and previewing a Klaviyo email describes preview, test sends and the quality check of an email before BFCM.

BFCM promotions depend on stock: the article on out-of-stock products presents Klaviyo's tools to cancel an email whose product has sold out or to filter product blocks. After the peak, cross-sell and upsell run through product feeds.

BFCM Email Subject Lines: 30 Templates and a Klaviyo Test Method

Klaviyo asks for a subject line that is clear, concise and compelling, with a readable call to action, personalization where it makes sense, and urgency only when the message calls for it. The 30 templates below are grouped into six phases, from early access to the last day. To choose between them, Klaviyo's A/B test compares one variable at a time, preferably with two variations and open rate as the winning metric for a subject line. (Klaviyo source)

Black Friday Waitlist in Klaviyo: Form, List and Flow

A Klaviyo waitlist has four parts: a dedicated list, a form that subscribes people to it with explicit consent, a flow triggered by joining the list, and an early access campaign that includes the list. Three documented facts are worth knowing before you publish. Importing profiles into the list triggers the flow for the whole file. An unchecked consent checkbox does not stop the subscription in a Klaviyo form. A European visitor who has not consented to tracking is not identified, so they see a form designed for strangers. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Unique Coupon Codes for BFCM: Avoid Skipped Sends

Three documented rules govern Klaviyo unique codes. A campaign can only be scheduled if the stock covers the expected recipients, and on Shopify the codes are generated by hand before scheduling; if the audience is determined at send time, the extra recipients are skipped. A flow does not check stock: with no code available, the message is skipped. An expiration set in Klaviyo actually runs 24 hours longer, which shifts the end of an announced offer. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Sign-Up Form: Teaser and Display Settings Before BFCM

The teaser is a small widget that opens or reopens a popup, flyout or full page form. It does not exist for embedded forms or banners. Collision prevention can delay or block another form's teaser. The display optimization test requires at least 400,000 profiles and runs for up to 90 days: in our view, it should not be launched in the final stretch. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Universal Content: Change a BFCM Banner Everywhere

In the template editor, a block or section can be saved as universal content, then dragged into other templates. When you publish a change, every linked instance is updated, including scheduled campaigns and live flows. Reviewing the list of affected emails before publishing is the safeguard the page puts forward. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Email Going to Spam: Isolate the Content Before BFCM

Klaviyo says to use the content test only after ruling out all other factors, or when the problem affects a single message. The principle is to rebuild the email with a test send after each addition: stripped-down email, text paragraph by paragraph, links one by one, then images. You need a test account with the mailbox provider you are targeting. In our view, this test should be prepared before Black Friday week, not during it. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Countdown Timer: Email and Signup Form for BFCM

For an email, Klaviyo states it has no built-in countdown timer feature: you generate a timer with a third-party tool, then paste its HTML code into an HTML block. For a signup form, a Countdown timer block exists, with a fixed date or a variable duration. For the email, the page advises checking the display with a preview and a test send. (Klaviyo source)

Testing and Previewing a Klaviyo Email Before BFCM

Preview checks layout and personalization, a test send shows the rendering in a real inbox, and a campaign sent to a small internal list is the check closest to a real send. An email over 95 KB is exposed to Gmail clipping. For flows, manual mode lets you review each message before it goes out. In our view, this check should be scheduled several days before the operation, because test sends have monthly caps. (Klaviyo source)

4. Send settings

Settings decide what actually goes out. Klaviyo documents two default Smart Sending windows: 16 hours for email and 24 hours for SMS, which can be changed at any time without retroactive effect on countdowns already started (Klaviyo, understanding Smart Sending). Our article on Smart Sending and send frequency details the settings to settle before BFCM. The same page specifies that Smart Sending applies to marketing messages only, that messages marked transactional are not skipped by it, and that skipped messages are not rescheduled automatically.

For a large campaign, Klaviyo's throttling page recommends adding one hour between scheduling and send time for every million recipients of the campaign (Klaviyo, understanding email throttling). In our view, this delay is planned from the send calendar onward, not the day before. If a campaign is throttled anyway, the page says to clone it, resend it to the skipped recipients and exclude from the clone a segment of the people who received the original, built with the Received Email condition on the campaign name.

Four other settings deserve a review before the peak: the send time, the default account settings, UTM tracking and the sending domain, branded or shared. To read the health of your sending, the Deliverability tab presents Klaviyo's five indicators.

Klaviyo Smart Sending: Set Your Sending Frequency Before BFCM

The default window is 16 hours for email, 24 hours for SMS and 24 hours for push. A window change does not apply retroactively. A message skipped by Smart Sending is not rescheduled automatically. According to the Smart Sending page, transactional messages are never skipped (an account setting can nonetheless apply Smart Sending to them). In our view, the window should be set and checked several days before the event, not on Friday morning. (Klaviyo source)

Send Time in Klaviyo: Choosing the Right Strategy for BFCM

For a time-sensitive BFCM send, Klaviyo's documentation advises against running Smart Send Time tests around important dates and against sending urgent content with it, and against Personalized Send Time for offers that expire. The simple options, fixed send, gradual send and recipient time zone, are available for all channels or nearly all. In our view, send-time optimizations should be tested in September or October, on campaigns with nothing at stake, not on Black Friday itself. (Klaviyo source)

UTM Tracking in Klaviyo: Campaign and Flow Setup Before BFCM

Two parameters are always enabled, utm_source and utm_medium, and Klaviyo offers three others, plus up to five custom parameters. They are only added to links once Automatically add UTM parameters to links is turned on. The setting is found under Settings, Other, UTM tracking. The parameters of a message that has already been sent cannot be edited. Conversion figures in Klaviyo and Google Analytics do not match exactly, and the documentation recommends relying on Klaviyo analytics when possible. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Default Account Settings Before BFCM

Klaviyo's documentation states a default display time zone of EST, UTM tracking off for flows and campaigns, double opt-in by default on every new list, English for sign-up pages, and, by default, a send to everyone at the same instant. Tags, the calendar view and the filters on the campaigns page keep the operation plan on track. In our view, the settings review comes before building the campaigns, not after. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Sending Domain: Branded or Shared, Before BFCM

By default, most Klaviyo accounts send from a shared IP and a shared Klaviyo domain, which displays "via klaviyomail.com" in Gmail. A branded sending domain removes that mention and has your own domain carry the reputation. Klaviyo writes that a branded domain is part of meeting the requirements inbox providers set for bulk senders, without guaranteeing inbox placement. DNS propagation can take up to 48 hours, and the page recommends pausing flows and campaigns before activating the first marketing domain. An existing Klaviyo customer does not have to warm up again if their domain has been registered for at least 30 days and has already been used to send. In our view, this work is finished before the campaign calendar starts. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Throttling: Sending a Large BFCM Campaign on Time

Throttling means emails that cannot be sent within the planned period because of volume restrictions. Klaviyo recommends choosing flexible overages or auto-upgrade, and adding one hour between scheduling and send time for every million recipients. A campaign canceled because the account reached its sending limit does not resume on its own after a plan change. In both cases, a segment of people who already received the email, excluded from a clone, avoids duplicates. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo BFCM Plan Limits: Auto-Upgrade or Flexible Overages

When a plan reaches its sending limit, Klaviyo applies the preference you chose: flexible overages (additional usage for the current billing cycle, same plan), automatic upgrade (next tier) or no option (sending stops). Without auto-upgrade or flexible overages, a campaign that exceeds the limits can be throttled. Klaviyo's page recommends choosing one of the first two options. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Unsubscribe Page: Set It Up Before BFCM

Klaviyo recommends adding a link to preferences in every email in addition to the unsubscribe link, and describing on the unsubscribe page the options other than leaving, such as frequency. A list can have its own page, but it only applies to campaigns sent to that list alone and flows triggered by it. Global unsubscribe is the default setting and the one Klaviyo advises keeping. The page's benchmark for the rate: below 0.3% per campaign. (Klaviyo source)

5. Flows and SMS

Flows raise one question before the peak: why some messages do not go out. The article on skipped flow messages shows where to read the reason and how to catch up skipped profiles. Post-purchase flows are set according to the order placed or fulfilled, with reviews after delivery.

On the SMS side, quiet hours and compliance are checked in campaigns as well as in flows before the BFCM weekend.

Out-of-Stock Products in Klaviyo: Emails and Flows Before BFCM

For abandoned carts and product views, Klaviyo's documentation describes a tag that cancels the whole email if a displayed item is sold out (Shopify, with conditions). Product recommendations already exclude out-of-stock items, and product feeds accept a stock filter. Back in stock collects people who sign up for a restock alert and notifies them according to a minimum stock and a pace you set. Low inventory warns engaged customers that a product is running short. In our view, these settings should be checked product by product before the first weekend reminder. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo SMS During BFCM: Quiet Hours and Compliance

In France, Klaviyo's documentation states that carriers enforce quiet hours: no sending before 8 a.m. or after 10 p.m., nor on Sundays or public holidays. Klaviyo does not deliver messages to French recipients during those hours, campaigns included, with flow exceptions detailed below. In a campaign, you choose between delaying and skipping the message. In a flow, the message waits in a queue and the journey is paused. In our view, Sunday, November 29, 2026 should be treated as an SMS-free day in the plan. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Post-Purchase Flows During BFCM: Shipping and Reviews

Klaviyo's documentation presents two triggers for an after-purchase journey, Placed Order and Fulfilled Order, and the built-in cross-sell flow relies on the second, which is closer to the product's arrival. Order and shipping emails belong in separate flows, and an email can be marked transactional after a review that can take up to 24 hours. For shipments in several parcels, Shopify offers a Fulfilled Partial Order trigger. For reviews, Klaviyo Reviews sends by default 7 days after delivery on Shopify. In our view, these settings should be locked before BFCM, because some only apply to future orders. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Flow Statuses: Scheduling Your BFCM Activation

In Klaviyo, a flow message is in Draft, Manual or Live. Draft queues no one, Manual puts profiles in the Needs Review queue without sending anything automatically, and only Live sends automatically. The status of all of a flow's actions can be changed in one go, right away or on a scheduled date, with at least 5 minutes between two changes. Scheduling is not available for date-property triggered flows. When a message goes back from Manual to Live, profiles already in Needs Review receive nothing automatically. In our view, these settings are tested before BFCM on a test flow. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo SMS Pause: Let Customers Pause BFCM Texts

Klaviyo's page recommends offering the pause before the biggest sending moments, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The principle: a profile property that marks the pause, collected by a keyword sent by text or by a form button, then a segment of paused profiles to exclude from the period's campaigns. A branded sender ID cannot receive replies, so only the form route works there. The property does not unsubscribe anyone: exclusions need checking before each send. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo SMS: Special Characters and the 70 Limit at BFCM

Klaviyo's page says an SMS segment holds up to 160 characters, or 70 if it contains an emoji or a special character. A single special character changes the encoding of the whole SMS, and a multi-segment message then holds 67 characters per segment, including the first. The page lists among special characters À, È, Ì, Ò, Ù, ç, ê, â, î, ô. It classes é and É among the non-special ones, and notes that the euro sign counts as 2 characters. In our view, checking every BFCM text with the calculator the page points to avoids discovering the switch on send day. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Abandoned Cart Flow: Trigger and Filters Before BFCM

The most common type of Klaviyo abandoned cart flow triggers on Started Checkout, with a filter to exclude people who ordered: Placed Order zero times since starting this flow. An Added to Cart flow can run alongside, with the filter Started Checkout zero times since starting this flow. Trigger filters read the event data, profile filters read the profile. Klaviyo's suggested first delay is between 2 and 4 hours. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Price Drop Flow: Set It Up Before BFCM Promotions

The flow triggers when the price of an in-stock item drops by an amount or a percentage you choose. It targets profiles who viewed the item or started a checkout with it, over 30 days by default (1 to 90 days, your choice). Buyers of the item in that period do not enter. Klaviyo does not recommend a delay, since the goal is to inform the customer as soon as the price changes. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Flow Time Delays: Hour, Days and Timezone for BFCM

Without a delay, consecutive components run at the same time. A days delay counts 24 hours per day, unless you set a specific time: it then counts calendar days. You can target an hour, the recipient's timezone and days of the week. The delay generally goes before a split; after it, it serves for example to test a timing. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Multi-Branch Split: Route a BFCM Flow by Group

A multi-branch split has up to 20 paths: 19 that you configure and an "Everyone else" path always placed last. Paths are evaluated in order, and a profile takes the first one whose conditions it meets, never several. A path with no condition is ignored. Splits already in place do not change. The feature is rolling out in phases: it may not yet be visible in your account. (Klaviyo source)

6. During the send and after the peak

A scheduled campaign can still be edited. To edit or reschedule a scheduled campaign, Klaviyo states that if the earliest send time is 15 minutes away or less, you must cancel and clone it (Klaviyo, how to edit or reschedule a campaign). To resend an email, the article on resending to non-openers describes the automatic resend and the segment-based resend.

After the weekend, reading the results takes two steps: knowing which attribution windows Klaviyo applies, then exporting and analyzing the reports for campaigns and flows.

BFCM Results in Klaviyo: Attribution Windows You Need to Know

By default, for new accounts, Klaviyo attributes an order to the last message clicked or opened within a 5-day window for email. Results are tied to the send day, not the purchase day, and a settings change recalculates the whole history, with a delay of up to 36 hours. Not every report applies these windows. The total revenue of the operation is read in the store, not as the sum of the platforms. (Klaviyo source)

Skipped Flow Messages in Klaviyo: Causes and Fixes

Every flow message has a Skipped tab that sorts skipped profiles by reason. In our view, some reasons are normal (Smart Sending, flow filters) and others point to a configuration error (coupon, syntax, SMS consent, account limits). To avoid duplicates, Klaviyo offers Smart Sending, additional filters on the message and re-entry criteria. To catch up on skipped profiles, the documentation describes a segment followed by a campaign. In our view, skip reasons should be read every morning of the operation, flow by flow. (Klaviyo source)

Post-BFCM Analysis in Klaviyo: Exports and Reports to Use

The campaign export gives one row per send with its rates, revenue and bounces. The flow export is set by time range, by tag and by day, week or month. The Campaign Performance report groups results by list, segment or inbox provider and filters by tag. The trend report tracks the last 5, 20 or 50 campaigns. In our view, the analysis is prepared before the operation, with tags placed on every send. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Benchmarks: Comparing Your Results After BFCM

Benchmarks are available for accounts hosted in Klaviyo's US data region, with at least 25 delivered emails (or 25 delivered SMS) over the last 6 months. Email is compared with a peer group of about 100 similar companies, SMS with the industry. The report gives a status (Poor, Fair, Good, Excellent) and a percentile. In our view, a BFCM result should be read with the calendar month, the update date and the comparison scope in front of you. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Flow Analytics: Track Your Flows During BFCM

The dashboard is under Flows, Analytics tab. It shows 7 days by default, compares with the previous period and also offers the same period one year earlier. Five metrics appear: revenue, conversions, conversion rate, deliveries and unique recipients. The detail of a message (30-day snapshot, analytics on the canvas, recipient activity) is read inside the flow itself. (Klaviyo source)

Klaviyo Flow Alerts: Watch Your Account During BFCM

Alerts in the Flows tab flag an incomplete flow (name in red) or an item to fix (yellow icon). An internal alert notifies up to five addresses when a profile reaches a step in the flow, provided the recipients have confirmed their address. Auto-monitors watch flow triggers and messages delivered by flows, and campaign deliverability for accounts that meet its conditions. Flows are checked every 24 hours, which, in our view, leaves a delay between a failure and its alert. (Klaviyo source)

Where to start

If you have ten days, start with the send calendar and audiences, then review the send settings. If you have three weeks, add the flows and the email tests. This order is Deliver's advice, and it depends on the size of your list and your team. We help e-commerce brands structure this plan as a Klaviyo agency or through a simple BFCM audit.

FAQ

When are Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2026?

Thanksgiving falls on November 26, 2026 according to the Federal Reserve K.8 calendar. Black Friday is the next day, Friday, November 27, and Cyber Monday is Monday, November 30.

What are the default Smart Sending windows in Klaviyo?

Klaviyo states 16 hours for email and 24 hours for SMS. Each channel has its own window, and changing a window does not retroactively affect recipients already counted.

How much lead time should you allow before sending a very large campaign?

Klaviyo's throttling page recommends adding one hour between scheduling and send time for every million recipients of a campaign.

Until when can you edit or reschedule a scheduled campaign?

As long as the earliest send time is more than 15 minutes away. At 15 minutes or less, the page says to cancel the campaign and clone it to edit it.

Does Smart Sending block transactional emails?

No. According to Klaviyo, Smart Sending applies only to marketing messages: messages marked transactional are not skipped, and receiving one does not cause later marketing messages to be skipped.

Want an outside view on your BFCM plan? We run Q4 readiness audits, or you can talk directly with the Deliver team.