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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.