You can have the best discount, the most persuasive copy, and a list that took years to build, but your Black Friday campaign can still fail and that’s simply because because your emails aren’t getting seen.
Deliverability is the risk most course creators never think about until it’s too late and it cannot be fixed during Black Friday.
In September, I flew to Poland for the Bouncer Email Cruise. A 48 hours trip with four trains, four buses, two flights, one boat, to sit in a room with people who send millions of emails per month and know exactly what happens to your emails before they land. I came back with a clear framework for what course creators need to do before November, and I’m sharing it in the latest episode of Master the Inbox, here:
Here’s a preview of what you can learn in this episode:
- During Black Friday week, every sender does the same thing at the same time: they dramatically increase volume. What was two emails a week becomes daily, sometimes multiple times a day. Mailbox providers see that pattern change and flag it as suspicious. You’re simultaneously competing for attention in the most crowded inbox of the year, against every other brand your subscriber has ever opted in for. Spam filters tighten precisely when everyone is sending the most.
The result: the decisions you make in September and October determine whether your Black Friday emails reach the inbox, land in promotions, or get filtered to spam. By November, your sender reputation is already set.
2. Sudden increases in send frequency trigger spam filters. The fix is gradual warming: start increasing frequency now, over four to six weeks, not overnight. And after Black Friday ends, wind down the same way you wound up. Don’t go silent in December.
3. Segment by engagement before the season starts and for inactive subscribers, run a dedicated re-engagement campaign in September or October. If they don’t re-engage, suppress them from your main campaign. Sending to people who have checked out doesn’t just waste sends, it signals to mailbox providers that your emails aren’t wanted. If you don’t know how, this course helps you strategize and implement a re-engagement and nurture campaign.
4. Content and complaint spikes. Spam complaint rates rise during Black Friday for almost every sender, because emails lean harder into urgency than into value. Give subscribers a choice before the season: tell them you’ll be sending more frequently and offer a reduced-frequency option. The ones who opt in for full sends are your warmest contacts. And match your copy to the segment — relevant emails generate fewer complaints and higher conversion rates.
5. Check for infrastructure and authentication gaps. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC tell mailbox providers your emails are legitimately coming from you. If these aren’t configured correctly, your emails are more likely to be filtered regardless of how good your content is. If you’re considering switching email service providers, don’t do it in November, do it months before, with enough runway to warm up a new IP properly.
6. Types of problematic data that accumulate on email lists:
- Undeliverable addresses — typos and invalid emails caught best at opt-in through double opt-in or real-time validation tools.
- Obsolete addresses such as accounts people have moved on from, especially relevant in B2B where up to 25% of business emails go stale in a year.
- Risky addresses, such as inactive subscribers who are still on the list but haven’t engaged in 90+ days.
- Fake or disposable addresses aka bots and temporary accounts, mostly caught by double opt-in.
- And toxic addresses complainers, spam traps, and privacy litigators.
For complainers: make unsubscribing frictionless. One-click unsubscribe is the 2026 standard. If someone wants off your list, let them go cleanly. Holding them captive only generates the complaints that damage your deliverability for everyone else.
Remember, this is just the preview, you can listen to the full episode here or on Spotify.
If you’d rather not guess your way through Black Friday this year, check out the Black Friday Playbook for Course Creators. It has everything: the exact strategy to implement, the templates and even the swipe files to help you strategize and implement without guesswork and the last minute overwhelm.
Hi. And welcome.
My name is Monica Badiu. I am a marketing consultant turned conversion copywriter and copy coach. I help online course creators and info product businesses sell more through persuasive, non-spammy, no fluff copywriting.
I teach about copywriting, digital marketing, and conversion strategies tested in my businesses and with my clients.
Other links:
- Get to know more about Monica Badiu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicabadiu
- Join the Skool community for course creators interested in email marketing https://www.skool.com/master-the-inbox-school-4845/about
- Take the free Email Bottleneck Assessment: https://www.monicabadiu.com/email-revenue-self-assessment/
- Visit Monica’s website: https://www.monicabadiu.com
- Listen more Master the Inbox episodes: https://www.monicabadiu.com/master-the-inbox-podcast/
- Get your Black Friday resources: https://www.monicabadiu.com/black-friday-resources/
- Read Monica’s blogs: https://www.monicabadiu.com/blog
- Get your freebies: https://www.monicabadiu.com/freebie
- Get help with your copywriting by scheduling a free discovery call: https://www.monicabadiu.com/contact
