Black Friday and seasonal email campaigns for SaaS and apps
How to plan seasonal campaigns and Black Friday email for a SaaS or app, with real Halloween examples, list warm-up and the deliverability rules that matter.
Email that sells6 min read
View as MarkdownNovember arrives, you put together a good offer, write the email and send it to the whole list, including people who have not heard from you in a year. The next day half of it went to spam, complaints went up and even your password reset email started arriving late. Black Friday became the worst day for your deliverability.
Seasonal campaigns work very well by email, because they give people a concrete reason to come back now. They are also when everyone sends more and mailbox providers get stricter. This article shows real seasonal campaigns from Wunka products in October 2026 and a Black Friday plan that protects delivery.
Three Halloween campaigns, three formats#
In October 2026, three Wunka products that send through Couryo ran very different Halloween campaigns. Each one shows a format.
1. The challenge (SunoBoard). SunoBoard is a music app. Its campaign invited users to a challenge: "SunoBoard Challenge: crea la música de juego más terrorífica y gana..." (create the scariest game music and win). A challenge makes people use the product to take part, which is what matters most.
2. The content (ViralRecast). ViralRecast, which analyzes social posts, sent a roundup of Halloween posts that went viral, highlighting that one came from a small account. Useful content for creators, with the product as the source.
3. The ready-made activity (Mentezinha). Mentezinha, a learning app for kids, sent teachers a class activity themed on Brazilian folklore (Halloween or "Saci Day", a folklore mystery for the class to solve). Families got an offer with a deadline: three months at half price for Halloween.
What they share: the date is the reason, not the offer. The offer shows up when it fits, but the email delivers something beyond the discount.
Pick the format for your audience#
| Format | Works when | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Challenge or contest | the product is creative and users like to show their work | SunoBoard |
| Content roundup | the product creates or analyzes content | ViralRecast |
| Ready-made activity or template | users have a task tied to the date | Mentezinha (teachers) |
| Offer with a real deadline | there is a clear paid plan and a true date | Mentezinha (families), Black Friday |
The Black Friday plan: October to November#
Black Friday 2026 is on November 27. The work starts weeks before.
| When | What to do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| October | send useful content to engaged users (like the Halloween campaigns) | warms the list and the domain with emails that get clicks |
| By mid-November | apply your sunset policy: people who have not clicked in months leave campaigns | inactive contacts hurt delivery for everyone |
| Early November | build segments: customers, active free users, recently engaged | each audience gets the offer that fits |
| The week before | a "coming soon" email, only to engaged contacts | builds anticipation without spending the offer |
| Black Friday | the offer, with clear dates and conditions | the volume day |
| End of the offer | a short, true reminder ("ends tonight at midnight") | urgency that is real |
Segment: not everyone gets the same thing#
| Segment | What they get |
|---|---|
| Paying customers | something for them (more credits, discounted annual plan), never the entry discount they did not get |
| Active free users | the upgrade offer with a deadline |
| Recent sign-ups who did not activate | activation first; the offer later |
| Inactive for months | nobody. Or only the "keep getting our emails?" question, well before |
Sending the entry offer to people paying full price creates support tickets. Sending it to people who never used the product creates unsubscribes.
Delivery rules that don't change on Black Friday#
- Never mix transactional with promotion. Receipts, passwords and billing notices stay in the transactional stream with no offer inside. If the campaign draws complaints, transactional is not dragged along.
- One-click unsubscribe. Since 2024, Gmail and Yahoo require bulk senders to offer one-click unsubscribe (RFC 8058) in marketing email (Google's rules). Without it, people use the spam button.
- Aligned SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Gmail, Yahoo and, since May 2025, Microsoft require authentication from bulk senders. Check your domain for free with the SPF, DKIM and DMARC checker.
- A new domain needs warming up. If your first big campaign goes out from a new domain, start weeks before with small volumes to your most engaged contacts.
- A clean list. Bouncing addresses and old lists are what hurts delivery most on peak days. Check suspicious addresses with the email verifier.
Real urgency#
On Black Friday urgency is real: the offer ends. Use it, truthfully:
- state the day and time it ends, in the person's time zone;
- do not "extend" the offer that "ended today" (your list notices and stops believing);
- do not invent a "was" price that never existed.
Subject lines to adapt#
| Moment | Subject |
|---|---|
| Warm-up (October) | "{{N}} ideas for {{their task}} this week" |
| Coming soon | "On Friday: {{plan}} with {{benefit}}" |
| Offer | "Black Friday: {{plan}} for {{price}} until Sunday" |
| Last day | "Ends tonight at midnight: {{offer}}" |
| Customers | "For people already with us: {{exclusive benefit}}" |
Which metric to watch#
- Conversions and revenue from the campaign, per segment.
- Complaints and unsubscribes per email: if they climb in one segment, the message does not fit it.
- Bounces: above 2%, stop and clean the list before continuing.
- Transactional delays during the campaign: if password emails slowed down, your streams are mixed.
Opens, once more, only as a trend: Apple Mail opens emails on its own for privacy.
How to do it with Couryo#
- Segments by attribute (plan, last use), tag, topic and sign-up, open and click dates: "clicked in the last 90 days" is a ready engaged segment (Campaigns).
- Scheduling for the right time, a test send to your team and a pre-send check: real audience count, a warning when many people never got email from the project, and an AI review of the content.
- Automatic warm-up: a new domain sends campaigns within a daily cap that grows (50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1,600 and 3,200); transactional is never capped.
- Automatic pause if more than 5% of the first thousand emails bounce.
- Suppression per stream: people who leave marketing keep getting transactional.
- One-click unsubscribe and a preferences page with topics, so people can leave just the offers.
Campaigns are part of the Automations add-on on Pro (US$ 9 a month, no per-contact fee) and included in Scale.
FAQ#
When should I start preparing Black Friday email?#
In October. Send useful content to engaged users, apply your sunset policy and build segments before November. Starting the week of Black Friday means mailing a cold list on the most competitive day.
Can I send the offer to my whole list?#
Not a good idea. Send to people with recent engagement and adapt the offer per segment. Inactive contacts and old lists cause bounces and complaints that hurt delivery for all your email.
Should I put the offer in receipt or password emails?#
No. Transactional email should stay transactional. Mixing in promotions makes it look like marketing and risks sending it to spam on the busiest shopping day.
What kind of seasonal campaign works for a SaaS?#
One that gives people a reason to use the product: a challenge, a content roundup or a ready-made template for the date. The offer works better as part of the campaign than as its only subject.