SMS strategy for Black Friday / Cyber Monday 2025

Black Friday 2024 broke all records. Danes spent 43% more on the day itself compared to 2023, and the week leading up to it was packed with online activity, gift shopping and mobile shopping. This year, Black Friday falls on 28 November 2025 - again on a payday. In other words, you have a golden opportunity to be top-of-mind in a buyer-ready week.

But is your SMS strategy ready?

SMS marketing is one of the most effective and direct channels to secure your place in customers' minds - and inboxes - before, during and after Black Friday. In this article, you'll get a concrete plan on how to use SMS to boost your Black Friday campaigns in 2025.

Why use SMS for BlackFriday?

Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year - and mobile phones are the preferred device for Danes to find and buy deals.

The growing popularity of Black Friday means it has become a much noisier week to be a consumer. We are bombarded with emails, push notifications and adverts. An SMS message, on the other hand, breaks through the noise - and with an open rate of up to 98% andclick-through rates around 36%, it's your direct access to customer attention.

An SMS marketing strategy is your shortcut to creating a more personalised and direct connection with consumers on one of the busiest days of the year.

Danes shop on their mobiles

The trend has been steadily increasing for a long time, and in 2024 the numbers were clear: Danes prefer to shop on their mobiles.

In 2024, 60.8% of all purchases during Black Week were made via mobile, and mobile had a higher conversion rate than desktop. One reason is that consumers' patience and attention spans are increasingly short and they expect fast and relevant communication - preferably directly on their mobiles. And for that, SMS marketing is by far the most effective channel.

At the same time, figures from MobilPay show that Danish consumers swiped 1.8 million times on Black Friday in 2024 - equivalent to DKK 1.2 billion paid to online stores via MobilPay.

That's a 39% increase in swipes and 32% higher revenue than Black Friday 2023. For the entire Black Week 2024, revenue via MobilPay was 23% higher than the previous year.

Payment card sales during Black Week 2024 were also 36% higher than the average week in 2024 - and card sales on Black Friday were 43% higher than in 2023(Danmarks Nationalbank).

All indications are that Black Friday and Black Week are still a hit among Danish consumers.

And the clear call from here is: include SMS in your Black Friday strategy if you want to cut through the huge amount of offers and reach your consumers directly on their phones.

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When is Black Friday 2025?

This year, Black Friday falls on 28 November 2025 - on a Friday that again coincides with payday and the first Sunday of Advent. The same thing happened in 2024, and it was a contributing factor to the historically high turnover we saw in Denmark last year.

But Black Friday is not just one day. It has evolved into an entire month: Black Month. Most webshops start promotions as early as week 47, continuing with Black Friday, Black Weekend and ending with Cyber Monday and Cyber Week. And then the Christmas sales take over.

Your strategy shouldn't just be about that one day, Black Friday. Instead, it's about considering the entire period from Black Month to the Christmas season.

Get an overview of Black Month 2025 below.

Many companies start their offers already in the week leading up to Black Friday (week 47), where the best deals will usually be found on Black Friday itself. In recent years, there has also been a tendency to continue the offers throughout the weekend.

Stores with an online shop should follow up Black Week with online promotions on Cyber Monday. A concept that has taken off since it first saw the light of day in 2005.

The latest addition is now Cyber Week, which (like Black Week) is an extension of Cyber Monday. Cyber Week is a whole week of offers on the stores' webshop.

Together, all these days are typically called BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday)-or just Black Month.

Whether you plan to have offers all days or only on Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday, your strategy should cover the entire period. Find help putting together your plan below.

Permissions are the foundation of a successful Black Friday strategy

You can plan the world's best deals. But if you don't have anyone to send them to, you probably won't sell much.

Therefore, start by making sure you have an active and permission-based SMS list. Consumers who have given permission to hear from you are already warm leads - and your best chance of conversion.

In fact, using the permissions you have has rarely been more important. At a time when many e-commerce businesses are experiencing increased competition, it's crucial to activate the customers who have already shown interest in your business.

This is especially important in the run-up to Black Friday. Figures from DI Handel show that only 9% of Black Friday purchases in 2024 were made at stores the customer had not shopped at before. This is significantly lower than both 2023 and the rest of the year, where the figure is usually 11-13%. The figures emphasise an important point: consumers prefer to spend their Black Friday money with brands they already know and trust.

That's why you should use your SMS list strategically - not just to attract new customers, but more importantly to activate your existing followers. A targeted campaign with exclusive offers for previous Black Friday shoppers, loyal customers or members of your customer club can make a big difference. Especially if combined with early access or personalised discounts that reward their loyalty and make the decision to buy even easier.

In a nutshell: The better you activate your existing permissions - the more value you get out of your Black Friday efforts.

Read more in our article: Why your SMS strategy should focus on customer loyalty - and how to do it.

And no matter how long (or short) your SMS permission list is right now, now is the time to take action. The more permissions you collect in the run-up to Black Friday, the more volume and impact your campaigns will have during the busiest shopping period of the year.

Get inspiration in our article: How to collect SMS permissions.

Black Friday: How to use your SMS lists effectively

Of course, you don't want your SMS list to grow and then be forgotten until Black Friday.

It's important that you send out a few SMS messages now - or at the latest in the weeks leading up to Black Friday - and start building a relationship with your recipients on this channel.

When you establish a relationship with recipients from the moment you collect their permission, you increase the chances of them remembering you and your product on Black Friday. It's also a great opportunity to create buzz around your Black Friday campaign before the campaign actually kicks off.

You can use SMS automation to ensure that everyone on your SMS list is warmly welcomed by you and your organisation with an automatic welcome flow.

In addition to creating a welcome flow, you can work with a lost basket and a cross-sell flow that will not only enhance your everyday marketing efforts, but will also help increase your conversions when the busy Black Friday traffic hits your webshop.

Read WP: 10 message examples for Abandoned Cart SMS

In addition, the more you know about your recipients and their engagement with your webshop and SMS messages, the more personalised and targeted your campaigns can be.

In other words: The better you know the consumers on your SMS lists before Black Friday, the more you can target your campaigns to that specific customer and the greater the chance of high conversion rates.

How to collect SMS permissions

There are three things you can do right now (yes, right now!) to start collecting SMS permissions.

1. Give the customer the option to sign up for SMS at check-out

If you have a webshop, you can invite your customers to sign up for SMS when they check out. A customer who has come this far is genuinely interested in you and your product, so the interest in receiving great offers should be high.

‍2. Add a phone number field to your existing sign-up forms

Are you already collecting email permissions for your newsletter or anything else via a form? Then you can add a field where the recipient can enter their phone number.

Remember that a phone number is far more personalised than an email, so there needs to be a motivating factor to do just that. That motivation could be to get access to your Black Friday deals a day before everyone else.

3. Invite your existing email subscribers to your SMS list

If you already have a good following on your email list, you can invite them to join your SMS list. Of course, this is only relevant to consumers if they can expect special offers or invitations that are only sent to your SMS lists.

Offering a strong incentive is crucial if you want to get your email contacts to sign up for SMS as well.

One way you can convert email permissions to SMS permissions is by creating a landing page for SMS sign-up. You can share that landing page in your newsletter with an inspiring text on why recipients should sign up for your SMS list. For example, you could give away a £500 gift voucher for the lucky winner to spend on Black Friday.

You can also have a form directly in your email where your followers can enter their phone number and approve SMS marketing.

Create your SMS strategy for Black Friday 2025

You are now collecting permissions, great! It's time to strategise how to turn your permissions into Black Friday customers.

Is this your first time creating an SMS strategy for Black Friday? Then these are the four most important questions you should ask yourself:

1. Who should I send SMS messages to?
2. How often should I send text messages to them?
3. When should I send text messages to them?
4. How do I strategically use SMS and email together to increase my conversions on Black Friday?

1. Which segments should I send SMS messages to?

One of the prerequisites for a successful BFCM campaign is that you segment your SMS lists. This ensures that the right people get the right messages at the right time.

In inMobile, you can sort all your contacts into SMS lists so you can easily keep track of who you send which messages to.

But which segments (lists) are actually important to have?

Of course, it varies from company to company, but below are 5 typical segments you can find inspiration in.

#1 VIP customers

Your VIP customers are the people who buy frequently or for large sums and who actively follow your SMS messages. In other words: They read, click and act on a regular basis. This customer group should not be forgotten as they are important to your business.

Special VIP offers or VIP events can help ensure that these customers remain loyal for years to come - if not for life.

#2 Engaged followers

These are the followers who actively follow you. They read and click and occasionally shop at your business, but they are not as loyal as VIP customers. A unique offer for this segment can help push those engaged followers into the pool of VIP customers - or at least prolong their interest in your business.

#3 Those who shopped on Black Friday last year

This segment shopped with you last year and are therefore already aware of the value of shopping with you on Black Friday. Therefore, it makes sense to reconnect with this group of consumers - whether they have shopped with you since last Black Friday or not. They often only need a little push to come back and shop again this year.

#4 Local customers (geographically)

If you have a physical store, it makes sense to have a segment with customers who live close to the store(s) or who have shopped here before.

In this segment, make sure you tie your SMS campaign to the local store. You can do this by inviting people to physical events, offering free in-store pickup, or publicising special offers that are only available in the physical store.

See how this strategy can be used effectively in our case about the Message retail chain.

#5 Those who have browsed but not yet acted

Most companies are familiar with the so-called window peepers. These are the consumers who are watching (for example, via your SMS list) but have not yet purchased from your business.

This is an important segment for your BF strategy. Because they've shown a genuine interest in your business, there's also a high probability that the right offer can turn them into paying customers.

2. How often should you send text messages?

As a rule of thumb, you should never send more than 1-2 text messages per week. For some companies, far fewer, otherwise you risk annoying your followers.

However, during Black Friday and Cyber Week, you can bend that rule a bit and send a few more messages. That's what most consumers expect on a holiday like this. As a rule of thumb, we recommend no more than 1-2 messages per day and only if they are relevant to the recipient.

If you need to say more than what one SMS can describe, consider implementing email in your Black Friday SMS strategy. Email works as a great complement to your SMS messages because there's room to play more with text and images. We'll get into that in section 4.

3. When should you send text messages?

It doesn't matter if you send your messages before, during or after Black Friday. Your timing needs to be right and the right message needs to go out at the right time if you want to get the most out of your SMS strategy.

Over the past few years, the trend has been for Black Friday to become Black Week. A whole week full of great offers. However, figures from Black Friday Denmark show that Black Friday itself remains the day with the highest turnover. As much as 47.2% of the total turnover during Black Week 2024 was on Fridays.

However, it appears that consumers were most ready to buy on Sundays - the conversion rate (the percentage of visitors who ended up buying) was highest on Sundays in 2024.

So even though Friday is the biggest day in terms of revenue, you should not refrain from running promotions on the remaining days of Black Week.

Below you'll learn how to spread your messages across the days before, during and after Black Friday.

#1 Week leading up to Black Friday

Some companies start their offers already in the days leading up to Black Friday. However, the week leading up to the big shopping day is typically spent preparing your customers for Black Friday and getting them excited about the amazing deals they can expect from your business.

Be careful not to send too many messages during these days, as the real action starts on Friday. Feel free to send one or two text messages and make sure they are relevant. For example, you can inform about when the offers start or launch a competition where the winner is chosen on Black Friday.

These are also the days when you can give your VIP customers early access to the offers. For example, you can give this segment a special code or link that gives them access to your Black Friday deals before anyone else.

#2 Black Friday

Black Friday is the day when it really counts. Today is the day everyone should have access to your offers.

Today, all of your relevant SMS lists should be notified that the sale has officially started. At the same time, be sure to let your followers know when the offers end again. Does it apply to the whole weekend, one day or maybe just a few hours? It creates a sense of exclusivity and time pressure when you put a time limit on your offers.

#3 The weekend between Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Black Friday is over, but Cyber Monday is just around the corner. Spend the weekend analysing your data. Was there a message or offer that worked exceptionally well? Was something not working at all? Use that data to get ready for Cyber Monday.

If you use link tracking in inMobile, you can look at your click-through rates to determine whether an SMS campaign has had the desired result.

Some companies also choose to continue their offers over the weekend. It may make sense for some businesses, but if you choose to do so, you risk diluting the hype around your Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers.

On Sunday afternoon you can send your VIP customers an SMS message with early access to your Cyber Monday offers.

#4 Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday is the biggest online shopping day of the year. If you only have an online shop, now is the time to act!

Use your SMS lists to make your followers aware of the great Cyber Monday deals they can find on your webshop. It's also a good idea to point out that today is the last chance to shop the bargains - otherwise they'll have to wait a year until next November before they find this kind of offer again (if that's the case of course).

It can help give those last window shoppers the final push to press the buy button.

4. Email to complement your BFCM SMS strategy

Email and SMS are not each other's enemies. However, they complement each other perfectly and should both be considered in your Black Friday strategy.

SMS works best for short, concrete messages that your followers can act on immediately. Sometimes you want to say a little more and perhaps use more visual aids to promote your message. Email could be the answer.

In the week leading up to Black Friday, you can send one or more emails to your followers teasing your upcoming offers and showcasing some of your bestsellers.

Now your followers know what to expect. Therefore, when the offers hit, you can send them a specific SMS with your desired message - for example, a discount code, a link or other information that your offers have started. Likewise, your target audience will know exactly what your message is and why they are receiving your message.  

When you create synergy between the longer email messages and the shorter, more personalised SMS messages, you leave the consumer with a positive overall impression and increase the chances of buying from you. This is especially true on days like Black Friday.

More tips for your Black Friday strategy

You are now at the end of the road on this article about Black Friday SMS strategy. I hope you've been inspired and motivated to start creating your own strategy.

In the meantime, here are a few final tips.

#1 Personalise your text messages

A successful SMS strategy consists only of messages that are relevant to the recipient. This means that the right message is delivered at the right time.

You can ensure this by using the data you have about your customers' buying behaviour. Data that tells you, for example, how far a consumer has travelled on your website. Did they leave the basket without paying, have they browsed a certain product more than three times, do they always shop after 8pm etc.

Using such data, you can create automated SMS messages that ensure the right message reaches the right recipient at the right time depending on user behaviour. Of course, you should also take this into account when designing your Black Friday SMS campaign.

Examples of how you can personalise your SMS messages:

• Refer to your recipient by their first name.
• Customise the message according to the recipient's geographical location (e.g. if you hold physical events or have special offers in stores).
• Customise offers and send personalised recommendations based on previous purchases.
• Respect the recipient's time zone and any content preferences (if you have collected this data).
• Take extra care of your loyal customers with special offers and events.

#2 Respect your recipients


When a new consumer says "yes please" to receiving SMS from your business, it's a sign of trust and genuine interest. You need to honour that trust by only sending messages that are actually relevant and interesting to your recipient.

You have to remember that SMS is a far more personalised channel than most others. That's why it works so well - but it also means it's important not to send too many or "meaningless" text messages. This can end up frustrating the recipient rather than generating interest and eventually result in an unsubscribe from your SMS list.

As a rule of thumb, you shouldn't send messages before 8am or after 9pm (in your recipient's time zone) unless they are very important. For example, Black Friday can be the exception to the rule, but do it wisely.

#3 Consider whether emojis and links enrich your message

It is often discussed and debated whether you should use emojis in your text messages. The answer to the question will vary depending on who you ask.

You can read our take on the issue in the post about emojis in SMS.

Because emojis are not proven to increase conversions and are expensive to send, we generally recommend that you use links in your Black Friday messages instead. A link can direct your recipient to the part of your website you want. For example, a landing page made specifically for your Black Friday offers.

Another benefit of links is that a link in your SMS message enables link tracking. This means that after Black Friday you will have valuable data on how many people clicked on your links and subsequently took action.

#4 Be specific in your messages and remember a CTA

An SMS message is limited in the number of characters that can be written. Sending valuable SMS messages can therefore be an exercise in itself. When creating your Black Friday SMS strategy, you should make your messages as specific as possible.

Remember to have a clear CTA(Call to Action)so your recipients know what to do after reading your message. When your recipients know what products and offers they can get their hands on, where and when, they are more likely to make a purchase.

#5 Ask for feedback after Black Friday

Thank your customers for shopping with you during Black Week and ask them for feedback. Are they happy with their purchase, did they have problems shopping on Black Friday or did everything go smoothly?

Data like this is essential for your business and your future SMS strategy. For example, you can ask for feedback by opening up SMS replies and dialogue, or by asking recipients to rate their experience on a scale from 1-10. You can also create a short questionnaire and send a link to it. There are several ways to ask for feedback.

All that remains is to wish you good luck & with your own Black Friday SMS strategy!