BFCM send game: What Klaviyo’s Black Friday data reveals about peak engagement hours

Black Friday is a full-scale behavioral event where the inbox becomes the front line of consumer decision-making. For senior email analysts working with Klaviyo, understanding “when” your audience is most responsive can mean the difference between driving a record-breaking BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday) weekend and being buried in the inbox clutter.

Klaviyo’s 2024 BFCM dataset gives marketers hard, platform-level evidence to decode precisely when shoppers convert. In this post, we explore Klaviyo’s data analysis findings to highlight actionable send-time strategies. A couple of points:

• Send-time is nuanced: Even standard send-time windows depend heavily on consumer behavior and require granular personalization to be effective.
  
• Use insights as a framework, not a rule: Our analysis provides a starting point for building a send-time strategy, but they should not be applied in isolation or assumed to be universally applicable. 

Let’s get started with Klaviyo’s Black Friday data and email performance in 2024.

Klaviyo engagement insights: Black Friday email benchmarks

Klaviyo’s data on Black Friday email performance paints a pattern of intent migration throughout the day — from discovery and browsing in the morning to full purchase execution by midday. 

Between 9 and 10 a.m. ET users recorded the peak engagement hours in Klaviyo, sending more than 420 million messages. By noon to 1 p.m. ET, that surge in engagement translated into peak buying activity, with 1.3 million orders processed. 

The rhythm is a reflection of cross-segment consumer energy patterns. Shoppers wake to a “research phase” email habit, but the conversion triggers align with lunchtime breaks, when intent solidifies into action. By early afternoon, inboxes take a breather while wallets open.

There’s an opportunity not just to hit the generic morning window but to sequence messaging that anticipates the behavioral arc. 

Keeping that in mind, here are a few strategic insights going into Black Friday this year:

• Shift campaign start earlier than peak day: The “Black Friday Fever” is extending. Launch your highest-value deals and promotions (especially for loyalty members) in late October or early November to capture shoppers who start early, using the Black Friday week only for the final push.
  
• Double down on high-urgency SMS in midday: The compressed purchase window still exists, but with consumers being more price-sensitive and using AI/mobile for faster decisions, the need for instant conversion is higher. Reserve the most time-sensitive offers (flash sales, “last chance” countdowns) for SMS around noon to cut through the noise and capitalize on the peak Black Friday email engagement.
  
• Optimize for AI-driven discovery/search: The morning ‘research’ phase will be increasingly driven by AI shopping assistants and conversational search. Ensure product data (schema markup, accurate specs, clear FAQs) is AI-discoverable so your products appear clearly when a shopper asks an AI for a recommendation.
  
• Incentivize with non-discount value: Since consumers are already deal-hunting, free shipping, free returns, and transparent delivery dates are now non-negotiable value drivers. Prioritize making “Free and Reliable Shipping” the principal incentive over just percentage discounts, as this is the most preferred deal type for 2025.
  
• Focus content on “needed” vs. “discretionary” value: With economic uncertainty, shoppers are shifting spending to needed goods and high-value items. Your creative/copy should frame products not just as a discount, but as a smart investment, value stock-up, or essential upgrade to align with the return-to-value mindset. UGC is a powerful driver for reaching these goals. 

Source: Reviews.io

Strategically, it’s this morning-to-midday compression that seems to define Klaviyo’s Black Friday cadence. Success will hinge on how intelligently you pre-seed awareness before peak hours, activate urgency through mobile channels at midday, and deliver AI-optimized experiences that meet the shopper right where and when intent peaks.

Cross-channel flow: What Klaviyo data analysis says about email+SMS combo

Email carried 43% of total GMV on Black Friday 2024, while SMS surged to 6× its usual revenue contribution, according to Klaviyo’s Black Friday data. What’s critical is when SMS amplifies email, not replaces it. The data implies that post-noon SMS reminders correspond with decision peaks — the “last nudge” dynamic. 

Source: Klaviyo

In 2024, many brands began discounting as early as Nov 7, following a brief lull around election week in the U.S. By the Monday before Thanksgiving, over 40% of emails had discounts.

This matters because temporal engagement curves now flatten across Thanksgiving week. 

The “real” competition begins days before Black Friday (10 days, as per Klaviyo’s BFCM projections for 2025), with Klaviyo brands seeing measurable lifts in open probability for earlier cadence patterns. Keeping that in mind, for BFCM 2025:

• Increase frequency strategically during BFCM: Send up to 1 SMS per day during peak shopping days to match heightened shopper activity.
  
• Segment your audience: Target specific promotions to engaged segments to make your messages more relevant and reduce fatigue.
  
• Cluster sends in earlier windows: Schedule messages slightly earlier since competing brands try to beat peak inbox traffic.
  
• Leverage AI-driven Smart Send: Utilize AI to make same-day send-time adjustments, especially under high deliverability pressure.
  
• Stagger campaign sends: Spread your messages throughout the day to avoid congested inboxes and maximize visibility.
  
• Thanksgiving teaser: Tease upcoming promotions to build excitement for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
  
• Add urgency with time-limited offers: Clearly communicate how long deals last to drive immediate action.
  
• Analyze and adjust during the weekend: Review Black Friday campaign analytics and performance to identify top-performing messages and tweak upcoming campaigns.
  
• Send reminder messages: Target window shoppers as well as first-time buyers with “last chance” or expiring offers.
  
• Offer VIP early access again: Give your top SMS subscribers early Cyber Monday access to maintain engagement.
  
• Cyber Monday final push: Remind subscribers that BFCM deals end today and won’t return until next year to encourage last-minute purchases.

Source: Klaviyo

Send time strategies for BFCM 2025 in Klaviyo

1. Audit your current send times

Before making changes, it’s essential to understand what’s already working. Reviewing historical data reveals patterns that aren’t always obvious.

• Review the last 3–6 months of campaigns and analyze Klaviyo’s open rate trends. Also focus on the click rate in Klaviyo.
  
• Identify peak revenue hours and days with low engagement.
  
• Check if mobile-first customers engage more at night.
  
• Use the data to spot trends and opportunities before testing new strategies.

2. Pay attention to time zones

Your audience isn’t all in the same place. Sending at the wrong time zone can drastically reduce engagement.

• Schedule messages to land at the subscriber’s local time.
  
• Use time-zone scheduling features or segment by region for batch sends.

3. Avoid common timing pitfalls

Certain timing mistakes can quietly erode results. Awareness helps you steer clear of these traps.

• Try and avoid Monday mornings when inboxes are cluttered.
  
• Skip late-night sends unless your core audience is active at that hour.
  
• Base timing on customer behavior, NOT your team’s preference.

4. Set up Exploratory Sends

For determining the best send time, set up an exploratory send in Klaviyo. Now this is a special campaign setting that distributes your emails over a 24-hour period:

• Access Smart Send Time Settings: Navigate to Campaigns and then click View Smart Send Time Report (or create a new test if one doesn’t exist).
  
• Create a New Campaign: Go to Campaigns and create a standard email campaign with your usual recipients and content.
  
• Schedule the Send: On the final review screen, choose to Schedule the campaign.
  
• Select Smart Send Time: Choose the Smart Send Time option and select your new test.
  
• Choose Exploratory: For the send type, select Exploratory. This will spread the send over 24 hours to gather data on when recipients are most likely to open. 

Once finalized, the Smart Send Time report will give you the optimal send time in the recipient’s local time. 

5. Monitor & adapt

Regular check-ins ensure your campaigns continue to perform as customer behaviors shift.

• Track open and Klaviyo’s click through rates to identify trends
  
• Watch unsubscribes for signs of mistimed messages.
  
• Measure revenue per send to test effectiveness against Black Friday email benchmarks.
  
• Adjust timing strategies regularly to reflect seasonal shifts and evolving customer behavior.

Transforming data into deployment logic

Turning Klaviyo’s Black Friday data into strategic advantage demands human oversight layered on automation. Analysts should:

• Use hourly performance dashboards to detect drop-offs and feed real-time decisioning rules.
  
• Layer geo-temporal segmentation. East vs. West Coast behaviors diverge significantly in Klaviyo’s dataset around mid-morning sends.
  
• Deploy AI-predictive send throttling to dynamically balance send intensity based on recipient fatigue signals.
  
• Integrate channel analytics, such as by correlating Klaviyo send timestamps with on-site analytics (GA4, Shopify, or Snowflake feeds) for closed-loop visibility.

As Klaviyo’s 2024 Black Friday data shows, timing isn’t just a tactical variable, it’s equally a psychological one. Every send, from the first teaser to the final reminder, plays into how modern shoppers move through the day, the week, and the entire BFCM season.

Black Friday isn’t just about who has the best deal anymore. It’s about who shows up at the right moment, with the right message, in the right channel.

Need a hand crafting your send strategy in Klaviyo?

If you’re ready to refine your BFCM send strategy and turn timing into your competitive edge, let’s build it together. Book a 30-minute, no-obligation call with our Klaviyo team!