Jimmy KimCEO & Founder, Commerce Roundtable · Marketer of 17+ Years, 4x Founder. Former DTC/Retailer & SaaS Founder. Newsletter. Host of ASOM & Send it! Podcast. DTC Event: Commerce Roundtable

Why Sending More BFCM Emails Costs You in Q1

9 Aug 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:22

In this YouTube conversation, Jimmy Kim and Chase discuss the pitfalls of the common Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) email playbook that recommends sending 14‑18 emails over the holiday week. They argue that while high‑volume sending aims to capture more sales amid intense competition, it dramatically raises unsubscribe rates—often 2‑3% or higher—primarily among the most valuable, long‑term subscribers. These quality subscribers leave because they are overwhelmed by frequent blasts, eroding the brand’s lifetime‑value pool. Moreover, the surge in low engagement triggers deliverability problems that can persist into the first quarter, with inbox providers potentially relegating future messages to spam for 30‑60 days. The net effect is a poor trade‑off: short‑term BFCM revenue gains are outweighed by long‑term list health damage and reduced email effectiveness in Q1.

Chapters

as we think about BFCM for 2026 is the send more email during BFCM playbook is kind of hurting brands more than it's helping. I think this is going to upset some people. Chase, you want to take a crack at this one? Talk about your thoughts here.
Yeah, for sure. I think, you know, every best practice, every kind of single BFCM checklist that you see says send 14, 16, 18 emails over BFCM week. The logic here is like the high volume intent, right? Lots of competition for inbox attention and more sends equals kind of more chances to convert. But what actually happens is the unsubscribe rate during this week for brands that send that many email can hit 2, 3, even maybe higher percentage, which is really high. That's real damage. Yeah, exactly. And the unsub kind of aren't the deal hunters. Stay because they want the deal. But the unsub are the quality subscribers, in my opinion. Right. Those are the ones that have the healthy kind of lifetime values who are tired of just being blasted. And so essentially what you're doing is you're trading very short-term BFCM revenue or kind of like this long-term list damage, if you call it that. Right. With your best customers. In my opinion, that's kind of a really poor trade. And then the deliverability hit that can happen from these BFCM don't go away, right? Like those can last you well into your first quarter, right? Where inbox providers will see the engagement metrics drop significantly and they have the option of sending you to spam for the next 30 to 60 days. So January comes around, you're trying to recover and build and your emails might not even get delivered.