In 2025, Cyber Monday became the biggest online shopping day in recorded history: shoppers spent $14.25 billion, up over 7% from 2024.
But that Monday after Thanksgiving is also when your customers’ inboxes are more crowded than ever, and standing out requires more than just slapping a discount on your products and hitting send.
The brands that win big on Cyber Monday are the ones that use AI and data to know exactly what to send, when to send it, and to whom, across every channel.
As founder of Zettler Digital, I’ve spent over a decade optimizing sales for brands over Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM).
Here are 9 proven strategies to make your Cyber Monday campaign a standout success. Each one is grounded in how Klaviyo connects data, AI, and all your marketing channels.
1. Don’t automatically increase your Black Friday discount
Bigger percentage discounts from Friday to Monday can create customer service nightmares and train people to wait for deeper discounts. They also erode trust. You want your customers to know that when you make an offer, it’s one they can count on, and that they won’t feel duped or taken advantage of just a few days later.
“Teasing an upcoming bigger or different deal in your Black Friday emails can lead to a drop-off in Black Friday incentive uptake rates and mess up your reporting and inventory as well,” says Stefan Milicevic, strategy director at Underground Ecom.
To avoid these issues, consider offering a uniquely different incentive for Cyber Monday instead of a bigger discount.
2. Create a unified messaging calendar across all channels
Your BFCM messaging should feel cohesive whether subscribers see it on Instagram, in an email, or via text message. That’s true not only on Black Friday and the days leading up to it, but through Cyber Monday as well.
This means aligning your communications to create one unified view of your brand’s messaging across:
- Organic social
- Paid ads
- Influencer partnerships
- Owned channels like email, text messaging, mobile push, and WhatsApp
- Any other content, such as pop-ups or self-serve hubs on your site
If you're using Klaviyo, this coordination happens from one place. Email, text messaging, WhatsApp, mobile push, web forms, and ads all run on the same real-time customer profiles, so your messaging stays consistent across every touchpoint without manually stitching campaigns together across separate tools.
And because attribution across every channel lives in one reporting view, you’ll know exactly which touchpoints drove Cyber Monday revenue.
Too many brands miss this opportunity by treating each channel—and each big day—as a separate campaign. Instead, map out what message hits when and where. Your customers interact with your brand across multiple touchpoints. Make sure those interactions feel intentional and connected.
3. Optimize content for each individual channel
It amazes me how many brands put out content that’s completely wrong for the channel. Instagram ads get cut off because assets aren’t sized properly. Email content looks terrible on mobile.
These technical details matter more than the average marketer may realize. It’s important to consider your content for Cyber Monday as well as what you put out ahead of Thanksgiving.
Before you launch, double-check that your assets are optimized for each channel. Here are a few ideas:
- Properly size images for Instagram stories vs. feed posts.
- Make sure your email templates look great on both desktop and mobile.
- Test that your text messages display correctly across different devices.
The fix is simple: prep your assets beforehand with each platform’s specifications in mind. Don’t let poor formatting kill an otherwise great campaign.
4. Use exclusion logic based on preferred channels
Cyber Monday means high volume from every brand, which drives up costs and creates deliverability concerns. Channel affinity, AI that uses historical engagement data to predict which channel a subscriber is most likely to engage with next, can improve both efficiency and deliverability by identifying which subscribers are more likely to convert via text message vs. email or push notifications.
If you're using Klaviyo, channel affinity is built-in AI that automatically analyzes each customer's engagement patterns and routes every message to the channel where that individual is most likely to engage. For Cyber Monday, that means your texting-first customers get your best offer via text, and your email-first customers get it in their inbox, without you building separate lists or duplicate campaigns.
If you have 10,000 people on your list and 1,000 of them are more likely to convert from text message marketing, move them there. You’re likely to see better results and lower costs while reducing the risk of overwhelming people with messages on channels they don’t prefer.
One particularly effective use inside flow series: use channel affinity to determine the order a subscriber receives messages. For product launches where SMS credit spend matters, channel affinity can help you target a tighter, more responsive text message audience rather than blasting your full list.
5. Set up triggered messaging based on prior actions
One of the biggest opportunities for Cyber Monday is to create triggered campaigns based on what customers did on Black Friday. With Klaviyo’s automated flows and omnichannel campaign builder, you can schedule and personalize messages that bridge the entire sale period.
For example, track anyone who clicks on your Black Friday campaign and adds items to their cart. If they haven’t completed their purchase by Cyber Monday, automatically trigger a message offering them a bonus $10 off an order of $100 or more, on top of your existing offer.
This approach lets you create personalized incentives without giving huge discounts to your entire list. You’re only rewarding customers who’ve already shown purchase intent, which is much more efficient than blanket promotions.
On the flip side, customers who did purchase on Black Friday should receive messaging focused on complementary products or accessories. The omnichannel campaign builder makes it easy to create this logic ahead of time, so you don’t have to scramble to set it up manually in real time.
The omnichannel campaign builder solves a previous limitation: with standard one-off campaigns, you can't segment by “clicked message X” if that message hasn't gone out yet, because hose clicks don't exist at the time you're scheduling. The builder, though, lets you define logic based on future actions, so you can map out the entire BFCM sequence in advance and let it run automatically as subscribers take action.
If building this logic from scratch feels daunting, Klaviyo Composer can help. Give it a brief. If you say, for example, “Create a flow targeting cart abandoners from Black Friday who haven't purchased by Cyber Monday,” it can build the audience, draft the messaging, and coordinate timing across channels, all ready for your review before anything goes live.
Of course, a spike in Cyber Monday purchases means more support volume. That's where Klaviyo Customer Agent comes in. Because it's built on the same unified customer profiles powering your marketing, it can resolve WISMO requests, handle returns, and surface relevant product recommendations without your team fielding every ticket manually. Your support experience stays as sharp as your campaign strategy, even when order volume spikes.
6. Build anticipation with VIP early access
Early November is the perfect time to serve your existing VIP customers a pop-up asking if they want to be first to know about your BFCM offers. This creates a curated list of people who are likely to engage with your content and gives you a strong launch.
“We launch dedicated VIP early access list in mid-November, inviting high-value subscribers and recent purchasers to sign up,” says Zac Fromson, co-founder at Lilo Social, a full-funnel ecommerce growth agency. “This segment receives exclusive early-bird access to the Cyber Monday offer 12–24 hours in advance. It builds urgency, drives early revenue, and increases engagement with limited inventory or high-conversion bundles.”
“Brands need to define who VIPs actually are very early,” Milicevic emphasizes. “Q4 can be a frenzy, with every customer seeming important. That’s why the ‘early release’ strategy may sometimes fall flat.”
If there isn’t a set of conditions that works specifically for your brand, Milicevic recommends using the tried and tested combination of:
- At least 2-3 placed orders
- Order value 2-3x the average
If you’re launching a new product or you have limited inventory, create exclusive access windows. Promote signing up for text messages a few days before, then give text message subscribers access to your biggest sale an hour before everyone else.
The best part of creating this VIP list is that you can use it far beyond Cyber Monday, strategically throughout the year for product launches or exclusive offers. It’s a great way to identify subscribers who are most likely to engage with your messaging.
Use the lead-up to the big day as a means to identify subscribers likely to engage with messaging, then create segments you contact throughout the year for early-access promotions and product launches.
Cyber Monday strategy tip: Use Klaviyo forms display optimization to build this list. Klaviyo automatically tests and optimizes form variations for the moment they’re most likely to convert, then sets the winning variations live without manual A/B testing on your end.
7. Use zero-party data to personalize bundle offers
Zero-party data—information customers willingly share with you—is incredibly valuable for creating personalized experiences. A simple quiz about preferences or gifting needs can provide the insights you need to create targeted bundle offers that feel custom-made for each customer.
“In the weeks leading up to Cyber Monday, we run a quiz- or preference-based campaign to collect insights on customer interests—product types, budget, gifting needs,” Fromson explains. “Then, we segment the list and send personalized emails with curated bundles or product picks. Higher click-through rates and average order values usually follow.”
In Klaviyo, the preferences and signals customers share don't just inform one campaign. They feed back into your unified customer profiles, making every subsequent send smarter. The more your customers interact with your brand over BFCM, the sharper your targeting becomes for the rest of the year.
8. Use an abandoned cart + deadline reminder strategy
Cyber Monday is one of the few times when it’s acceptable to use high-pressure tactics. Customers expect urgency and limited-time offers during this period.
You can approach this in two ways:
- Add a universal banner to your existing abandoned cart flows that highlights your Cyber Monday deadline.
- Create entirely new Cyber Monday-specific flows with wider messaging changes and fewer individual messages.
“We tighten our abandoned cart and browse abandonment automations with a real-time Cyber Monday overlay, reminding shoppers how much time is left, what they’re missing, and what’s popular,” says Fromson. “We pair that with a one-time ‘final hours’ campaign in the evening to trigger FOMO and drive last-minute conversions.”
We tighten our abandoned cart and browse abandonment automations with real-time Cyber Monday overlay.
Cyber Monday strategy tip: Use Klaviyo universal blocks to ease implementation across multiple messages. One effective approach is to insert a blank universal block as a placeholder across your flow messages before the sale begins. When your announcement bar or sale content is ready, one edit updates every message simultaneously.
Once your flow messages are live, let Composer do the refinement work. It surfaces specific AI recommendations for subject lines, CTAs, and content structure, so your “final hours” message is as sharp as it can be before it hits inboxes.
9. Be honest about inventory and deadlines
When your sale ends, let it end. It’s easy to extend a promotion a few days past Cyber Monday, if that’s what’s best for your brand. But if you’ve mentioned a deadline, stick to it.
The same goes with limited inventory: if you’ve told your audience there’s limited stock, make sure that’s actually true. Lying about scarcity can get you into legal trouble and damage customer trust.
“In most cases, it’s worth stating exactly how many pieces you have left per your ecommerce store records,” says Milicevic. “This should have the same effect as just communicating ‘limited stock.’”
“In our tests, showing the exact number of products left in stock vs. using generic terms like ‘a few’ or ‘running out’ wins by a hefty margin—50% more clicks on average,” Milicevic adds.
In our tests, showing the exact number of products left in stock vs. using generic terms like ‘a few’ or ‘running out’ wins by a hefty margin—50% more clicks on average.
Cyber Monday is just around the corner
Cyber Monday success isn’t about sending more emails or offering deeper discounts. It’s about being strategic with your messaging, personalizing the experience, and using data to send the right message to the right customer at the right time.
The brands that win treat Cyber Monday as part of a larger customer journey, not just a one-day sales event. With the right data, AI, and channel coordination in place, every message you send works harder than the last.
Ready to make this your best Cyber Monday yet? Start planning your unified messaging calendar with Klaviyo today.
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