Cyber Monday falls on December 2 this year, just three days after Black Friday. By then, your subscribers will have received a flood of sale emails from every store they’ve ever bought from. A good Cyber Monday sequence has to cut through that noise without adding to the fatigue.

Below is a five-email sequence you can adapt for your WooCommerce store, with timing, subject lines, templates, and advice on who should get what. There’s still time to write and schedule it this week.

First, decide what Cyber Monday means for your store

Before writing a single email, decide which of these fits your plans:

• A continuation of Black Friday. The same offer runs from Friday to Monday, and Cyber Monday is the final day.
• A separate offer. Black Friday has one deal; Cyber Monday has a different one (a different category, a bundle, free shipping).
• Cyber Monday only. You skip Black Friday and run a one-day sale.

Each works. What doesn’t work is being vague. If your emails say “Our Cyber Monday deals are here!” but the offer is the same as Friday’s, subscribers who already bought will feel ignored, and those who didn’t will wonder what changed. Be clear about what’s new, or clear that it’s the last day of the same sale.

The sequence at a glance

Use your store’s time zone as the reference, and adjust send times if most of your customers live elsewhere.

Segment before you send

Sending every email to everyone is the fastest way to build unsubscribes during the busiest inbox week of the year. At minimum, split your list into these groups:

• Bought during Black Friday. Don’t send them the full sequence. One email with a complementary product or a thank-you note is plenty. If your Cyber Monday offer is identical to Black Friday’s, consider excluding them from emails 3 and 4 entirely.
• Engaged non-buyers. Opened or clicked recently but haven’t purchased. Your main audience for this sequence.
• Past customers who haven’t bought in a while. A good audience for a straightforward “here’s the deal” email, not the full sequence.
• Unengaged subscribers. Haven’t opened in months. Sending them five emails in three days is a deliverability risk. Send one, or none.

iConvert Email Marketer segments WooCommerce customers automatically based on purchase and engagement data, which saves building these lists by hand. Any email tool that syncs order data from WooCommerce can do a version of this; the important thing is to use the data you already have.

The templates

The examples below use a hypothetical store selling kitchenware. Swap in your own products and offer.

Email 1: preview / early access (Sunday evening)

Subject line options:
– “Tomorrow’s deals, tonight”
– “Your early look at Cyber Monday”

Preview text: “Subscribers get in 12 hours early.”

Body:

Hi [First name],

Cyber Monday starts tomorrow, but you don’t have to wait.

From now until midnight Monday: 25% off all cookware sets and free shipping on orders over $60.

[Shop early access]

Sale ends Monday, December 2 at 11:59pm [time zone].

Why it works: it rewards subscribers with something real (time) and gets ahead of the Monday morning flood.

Email 2: launch (Monday early morning)

Subject line options:
– “Cyber Monday: 25% off cookware sets”
– “It’s on: our Cyber Monday sale”

Body:

Cyber Monday is here.

25% off all cookware sets, today only.
Free shipping on orders over $60.

[Product image grid: 3 to 4 best sellers, each with price and “Shop” button]

[Shop the sale]

Ends tonight at 11:59pm [time zone].

Keep the offer in the subject line. On Cyber Monday, clever subject lines lose to clear ones.

Email 3: mid-day picks (Monday lunchtime)

Send only to people who didn’t click email 2.

Subject line options:
– “Our 5 most popular picks this weekend”
– “What everyone’s buying today”

Body:

Not sure where to start? These are the products our customers bought most this weekend.

[5 products with short one-line descriptions]

All included in today’s 25% off.

[See all deals]

This email shifts from “there’s a sale” to “here’s what to buy”, which helps undecided shoppers. Only claim “most popular” if it’s true according to your own WooCommerce sales data.

Email 4: final hours (Monday evening)

Subject line options:
– “Last few hours: 25% off ends at midnight”
– “Closing soon”

Body:

Just a quick reminder: our Cyber Monday sale ends at 11:59pm [time zone] tonight.

After that, prices go back to normal.

[Shop before midnight]

Short is fine here. The reader knows the offer by now. If your email tool supports a live countdown image, this is the email to use it in, but state the deadline in text too.

And when midnight comes, end the sale. If you do decide to extend, say so openly in a separate email rather than quietly leaving prices discounted.

Email 5: post-sale follow-up (Wednesday or later)

Send two versions.

To Cyber Monday buyers:

Thanks for your order. Here’s what happens next.

• Orders placed over the weekend will ship by [date].
• You’ll get a tracking email as soon as yours leaves us.
• Need to change something? Just reply to this email.

This isn’t a sales email, and that’s the point. It reduces “where’s my order?” messages and builds trust after a big purchase. You could include a short care guide for the product category they bought.

To non-buyers:

Missed the sale? Our holiday shipping deadlines are coming up.

Order by [date] for delivery before Christmas.

[Shop gift ideas]

This moves the conversation from the sale to the next reason to buy, without extending the discount.

Deliverability during the busiest week

Inbox providers see enormous volumes during Black Friday week. A few precautions help your emails land:

• Authenticate your domain. Since February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo have required bulk senders to use SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and Gmail requires one-click unsubscribe for senders of more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail addresses. Even smaller stores benefit from meeting those standards.
• Keep sending volume steady in the run-up. A list that hasn’t heard from you since summer and then gets five emails in three days is more likely to mark you as spam.
• Suppress unengaged contacts from most of the sequence.
• Don’t send transactional emails from the same shaky setup. If order confirmations are going to spam, fix that first. Our guide on why WooCommerce emails go to spam covers the common causes.

Speaking of transactional emails: expect a spike in order confirmations and shipping notifications over the weekend. Make sure they look as good as your marketing emails. Our post on customizing WooCommerce email templates walks through the options.

A pre-send checklist

Run through this before Friday:

• [ ] Offer confirmed and coupon codes or sale prices tested in WooCommerce
• [ ] All five emails written, with subject lines and preview text
• [ ] Segments built and checked (Black Friday buyers excluded where planned)
• [ ] Every link tested, including on mobile
• [ ] Sale end time and time zone stated in each email
• [ ] Emails scheduled in the correct time zone
• [ ] Someone available on Monday to watch replies and fix problems
• [ ] Unsubscribe link working in every email

Ready to schedule

A Cyber Monday sequence doesn’t need to be long or clever. Five well-timed emails with a clear offer, sent to the right segments, will do more than a dozen generic blasts. Write them this week, schedule them before Black Friday, and spend the weekend watching orders instead of writing copy.

If you’d like automatic segmentation and pre-designed templates for sequences like this one, iConvert Email Marketer is built for WooCommerce stores.

Flavius Noja

Flavius is an online marketing specialist with experience in the digital field. He is passionate about everything that means the online world, sports, but also crypto.