Black Friday Email Campaign Case Study: $17,980 From One VIP Email
One Black Friday email to 1,676 repeat customers of a skincare brand made $17,980.66 from 110 orders. It had a 59.8% open rate and earned $10.73 for every email sent. That single campaign brought in more than the four campaigns the brand sent to its whole list the month before, combined.
Omnisend published this campaign as a customer story about our work and filmed a video with Karolina Uvarkina, our co-founder, who planned it. This article walks through what we found in the data, how we built the offer and how you can run the same kind of VIP campaign for your store.
Key takeaways
- One Black Friday email to 1,676 VIP customers of a skincare brand made $17,980.66 from 110 orders, as Omnisend published.
- The email had a 59.8% open rate and an 8% click rate, and earned $10.73 for every email sent.
- It started with one data point: 36% of the brand's customers had placed more than six orders.
- The offer was email-only, the email was plain text in the founder's voice, and only contacts with four or more orders got it.
- That single campaign brought in more than the four campaigns to the whole list the month before, combined.
Black Friday VIP email results
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Emails sent | 1,676 |
| Open rate | 59.8% |
| Click rate | 8% |
| Orders placed | 110 |
| Revenue | $17,980.66 |
| Revenue per order | $163.46 |
| Revenue per email sent | $10.73 |
The revenue, orders and per-email figures are from Omnisend's story. The open and click rates are from Omnisend's video below.
Watch Karolina explain the campaign
In this video, Omnisend asks Karolina how one email to a small segment outsold a month of campaigns.
Karolina was once called a professional spammer. "As I say, it would be super sad not to be a professional one after so many years in this industry," she says in the video. The rule behind the work is simpler than the nickname: "One of the main principles in our work is to make sure that we are sending meaningful emails to the right person at the right time."
What the data showed before Black Friday
Before Black Friday, we looked at how often the brand's customers came back. Most stores lose buyers fast. Omnisend's story notes that 50 to 70% of email subscribers never place an order, and only 20 to 30% of buyers order a second time.
This brand was different. 36% of its customers had placed more than six orders.
"Imagine 36% of customers who have placed more than six orders, just unbelievable," Karolina says. "So we knew that we simply need to do something with that. Not only within the automations, but also with the campaigns as Black Friday season was approaching."
A group that loyal does not need the same Black Friday email as everyone else. So we planned a separate Black Friday campaign just for them.
How we built the VIP campaign
We built the campaign in five steps.
- An offer only for VIPs. The offer lived in the email and nowhere on the website, so it felt like a reward for loyalty, not another sitewide sale.
- A bigger discount plus a free gift. The VIP discount was higher than the public one. The free gift needed a slightly higher spend, which lifted the order value and moved some slower-selling products.
- A plain-text email. The brand had never sent one. We wrote it to read like a personal note from the founder, with no designed template.
- A tight segment. We used Omnisend's segmentation to send it only to contacts with at least four orders.
- Clean exclusions. We left out wholesale accounts, bounced addresses and anyone who had not engaged in 180 days.
Why one VIP email beat four broad campaigns
The campaign went to a small fraction of the list, and it still won.
"Typically we sent around four campaigns per month for that client, targeting the majority of their list," Karolina says. "In case with the VIP campaign, we only targeted a small fraction of their email subscribers, and that single campaign brought us more than all the four campaigns we sent the previous months combined."
Three things made the difference:
- The right people. Customers with four or more orders already trust the brand, so they open and buy.
- A reason to act now. An offer they could not find on the website made the email worth reading.
- A personal voice. A plain-text note from the founder stood out in an inbox full of designed Black Friday emails.
How Omnisend's MCP speeds up the analysis
The analysis behind this campaign used to take hours. Finding what share of customers came back for a fifth or sixth order meant exporting data and digging through it by hand.
Omnisend now connects to AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude through its MCP server. "For us, it's a matter of seconds to get that percentage of, for example, returning customers for their fifth order," Karolina says. "It would be really difficult to get such level of the insight within the absolute majority of other email software, or would require manual digging for hours, if not days."
How to run a VIP Black Friday email for your store
You can run the same play this Black Friday in six steps.
- Find your repeat buyers. Check what share of your customers have placed three, four or six orders or more.
- Pick a VIP threshold. Choose an order count that gives you a loyal group, not your whole list. We used four or more orders.
- Make an offer they cannot get elsewhere. Keep it out of your website and public emails.
- Raise the order value. Tie a free gift to a spend slightly above your average order.
- Write like a person. Try a short plain-text email from the founder or the team.
- Clean the list. Leave out wholesale accounts, bounced addresses and contacts who have not engaged for six months.
For more ways to split your list, see our email segmentation strategies. To plan the emails around Black Friday, see our guide to ecommerce lifecycle email marketing.
Black Friday VIP email FAQ
What is a VIP email campaign?
A VIP email campaign goes only to your most loyal customers, usually defined by the number of orders or the amount they have spent. It gives them an offer or early access that the rest of your list does not get.
How many emails should you send for Black Friday?
There is no single number. In this case study, one email to the right segment earned more than four broad campaigns combined. Before you add more sends, check whether a smaller, better targeted email would earn more per send.
Should Black Friday emails be plain text?
Not always, but test it. In this case study, the brand's first plain-text email, written like a note from the founder, got a 59.8% open rate. Plain text stands out when most Black Friday emails are heavily designed.
Which platform did this campaign run on?
It ran on Omnisend. Enflow Digital is an Omnisend email marketing agency, named an Omnisend Strategic Partner in March 2026, and the brand is a skincare store. See how we work with skincare and beauty brands.
Plan your Black Friday VIP campaign with us
Enflow Digital plans, writes and sends email and SMS for ecommerce brands on Omnisend and Klaviyo, as an ecommerce email marketing agency. If you want a VIP campaign like this one for Black Friday, book a free strategy session.
