15 Examples of Cyber Monday Emails For Inspiration [+ Best Practices]

An email stays in a shopper’s inbox, ready to be opened when the moment is right. Cyber Monday emails, in particular, are a powerful way to showcase holiday deals that customers can explore on their own terms. They help maintain engagement throughout the crowded holiday season; so when it’s time to shop, your brand is the first one they remember.

Holidays like Cyber Monday are when thousands of e-commerce brands flood shoppers’ inboxes. You need much more to stand out than just stamping “SALE” in your subject line. Your email needs to be well-timed and action-triggering, matching your audience’s mindset and desires.

In this article, you’ll see that the most successful examples of Cyber Monday emails that create anticipation and urgency. 

Before we get to them, let’s understand why these emails matter so much. 

Why Cyber Monday Emails Matter 

Cyber Monday emails, when part of a strong holiday email marketing strategy yields a high ROI and capitalizes on the increasing consumer demands. Here are some benefits it delivers when leveraged: 

• Delivers Unmatched ROI and Engagement: According to McKinsey, marketers can achieve a 10–15% revenue lift by using personalization. When you pair it with Cyber Monday emails, it lets your brand stand out, delivering a high ROI. 
• It’s a Record-Breaking Sales Day: Cyber Monday has surpassed Black Friday as the largest online shopping day of the year. For example, in 2024, Cyber Monday sales soared 23% higher than Black Friday’s, stating its importance. This is when shoppers flock online for final holiday deals, and well-crafted emails help capture this rising demand.
• Engages Mobile and Multichannel Shoppers: 54.8% of online sales were completed on mobile devices on Cyber Monday. Emails let you take this audience directly from their inbox to the shopping page. Often, shoppers get the best experience when they combine email with other channels like social, app, or push notifications. Adopting omnichannel messaging enables you to engage shoppers seamlessly across various channels. channels with diverse messaging and content. 

What Defines Great Cyber Monday Emails? 

Successful Cyber Monday emails are often those that grab attention, drive urgency, and make it effortless for the customer to convert. The key ingredients include:

Subject Line Urgency and Clarity: Write subject lines that convey immediacy with phrases such as “Last Chance – Sale Ends Tonight!” and then clearly state the offer. Ideally, 2-4-word subject lines are suitable for ensuring a higher open rate. Make sure your subject sets the expectation of a limited-time deal and stands out in crowded inboxes.

Visual Hierarchy and Responsive Design: Use a bold, clean design that highlights the most essential information. For example, stating the deal as “50% OFF Today Only” and adding a contrasting call-to-action button. Make the buttons large and text readable on small screens. 

Personalization and Segmentation: Campaigns should leverage customer data to make emails more relevant. It can be something as simple as addressing the subscriber by name or showcasing items related to their browsing history. CleverTap’s marketing platform enables you to build sophisticated personalization into your messaging without the complexities of setup. On the platform, you will be able to send out emails to customers whenever their wishlist products become available at a more discounted price.

Offer Clarity and CTA Prominence: Make the Cyber Monday marketing deal unambiguous. If it’s 30% off sitewide, say that clearly and early. Include any key terms, such as “free shipping over $50” or a coupon code, in the body and even in the pre-header. Use a single, dominant CTA button that contrasts with the background and uses action-oriented text. Multiple CTAs for different product categories work if they’re organized to avoid clutter.

Mobile Optimization: Adopt a mobile-friendly email marketing strategy. This means single-column layouts, large tappable buttons, and short text blocks. A substantial amount of traffic comes from smartphones. Test these emails on mobile devices to ensure images and other interactive elements load quickly and are compatible with mobile devices.

Deploy Scarcity and Urgency Cues: Employ countdown timers, limited-stock alerts, and time-sensitive language to prompt immediate action. Many retailers use real-time countdown clocks in their Cyber Monday emails. For example, a timer showing “Only 4 hours left” right in the email header. This taps into FOMO and keeps the deadline at the forefront. 

15 Examples of High-Converting Cyber Monday Emails

Here are some examples of Cyber Monday emails that illustrate different approaches brands take to attract and engage shoppers in the holiday season: 

1. Adopt a Minimalistic Design Paired with a Bold Offer

Three Ships Beauty, a skincare brand, kept the design stripped down to basics with product images neatly arranged and a bold headline. The emphasis on “Last Chance” drives urgency to purchase products worth $100 or more to receive a free mini discovery kit. 

Source: Milled

This approach aligns with their clean, natural branding, and it felt familiar to their audience. The email copy explicitly stated that it was the last chance to receive the benefits. A single CTA button in a contrasting color was placed beside the offer, making it easy to click through.

Tips: 

• Emails don’t need to be busy. Keep it minimal if it aligns with your brand’s style and encourage the reader to focus on a single action. 
• Make sure your primary message is unmissable. 

2.  Use Urgency-Driven Countdown Timer in Cyber Monday Emails

Famous footwear brand Dr. Martens ran a Cyber Monday email with a bold countdown timer ticking down the hours of the sale. The email’s design was hard to ignore, a bright yellow background with black text and a live timer at the top reading “Sale ends in 10 hours and 34 minutes.” 

They paired these deals like “30% off” and even mentioned additional clearance up to 60% off. 

Source: Swipefile

The countdown timer injected real-time urgency. As seconds passed, subscribers felt the pressure to act quickly. Dr. Martens also smartly reassured customers by advertising free returns from the outset. 

Tips: 

• Pair urgency with reassurance. It gives customers the confidence to proceed with the deal. 
• Mention multiple offers to make them irresistible. 

3. Showcase Multiple Types of Deals to Attract Varied Interest

FabFitFun uses attractive deals and clear messaging to increase sales. It highlights multiple offers, including daily deals, bundled products, and “buy one, get one” deals. The aggressive discount on the first purchase creates excitement and encourages immediate action.

Source: Pinterest

Tips:

• Offer a significant discount for first-time buyers to encourage new sign-ups.
• Schedule new daily offers to maintain customer engagement throughout the sales period.

4. Give Early Access With Exclusive Deals

Forever 21, a known women’s clothing brand, offered VIP early access to its shoppers on the website with astonishing discounts. This strategy is easier to execute when you have your loyal or VIP customers segmented into a cluster. CleverTap’s RFM analysis lets you segment intelligently, empowering you to personalize your messaging effectively.  

Source: Pinterest

This approach makes loyal customers feel special while the exclusive discounts emotionally tilt their favor toward purchasing from our brand.  

Tips: 

• Offer exclusive discounts to loyal customers, encouraging repeat purchases and a higher average order value. 
• Tiered discounts based on spend strategically help increase order value, as customers feel the FOMO to miss out on exclusive discounts customized for them. 

5. Add a GIF In a Clean Design

RYU, an urban athletic apparel brand, makes use of a clean GIF to engage shoppers in their email campaigns. They highlight the 30% off, and inside the number, the GIF keeps playing, showing people fashioning their clothing and accessories. 

Source: Pinterest

The choice of font gives it a clean look, directing all the focus to the GIF, which is playing under the numbers “3” and “0”. This design immediately captures the audience’s attention, allowing them to navigate through the textual content. 

Tip: Get creative with how you present the deals. The usual may not capture the audience’s attention the same way as something out of the box like this. 

6. Announce One-Day Flash Sale in Cyber Monday Emails

Mattress and sleep-tech brand Eight Sleep emphasized the 24-hour-only nature of Cyber Monday with a pure flash sale approach.

The design is straightforward yet impactful. The clarity of the time constraint is front and center. Recipients know from the subject line (24 hours only: Cyber Monday Sale) itself that this is a now-or-never deal, offering them the benefit of a $600 discount. 

Tips: 

• Make scarcity a selling point when you can’t or don’t want to extend your sale. 
• Set up the platform and system in a way that it can handle the traffic surge and orders during the flash sale. 

For marketing, CleverTap would scale effectively to deliver personalized omnichannel messaging to your audience and customer base, ensuring that as many people as possible visit and make a purchase. 

7. Use Direct Call to Action

100% Pure, a brand in organic and natural beauty products, effectively uses urgency and exclusivity to attract customers. Highlighting special “$10 deals” and “Bonus $5 deals,” it encourages customers to act quickly by checking offers “before everyone wakes up.” 

Its visually appealing layout clearly showcases products and discounts, driving immediate interest and clicks.

Source: Pinterest

Tips:

• Create urgency by highlighting limited-time offers and using clear, direct calls to action, such as “Shop Now.”
• Emphasize early access or exclusivity to encourage immediate buying.

8. Give a Free Gift with Purchase

Gourmet ice cream brand Jeni’s scooped up customer attention by offering a free gift with purchase in their Cyber Monday emails. Its headline says the deal ends tonight, and places the offer at the top. This is where the brand highlights the offer of a free pint for purchasing 5 pints of ice cream. 

Source: Jeni’s

They incorporate a bit of fun with phrases like “Going, going, gone…” while sprinkling some holiday-centric messaging. 

Tip: Packaging a product bundle with a gift is a valuable way to increase the average order value of the product. 

9. Offer Dynamic Product Recommendations

Companies use customer data to personalize Cyber Monday deals for shoppers. This is particularly relevant for businesses with a diverse product or service inventory. It allows you to promote products and services that a customer has viewed before or saved for later, while combining them with lucrative deals. 

For example, Amazon sent personalized deal recommendations in their Cyber Monday emails to individual customers. These emails didn’t just have deals generically. Amazon’s algorithm selected items that each user was likely to be interested in, based on their browsing and purchase history.

Source: Pinterest

Tip: Personalization improves various aspects of dynamic content. With CleverTap’s behavioral segmentation, you can segment your email list based on users’ purchase history, browsing behavior, and in-app actions. This allows you to tailor product recommendations and content for each segment, making your Cyber Monday emails more relevant, engaging, and conversion-ready. 

10. Share Different Deals on Different Days

Boscia Skincare, a beauty brand, created seven different deals for every day, covering Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 

Source: Pinterest

The brand would reveal a new deal every day for a week to keep customers excited and curious to check out the latest offer. This ensures high open rates for the email and increased engagement, which ultimately leads to more sales. 

Tip:  Announcing multiple deals and revealing them one after the other builds anticipation. Customers are more engaged and active in making purchases when they come across discounted products and services. 

Learn Black Friday marketing strategies with inspiring Black Friday email marketing examples to go with your Cyber Monday deals.

11. Use a Dark Theme in Cyber Monday Emails

Cyber Monday is often associated with colors like white, black, blue, and other vibrant accent colors that convey a sense of technology, deals, and online shopping. The eyewear brand, Ray-Ban, followed a theme that is primarily associated with Cyber Monday. 

They emphasized Black and White while promoting their offers via email. It naturally suited the brand as its visuals are largely red in color. 

Source: Pinterest

With this, the company rolled out up to 50% off on Ray-Ban products, including free shipping and returns. 

Tip: Use color palettes related to Cyber Monday to capture the audience’s attention quickly, while using textual copy to engage them effectively. 

12. “Last Chance” Reminder Cyber Monday Emails 

Glossier cut through evening inbox clutter with a stripped-down “last call” reminder email featuring a large countdown timer and headline reading “Don’t miss 25% off – Ends Tonight at 11:59 PM.” The beauty brand eliminated all non-essential elements, using plain backgrounds and minimal text to deliver their core message without distraction.

Source: mailcharts

This no-nonsense approach effectively captured last-minute conversions from busy or indecisive subscribers who needed one final, clear nudge.

Tip:  Final-hour reminder emails should prioritize simplicity and urgency over creativity and originality. Ensure clear messaging with a prominent countdown of time remaining to drive significant last-minute sales.

13. Use Mystery Discounts and Gamification

Sweaty Betty energized their Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaign with a “Spin the Wheel” gamification element. They invited customers to click for surprise discounts ranging from 15% off to free leggings. 

Their email featured colorful prize wheel graphics with energetic copy. 

Source: Sweaty Betty

Tip: Gamification can dramatically increase engagement and make your Cyber Monday emails more interactive and enjoyable. The mystery elements tap into customers’ curiosity, encouraging them to participate. 

14. Use Humor to Grab Attention

The Cyber Monday emails from Birddogs grab attention with humor and curiosity. It shows funny gifts they decided not to give to keep readers interested. Then, they reveal a branded gaming device as their real gift, making it feel special and exciting.

Source: Pinterest

Tip:

• Use humor to make emails stand out. And, create curiosity by hinting at your offer first.
• Make your actual offer feel unique or exclusive. Clearly show benefits or rewards to encourage buying.

15. Showcase Flagship Products With Discounts

Bose emphasizes limited-time discounts clearly, showcasing popular products with significant price reductions. The dark, sleek visuals convey a premium brand feel, enhancing perceived value and encouraging swift decisions.

Source: Pinterest

Tips:

• Highlight limited-time savings clearly to encourage immediate purchases.
• Maintain brand consistency in visuals and messaging to reinforce trust.

Cyber Monday Email Best Practices With CleverTap

To wrap up, let’s highlight some overarching best practices for Cyber Monday email campaigns. 

Start Early and Build Anticipation with Teasers

Don’t wait until Monday morning to surprise your audience. Warming up subscribers with teaser emails generates excitement. It gives you early engagement, keeping your brand top-of-mind amid the holiday noise. 

CleverTap Journeys lets you create such automated sequences. For example, you can send: 

• A Black Friday promotion email on Friday.
• A countdown on Sunday
• The main offer on Monday

Journeys allow you to pre-program this flow and even branch based on user behavior. For example, if a user clicks the teaser, they get a different follow-up than those who don’t. 

Design Cyber Monday Emails for Mobile-First Consumers

Consider creating mobile-friendly content, such as shorter subject lines and possibly using SMS as a complementary approach. If you have an app, integrate email with a push notification strategy.

CleverTap’s unified analytics enable cross-channel behavior tracking. For example, suppose a user opens the email on a mobile device but doesn’t make a purchase. In that case, CleverTap triggers an in-app message or push notification reminding them before the sale ends. 

Authenticate and Test Deliverability

All your efforts mean nothing if emails don’t reach inboxes. During Cyber Week, ISP filters are on high alert due to increased volume. Follow best practices like: 

• Use a reputable sending domain with proper DKIM/SPF authentication.
• Avoid using spammy phrases and try sending the emails to engaged subscribers. It’s best to maintain a list hygiene and suppress chronic non-openers or invalid emails. 
• Run pre-send spam tests. They flag content or reputation issues. 

CleverTap’s send-time optimization and throttling features stagger sends so they don’t all hit at once, mimicking a more natural send pattern. 

Monitor Performance and Pivot in Real Time

Monitor open rates, click rates, and conversions throughout the day. If one subject line is underperforming, you might consider resending it to non-openers with a tweaked subject in the evening.  If a particular product is out of stock, swap in a different featured item in later emails or on your site/app banners. 

Use your analytics to identify what’s selling and focus your last-chance messaging on the top sellers. 

Make Your Cyber Monday Campaign Omnichannel With CleverTap

Not everyone checks email in time. To maximize your marketing efforts during the holiday season, you need an omnichannel approach. CleverTap’s omnichannel Journeys enable you to coordinate multiple channels, such as push, email, SMS, and others, simultaneously through a unified system. 

The platform creates unified user profiles that allow you to track whether a user clicked the email but didn’t convert, then retarget them via push or SMS in the evening as a reminder, ensuring no potential customer slips through the cracks across channels. It ensures shoppers are engaged effectively and ultimately convert into paying customers. 

Equip your marketing with CleverTap and drive higher ROI.