15 Thanksgiving Marketing Emails That Helped Brands Sell More (With Takeaways)

Thanksgiving is a high-impact sales moment for e-commerce brands, making Thanksgiving email marketing campaigns a must-launch for marketers.

People spend massively due to the fear of missing out on lucrative deals. This is an opportunity for e-commerce brands to sell more, provided they can capture the heightened demand. Around 55% of annual e-commerce gross-merchandise value (GMV) occurs in the last two quarters of a year. 

Email marketing is a reliable channel for capturing attention and engaging shoppers throughout the holiday week. This article will walk you through different Thanksgiving email marketing examples and strategies to ensure you make the most of one of the biggest shopping seasons. 

Why Thanksgiving Email Marketing Matters 

Marketing during Thanksgiving isn’t just the prelude to Black Friday marketing; it’s a unique opportunity to connect with customers on an emotional level. During this holiday, consumers are in a mindset of gratitude, and this willingness to give and appreciate drives their purchasing decisions.

Thanksgiving email marketing campaigns that highlight giving back or customer appreciation resonate deeply. Typically, the week surrounding Thanksgiving Day is the peak shopping period. It’s calm before the Black Friday storm. Shoppers often use this time to plan their purchases and search for early deals. According to statistics, the period from November to December records online sales in the U.S of over $240 billion.

The Thanksgiving weekend contributes heavily to that total. Savvy marketers use Thanksgiving email marketing outreach weeks in advance of the holiday to engage shoppers looking for early deals. This positively impacts the bottom line when such outreach is automated through various channels, delivering an omnichannel experience to customers ready to make a purchase. 

Engaging customers across different platforms using Thanksgiving promotions enables brands to stay top-of-mind when the willingness to purchase is high, effectively turning a prospect into a satisfied customer. It nurtures existing customers for the upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing sales. 

What Makes a Great Thanksgiving Email Marketing Strategy? 

Creating a standout Thanksgiving email marketing campaign requires a blend of warm design, compelling copy, and a strategic approach. Here are the key ingredients that top examples have in common:

Heartfelt, Festive Design: Embrace the warmth and gratitude of the season in your visuals. Use cozy autumnal or Thanksgiving-themed imagery, such as families gathering, fall colors, turkeys, and pumpkin pie, to evoke an emotional connection. A simple, visually clean layout with festive touches keeps the focus on your message. You don’t need clutter when a single evocative image can set the tone.

Gratitude-Focused Copy: Let your copy reflect the emotions of Thanksgiving. Express gratitude to your customers for their support. This builds a sense of connection before mentioning a sale.

Action-Oriented Offers and CTAs: While being thankful, don’t forget that it’s also a significant sales opportunity. Tie your promotion to the theme, with a witty, action-oriented call-to-action. For example, a CTA like “Give Thanks, Get 20% Off” marries gratitude with an incentive. Keep CTAs clear, prominent, and compelling. It’s best to use bright, seasonal colors (orange, red, etc.) on your buttons. If possible, incorporate urgency by using phrases like “limited-time offer” or an expiration countdown to prompt faster action.

Personalization and Segmentation: Even something as simple as inserting the customer’s first name in the greeting or subject increases engagement. Leverage your knowledge of your audience segments. For example, you might send your VIP customers an exclusive “early access” Thanksgiving deal, while lapsed customers get a “we miss you, here’s 30% off” re-engagement message. Segmented, targeted emails perform significantly better. Studies show that they have a 14% higher open rate for segmented campaigns compared to batch-and-blast.

Mobile-First Formatting: During Thanksgiving, people are often on the go or with family.  A significant portion of your audience will open emails on their mobile devices. Ensure your email design is mobile-responsive, featuring single-column layouts, large text, and easy-to-tap buttons. Keep the copy concise and scannable. Test that your imagery and CTAs display well on small screens. 

Seasonal Flair and Emojis: Don’t be afraid to have fun with the theme. Thanksgiving offers opportunities for playful language and even emojis (a 🦃 turkey or 🍂 leaf can add a festive touch in a subject line). Inject personality while still clearly communicating your offer. 

15 Thanksgiving Email Marketing Examples to Inspire You 

Below, we explore 15 effective Thanksgiving email campaigns from various B2C brands. Each example includes what the campaign did, why it was effective, and key takeaways that you can apply to your strategy.

1. Expressing Gratitude In The Form of Discounts

Levi’s Thanksgiving marketing emails offered 40% off as a “thank you” to its customer family, wrapped in a warm, gratitude-themed design. The email’s header showed people sharing heartfelt moments, making the message instantly relatable and nostalgic. 

Levi’s copy struck an appreciative tone, explicitly thanking customers for their support throughout the year. This emotional language reinforced the brand’s bond with its audience. 

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Centering the offer as a “gift” to customers for being part of the Levi’s family tied the promotion back to a sense of gratitude. The design was simple and visually focused. 

Use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to express sincere gratitude to your customers, and consider framing your holiday discount as a token of appreciation. 

2. Using Autumn Theme to Resonate with the Target Audience

Calm Radio promoted a 40% discount for the Thanksgiving Holiday, utilizing the Autumn theme in design and copy to resonate with its target audience. 

The design was clean, with a clear message that conveyed a sense of autumn and its colors, appealing to many people and their mood during the holiday. 

Appeal to audience emotions directly by focusing on things that they directly relate to the holiday. 

3. Create Black Friday Hype Early

Kate Spade’s Thanksgiving email took a clever angle. It arrived on Thanksgiving Day with a “post-turkey treat” that doubled as a Black Friday teaser. The subject line hinted at this: “Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s your post-turkey treat.” 

The email content revealed the treat with a generous discount (that the customer could use immediately, before the main Black Friday event. Kate Spade essentially combined a Thanksgiving thank-you message with an early access Black Friday sale. 

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Understand your audience and enter the competition before it gets too crowded. After the Thanksgiving dinner, customers will likely relax while checking their phones and exploring deals, especially as Black Friday approaches. When you give a special discount on Thanksgiving night, you enter the competition early. 

It captures the audience’s attention and piques their curiosity about the actual Black Friday discounts. 

4. Limited-Time Countdown Offer

Create urgency with a flash sale email featuring a live countdown timer. For instance, send a “24-Hour Black Friday Preview” email on Thanksgiving night with a timer ticking down to the deal’s end. 

Highlight the expiration time prominently to prompt immediate action. You can even schedule a follow-up reminder as the deadline nears (“Only 1 hour left!”). This tactic leverages FOMO and encourages quick clicks. See how 4Knines promotes its Thanksgiving deal, staging 25% off in the middle with a countdown timer. 

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Learn how to build email campaigns for events throughout the year. Get inspired by 4th of July email marketing, Halloween email marketing, Black Friday email marketing, Cyber Monday email marketing, Christmas email marketing, and December email newsletter examples from top brands.

5. Mystery “Turkey Treat” Discount (Interactive Reveal)

Add some fun by hiding a special Thanksgiving discount behind an interactive element. For example, include a “Pick Your Turkey” image or button in the email. When clicked, it reveals a random coupon, like 10%, 15%, or 20% off. 

You can place these discounts in a stack of cards, and encourage buyers to pull out a card to reveal their discount percentage. Use interactive email platforms to create these Thanksgiving email marketing campaigns. Here’s an example: 

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Track clicks on the reveal element and automatically send a follow-up email with the unique discount code once a user interacts. This ensures a seamless personalized experience. 

6. Thanksgiving Bundle Deals

Offer special bundles tailored to Thanksgiving needs to increase cart value and drive sales. This could be a “Thanksgiving Dinner Bundle” for food/grocery apps, featuring a turkey and sides kit at a discount, or a holiday gift bundle for retail and e-commerce, offering curated product sets at a bundled price. 

Frame it as a limited-time offer. E.g., “Thanksgiving Family Feast Kit – Save 20%.” Include an appealing image of the bundled items together to show value. 

Here’s an example:

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7. Cross-Sell Pairings with a Holiday Twist

Utilize Thanksgiving themes to suggest complementary products in a fun and engaging way. Much like pairing wine with turkey, you can recommend items that “go together” for the holiday. For example, a food delivery app might email users who ordered a turkey with a suggestion to add on a pie or wine. 

Similarly, a coffee shop could cross-sell candy bars with their coffee, making it a treat suggestion rather than a hard sell. This approach feels helpful and festive. Here’s an example to get inspiration from: 

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8. Holiday Checklist or Guide Email

Provide value with a Thanksgiving prep checklist email. This content-driven approach positions your brand as helpful during the busy holiday. For example, an e-commerce home goods retailer could send a “Thanksgiving Dinner Party Checklist”.

Intelligently, plug what you sell into this checklist to ensure people following it knock on your door and check it off their list. This allows you to save customers from the hassle of holidays, which can be huge when they’re hosting a Thanksgiving dinner. 

Create a Thanksgiving checklist to send to your mailing list, subtly pitching your product or service within it. This allows you to match the holiday mood without pressuring shoppers too much to make their holiday purchases. 

Here’s an example from Nutters to get you started:

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9. VIP Early Access and Extended Sales

Many brands reward their best customers with exclusive Thanksgiving perks. For instance, they run an “Early Access Black Friday” sale for VIPs on Thanksgiving Day. Only the top-tier customers get a special link or code to shop deals before everyone else. Alternatively, they extend the main sale just for VIP customers. 

This tactic makes loyal users feel appreciated and drives additional purchases. CleverTap’s loyalty segmentation enables you to identify your loyal customers and target them separately. It runs RFM analysis to help you pinpoint customers who are faithful to the brand. 

Automate early-access emails to this segment, using unique early-access links or codes, and track engagement compared to the general audience. This ensures that your high-value users receive special treatment and you can measure the lift from the VIP campaign.

10. Early-Bird Early November Offers

Some brands encourage customers to start their holiday shopping early to avoid the last-minute rush. An “Early Bird Thanksgiving” campaign rewards those who shop in early November, or even pre-Thanksgiving, with a bonus. For example, brands offer bonus loyalty points or an extra discount for any purchase made by a specific date. This drives sales ahead of Black Friday and helps smooth out demand. 

First, identify customers who typically engage or make purchases during the holiday season and target them with these early incentives. CleverTap allows you to automatically segment users who bought in last year’s holiday period and send them a personalized early-bird offer via email. 

Read the full case study here. 

11. “Give & Get” Referral Program promotion

Use a Thanksgiving-themed referral email campaign to encourage your existing users to refer friends or family in exchange for rewards that fit the holiday. For example, “Give $10, Get $10 when you refer a friend before Thanksgiving.” This taps into holiday goodwill and word-of-mouth. 

Brands often pair it with gratitude, with a message like, “We’re thankful for our customers. Share the love with someone you care about, and you both get rewarded.” Here’s how Everlywell paired their Thanksgiving discount with a referral reward: 

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CleverTap lets you target your most engaged users with a referral campaign and track referral conversions. Set up automated emails that deliver each user’s unique referral code and follow up with them later. Segmentation and automation ensure the referral program runs seamlessly during the holiday period. 

12. Festive Contest or User-Generated Content Campaign

Some brands host Thanksgiving-themed contests and promote them via email. For instance, a food delivery or recipe app could run a “Thanksgiving Recipe Contest” where users submit their best dish photo or recipe for a chance to win a prize. Or a retail brand might do a “Thanksgiving Decor Photo Contest,” encouraging customers to share how they use your products at their holiday table. 

If you’re planning a contest, be sure to clearly explain how to enter, the deadline, and the prize. Include examples or past winners’ content to inspire participation. Contests generate buzz, and user-generated content can be later repurposed. 

Here’s an example that depicts the idea clearly:

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Learn how to build great ad campaigns this festive season with our new and updated guide on Christmas advertisement examples. Get more Christmas related marketing inspiration in our Christmas marketing campaigns, Christmas marketing ideas, and Christmas promotion ideas guides.

13. Interactive Thanksgiving Quiz/Poll

Some brands make their holiday email campaign interactive with a fun quiz or poll related to Thanksgiving. For example, an email could ask, “Which Thanksgiving Side Dish Are You? Take our 1-question quiz to find out!” Subscribers click an answer, and then they send a follow-up email with personalized content or a cheeky result. 

Quizzes entertain users and give a personalized feel to the promotion.  For Thanksgiving, your quiz might be a trivia question about the holiday or a fun personality quiz about holiday traditions. 

Below is an example of a brand pairing quiz with bundles, helping their audience select the option that suits them best. Check it out:

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14. Re-Engagement Win-Back Offers

The Thanksgiving period is a great time to win back dormant users with a special offer. Brands create re-engagement or win-back email campaigns targeting users who haven’t opened or purchased in a specified period, typically 3–6 months. The message can say, “We miss you, and we’ve got a Thanksgiving treat waiting!” and include a compelling incentive, such as an extra discount or a personalized recommendation of something new. 

Nearly 22% of email lists churn annually, so re-engagement campaigns are crucial. However, about 45% of recipients will read a re-engagement email, especially if the content is attractive. 

15. Dynamic Personalization and Product Recommendations

Many CleverTap customers utilize rich user data to send highly personalized Thanksgiving emails. Rather than a one-size-fits-all newsletter, they use segmentation and dynamic content so each user sees offers relevant to their behavior and preferences. 

For example, an e-commerce app sends a “Thanksgiving Gift Picks for You” email where the product recommendations differ for each recipient based on their browsing history or past purchases. 

Even simple personalization, such as using the customer’s name and referencing a past purchase, increases engagement. For example, a clothing retailer using segmentation can send different product highlights to sneaker lovers vs. formalwear shoppers to increase conversions.

Thanksgiving Email Marketing with CleverTap 

CleverTap’s all-in-one engagement suite offers an email marketing platform with features that can help you nail the timing, optimize content, coordinate channels, and personalize your Thanksgiving campaigns. Here are some tips – and how CleverTap can assist – for Thanksgiving email marketing success:

Optimize the Timing of Sending Thanksgiving Email Marketing Campaigns

Timing is everything during the holidays. A strategic schedule ensures your message reaches its target audience at the most effective time. CleverTap makes this coordination easy with its Campaign Scheduler and Journey Orchestration.

With automation, you can configure messages to pause if a user converts, so they don’t get redundant promos. The platform’s analytics also inform your send times. If your data shows higher engagement on certain days or hours, you can schedule accordingly. 

A/B Test Subject Lines and CTAs

Minor tweaks in subject lines or call-to-action text can yield significant differences in open and click-through rates. CleverTap’s built-in A/B testing allows you to experiment with up to three variants of an email simultaneously.  CleverTap will send each version to a sample and then automatically send the winning version to the remainder of your list based on the performance goal you set. 

Additionally, CleverTap’s Scribe, an AI-powered copy assistant, helps you generate subject line suggestions, email copy, or CTA text optimized for emotional impact. 

Leverage Email + Push + SMS for an Omnichannel Thanksgiving Email Marketing Strategy

The best campaigns synchronize multiple channels across email, mobile push notifications, SMS, in-app messages, and even WhatsApp to reach customers on their preferred touchpoints. CleverTap lets you orchestrate such campaigns through a single dashboard. 

The platform ensures customers don’t get conflicting messages. You can set rules like “if a user clicks the email, don’t send the SMS,” etc., so the outreach feels coordinated, not spammy. 

Stand out this festive season with CleverTap. Learn event-specific marketing strategies with our freshly curated guides on 4th of July marketing, New Year marketing, Halloween marketing, and Diwali marketing, and December marketing.

Segmentation and Personalization: Tailor Your Thanksgiving Email Marketing Outreach

Not all customers are the same, and Thanksgiving campaigns shouldn’t treat them as such. CleverTap’s advanced segmentation engine lets you slice your user base by behaviors, demographics, past purchases, app actions, and more. By tailoring content to each segment’s status and interests, the chances of engagement and conversions increase. CleverTap’s email personalization tool is built to ensure your customers feel valued.

According to the Data and Marketing Association (DMA), segmented campaigns lead to a 760% increase in revenue. This turns personalized messaging into a powerful sales driver. 

Research from the Data & Marketing Association (DMA) indicates that segmented campaigns can result in a 760% increase in revenue, making personalized messaging a powerful driver of sales.

CleverTap’s RFM segmentation (recency, frequency, monetary) categorizes users into groups such as champions, about-to-sleep, and at-risk, which you can use to inform your Thanksgiving messaging strategy. 

Fine-Tune Your Thanksgiving Email Marketing Campaigns

CleverTap enables you to send the right message to the right user at the right time. You get to ensure your Thanksgiving emails aren’t just well-designed, but also well-targeted, which is a preferable setup required for a successful Thanksgiving email marketing campaign. 

As you plan your Thanksgiving email marketing campaigns, identify a few key segments (e.g., lapsed, loyal, new, high spenders, deal-seekers) and tailor content/offers to each. Then, let CleverTap handle the heavy lifting of sending those customized messages at scale.

Thanksgiving is a golden opportunity to engage customers with campaigns that leave a mark.