How AminoCo Drove 76% of BFCM Revenue
Through Owned Channels
76%
of BFCM revenue driven by owned channels (Email + SMS)
5.6x
Increase in total store revenue vs. prior non-promotional period
10x+
Growth in email-attributed revenue vs. pre-BFCM baseline
The Story
AminoCo is a health and wellness brand known for its science-backed amino acid formulations designed to support metabolic health, energy, and recovery.
With Black Friday and Cyber Monday approaching, the team saw an opportunity to fully capitalize on the seasonal surge in demand. Rather than relying heavily on paid acquisition, the focus was on leveraging owned channels, email and SMS, to drive conversions during one of the most competitive sales periods of the year.
To achieve this, the team implemented a coordinated lifecycle marketing strategy designed to build anticipation leading into the sale, maintain urgency throughout the promotional window, and capture high-intent shoppers across multiple touchpoints.
The Challenge
BFCM is one of the most competitive periods for ecommerce brands. Inbox competition spikes, customers are flooded with promotions, and poorly coordinated campaigns can easily get lost in the noise.
For AminoCo, the challenge was not simply sending more campaigns. It was ensuring every customer touchpoint worked together to drive conversions.
This meant aligning campaign announcements, lifecycle automations, SMS reminders, and promotional messaging under a single, cohesive BFCM strategy.
The Strategy
While many brands approach BFCM by simply increasing send volume or relying on deeper discounts, the strategy for AminoCo focused on orchestrating the entire lifecycle funnel around the promotion.
Rather than treating campaigns, automations, and SMS as separate initiatives, every customer touchpoint was aligned under a single promotional narrative.
1. Promotional momentum across five phases
Instead of relying on a single promotional announcement, the BFCM campaign was structured as a five-phase sequence, each designed to introduce a new reason for customers to convert.
| Phase | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Early access announcements | Generate anticipation, reward loyal subscribers |
| Black Friday sale launch | Activate demand across the full subscriber base |
| Mid-sale reminders | Re-engage subscribers who had not yet converted |
| Final-day urgency messaging | Capture late-stage buyers before close |
| Cyber Monday offers | Extend the conversion window |
This approach sustained engagement throughout the entire promotional window, including the Saturday and Sunday between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when no active sale was running.
Rather than seeing a complete drop-off during the gap, the phased sequence kept subscribers primed and anticipating the Cyber Monday offer. Momentum carried through the weekend not because of a promotion, but because of the strategy.
Three sends from the phased BFCM sequence, from early access through the Cyber Monday close. Each phase gave subscribers a new reason to act, which kept engagement elevated across the full window.
2. Intentional segmentation: the 180-day window decision
One of the most impactful decisions made ahead of BFCM was expanding the engagement window used for campaign targeting.
In previous months, campaigns were sent to subscribers within a 45 to 60-day engagement window, a standard practice for maintaining deliverability by focusing on recently active contacts. For November, the team deliberately widened this to a 180-day window, re-engaging a significantly broader segment of the list before the sale opened.
This was a calculated move. Wider windows can dilute engagement rates, but executed ahead of a high-intent period, they function as a warming mechanism, reactivating dormant subscribers so that by BFCM week the broader audience was primed rather than cold.
The strategy paid off. When the Black Friday launch email reached the full active subscriber base, that base was meaningfully larger and more engaged than it would have been under the standard targeting window.
Within BFCM week itself, segmentation remained deliberate. The early access campaign went exclusively to high-intent subscribers who had opted in for early notification, while the general sale announcement the following day opened to the full active list, rewarding the most engaged subscribers first before broadening reach.
3. Lifecycle alignment
Campaigns were not treated as standalone sends. Key lifecycle automations were updated to reflect the live BFCM promotion, ensuring customers received consistent messaging wherever they entered the funnel.
- Welcome Flow: New subscribers were immediately introduced to the active offer.
Three sends from the phased BFCM sequence, from early access through the Cyber Monday close. Each phase gave subscribers a new reason to act, which kept engagement elevated across the full window.
- Browse Abandonment: Product viewers were reminded of the same promotion seen in campaign emails.
- Cart Abandonment: Customers who added items but did not purchase received timely, offer-aligned recovery messages.
- Checkout Recovery: Last-mile abandons were caught with urgent, promotion-specific follow-ups.
The Abandoned Checkout recovery email, refreshed with the same promotion running in campaigns. Shoppers who dropped off were pulled back with the offer they had just seen, not a stale evergreen reminder.
By keeping messaging consistent across campaigns and automations, the strategy reduced friction and increased conversion likelihood. This alignment contributed directly to a 49% increase in flow-driven revenue during the BFCM period.
4. Multi-channel reinforcement
While email served as the primary revenue driver, SMS was deployed strategically at three high-leverage moments rather than mirroring the full campaign calendar: the Black Friday sale launch, the mid-sale reminders, and the final-day urgency messages.
This restrained approach kept SMS feeling high-signal rather than high-noise, extending reach and reinforcing urgency at the moments that mattered most, without overwhelming subscribers.
SMS deployed at three high-leverage moments: the Black Friday launch, the final-day urgency push, and the Cyber Monday close. Restraint kept the channel high-signal.
The Outcome
The result was a highly coordinated promotional engine that captured demand across the entire lifecycle funnel.
Email campaigns drove the majority of engagement during the BFCM window, while lifecycle automations converted high-intent shoppers already moving through the funnel.
Together, email and SMS accounted for more than three-quarters of total store revenue across the two separate sale events, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with no active promotion running in between. The fact that the strategy held up across a weekend with zero discounting is perhaps the clearest signal that the results were driven by funnel coordination, not just promotional incentive.
The Outcome
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Revenue from owned channels (Email + SMS) | 76% of total BFCM store revenue |
| Total store revenue growth | 5.6x vs. prior non-promotional period |
| Email-attributed revenue growth | 10x+ vs. pre-BFCM baseline |
| Flow-driven revenue growth | +49% vs. prior period |
Email and SMS revenue figures reflect last-click attribution within a 1-day conversion window, consistent with the reporting methodology used across all periods.
Why It Worked
- Owned channels carried peak season. A coordinated email and SMS strategy generated over three-quarters of BFCM revenue without leaning on paid acquisition. The margin on that revenue is the part that matters after the season ends.
- The list was warmed before the sale, not during it. Widening to a 180-day window in early November reactivated dormant subscribers ahead of time, so the broader base was primed and responsive by BFCM week rather than cold.
- Automations caught buyers at the moment of intent. Updating welcome, browse, cart, and checkout flows to carry the live offer meant shoppers already moving through the funnel got timely, consistent reminders. That alignment drove the 49% lift in flow revenue.
- The phased sequence held momentum through the lull. Five phases, each with a fresh reason to act, kept engagement elevated across the whole window, including the discount-free Saturday and Sunday where most brands see conversions fall off.
- SMS stayed high-signal. Deploying SMS at only three leverage points rather than mirroring the full calendar kept the channel feeling urgent rather than noisy, and reinforced the moments that mattered most.
FAQ
Q1. Isn't 76% from owned channels just a sign the brand under-invested in paid?
It reflects a deliberate choice to make owned channels the engine of the promotion rather than a gap in paid spend. Email and SMS revenue at peak season carries far better margin than paid acquisition, so concentrating BFCM there protects profit during the most discount-heavy week of the year.
The point is not that paid was absent. It is that a coordinated lifecycle funnel can shoulder the majority of peak-season revenue when it is built to.
Q2. Doesn't widening to a 180-day engagement window hurt deliverability?
It can, if you do it carelessly or sustain it. Wider windows dilute engagement rates, which is why the standard practice is 45 to 60 days.
The move here was timed deliberately ahead of a high-intent period, so the wider window worked as a warming mechanism rather than a deliverability risk. Reactivating dormant subscribers just before BFCM meant a larger, warmer base by the time the sale opened.
Q3. What made revenue hold across the weekend gap with no sale running?
The promotion was built as a five-phase sequence, each phase introducing a new reason to act, rather than a single announcement. That structure kept subscribers primed through the Saturday and Sunday between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Momentum carried through the gap because of the funnel coordination, not because anything was discounted. That is the clearest evidence the results came from strategy rather than incentive alone.
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- Other Beauty
The Results
76%
of BFCM revenue driven by owned channels (Email + SMS)
5.6x
increase in total store revenue vs. prior non-promotional period
10x+
growth in email-attributed revenue vs. pre-BFCM baseline