Holiday SMS marketing: 30 text message examples for Black Friday and Christmas

Holiday SMS marketing: 30 text message examples you can copy for Black Friday and Christmas 2026

The best holiday text messages are short, carry one offer and one deadline, name the brand in the first word and end with opt-out wording. Below are 30 ready-to-copy SMS examples for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and New Year, each checked to fit in a single 160-character SMS with the opt-out line included, plus the 2026 calendar, the sending hours and consent rules for the US, UK and Europe, and a simple plan for combining SMS with email.

Key takeaways

• Every example below fits in one SMS (160 characters, GSM-7) including "Reply STOP to opt out". One emoji or one curly apostrophe drops the limit to 70 characters.
• Key 2026 dates: Thanksgiving 26 November, Black Friday 27 November, Cyber Monday 30 November, Giving Tuesday 1 December, Green Monday 14 December, Christmas Friday 25 December.
• In the US, marketing texts need prior express written consent and must go out between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the recipient's time zone (8 p.m. in Florida, Oklahoma and Maryland).
• In France, the 2026 operator charter allows promotional SMS from 8:00 to 21:30, Monday to Saturday; Sundays and public holidays are tolerated but not recommended.
• Use email for the catalogue and SMS for the deadline. Four to eight holiday texts across the whole season is plenty for most lists.

What makes a good holiday text message?

A good holiday SMS answers three questions in one screen: who is texting, what the offer is, and when it ends. Everything else, including greetings, emojis and adjectives, competes with those three for 160 characters. If you are new to the channel, start with our guide on how to do SMS marketing successfully; this article assumes you already have a list and focuses on the holiday weeks.

Each example in this article follows the same five-part structure:

1. Brand name first, followed by a colon. Recipients decide in a second whether a text is a scam, and an unknown number with no brand name looks like one.
2. One offer, stated as a number: 30% off, free shipping, $5 donated.
3. One deadline, stated as a time: midnight tonight, 2pm Tuesday 22 December.
4. One short link, placed after the offer, not at the start.
5. Opt-out wording, every time. In the US, "Reply STOP to opt out" is the standard phrasing carriers expect.

How many characters fit in one SMS?

One SMS holds 160 characters when the text uses only the standard GSM-7 alphabet, and only 70 characters as soon as it contains a single character outside it, such as an emoji, a curly apostrophe (’) or a long dash. Longer messages are split into parts and every part is billed as a separate SMS.

Two traps catch holiday campaigns every year. The euro sign and the characters ^ { } [ ] ~ | \ count as two characters in GSM-7. And text pasted from a word processor often carries a curly apostrophe that silently turns a 150-character message into a three-part Unicode one. The lengths in the tables below assume an 8-character brand name, a 7-letter first name and a 22-character short link, and were measured with the straight apostrophe.

When should you send holiday SMS in 2026?

Send holiday texts on the days when a deadline is real, between roughly 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. local time, and never during legal quiet hours. The calendar below lists the 2026 dates and the type of message that fits each one.

Carrier cut-off dates change every year, so take the exact day and hour from your own carrier before sending example 17. To have texts go out on time without staying up until midnight, see how to schedule SMS in advance.

30 holiday SMS examples you can copy

Replace the words in square brackets, keep the brand name first and the opt-out line last. All 30 messages stay within one 160-character SMS with the assumptions above.

Before Black Friday: VIP early access and teasers (1–5)

Send these between Monday 23 and Thursday 26 November 2026. Early access is the strongest reason to join an SMS list, so the first text should reward people for being there.

Black Friday to Giving Tuesday (6–12)

Friday 27 November to Tuesday 1 December 2026. One launch text, one deadline text to non-buyers, and nothing in between is usually enough.

Abandoned cart and back in stock (13–15)

Triggered texts, sent once, 1 to 3 hours after the event. They need the same consent as campaign texts.

Shipping deadlines, gift cards and gift guides (16–20)

From Green Monday (14 December 2026) to Christmas Eve. Deadlines are the most useful thing a holiday text can carry, because they are true and time-bound.

Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year (21–26)

Christmas Day is for goodwill, not discounts. Sales resume on 26 December (Boxing Day in the UK, Canada and Australia) and run into January.

Restaurants, salons, B2B and nonprofits (27–30)

Holiday SMS is not only for online shops. For service businesses the scarce resource is a time slot, so say how many are left.

Each template above uses [Name] and [item]: with Mailpro you can fill them from your contact fields and send personalized SMS to the whole list in one campaign.

What are the legal rules for holiday SMS?

In every market covered here, a marketing text needs the recipient's prior consent and a free, simple way to opt out; what changes from country to country is the form of consent and the hours you may send. The table summarises the rules as of October 2026. It is a practical summary, not legal advice.

Three details matter more in December than at any other time of year:

• Time zones. US quiet hours are judged in the recipient's time zone, not yours. A text scheduled for 8 a.m. Eastern lands at 5 a.m. in California, and a 7:30 p.m. Central deadline reminder reaches Miami at 8:30 p.m., past Florida's 8 p.m. limit.
• Opt-outs in any form. Since April 2025 the FCC requires US senders to honour opt-out requests made by any reasonable means, including replies such as STOP, QUIT, END, CANCEL, UNSUBSCRIBE or REVOKE, within 10 business days. Process them immediately during a campaign: someone who replied STOP on Black Friday must not receive the Cyber Monday text.
• France changed its rule in 2026. Older guides say commercial SMS are banned in France after 20:00 and on Sundays and public holidays. The af2m Charte Business Messaging in force since 1 March 2026 moved the evening limit to 21:30 and turned the Sunday and holiday ban into a recommendation. With Christmas and New Year's Day both on a Friday in 2026, the practical impact is on the Sundays before Christmas, which many shops open.

Consent and frequency myths are covered in more depth in 14 SMS marketing myths.

How do you combine SMS and email for the holidays?

Use email to show the catalogue and SMS to deliver the deadline. Email has room for images, product grids and gift guides; SMS reaches people in the moment a deadline is about to pass. Sending the same message on both channels at the same time wastes the second channel and annoys the reader. Our article on texting vs email compares the two channels in detail; here is how they work together across Black Friday week.

Two rules make the combination work. First, remove buyers from every later Black Friday message on both channels; a "last chance" text after someone has ordered reads as a mistake. Second, give SMS one job per moment and keep the email doing the explaining. For the email side, see how to make the most of Black Friday with email marketing, and for the general method, how to complement an email campaign with SMS.

How many holiday text messages are too many?

For most retailers, four to eight texts between late November and early January is enough, with never more than one a day and no more than two in Black Friday week to the same person. Beyond that, opt-out rates rise and every STOP removes a contact you can no longer reach in January. Segment rather than repeat: send the deadline text only to people who have not bought, and the back-in-stock text only to people who asked for it. Each text should be able to stand alone, because many recipients will read only one of them.

Which mistakes should you avoid in holiday SMS?

• Emojis in a 150-character message. One emoji switches the text to Unicode and splits it into three billed parts.
• No brand name. In December, unknown texts with links look like parcel-delivery scams. Start with your brand.
• Texting people who only gave an email address. A phone number collected for delivery updates is not consent to marketing texts.
• Forgetting time zones and quiet hours on the evening deadline text, the one most likely to be sent late.
• Sale texts on Christmas Day. Send a thank-you or nothing.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good Black Friday text message?

A good Black Friday text message starts with the brand name, gives one offer as a number, one deadline as a time and one short link, and ends with "Reply STOP to opt out", all within 160 characters. Example: "[Brand]: Black Friday is live. 30% off everything with code BF30, today only. Shop: [link] Reply STOP to opt out".

What time should I send holiday SMS?

Send holiday SMS between about 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. in the recipient's local time. Legally, US texts must stay between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. (8 p.m. in Florida, Oklahoma and Maryland), and French promotional SMS between 8:00 and 21:30.

Do I need consent to send Christmas text messages?

Yes. Marketing texts, including seasonal greetings that contain an offer, need prior consent in the US, UK, EU and Switzerland. The UK, Switzerland and most EU countries allow a soft opt-in for existing customers who bought similar products and were offered an opt-out when their number was collected.

Can I use emojis in holiday SMS?

You can, but one emoji reduces a single SMS from 160 to 70 characters, so a typical holiday text becomes two or three billed messages. If you use one, rewrite the message to fit in 70 characters or accept the extra cost.

Should I send the same offer by SMS and email?

Send the same offer, but not the same message at the same time. Email carries the products and details; SMS delivers the reminder close to the deadline, and only to people who have not bought yet.