Should You Gate Your Black Friday Discount Behind Email Signups?

Ben Fitterman
November 11, 2025

I got this reply from Elton yesterday:

"Hey Ben, love your stuff and I've learned a lot from you.

I've got a quick question: Should I discount my entire website for Black Friday, or use a pop-up form to collect emails with the discount offer?"

Great question.

Should the discount be live for everyone on the site, or should people have to give their email address to unlock it?

Here’s my Answer:

Discount the entire site.

The goal of Black Friday is to maximize revenue. If they buy, you get their email anyway.

And customer lists are always the end game.

But here's the thing: you should absolutely still run a pop-up that says "Black Friday – up to 50% off" with a signup form.

I do this every single year.

The opt-in rate is always insanely high even though the offer is already live on the site.

Why?

I have two theories.

People hit the site, see the pop up and assume they need to give their email to access the sale
Other people use it as a shopping list. They're hitting 47 different stores on Black Friday. They just want a reminder email for later.

The Bigger Point:

Look, this is where you need to understand your brand’s bigger goals beyond just email revenue.

Pull up last year's Black Friday cohort.

What happened to those customers? Did they stick around?

Good LTV? Solid repeat purchase rate?

If not, maybe you go for profitability instead.

Smaller discount. Make money even if they only buy once.

If you're doing email marketing for a brand, you need to be having these conversations.

It shows you're paying attention to the whole business, not just your silo.

At the end of the day, I'm trying to help a brand with their top line revenue.

-Ben

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