How to Plan a Year of Email Campaigns, with a Free Calendar

Who it is for

Stores sending campaigns

Time needed

2 hours to plan a quarter

What you need

A spreadsheet and your sales dates

The stores that email well rarely write better emails than everyone else. They decide in advance what they will send, to whom, and why. Without a plan, campaigns go out when someone remembers, Black Friday gets planned the week before, and the list hears nothing for a month and then three emails in four days.

This guide gives you a free email marketing calendar template for 2027, with the key retail dates for the US, UK and Australia, a month-by-month campaign plan and the steps to build your own version in a spreadsheet. Email pricing and sender rules come from Shopify and Google, as checked on 7 November 2026.

What the calendar plans, and what it doesn't

Store email comes in two kinds, and only one needs a calendar:

• Flows are automated and triggered by behavior: welcome, abandoned checkout, post-purchase, win-back. Set them up once and they run every day. My guide to essential ecommerce email flows covers them.
• Campaigns are one-off sends to a segment: a launch, a sale, a story, a seasonal edit. These are what the calendar plans.

Get the flows working first. They send the right email at the right moment without anyone remembering, and they don't depend on the calendar at all.

Decide how often to send

There is no correct frequency for every store. Pick one you can keep up with good content, and that suits how often your customers buy. My starting points:

• Small list, few products: two campaigns a month. One product or story email, one offer or launch.
• Growing list, regular new stock: one campaign a week.
• Large list, frequent launches: two a week, with the second going only to engaged subscribers.

Frequency also sets your cost. Shopify Messaging gives every paid plan 10,000 free emails a month. Its automations count towards that allowance, while abandoned checkout emails don't.

Key retail dates for 2027

These are the dates most Shopify stores plan around. Put them in your calendar first, then decide which ones fit your products.

Gift occasions need emails one to three weeks before the date, because shoppers need time to order and receive. Check your carriers' published last posting dates each year, such as USPS, Royal Mail and Australia Post, and plan a "last day to order" email around them. Add your own dates too: your store's birthday, a yearly sale, a seasonal launch.

A free email marketing calendar template

This is the outline I start from for a general product store. Copy it into a spreadsheet and swap in your own products and occasions.

For Southern Hemisphere stores, swap the seasonal launches: Australian summer runs December to February. Gift cards are worth a December email once delivery cut-offs pass, because they arrive instantly. My guide to setting up gift cards in Shopify covers the setup.

How to build your calendar, step by step

1. Create the sheet. One row per campaign, with these columns: send date, campaign name, segment, offer, subject line, products featured, owner, status and result.
2. Add fixed dates. Retail dates from the table above, your own sale dates and planned product launches.
3. Set your cadence. Fill the gaps so you send at your chosen frequency, alternating offer and non-offer emails.
4. Assign a segment to every row. In Shopify, go to Customers > Segments > Create segment. Useful starting points are email_subscription_status = 'SUBSCRIBED' for everyone you can email, number_of_orders >= 3 for regulars and number_of_orders = 0 for subscribers who haven't bought yet.
5. Work three weeks ahead. Draft, design and schedule each campaign at least a week before it sends, and three to four weeks ahead for Black Friday and Christmas.
6. Fill in results. After each send, add orders, revenue and unsubscribes to the row. This is what makes next year's plan better.

Balance the content mix

If every email is a discount, subscribers learn to wait for one and your margin pays for it. My rule is that no more than one campaign in three should lead with a price offer. The rest come from these:

• Launches and restocks: new products and returning favorites.
• Education: how to choose, use or care for what you sell.
• Proof: reviews, customer photos, press.
• Story: how products are made, sourced or designed.
• Edits: curated picks for a season, occasion or type of customer.

Plan Black Friday and Christmas early

November and December decide the year for many stores, and they are also when inboxes are fullest. I start planning in September:

1. September: decide the offer and the margin you can afford. Check stock levels.
2. October: grow the list with an early-access sign-up, and send regularly so your sender reputation is warm before the big week.
3. Early November: early access for subscribers and VIPs, then the main sale on Black Friday.
4. Cyber Monday: a final reminder to engaged subscribers only.
5. December: gift guides, last order dates, then gift cards.

Don't suddenly email old, unengaged contacts in November. Gmail's sender guidelines ask bulk senders to keep spam rates below 0.10% and never reach 0.30%, and a burst of complaints from people who forgot they subscribed can push your emails into spam just when they matter. Shopify Messaging's smart delivery, on by default for segments over 1,000 subscribers, limits large sends to engaged subscribers.

Measure and adjust

Judge campaigns by what they sold and what they cost in unsubscribes, not by opens alone, because an open doesn't tell you whether anyone bought. For each campaign record orders, revenue per recipient, unsubscribes and spam complaints. Every quarter, look for patterns: which days, topics and offers work, and which segments respond. Then change next quarter's plan.

Common mistakes

1. Planning a week ahead. Rushed campaigns are generic and often go out late for gift dates.
2. Everything to everyone. No segments means more unsubscribes and complaints.
3. Discount-led every time. It trains customers to wait for codes.
4. Ignoring shipping cut-offs. A gift email after the last posting date sells nothing.
5. No results column. Without results, next year's calendar is a guess.
6. Waking up old contacts for Black Friday. It risks spam folders when the stakes are highest.

Email calendar checklist

• Flows live before campaign planning starts.
• Send frequency chosen and the monthly cost checked.
• Key dates for your markets entered, plus your own launches and sales.
• A segment, offer and subject line on every row.
• No more than one in three campaigns led by a discount.
• Carrier last posting dates checked for gift seasons.
• Black Friday plan started by September.
• Results recorded after every send, reviewed each quarter.

Next steps

Copy the template into a spreadsheet, add your dates and products, and plan the next three months in detail. Then keep going one month at a time. If you want an outside view of your email and store before peak season, request a free store review and I'll tell you what to fix first.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Shopify Messaging email pricing, Shopify Help Center
2. Creating customer segments, Shopify Help Center
3. Segment query language reference, Shopify
4. Message delivery in Shopify Messaging, Shopify Help Center
5. Email sender guidelines, Google Workspace Admin Help

Related services and work

Written by Ashraf Siddik

I'm a Shopify developer and CRO specialist. I have built and improved Shopify stores since 2018, completed more than 1,000 projects, and hold a 4.96 average rating across 719 client reviews.

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