Black Friday SMS Marketing in Ghana: 2026 Send Plan and Templates

VMVictoria ModeyOctober 27, 202311 min read

November 2026 calendar showing a Black Friday SMS send plan for Ghana, with Sunday 29 November left empty

Black Friday 2026 falls on Friday 27 November, and if you sell to customers in Ghana, your texts need a plan well before the day. According to the NCA’s consumer guidance, promotional messages should reach consumers only between 8.00 a.m. and 7.00 p.m., and should not be sent on Sundays, so Sunday 29 November carries no send. This guide to Black Friday SMS marketing gives you a dated 2026 send plan that fits those rules, plus SMS and Voice SMS templates you can copy and edit.

When is Black Friday 2026, and when should you start?

Black Friday is the day after US Thanksgiving. In 2026, US Thanksgiving Day falls on Thursday, November 26, which puts Black Friday on Friday 27 November and the last day of the month on Monday 30 November.

In Ghana, you don’t have to squeeze your offer into one day. According to Jumia’s preliminary results release, the e-commerce platform ran its 2025 Black Friday event from 31 October to 30 November 2025.

For the two months ended 30 November 2025, Jumia reported that in Ghana its orders rose 81% and its gross merchandise value (the total value of goods sold) rose 132% year-over-year. The same release reported that in Nigeria its physical goods orders rose 28% and physical goods gross merchandise value rose 45% over that period. These are preliminary figures for Jumia alone, not for retail as a whole in either country.

Our advice is to start your campaign in mid-November. A teaser in the week of Monday 16 November gives customers time to plan a purchase. It also gives you a week to fix a broken link or a wrong date before the offer goes live.

What are the NCA’s rules for promotional SMS in Ghana?

The NCA’s consumer guidance covers promotional, advertising and marketing messages, and it counts messages sent through third-party providers as well as those from mobile networks. So it applies to a Black Friday campaign you send through a bulk SMS platform. Three points shape your plan.

What time can you send promotional SMS in Ghana?

The guidance says promotional messages should reach consumers only between 8.00 a.m. and 7.00 p.m. Schedule every Black Friday send inside that window. Leave yourself a margin rather than booking a send for a few minutes before 7.00 p.m.

Can you send promotional SMS on a Sunday in Ghana?

No. The same guidance says promotional messages should not be sent on Sundays. In 2026 that rules out Sunday 29 November, two days after Black Friday, so the plan below skips it and picks up again on Monday.

Does every Black Friday message need an opt-out?

Yes. The NCA’s Code of Conduct on Unsolicited Electronic Communications requires a means to unsubscribe in all commercial electronic communications.

Every template in this guide ends with an opt-out line. Write that line to match the opt-out method you actually offer your customers, and remove anyone who asks from your contact groups before your next send.

Who makes sure your sends land inside the window?

You do. When you schedule a campaign, you pick its date and time, so check each one against the 8.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m., Monday-to-Saturday rule before you confirm it. If you’re unsure whether a message counts as promotional, our guide to how promotional and transactional SMS differ walks through the distinction.

If you also text customers in Nigeria, remember that these timing rules come from Ghana’s regulator. Check Nigeria’s own rules before you schedule any sends there.

Your Black Friday 2026 SMS send plan for Ghana

This plan answers when to send Black Friday SMS in Ghana, day by day. Each customer gets one message per day at most, and no more than three Black Friday messages across the season. Every send time sits inside 8.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m., and nothing goes out on Sunday.

Day	Date	Message	Channel	Who gets it	Send time
Tuesday	17 November 2026	Teaser	SMS	Your full customer list	10.00 a.m.
Thursday	26 November 2026	Early access	SMS	Your best customers	4.00 p.m.
Friday	27 November 2026	Launch: the offer is live	SMS	Everyone except your best customers and your voice group	9.00 a.m.
Saturday	28 November 2026	Launch as a voice call	Voice SMS	Your voice group (Ghana only)	11.00 a.m.
Sunday	29 November 2026	No promotional send	None	Nobody	None
Monday	30 November 2026	Last chance	SMS	Customers who haven’t bought yet	9.00 a.m.
Tuesday	1 December 2026	Thank you and next offer	SMS	Customers who bought	10.00 a.m.

Keep every send inside 8.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m., Monday to Saturday. Within that window, move the times in the table to suit your customers.

How many Black Friday texts should you send?

Plan on three per customer. Everyone gets a teaser and the launch. The third message depends on whether they bought: customers who haven’t bought get the last-chance reminder on Monday, and customers who bought get the thank-you on Tuesday instead. Your best customers get the launch a day early instead of on Friday, and your voice group hears it on Saturday instead of reading it on Friday. Nobody gets two launch messages.

Rather than adding sends, use contact groups to decide who gets which message. Update your buyers group before Monday’s send. A customer who buys after the last-chance text has already had three messages, so leave them out of the thank-you.

Build your groups before 16 November

You need three groups to start: your best customers (repeat buyers or loyalty members, however you define them), customers who prefer a voice call, and everyone else. Start a fourth group for buyers, empty at first, and add each customer as they buy, from your checkout codes or your sales record: Monday’s and Tuesday’s sends depend on it. Arkesel’s SMS Platform lets you organise contacts into groups and send instantly or schedule a campaign for later, so you can queue every date in the plan in one sitting.

Schedule the whole plan in one sitting. Create your Arkesel account, add your customers to contact groups, and queue each send for its date and time before the season starts.

Black Friday SMS templates you can copy

What should a Black Friday SMS say?

Say who you are, what the offer is, when it ends, where to get it, and how to stop hearing from you. The Black Friday SMS templates below follow a three-message structure: Teaser, Engagement and Action. Replace everything in square brackets, including the brackets, before you send.

Each template starts with your business name, so customers know who is writing, and ends with an opt-out line. Put in your real discount where you see [X%]. The templates don’t suggest one.

Each SMS template fits in one 160-character segment once you fill it with a typical shop name, product, discount, short link and opt-out line. A long shop name or opt-out line can push a message over, so shorten the product description first.

Teaser templates (week of 16 November)

[Shop name]: Black Friday is coming! Offers on all our [product category] start [start date] and run [number of days] days. [Opt-out line]
[Shop name]: Black Friday Alert! Get [X%] off our [product] from [start date] to [end date]. Get ready! [Opt-out line]
[Shop name]: Our Black Friday flash sale opens [start date] at [your shop link]. Save the date! [Opt-out line]

Engagement templates (launch day)

[Shop name]: Black Friday deals are live! Get [X%] off all [product/service] at [your shop link]. [Opt-out line]
[Shop name]: Black Friday sale! [X%] off all [name of products] till [end date] at our shop in [your town/branch]. [Opt-out line]

Template 5 is for shops customers can walk into. For your Thursday early-access send, use template 4 and add the customer’s first name after your business name.

Voice SMS script (Saturday 28 November): Happy Black Friday! [Company name] brings you jaw-dropping discounts on [product category] from now until [end date]. Visit us at [your town/branch] or call [phone number] to order. Again, that’s [Company name]. [Spoken opt-out line]

Action templates (last day)

[Shop name]: Black Friday Sale! Save [X%] on [name of products] till [end date]. Shop now: [short link to your shop] [Opt-out line]
[Shop name]: Last day! Our Black Friday prices on [product category] end at [closing time] today: [short link to your shop] [Opt-out line]

After the season (1 December)

[Shop name]: Thank you for shopping with us this Black Friday, [first name]. Look out for our next offer on [date]. [Opt-out line]

Whichever Black Friday sale SMS you pick, send each customer no more than one template from each set. If you use a short link, check where it lands before you schedule the send.

How long should a Black Friday SMS be?

Keep each message to one segment, which is one billable SMS unit: 160 characters in the standard SMS character set, counted after you fill in the placeholders. Arkesel bills per segment, so a message that splits into two is charged as two messages.

A single character outside the standard set, such as an emoji or a curly quotation mark, cuts each segment from 160 characters to 70 and multiplies the charge. Our guide to SMS length and Unicode explains how the count works, and you can check current pricing before you send.

Count with real values. Fill the placeholders with your longest product name and a long customer first name, then count.
Type in plain text. Some word processors swap straight quotation marks for curly ones as you type, so write or paste your final copy in a plain-text editor.
Leave out emoji. One emoji is enough to shrink every segment.
Keep your name first and the opt-out line last. Both survive when you trim the middle.
Test on your own phone. Send each final message to yourself before you schedule it.

To address customers by name, merge first names from your contact groups. Our guide to personalizing bulk SMS shows how to set it up.

Should you add a voice message to your Black Friday campaign?

If some of your customers in Ghana prefer to listen rather than read, yes. Arkesel Voice SMS delivers your message as a voice call to phones in Ghana.

You can record the script yourself, or type it and let text-to-speech read it aloud, in English, Twi, Hausa, Ewe and other languages. You can schedule the campaign in advance, too.

Record in your customers’ language. Use the language you speak with them at the counter or on the phone.
Keep it short. Say your business name at the start and again at the end, and state the offer and the end date once.
Send it instead of the text, not as well. Your voice group hears the launch on Saturday 28 November in place of Friday’s SMS.
Treat calls like texts. Schedule them inside the plan’s times, and never on Sunday.
Include a spoken opt-out. Tell listeners how to stop receiving your calls.

Voice SMS reaches phones in Ghana only. Customers in other countries get the SMS version of the plan.

How do you know your Black Friday SMS marketing worked?

Measure each send separately, so next year’s plan starts from evidence rather than memory.

Delivery reports. Arkesel’s SMS Platform lets you watch delivery reports update in real time. Check the failed numbers after each send, and our guide to SMS delivery reports explains what each status means.
A short link per send. If your link tool counts clicks, create a separate link for the teaser, the launch and the last-chance message.
A code per message. Ask customers to quote a code at checkout or at the counter, such as TEASE17, BF27 or LAST30, so you can tell which message brought them in.
Sales by day. Compare sales on each send date with an ordinary week in October.

Before you close the campaign, remove anyone who opted out.

Before you delete any other number, save a copy of the contact group, for example in a spreadsheet, so you can restore it. Then remove only numbers that failed on every send this season, not ones that failed once. One failed send is not proof that the number is dead. The delivery reports guide above explains which status to check.

Get your Black Friday 2026 texts scheduled

Black Friday SMS marketing in Ghana works best when the dates, the send times and the words are settled before the season starts. Build your groups, fill in the templates, and schedule each send inside the NCA’s 8.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. window, with Sunday 29 November left empty. When the season ends, our calendar of Ghana’s holiday selling windows and our guide to measuring SMS marketing results help you plan what comes next.

Create your Arkesel account and schedule your Black Friday texts now. New accounts get free credits on signup for SMS and Voice SMS, and our current pricing page shows today’s rates.