If 2025 felt like the hardest Peak ever, that’s because it was.

The frenzy, the noise, those last-minute pushes: last year’s Peak was intense. And to rub salt right down into the wound, for many retailers, the ROI was… underwhelming. Yep, if Peak ‘25 felt like it was the hardest one yet, you’re not alone.

To find out why Peak 25 felt different, we looked at data from across our global customer base – that’s billions of interactions that flow through our platform during Peak  – and we have some… thoughts.

Here are the patterns we saw, and what you could be doing differently this year.

During BFCM 2025, messaging volumes increased by up to 32% – inboxes full, SMS pinging and other channels getting more crowded – all competing for the same attention.

At the same time, customers increasingly see all those messages as background noise, a low hum they hardly notice.

The scary thing? Even if they DO notice your message bombardment, it might actually backfire – a third disengaged from brands that contacted them too frequently.

What to do instead:

Get super strategic about when, how and why you contact customers. Every message should be high value, otherwise you’re diluting your impact and training customers to ignore you. It’s also important to think about the full customer journey, not just your marketing messages. If a customer is already getting transactional messages, save the promotions for later.

One BCG study found that 60% of consumers are researching deals before November, and 37% want promotions a full month before BFCM.

If you wait until a few weeks out, send out a bunch of emails, and cross your fingers, you:

1. Are already too late
2. Can’t pick quieter send times
3. Will miss the chance to pivot if things aren’t working

By the time you hit send, you’re competing at the noisiest moment with the least flexibility. You’re joining the hordes who are reacting to Peak, rather than planning for it.

What to do instead:

Start planning for Peak earlier, and you can pick your timing and message strategy. As a bonus, nurturing relationships throughout the year is an excellent way to gather engagement data for your key customer segments. Best of all, starting earlier is totally free.

Where once you could rely on ramping up your sends, the BFCM landscape has changed. One 2026 study showed 58% of consumers think that most marketing emails aren’t relevant – generic messages to your whole database just doesn’t cut it any more. Again: noise.

What to do instead:

Swap messaging volume for targeted campaigns. Segment your audience, then use your data to craft messages that fit. Send your best customers VIP early access, suggest products to lower-frequency buyers, and offer special discounts on favourites.

A lot of retailers found Peak 25 particularly stressful because increased messaging volume put massive strain on untested platforms. Deliverability dropped, and revenue along with it. But the damage goes beyond delayed promotional messages. If your customer service channel is overwhelmed, messages queue up and response times stretch, so you’ll get frustrated customers sending repeat queries (just what you need, more messages).

Then there are the transactional messages – without them reassuring customers, you’ll probably see more incoming queries and more refund requests. When every sale is a chance to win loyalty, an untested platform means you end up doing the opposite.

What to do instead:

Use the buildup to Peak (aka the whole year) to pressure-test your platform – launch big campaigns to see how it performs and fix issues you find. That might mean shifting to a more robust messaging platform. Check on your reporting too – can you see your delivery and performance in real time? You’ll need that so you can step in before customers notice any problems or delays.

Last year felt harder because it was. You were competing against more noise, more competitors and a more cynical audience. The old send-more-messages playbook backfired, so all that effort hardly paid off. At the same time, you might have been firefighting platform weak points, or struggling to send properly targeted messages without decent audience data.

There were a few clear winners last year though. They were brands who started earlier, got strategic and targeted, and shored up their platform.

And most of them had the Sinch infrastructure behind them. It meant they had reliable message delivery, better use of customer data across channels and 360 support to turn early planning into something they could execute at scale.

They won Peak ‘25 – this year is still anyone’s game.

Author: Jade Gebbie Jade is Sinch’s APAC Campaigns and Content Marketing Partner, developing content that connects Sinch’s global story to the diverse markets of Asia Pacific.