Some people unsubscribe – and it’s fine. In my Bulletsmith launch I sent 12 emails in 5 days, 7 of them on the last day. Just over 1% of my list unsubscribed across the whole week (28 people on the 7-email Friday). Over 40% of sales came on the final day, and the “30 minutes left” email alone brought in roughly 1 in every 5 dollars of the launch.
00:00:11
Remember that number… because it’s my favorite “souvenir” from my August 2026 Bulletsmith launch.
(And I wrote this from Kefalonia, Greece… so the competition includes actual souvenirs)
Anyway…
Here’s the story:
Free book + AI assistant
Turn the Leads Already Joining Your List Into Buyers – Faster
The Rapid Lead Activator reveals the psychology-based framework I use to write welcome sequences that sell – without hype. Normally $9.99 on Amazon, yours free. Plus a bonus AI assistant that writes your first 5 welcome emails for you – in minutes, not days.
Send Me the Rapid Lead Activator →What happens in the last minutes of a launch?
On Friday at midnight ET, the Bulletsmith launch officially closed.
Now…
Midnight in New York is 7:00 am here in Greece.
And because I can never sleep properly in new places, I actually woke up around 6:45 am – totally by accident!
Once I realized there’s already a ray of light shining into my room, I stepped out onto the balcony to see the view.
And to my surprise, I got a glimpse of this…
In front of me:
The sun rising over ITHACA
Yes… THE Ithaca.
The island Odysseus spent 10 years trying to get back to!
It’s directly across the water from where I’m staying.
I pretty much never wake up so early to watch the sun rise, so this seemed like a mini “miracle” to me.
Once I marveled at the picturesque view in front of me, I then opened my laptop to see what was up in my inbox.
And on my screen, I could see the ThriveCart sales alert notifications… rolling in LIVE.
11:41 pm…
11:43 pm…
11:49 pm…
11:53 pm…
11:56 pm…
11:56 pm again…
11:57 pm…
Ding. Ding. Ding.
Real people, racing a real deadline, in real time…
…while I watched the whole thing unfold with the sun coming up.
And eventually, the very last one:
“12:00:11 am”
Eleven seconds past midnight?!
Okay…
Small confession about how my deadlines work:
The countdown says midnight…
But I always build in a secret 60-second grace window before the coupon self-destructs.
Why?
Because SOMEBODY is always mid-checkout, credit card in hand, when the clock strikes twelve…
And I refuse to slam the door on that person’s fingers.
So whoever you are, Mr. or Ms. 12:00:11…
You used 11 of your 60 secret seconds.
I salute you 😅
(And – as promised – at 12:01, the coupon died for real)
By the end, the launch ended up generating 74 sales 🎉
Definitely not my biggest launch this year, but not bad for such a niche product.
(THANK YOU to every single one of you who jumped in… you know who you are)
And the coolest part?
Those final-hour orders weren’t small, panic-grabbed orders…
They were the BIGGEST ones of the entire launch!
Those last few customers picked up a lot of upgrades and add-ons.
In fact…
That “last-minute crowd” – the people every guru tells you have already tuned out – showed up with the fullest carts of the week!
Is the “30 minutes left” email worth sending?
But wanna know a secret?
I almost didn’t send the email that made all of that happen!
It was Friday night (Budapest time), I was exhausted, mid-packing…
And I genuinely considered skipping the final “30 minutes left” reminder.
You know how that inner voice goes…
“Surely that’s overkill…
Surely everyone who wants it already got it…
Surely the SIX (6) emails you already sent on the last day will be enough…
Surely X, Y, Z”
I sent it anyway.
And that ONE email – the one I almost cut – triggered a real buying frenzy in the final 19 minutes before the deadline!
How big of a frenzy?
Well… how about this:
The final 30 minutes alone produced roughly 1 out of every 5 dollars of the ENTIRE launch 😮
One simple email (the simplest of all!)…
Thirty minutes till the deadline…
~20% of the whole launch revenue.
!!!
Why do most launch sales come on the last day?
And if we zoom out a little…
Over 40% of ALL sales came in on Friday… the final day.
After 5 full days of emails, stories, demos, and games…
Almost half the launch happened in the last 24 hours.
This isn’t a fluke, by the way….
I see some version of it in every single launch I run.
In fact, sometimes it can get as high as 60-70%!
Why?
Because people don’t buy when they’re “convinced”…
People buy when they’re FORCED TO DECIDE.
Your readers aren’t ignoring your deadline emails out of annoyance.
Most of them are waiting for the edge of the cliff…
…because the edge is where decisions finally happen.
Which actually brings up a fun exchange from mid-launch…
On Thursday, a reader replied to me:
“I got 3 emails so far today. This is really working for you?”
Fair question…
I told him the following:
“Wait till you see how I send 7 emails on the last day…
And how those 7 emails usually generate between 50-70% of the TOTAL amount of sales of the entire promotion
(btw, not just for me, but every single other high-level email marketer out there)
I’ve done about a hundred launches during my career, and this is usually one of the biggest constants every single time.
Totally understand if this isn’t for you… you can easily unsubscribe at the end of every single email I send”
I haven’t heard back yet… but he’s still on my list 😄
(Here’s how I plan those 7 last-day emails, one by one.)
Do launch emails make people unsubscribe?
“But what about unsubscribes?”
Let’s see…
– That week, I sent 12 emails between Monday and Friday
– SEVEN (7) of them on Friday alone
– By the logic of some “email marketing experts”, my list of 5,000+ should be a smoking crater right now
The actual damage?
Just over 1% of my list unsubscribed – across the entire launch week.
And on the big scary 7-email Friday, specifically?
28 people left.
28 people in exchange for the biggest sales day of the entire launch!
I’d sign that trade every single time.
Because here’s the truth nobody tells you:
99.99% of the people who unsubscribe during a launch were never going to buy.
They’re not “lost revenue”… but automated list pruning
MEANWHILE…
The people who stayed got a great story, a guessing game, a few laughs, a new tool…
And in 74 cases, something that’ll be making them money for years.
So if you have a list – 200 people or 20,000 – and you’ve been sitting on an offer because you’re scared of “annoying” them…
I hope this little debrief gives you permission to stop tiptoeing 🙂
Show up.
Tell the story.
Set a real deadline.
And send the last email…
ESPECIALLY the last email.
Your next launch, in 5 steps
1. Plan more emails on the last day than feels comfortable. That’s when people decide.
2. Write the “30 minutes left” email before the launch starts. Then you can’t talk yourself out of sending it at 11 pm.
3. Add a quiet grace window. Mine is 60 seconds. Somebody is always mid-checkout.
4. Count the sales on the last day, not just the unsubscribes. Mine: 28 people left, biggest sales day of the launch.
5. Treat unsubscribes as list pruning. The people who leave during a launch were never going to buy.
If you have an offer and a list – any size – Ignite & Sell is my system for turning them into a short, fast promo like this one.
Free book + AI assistant
Turn the Leads Already Joining Your List Into Buyers – Faster
The Rapid Lead Activator reveals the psychology-based framework I use to write welcome sequences that sell – without hype. Normally $9.99 on Amazon, yours free. Plus a bonus AI assistant that writes your first 5 welcome emails for you – in minutes, not days.
Send Me the Rapid Lead Activator →-Csaba
P.S. – Which type of buyer are YOU?
Odysseus took 10 years to reach Ithaca… some of my buyers took until 11:57 pm to reach checkout 😄
The “decides on day one” type…
…or…
The “11:56 pm, three tabs open, heart racing” type?
