How to schedule cold email around holidays
How-to guide Updated 12 July 2026
How do you schedule cold email around holidays?
Attach a holiday break schedule to the campaign when you build it, matched to your ICP's country. Sending pauses on those days and resumes the next working day, no lead skipped. Claude can set a different holiday set per regional campaign in a couple of prompts, plus any custom breaks you want.
No credit card required.
Before you start
You need a HotHawk account and the HotHawk MCP server connected to Claude. It takes a couple of minutes and no code. Full setup is on the MCP server page.
Step by step
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1
You ask Claude
Build a US campaign called Q4 Retail that skips the American public holidays.
Claude callsmcp__hothawk__campaigns_createname "Q4 Retail" timezone America/New_York holidayIds US public holidaysClaude builds the campaign with a US holiday schedule attached. On Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July and the rest, sending simply pauses and picks up the next working day.
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2
You ask Claude
My German list should skip German holidays instead. Set that up.
Claude callsmcp__hothawk__campaigns_createname "DACH Outbound" timezone Europe/Berlin holidayIds German public holidaysA second campaign, this one paused on German holidays. Your DACH leads never get an email on a day the whole country is off.
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3
You ask Claude
Also block the week between Christmas and New Year on both.
Claude callsmcp__hothawk__campaigns_createholidayIds custom break: 24 Dec to 2 JanA custom break goes on both campaigns. Sending stops for the dead week and resumes in January, so nothing gets buried under a fortnight of unread mail.
A send on a holiday is a wasted touch
You only get so many touches before a lead is done with you. Three, four, maybe five if the copy is good. Burning one on the Fourth of July, when the office is empty and your email will be buried by the time anyone is back, is a touch you do not get back.
It is the quiet kind of waste, because the campaign still says it sent. The email went out. It just went out to nobody who was reading. Multiply that across a public holiday and a list of a few thousand and you have spent a whole step of the campaign on an empty room.
Attach a break schedule per region
Build the campaign with a holiday schedule attached and HotHawk pauses sending on those dates and resumes the next working day. No lead is dropped and no step is skipped. A follow up that would have gone on Thanksgiving simply goes on the Friday instead.
The trick is matching the schedule to who you are emailing. Your US campaign skips US holidays, your DACH campaign skips German ones, and the two never borrow each other's calendar. Claude can set both up from the same chat, and add a custom break on top, the dead week between Christmas and New Year being the one nobody should be sending into.
It pairs with timezone sending
Holidays and time zones are the same instinct: reach people when they are actually at their desk. Send in their local morning, and skip the days the whole country is off. Together they mean every touch you spend arrives on a day and at an hour when someone might read it, which is the entire point of picking your moments.
A break schedule only decides which days the campaign is allowed to spend. It leaves the sending itself alone: mailboxes rotate, warmup runs on real Google and Microsoft inboxes and no tracking pixel goes out, on a bank holiday exactly as on a Tuesday. All you are choosing is which days are worth a touch, so you never waste one on a day nobody is reading.
The HotHawk tools behind this
Every action here is a real endpoint. Claude reaches it over the MCP server, and you can hit the same endpoints directly from the REST API if you would rather build it into your own stack.
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mcp__hothawk__campaigns_createCreate the campaign with a holiday break schedule attached
Frequently asked
Why pause cold email on holidays at all?
Because a send on a public holiday is mostly wasted. It arrives while the office is empty, sits unread for a day or two, and by the time your prospect is back it is buried. You have spent one of your touches on a day nobody was reading. Skipping it saves the send for a day it can work.
Can I use different holidays for different regions?
Yes, and you should. American holidays are not German ones. Attach the US schedule to your US campaign and the German schedule to your DACH campaign, so each list only pauses on the days that actually matter to it. Claude can set both up from the same chat.
What happens to the campaign timing when a holiday hits?
Sending pauses for that day and resumes on the next working day. The campaign does not lose a step or skip a lead. It just shifts the send out, so a lead due a follow up on a holiday gets it the morning after instead.
Can I block my own custom dates beyond public holidays?
Yes. Public holidays are the common case, but you can block any dates you like, the dead week between Christmas and New Year being the obvious one. Anything you know your ICP will be away for, you can turn into a break.
Do I need to write code?
No. Attaching a holiday schedule to a campaign is plain language over the MCP server. The REST API is there if you want your own system to apply the right holiday set based on a lead's region automatically.