Black Friday and Seasonal Sales: Preparing Your Google Ads Campaigns
Black Friday falls on Friday 27 November 2026 and Cyber Monday on 30 November; in France, the winter sales start on Wednesday 6 January 2027. Over such short periods, demand and conversion rates change within hours: the accounts that succeed are the ones prepared four to six weeks ahead.
In short: secure the budget for peak days, warn automated bidding with a seasonality adjustment, show the offer in your ads with promotion assets, declare promotions in Merchant Center, and measure the result over the right period. This article details each step, with Google’s official rules.
The preparation timeline
Most Black Friday mistakes are timing mistakes: an ad approved too late, a product feed disapproved the day before, a budget exhausted by 2 pm. The schedule below leaves time for approvals and for bidding to learn.
| When | Action |
|---|---|
| D-45 to D-30 | Define the offer, the products involved and the goals (revenue, margin, new customers). Check conversion tracking and conversion values. |
| D-30 to D-14 | Prepare ads, promotion assets and Merchant Center promotions. Launch any new campaigns now, not the day before. |
| D-14 to D-7 | Get ads and promotions approved. Build remarketing audiences. Schedule seasonality adjustments and budget increases. |
| D-1 to D+3 | Monitor budget, delivery and stock several times a day. Do not change bid strategies. |
| D+7 to D+30 | Analyse once the conversion delay has passed, then prepare the next sales period. |
Why launch early? Automated bid strategies learn from conversion history (About Smart Bidding, Google FAQ). A campaign created the day before Black Friday has no history at the moment it matters most.
Budget: don't stop in the middle of the peak
A Google Ads daily budget is an average. For most campaigns, Google can spend up to twice that budget on a given day, but never charges more than the daily budget multiplied by 30.4 in a month (About average daily budgets, Google FAQ).
That mechanism is not enough for Black Friday: if demand triples, the allowed doubling does not cover it, and the campaign stops in the afternoon, just when shoppers compare offers. Three precautions:
- Raise the budget before the peak, not during it: a same-day increase often comes too late;
- Plan the way back: note the original budgets and restore them on D+1 or after Cyber Monday;
- Use a campaign total budget for a campaign dedicated to a fixed period, where the campaign type allows it: Google spreads one amount over the period and never charges more than that total (About campaign total budgets, Google FAQ).
Bidding: warn Smart Bidding with a seasonality adjustment
Smart Bidding already anticipates usual seasonal changes. Google therefore recommends using seasonality adjustments only when a major change in conversion rate is expected over a short event, typically a sale (About seasonality adjustments, Google FAQ).
The rules to know, according to Google:
- the adjustment states an expected change in conversion rate (for example +40%) for a scheduled period;
- it suits short events, generally one to seven days, and may work less well beyond 14 days;
- it applies to Search, Shopping, Demand Gen and Display campaigns using Target CPA or Target ROAS, and to Performance Max campaigns whatever their strategy;
- no negative adjustment is needed after the event: bidding returns to normal on its own (About seasonality adjustments, Google FAQ).
For the set-up, see Create a seasonality adjustment, Google FAQ. In practice, one adjustment covering the Black Friday to Cyber Monday weekend makes sense; one adjustment for four weeks of sales does not. For sales periods, target the first day and the first weekend, where the conversion rate gap is largest.
What not to do: change bid strategy, or sharply lower a target CPA, in the week before. The algorithm would go back into learning at the worst possible time.
Ads: show the offer with promotion assets
Promotion assets show your offer below the ad, with the event name as a label (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, winter sale and so on) and the discount amount or percentage (About promotion assets, Google FAQ). Google states that:
- they can be added at account, campaign or ad group level, the most specific level taking priority;
- adding them is free: a click on the promotion is charged like a click on the ad;
- an occasion-based promotion must be created or edited within six months of its start date (About promotion assets, Google FAQ).
Prepare them with precise start and end dates: the promotion appears and disappears on its own, with no action needed on the day. In responsive search ads, add two or three headlines about the offer, without pinning them, and keep your usual headlines for non-promotional combinations (see Optimising Google Ads Ads and Landing Pages: RSAs, Testing and Metadata).
In the EU, any price reduction must be calculated against the lowest price applied in the previous 30 days (the Omnibus Directive, article L112-1-1 of the French Consumer Code). A discount shown in an ad must therefore match what the product page shows.
Shopping and Performance Max: Merchant Center promotions
For Shopping ads, promotions are declared in Merchant Center. They can show in Shopping ads and in free listings, and Google reviews them before they serve (Get started with Promotions, Google FAQ): one more reason to submit them early.
Merchant Center also offers sale events, designed for operations such as Black Friday. Unlike promotions, they do not require mapping each product and accept discount ranges such as « up to 40% off » (About sale events, Google FAQ).
Two checks prevent most disapprovals: the sale price in the feed (sale_price) must match the price on the page, and the promotion dates must cover exactly the period of the offer.
Measuring, and preparing the next sales
A Monday-morning review is almost always wrong: part of Black Friday’s conversions arrive in the following days. Wait at least your usual conversion delay before drawing conclusions, and compare with an equivalent period (the same week last year, or the preceding weeks), not the yearly average.
The useful indicators: conversion value and margin rather than revenue alone, the share of new customers, and the hours when budget was limiting. These guide the preparation of the January sales, six weeks later. Black Friday buyers also make a ready-made remarketing audience for the opening of the sales.
The most common mistakes
- Launching campaigns or promotions the day before, with no time for approval or learning.
- Letting a budget run out in the early afternoon of the peak day.
- Changing bid strategy or targets in the days before.
- Applying a seasonality adjustment over several weeks.
- Forgetting to restore budgets and ads after the event.
- Judging results before the conversion delay has passed.
Conclusion
Black Friday and seasonal sales are won before the event: a budget sized for the peak, bidding warned by a targeted seasonality adjustment, and an offer visible in the ads and approved in Merchant Center. On the day, all that is left is monitoring.
To estimate the budget you need, see our article on what Google Ads costs. Preparing your year-end? Let’s talk.
Frequently asked questions
When should I start preparing Black Friday in Google Ads?
Four to six weeks ahead, which means early to mid October for Black Friday on 27 November 2026. New campaigns should run for at least two weeks before the peak so that automated bidding has data.
Should I raise bids manually for Black Friday?
With Smart Bidding, no: bids are already set at every auction. If you expect a major change in conversion rate, use a seasonality adjustment (About seasonality adjustments, Google FAQ). What needs to go up is the budget.
Can I use a seasonality adjustment for the whole sales period?
It is not recommended: Google says these adjustments suit short events and may work less well beyond 14 days. Keep them for the first days of the sales.
Do promotion assets cost extra?
No. Adding them is free; a click on the promotion is charged like a click on the ad (About promotion assets, Google FAQ).
Updated 28 October 2026. Sources: Google’s official documentation, checked on that date.
About the author: Alain Vanhee is an independent paid search consultant based in Lille, France. He has managed Google Ads and Search Ads 360 accounts for more than fifteen years, with budgets from 1 to 20 million euros a year, in e-commerce and lead generation. Request an audit