In this insightful session, Ruben Quinones, VP at Amsive, speaks with digital marketing experts Inna Zeyger and Laurin Bobo to share actionable last-minute strategies for optimizing Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns. Covering everything from Google Ads adjustments to audience retargeting and creative approvals, this LinkedIn Live is packed with tips to drive maximum conversions during the busiest eCommerce season of the year.
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Catch the key takeaways
Here are the top takeaways from the conversation:
1. Consistency protects performance
Launching brand-new campaigns before major sales resets learning phases and weakens automated bidding. Instead, make adjustments within your existing structure to preserve performance data and bidding efficiency.
For advertisers using tCPA or tROAS, continuity is critical. The algorithm performs best when it builds on existing data, not when it has to relearn right before your busiest season.
2. Use ad extensions to highlight promotions
There’s no need to rebuild campaigns for short-term deals. Tools like Google’s Promotion Extensions, sitelinks, and callouts make it easy to feature limited-time offers without affecting ad delivery or disrupting algorithmic learning.
These extensions allow you to layer on new sale messaging, like “Free shipping” or “30% off,” without changing campaign structure or resetting performance history.
3. Plan budgets and bids for holiday behavior
Expect fluctuations in CPA and ROAS as competition and consumer intent shift during the season. Instead of pausing campaigns, scale bids strategically to capture increased demand while maintaining efficiency.
Even as sales start earlier each year, consumers still check back on Black Friday and Cyber Monday for the best deals. Keeping campaigns live and learning ensures you capture those late-stage buyers.
4. Use AI to streamline optimization, but keep marketers in the loop
AI can analyze massive amounts of data, surface bidding opportunities, and identify performance trends faster than manual monitoring. But human expertise is essential to interpret those signals and make brand-aligned decisions.
AI accelerates pattern recognition and testing, while your marketers guide what to change, when to pivot, and how to align results with real business goals. The best performance happens when machines and marketers work together.
5. Avoid creative approval delays
Timing is everything. Upload ads at least seven days before major sales events like Black Friday or Cyber Monday to avoid getting caught in Google’s review queue. Delays or disapprovals can derail campaign launches during crucial hours.
Early uploads also give teams room to troubleshoot, test variations, and ensure every version is ready to go before the rush begins.
6. Leverage CRM data and seasonality adjustments
Your first-party data is one of the most valuable assets for holiday advertising. Build audiences from last year’s Black Friday or Cyber Monday buyers to retarget loyal customers or create high-performing lookalike segments.
After Cyber Monday, use Google’s seasonality adjustments to recalibrate spend and protect performance. This tells Google to reduce ad serving as conversions naturally dip, preventing wasted budget in slower periods.
FAQs: Managing Google Ads During Peak Holiday Sales
How early should I prepare my Google Ads for the holidays?
Start planning two to three weeks ahead. Upload new creative or extensions at least seven days before your promotion to allow time for review and approval.
Should I launch new campaigns for Black Friday or Cyber Monday?
No. It’s better to adjust your existing campaigns to maintain data history and algorithmic learning. Use extensions or updated ad copy to add seasonal messaging.
What happens if I pause campaigns during the holidays?
Pausing resets learning in automated bidding systems like tCPA and tROAS. Keep campaigns running and adjust bids or budgets instead of turning them off.
How does AI support campaign performance?
AI can automate bid adjustments, detect trends, and recommend optimizations quickly—but human oversight ensures those changes align with brand goals and context.
What’s the best way to handle post-holiday slowdowns?
Set seasonality adjustments to account for lower conversion rates after Cyber Monday, helping maintain budget efficiency without sacrificing reach.
Can CRM data improve Google Ads results?
Yes. Upload customer lists from previous holiday buyers to retarget or build lookalike audiences, improving efficiency by focusing on proven high-value shoppers.
Transcript
The Importance of Consistency in Google Ads
[05:27]
Maintaining consistency and continuity is crucial, particularly when using Google and algorithmic bidding strategies like TCPA or TROAS. It’s important to be mindful of the potential impact that campaign creation can have on the algorithm.
Inna explains that creating new campaigns right before Black Friday often leads to algorithmic disruption, resetting learning phases and diminishing performance. Instead, marketers should make adjustments to existing campaigns to maintain their momentum.
Leveraging Google Ad Extensions
[07:18]
There are two key tools that are often kept in the toolkit for short promotions, especially during holidays. The first is extensions on Google, particularly the promotion extension, which creates a subset of the ad below the main content to highlight the sale, such as 30% off, free shipping, or a free item with purchase. This approach doesn’t disrupt the ad’s learning phase and allows the existing ads to continue running while incorporating the Black Friday and Cyber Monday messaging. The second is using sitelink extensions or callout extensions to highlight the promotion, further drawing attention to the sale and expanding upon the key message.
Laurin highlights the use of promotion extensions and account-level headlines to share holiday deals without creating new campaigns. These tools allow marketers to enhance ad performance quickly and with minimal disruption.
Budget Management and Bidding Strategies
[12:35]
TROAS and CPAs are expected to be significantly different from those seen during non-promotional periods. While these metrics have changed over the years, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday no longer being the sole focus of promotions, user behavior still follows a familiar pattern. Even though many promotions may start well before these key dates, consumers will continue to check in on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, hoping for better or stronger deals, despite there being no new promotions.
Inna emphasizes the importance of adjusting TROAS and TCPA bids to accommodate increased holiday demand. She also advises against pausing campaigns, as doing so resets algorithmic learning and negatively impacts performance.
Optimizing Social Media Campaigns
[15:18]
It’s still recommended to introduce new creative within existing campaigns. While some businesses create new campaigns for new creative, if algorithmic bidding is used— which most social platforms do—it’s best to avoid significant disruptions and maintain the historical data on those campaigns. Overall, social platforms provide a bit more leeway, but businesses need to assess this based on their conversion volume.
For businesses generating only a few conversions per day, keep campaigns running to maintain their history. However, for businesses with a higher conversion volume, there’s more flexibility to create separate campaigns specifically for the holiday period. Ultimately, the decision depends on a business’ standard conversion volume.
Avoiding Creative Approval Delays
[16:42]
Laurin warns that the timing of when ads are set live is crucial for Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns, as these periods involve high volumes of ads being uploaded, all of which must go through a review process. Ads can sometimes be disapproved for minor reasons, leading to delays as they’re resubmitted for re-approval.
To avoid this, it’s recommended to upload ads at least seven days before the sale starts, ensuring they go through the review process and are ready to launch on time. Waiting until the last minute to upload ads can lead to missed opportunities, especially during critical sales events.
Audience Targeting and CRM Data
[22:33]
One effective strategy for businesses with access to CRM data from at least the previous year is to leverage customer behavior during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. User behavior during these sales periods differs significantly from regular periods, so businesses can create targeted audiences by identifying Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers from the previous year. These lists can be uploaded to various platforms to build lookalike audiences or retarget past customers who made purchases during those sales events.
The Role of Seasonality Adjustments
[31:01]
To account for performance dips after Cyber Monday, Inna suggests using Google Ads’ seasonality adjustments and data exclusions to recalibrate campaigns and optimize spend. This tool allows advertisers to adjust for expected drops in conversion rates, telling Google to reduce ad serving and spending during periods of lower demand. By proactively setting this adjustment, businesses can avoid wasting budget on ads that would otherwise result in poor performance.
Shifting Campaigns to Retail Platforms
[36:48]
In scenarios where inventory is low or shipping deadlines are missed, marketers can pivot by redirecting campaigns to retail platforms like Amazon or Walmart, ensuring sales continue through alternative channels.
For advertisers using platforms like Google Ads or paid social, it can be beneficial to shift advertising efforts to drive traffic to these larger retail sites, especially during high-demand periods like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. While this may not result in sales on the advertiser’s website, it can still capture sales through these platforms.
Final Thoughts
[40:35]
The panel concludes with advice for staying organized and adaptable.
- Maintaining consistency in bidding strategies, especially with algorithmic bidding (TCPA, TROAS), is crucial.
- Leveraging Google’s promotion extensions, sitelink extensions, and callout extensions allows marketers to highlight holiday sales without disrupting ad performance
- Ads should be uploaded at least seven days before major sales events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday to avoid delays in approval.
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