In short and in plain language
In 2026, Black Friday is on 27 November. Cyber Monday is on 30 November. On these days many people shop online.
Ads on Google need time to get ready. New ads are checked first. So you set up your ads by 20 November.
The budget is the money you spend on ads. You raise it on the evening before the start. On 1 December you lower it again.
Google can change the bids for a few days. A bid is the amount you offer for one click. After the sale, the bids go back on their own.
We help you plan the ads for the sale and tidy up the account afterwards.
In 2026, Black Friday falls on 27 November and Cyber Monday on 30 November. Those four days change more in many ad accounts than the whole of October: searches for deals rise, other advertisers raise their bids, and the conversion rate jumps, only to drop again on 1 December. Anyone who only draws up the budget plan, switches bid strategies and submits sale ads during the sale week is working against the mechanics of Google Ads. Budgets have daily and monthly limits, automated bid strategies need a learning period after changes, and new ads have to be reviewed first. This article shows how to prepare budget, bids, sale copy and landing page in the five weeks or so before 27 November, why the seasonality adjustment is built for exactly this kind of period, and how the account moves into the Christmas season after Cyber Monday without leftovers.
Key points at a glance
- According to Google, seasonality adjustments are particularly suited to short periods of 1 to 7 days (Google Ads Help). The four days from 27 to 30 November 2026 fit, and bids return to normal on their own afterwards.
- For most campaigns, an average daily budget allows spend of up to twice that amount on a single day (Google Ads Help). Raising the budget on 26 November also shifts the limit for the rest of the month.
- After a bid strategy change, it can take up to around 50 conversion events or 3 conversion cycles (Google Ads Help). Strategy changes therefore belong in the first half of November, not in the sale week.
- Sale copy states the real period; a falsely claimed very short time limit meant to force an immediate decision is not permitted towards consumers (Annex No. 7 UWG). Most ads are reviewed within one business day (Google Ads Help), so submit them by 20 November.
- On 1 December the account is wound down: budget back to normal, countdown headline and promotion asset removed, sale page switched to the Christmas offer, and the conversion rate of the sale days recorded for next year.
Why Black Week starts in October
The figures show why preparation pays off. For Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025, the German Retail Federation expected revenue of 5.8 billion euros (HDE). The forecast meant a decline of just under two percent (HDE) compared with the previous year, the first since data collection began. In the accompanying survey of more than 1,000 online shoppers (HDE), 48 percent (HDE) planned to go bargain hunting on Black Friday. A representative survey of 1,120 internet users aged 16 and over (Bitkom) found that 52 percent (Bitkom) wanted to take advantage of the reduced prices around Black Friday and Cyber Week, most of them online. For an ad account this means: the demand is there, but it is concentrated on a few days. If your ads are not shown on those days because the budget has run out or an ad has not yet been reviewed, you miss exactly the searches the sale was meant for.
At the same time, Google Ads runs on its own timetable, which has little to do with the shop calendar. New or edited ads are usually reviewed within one business day (Google Ads Help); more complex reviews take longer. Automated bid strategies need time after every major change before they are calibrated again. And a budget raised on Friday morning only takes effect from that moment. The sale week itself is therefore the wrong time for rebuilding. Whatever is meant to run on 27 November is ready in the account by the week before at the latest, reviewed and paused, and is simply switched on at the start. The wider framework for the Christmas season, from product data and shipping deadlines to peak load, is covered in the roadmap for the Christmas season in your online shop. This article is about the ad account.
The 2026 dates at a glance
The daily budget: what Google may spend in a day
Most campaigns run on an average daily budget. The name is misleading if you read it as a fixed daily cap. Google spreads spend across the month and spends more on days when clicks and conversions are more likely. For most campaigns, the daily spending limit is twice (Google Ads Help) the average daily budget, and the monthly limit is 30.4 times (Google Ads Help) the average daily budget. The 30.4 is the average number of days per month, that is 365 days divided by 12 months (Google Ads Help). As a worked example: a campaign with a daily budget of 50 euros may spend up to 100 euros on a single strong day, but it is charged no more than 1,520 euros over the month.
For Black Week this has two consequences. First, the system already uses the headroom: on a busy Black Friday, a campaign may spend above its average without any action on your part. Second, every budget change affects the monthly limit. After a change, spend for the rest of the month does not exceed the new daily budget multiplied by the remaining days. Google works through an example from November: a campaign has spent 103 euros by 24 November, and the daily budget is now raised to 10 euros for the remaining 7 days. The maximum charged for November is then 173 euros (Google Ads Help), that is 103 euros plus 10 euros times 7 days.
This leads to a simple rule: the budget is not raised weeks in advance, but on the evening before the sale starts, so on 26 November, and it is reduced again on 1 December. Raising it at the start of November may spread the extra amount over days when customers compare prices but wait for Friday. Whether your customers hold back in the week before or already buy is shown by a comparison with last year in your own account: the daily view for November with the columns cost, conversions, conversion rate and, for shops, conversion value. That table is the basis for everything else, from the budget plan to the size of the seasonality adjustment.
| Budget type | How it calculates | Suitable for |
|---|---|---|
| Average daily budget | Up to twice on a single day, up to 30.4 times per month (Google Ads Help) | Existing campaigns that keep running in the sale week |
| Campaign total budget | Fixed amount from start to end date, no daily limit, minimum duration 3 days (Google Ads Help) | A separate sale campaign from 27 to 30 November |
| Shared budget | One amount shared by several campaigns | Several small campaigns with the same goal |
A total budget for a separate sale campaign
Alongside the daily budget, Google Ads offers a campaign total budget. It is intended for cases where a set amount is to be spent over a set period. Spend is adjusted daily so that the total budget is used up over the remaining days. There is no daily spending limit, and you are charged no more than the total budget. The minimum duration is 3 days (Google Ads Help). A sale campaign from 27 to 30 November, with four days, meets that; a campaign for Black Friday alone does not.
Two restrictions matter. Total budgets are only available for new campaigns; an existing campaign cannot be switched over later (Google Ads Help). And Google advises against frequently changing the budget or end date of a running campaign with a total budget, because this can lead to uneven spend. A sale campaign with a total budget is therefore set up cleanly once, with a fixed amount, a start date of 27 November and an end date of 30 November, and then left to run. For the learning period, one detail from the help page is useful: campaigns with a total budget do not need a new learning period if goals are set at account level.
When is a separate sale campaign worth it compared with the existing one? It is worth it when the sale has its own range, its own search terms such as “Black Friday” combined with the product name, or its own landing page. It then separates sale costs cleanly from day-to-day business, and the evaluation after Cyber Monday becomes easier. If, on the other hand, the same products run at sale prices on the same search terms, the existing campaign with a higher daily budget and a seasonality adjustment is often the calmer route, because it keeps its conversion history. Avoid two campaigns on the same search terms and products; Google also recommends avoiding overlap between campaigns when using total budgets.
- Export last year's figures per day from 20 November to 4 December: cost, clicks, conversions and conversion value
- Note the normal daily budget of each campaign so the wind-down on 1 December is unambiguous
- Set the sale budget per day and check the total against the monthly budget for November
- Decide which campaigns are raised and which keep running unchanged
- For a separate sale campaign: total budget, start and end date, no second budget on the same search terms
- Put the dates in the calendar: budget increase on 26 November, wind-down on 1 December
Bids: a seasonality adjustment instead of constant changes
If you work with an automated bid strategy such as target ROAS or target CPA, you give Google a goal and let it calculate bids for each auction. According to Google, Smart Bidding already takes seasonal events into account on its own. For sales and promotions where you expect a significant change in the conversion rate, there is also the seasonality adjustment. It tells the system in advance that the conversion rate will be clearly different during a specific period from what the data of the past weeks suggests.
Google clearly limits its use. Seasonality adjustments are particularly suited to short periods of 1 to 7 days (Google Ads Help) and may not work as well over longer periods of more than 14 days (Google Ads Help). They also only make sense when a significant change in the conversion rate is expected. The four days from Black Friday to Cyber Monday sit exactly in the recommended window. An adjustment across the whole of Black Week from 20 to 30 November, eleven days, would already fall outside it. There it makes more sense to pick out the days with the biggest jump and leave the rest to the system.
The adjustment is available for Search, Shopping, Demand Gen and Display campaigns with the target ROAS and target CPA bid strategies, and for Performance Max campaigns with all bid strategies (Google Ads Help). If you run a Search campaign with “Maximise clicks” or manual CPC, you cannot use it there and steer bids and budget directly in the sale week. In that case the bid increase goes into the same calendar as the budget increase, and so does the reversal on 1 December.
The adjustment is set up under Tools, Budgets and bidding, Adjustments, tab “Seasonality”. You enter the start and end, the scope, meaning all campaigns of one type or specific campaigns, and the expected change in conversion rate in percent. Google gives the example of a three-day sale for which the conversion rate is expected to rise by 50 percent (Google Ads Help); in that case an adjustment of up to 50 percent is entered. The practical advantage comes at the end of the sale: after the event, bids return to the previously established performance, so no reverse adjustment is needed (Google Ads Help).
Where the percentage comes from
Why changes shortly before the start get expensive
Automated bid strategies show the status “Learning” after a change. Google names several triggers: a newly created or reactivated strategy, a changed strategy setting such as a new target, and a change in composition when campaigns, ad groups or keywords are added or removed. It can take up to around 50 conversion events or 3 conversion cycles (Google Ads Help) for the strategy to adjust to the new goal. How long that takes depends on the number of conversions and on how much time passes between click and purchase.
For an account that gets a few dozen orders a month through ads, 50 conversions (Google Ads Help) mean several weeks. A strategy change on 25 November thus lands in the middle of the sale, and the strategy is learning on exactly the days when it moves the most money. The calendar rule is therefore: new bid strategies, changed targets and restructured campaigns belong in the first half of November. In the sale week, strategy and targets stay as they are, and steering happens through budget and the seasonality adjustment.
A second safeguard concerns tracking. If conversion measurement fails during the sale week, for example because a tag is lost while the sale page is rebuilt, the bid strategy learns from wrong figures. Data exclusions exist for this case: you mark the affected period, and Smart Bidding leaves the data from it aside, while conversion reports stay unchanged. Google generally advises against backfilling data and allows it for reporting purposes only after a waiting period of at least 5 days (Google Ads Help) after the exclusion has been applied.
By 13 November
Fix bid strategy and targets, finish the campaign structure, test tracking on the sale page. After that, no more changes that trigger a learning period.
26 to 30 November
Raise the budget the evening before, seasonality adjustment active for the four sale days, targets unchanged. Check spend, status and conversions daily.
From 1 December
Budget back to normal. The seasonality adjustment ends on its own; countdown headlines and sale copy are removed or paused.
Sale copy with dates, countdown and promotion asset
A sale ad has to say at first glance what is on offer and until when. Responsive search ads allow up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions (Google Ads Help); headlines are limited to 30 characters (Google Ads Help), descriptions to 90 characters (Google Ads Help). For Black Week it pays to name the period explicitly, for example “Black Week: 27–30 November”, rather than just “On offer now”. That gives searchers clear information and is immediately noticeable if the ad keeps running by mistake after the sale.
A countdown makes the period visible. It is inserted into the ad text with a curly bracket and counts down first in days, then in hours and minutes to the set end. Without your own setting, the countdown starts 5 days (Google Ads Help) before the end date. With a sale ending on 30 November, it would therefore start on 25 November, before the sale begins. Google counts the days as midnights (Google Ads Help); entering 3 in the “Countdown starts” field makes the countdown run from 0:00 on 27 November. Three details matter. The countdown generates a code of up to eight characters (Google Ads Help) that needs room in the headline. Responsive search ads also need at least three headlines (Google Ads Help) without a countdown, or alternatively a default text. And after the end date, ads with a countdown are no longer shown until the headline is unpinned or changed.
The third tool is the promotion asset. It appears below the ad, shows the occasion in bold and can display a discount as an amount or percentage, plus conditions such as a promo code. For the occasions “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday”, Google sets the period from 15 October to 15 December (Google Ads Help); the advanced options let you narrow it to the actual sale days. The asset itself costs nothing; clicks are charged, and at most two clicks per ad impression (Google Ads Help). Important for planning: promotion assets for an occasion must have been created or edited in the 6 months (Google Ads Help) before their start date. An unchanged asset from last year therefore does not simply become active again but has to be edited.
Time limits, stock and discounts must be accurate
That leaves the review. Most ads are reviewed within one business day (Google Ads Help); more complex reviews may take longer. If you want an ad reviewed by a specific date, Google advises submitting it a few days in advance. In practice: sale ads, countdown headlines and promotion assets are created by 20 November and submitted paused, because paused ads are reviewed just like active ones. For a separate sale campaign the start date is then enough; sale ads in existing campaigns can be activated at the desired time with an automated rule. How to present an offer as a benefit rather than a feature is shown in the article on website copy that sells.
A fixed landing page instead of changing addresses
The ad makes the promise, the landing page has to deliver. For Black Week this means a sale page that shows exactly the advertised products, names the period and contains the same conditions as the promotion asset. A fixed address such as /black-friday/ that is reused every year makes more sense than a new address with the year in it. It collects links over the years, and in the ads only the text needs updating, not the final URL. Outside the sale, the page shows a note on the next sale or the current range instead of an error page.
The fixed address has another advantage: every edit to an ad restarts the review (Google Ads Help). If you do not have to change the final URL in the middle of the sale, for example because a new address with the year goes live late, you avoid a review round during the sale week. How the page itself should be built so that a click turns into an order is described in the article on the landing page that converts. Three points matter most in the sale week: the page loads quickly even under load, the price with its reference price sits right next to the product, and the path to the basket does not detour via the home page. Our conversion optimisation starts exactly there.
Before the start, tracking needs a check. A test order via the sale page shows whether the conversion arrives in the account with the right value. If you pass on revenue values, check that discounts and vouchers correctly reduce the value sent; otherwise target ROAS calculates with values that are too high and bids too aggressively in the sale week. Which metrics count beyond the sale is described in the article on measuring website success.
Wind-down after Cyber Monday
The sale ends at midnight on 30 November, and the account should not keep running in sale mode on 1 December. The biggest risk is leftovers: a raised daily budget that runs into December, ads with “Black Week” in the headline, a promotion asset with the occasion period running to 15 December, or a landing page that still promises sale prices the shop no longer offers. The last of these is not only annoying for customers but also problematic under competition law.
- Reset daily budgets to the noted normal values; campaigns with a total budget end on their own
- Check that the seasonality adjustment ends on 30 November as planned; no reverse adjustment is needed
- Pause sale ads, unpin countdown headlines or replace them with Christmas copy
- Remove promotion assets with the occasion Black Friday or Cyber Monday, or keep them limited to the sale days
- Switch the sale page to the Christmas offer or a note on the next sale
- Export cost, conversions, conversion rate and conversion value per day and compare them with last year
The evaluation is the real gain for next year. Record by what factor the conversion rate on the sale days rose compared with the two weeks before, how much budget was actually spent and on which day the budget became the limit. This gives you the percentage for next year's seasonality adjustment and the budget plan you start with in October. For the weeks after, it is worth looking at the returns from the sale week; the article on reducing online shop returns covers the levers that bring them down.
Roadmap to 27 November
| Week | Period | Task in the account |
|---|---|---|
| CW 43 | 19 to 23 October | Export last year's data, clarify targets and budget frame, define the sale range |
| CW 44 and 45 | 26 October to 6 November | Decide on campaign structure: existing campaigns or a separate sale campaign with a total budget |
| CW 46 | 9 to 13 November | Last changes to bid strategies and targets, test tracking on the sale page |
| CW 47 | 16 to 20 November | Create sale ads, countdown and promotion assets and have them reviewed while paused |
| CW 48 | 23 to 27 November | Create the seasonality adjustment, raise the budget on 26 November, switch on on 27 November |
| CW 49 | 30 November to 4 December | Cyber Monday, from 1 December wind-down and evaluation |
This roadmap fits a small account with a few campaigns just as well as a shop with several campaign types. The effort lies in last year's data and in the discipline not to rebuild anything during the sale week itself. Basics on campaign structure, budget and conversion tracking are covered in the article Google Ads for small businesses, which describes getting started without a seasonal angle.
Our Google Ads management handles these steps with you: budget and bid management, conversion tracking, sale ads and the wind-down after the sale, coordinated with the sale page in your online shop. If Black Week is part of a larger campaign across newsletter, website and ads, our online marketing brings the dates together in one shared plan.
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