Black Friday and Google Ads – of course, some of the points apply to the other channels.
Not all companies always manage to participate properly on Black Friday, Black Week or Black Whatever. There may be various reasons for this. But we have made a list of some of the lessons we see as a marketing agency that companies should have in order when they get ready for the week.
1. Prepare your ads well in advance so they are approved
Do it well in advance so you have time to make any corrections or if your ads are rejected the first time, you can review them until they are approved. This is not very easy during Black Week itself, as there is pressure – regardless of which channel you advertise on.
2. Make sure there is congruence in your message
Make sure your Black Friday landing page(s) have the right deals you are advertising. It disrupts credibility and user experience to come across something different than what you expected.
3. Add alternative payment options / cards – More cards are being declined due to higher than normal spend
It’s always a good idea to offer multiple payment options. But especially during Black Friday and Black Week. Due to increased spending, more cards are declined.
4. Check the shopping feed is working before – We don’t want to sit around and find out sale_price isn’t working
Are you advertising on Google Shopping? Make sure the feed is working first! It is important that the offers are displayed on the items we sell.
We also recommend that you update the feed manually (with the new Black offer prices) at 00:01 – It is not good if our feed is updated too late and retrieves the new offer prices in the middle of the day. Update it manually at 00:01 from Google Merchant Center.
5. Seasonal bid adjustments – avoid confusing your algorithm and future performance
If you are running Smart Shopping / automated bidding, you should consider using “seasonal bid adjustments” to avoid confusing the “regular operation” algorithm when Black Week or Christmas sales come. There you tell the algorithm that you expect an increase / decrease in conversions, so that is why we want to change our bid. It is better to be ahead of the curve so that the algorithm does not have to spend a few days learning while your competitors who use this strategy are selling from day 1.
6. Make sure your search campaigns are being published properly
Plan your Google search campaign releases based on the right headlines. Check they work. There may have been technical/human errors – It takes 10 minutes to check they work.
7. Set rules/notifications on your ads for the day(s) and week
It’s a good idea to set rules to trigger an alarm (an email) if, for example, you are limited by budget. It’s a shame if you have good performance, but you’re busy with other things and can’t spend two minutes increasing your budget because you didn’t get an email. You can also set up automatic rules that can do this for you, but if you haven’t used automatic rules before, we don’t recommend testing them out during Black Week.
8. Use all relevant extensions
Have relevant ad extensions ready for the day/week (sitelinks, info extensions, promotions, etc.). Ad extensions can give your users extra exposure, plus our ads can take up more space on the screen so we get better CTR and a competitive advantage over those who don’t use ad extensions – Remember to hit the Black Friday extensions again after the week/day/weekend.
9. Optimize your feed for special offers
If you only have deals on specific products, only include those in the feed on that day/week/weekend. People are only looking for deals this week.
10. Have your tracking in place
Make sure your tracking is working! Regardless of which analytics tool you use (Google Analytics, Matomo, Piwik Pro) it is important that you get your information correct. The same goes for your Pixels (Facebook, Snapchat etc.). Create audiences that target those who have abandoned their cart in just 3 days so you can advertise to the bargain hunters.
11. Evaluate last year’s Black Friday
What worked well? What didn’t work well? Use these answers actively to improve this year’s Black Friday if you have the data. Did we have enough stock last year? Any capacity issues? Website issues? Payment? Campaigns that performed well? Actions that could improve?
12. Don’t gamble.
Don’t gamble and test – if it’s up to you. This applies to plugins, feed tools, etc. The risk of it going wrong and the ads not running is typically not worth it.
13. Backup of data
If you are running manual bidding, download a backup of your data so that you can roll it back the following week. (This can be done in Google Ads Editor)
14. Manual CPC or Target ROAS?
INCREASE manual CPC or lower target ROAS to show – All advertisers who show during Black Week do this. They know there is extra competition that week – which means the CPC needs to go up and/or target ROAS needs to go down for your ads to show in competitive markets (REMEMBER to turn it back down the following week).
15. Show only dynamic displays with discounted items
When running a dynamic display campaign during Black Week, ONLY advertise on sale/discounted items. Danes are looking for deals this week – don’t waste your ad budget on “general” items.
16. Use discounted items on the site – not coupons
If you use Google Shopping, you should only use discounted items on the page. (This is purely Google Ads advice). By using discounted items, you get the sale price in the Google Shopping results. You don’t do that by using a discount coupon. Discount codes can be used in other contexts at other times.
This is purely a performance tip. If we use a discount code, we won’t get the sale price ‘sale_price’ in Google Shopping. And when people see products that are on sale and ours aren’t, they’re most likely going for the competitor’s.
17. Changes headlines/advertisement for Week / Friday / Weekend / possibly Cyber Monday
Tailor your headlines to the campaign you are in. If it’s Black Week – use Black Week headlines and when it’s Black Friday disable Black Week and enable headlines with Black Friday. So you always have the most accurate and relevant headlines.
18. REMEMBER to change back
We see people/companies forgetting to change their website, ad copy, ad bids back to “normal” the week after Black Week/Cyber Monday, which affects their performance. It’s not good if you’re still giving Black Week click rates/target ROAS for your ads the week after Black Week, when there’s no need for it. Remember to switch back to normal operations.
