1
Now to end of September You are here
Start now
Lock your regular prices
If you want Google to show a sale price badge ("was $80, now $60") on your Shopping ads, your normal price needs to have been stable for roughly 45 to 60 days first. The discount also needs to be meaningful (around 15% or more), and the sale price in your feed has to match the price on your website.
For a Black Friday start on 27 Nov, don't change your regular prices after the end of September. Mid October at the absolute latest.
This also keeps you on the right side of the ACCC. A "was" price needs to be a price you genuinely charged.
Check your tracking works
Everything Google does during the sale depends on it knowing which clicks turn into sales. Before you spend more money, check:
- Your purchase conversion is firing and recording the order value
- Purchases in Google Ads are roughly in line with your Shopify orders from Google. It won't match exactly, but it should be in the same ballpark
- Only one purchase conversion is set as the main goal, so sales aren't being counted twice
If tracking is broken, fix it now. Not in November.
2
Early October You are here
Know your numbers
Look back at last year
Pull last year's results for three periods: the two weeks before your sale, the sale itself, and the week after. Look at:
- Cost per click: how much did it go up during the sale? It's normal to see 25 to 50% higher
- Conversion rate: did more people buy? If CPC went up but conversion rate didn't, your offer or your page was the problem, not Google
- Return on ad spend (ROAS)
- Did you run out of budget? Look for "Limited by budget" or impression share lost to budget on your biggest days
Then ask yourself: which offer worked best, and which flopped? Which products sold, and which got clicks but no sales? What were competitors doing? What do you wish you'd done earlier?
No history? That's fine. Use your best recent month as your baseline and plan conservatively.
Work out your break-even ROAS
This is the most important number for the whole season.
Break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ your gross margin %
Example: you sell a product for $100 and it costs you $40 (product, packaging, shipping, fees).
Full price $100
1.67
Margin $60 (60%). Every $1 in ads needs $1.67 in sales to break even.
25% off, now $75
2.14
Margin $35 (47%). The same product now needs $2.14 in sales per $1.
The discount makes every sale harder to profit from. So you need to know your numbers before you pick your discount, not after. Repeat customers and bigger baskets can change the maths in your favour, which is a good reason to still run the sale, as long as you've done the sums.
Break-even ROAS calculator
Use your average order, or run it for your hero product. It assumes your ROAS holds during the sale, so treat it as a planning guide.
Break-even now
1.67
60% margin
Break-even on sale
2.14
47% margin at $75
Biggest discount you can afford at your current ROAS
Add your ROAS
Before ads cost more than the profit on the sale
Enter your numbers to see what your discount does to the return you need.
3
Mid October You are here
Decide your offer
You don't have to discount
Discounting isn't right for every brand. If you're premium or your margins are tight, look at added value instead:
- Free shipping over a threshold
- A gift with purchase
- Bundles
- Early access for your email list
- A limited edition product
These often protect your brand and your margin better than a big percentage off.
If you do discount
- Pick the discount you can actually afford, using your break-even ROAS
- Decide which products are in and which are out. Your hero products don't always need to be discounted
- Decide your exact start and end dates and times
Write your offer in one sentence. That sentence becomes your ads, your emails and your banner.
4
Late October You are here
Build the foundations
Landing pages
A sale page or collection that matches your ads. Offer visible without scrolling. Tested on your phone, because most sale traffic is mobile. Quick to load.
Product feed
Sale products in stock and approved in Merchant Center. Disapprovals fixed now. Sale prices with start and end dates. Leave a few days for changes to process.
Merchant Center promotions
Promotions add a "special offer" link to your Shopping ads. Set exact start and end dates and submit well ahead so they're reviewed in time.
Build your audiences
- Check your remarketing is collecting website visitors
- Grow your email list in October. Your list is your cheapest Black Friday traffic
- If your account is eligible, upload your customer list to Google Ads
5
Early to mid November You are here
Get your ads ready
Ads
- Write sale ads that lead with the offer, such as "Black Friday: 25% Off Everything"
- Include what makes you different: free shipping, Australian made, gift ready
- Add a countdown to your Search ads so they show "Sale ends in 2 days". Start it 5 to 7 days before the end, not weeks
- Add sale images to your Performance Max asset groups, in square, landscape and portrait sizes
- Set start and end dates on everything so nothing is left running after the sale
Promotion assets
Add a promotion asset to your Search and Performance Max campaigns and choose "Black Friday" or "Cyber Monday" as the occasion. It gives your ad its own highlighted offer line, which helps it stand out when everyone is running a sale.
Keywords (if you run Search)
Add Black Friday versions of your main keywords, such as "black friday [your product]". Label them so you can pause them all at once afterwards.
Submit everything by mid November. Google needs a few business days to review new ads and promotions, and it's busiest right before Black Friday. And don't launch brand new campaigns in November. New campaigns need time to learn, so anything new should be live by the end of October.
6
16 to 30 November You are here
Sale week
The pre-sale dip is normal. In the week or two before Black Friday, a lot of shoppers hold off because they know a sale is coming. Sales can look slow and ROAS can drop. Don't pull back budgets or change your campaigns because of it.
Budgets
- Plan your sale budget in advance, based on last year plus your growth goal
- Raise Search and Shopping budgets on the day the sale starts
- For Performance Max, raise it in steps of 20 to 30% a day rather than doubling it overnight. Big jumps tend to push the extra money into display and video instead of Shopping. Start the steps 2 to 3 days before the sale so you reach your sale budget on day one
- Google can spend up to double your daily budget on a busy day. That's normal, and it evens out over the month
- Your biggest risk is running out of budget on your best day. Check "Limited by budget" on Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Targets: which one are you?
Maximise conversion value, no targetBudget is your main lever. Leave the bid strategy alone.
Target ROAS, sale runs a couple of weeksLower the target by 10 to 20%, starting about 2 weeks before your biggest days. Google copes better with a gradual change than a sudden one.
Short sale (a few days) and plenty of sales in your accountA seasonality adjustment can help. Base the percentage on how much your conversion rate went up last year, and start conservative, around 20 to 30%. Once it's set, don't edit the dates; create a new one instead. Don't use one on a small account with only a handful of sales a week. Ask me first.
Don't lower targets and add a seasonality adjustment at the same time. That doubles up.
Watch
Cost per click is your best live signal. ROAS lags, because people click today and buy tomorrow.
Also watch
Budget running out early in the day, and products selling out. Pause those.
Don't
Restructure campaigns, judge ROAS hour by hour, or change things every day. Decide, then give it time.
7
1 to 3 December You are here
Put everything back
This is the step most people forget, and it's the one that hurts January.
If you ran a short, very big sale, a data exclusion can stop Google treating those days as normal. It usually covers about 3 days and never more than 7. Most small stores won't need this. Ask me if you're not sure.
8
December You are here
December is three mini seasons
1. Gifting
Swap sale messaging for gift messaging: gift guides, gifts under $50, gift wrapping. Push gift-friendly products to the front.
2. Shipping cut-off
Add your "order by" date to ads, emails and your site. After the cut-off, lead with click and collect, express or gift cards. Pull back on products that won't arrive in time.
3. Boxing Day
A smaller Black Friday. Offer decided, ads and promotions submitted a few business days before Christmas. Put everything back once it ends.
9
January You are here
January cleanup
Search terms
In the first two weeks after each sale, look at your search terms report for things like:
- "black friday deals" or "boxing day sale" after the sale is over
- "[your brand] discount code" when there's no code running
- "christmas gift for..." after shipping cut-offs
Add these to a seasonal negative keyword list. Turn the list on after the season and off before next year's sale, so you don't block next year's shoppers.
Write it down
Spend 30 minutes on your season notes while you still remember. This page is where next year's plan starts.
- What did you spend, and how much more than normal?
- Which offer worked best, and which didn't?
- Which products and campaigns did best?
- Did you run out of budget? When?
- What did competitors do?
- What did you change, and when? Budgets, targets, dates.
- What would you start earlier next year?
