Start holiday campaigns now at a modest budget, so tracking is tested, ads are approved, bidding has learned and audiences are filling before Black Friday week. Then plan spending week by week through to Christmas.

Switched on the week before

The holiday campaign goes live on the Monday of Black Friday week. The ads were written on Sunday night, the budget was set by feel, and the offer starts on Friday.

By Wednesday, two ads are still waiting for review. The bidding shows a learning status. A good share of the budget has gone on searches that have nothing to do with the store.

By the time the campaign has found its feet, the weekend it was built for is over.

Nothing went wrong, exactly. A new campaign spends its first days finding out what works, and those days were the most expensive of the year.

What a new campaign spends its first days on

The second is the one that cannot be hurried. Automated bidding learns from conversions, and a campaign that starts in the busiest week has to do its learning during it.

Learning periods

Google Ads shows a bid strategy as learning when it is new or has been changed significantly. During that time it is still working out which searches, times and devices lead to sales.

Facebook has its own version, the learning phase, for each new ad set. Results are less stable until it has seen enough of whatever the ad set is meant to produce.

Small budgets learn slowly, because they produce few results to learn from. And large edits can restart the process, which is why a campaign rebuilt in a hurry on Black Friday morning goes back to the beginning.

Audiences take weeks to fill

Remarketing shows ads to people who have already visited the site, and in December those are often the most valuable people to reach.

Those lists can only include visitors recorded by the site's tags. Google's tag and the Facebook pixel have to be on the site before the visitors arrive, or there is nobody to remarket to.

A store that adds its tags in the last week of November has almost nobody on its lists. One that adds them this week will have five weeks of gift browsers by Black Friday.

The privacy policy should say that the site uses remarketing, and how visitors can opt out, before the tags go on.

Conversion tracking comes first

Automated bidding can only count what the tracking reports. A sale that is never recorded teaches it nothing.

Make a real purchase through the site on a phone, and check that it appears once in Google Ads and in Facebook's reports, with the right value. Then refund it.

If it appears twice, or not at all, or with no value, fix that before spending anything. Every click bought before then is bought blind.

A worked example

An independent stationery shop with a small online store, selling notebooks, pens and next year's planners, switched on its first search campaign on the Monday of Black Friday week last year.

Two of its ads were held back because the offer was written in capital letters, which Google's ad policies do not allow. The bidding showed learning all week.

The daily budget ran out before noon on the Friday, much of it on searches for wedding planners. The remarketing tag had gone on that same Monday, so its list held only that week's visitors.

This year the tags went on in September, the tracking was tested with a real order, and the campaign went live this week at a modest daily budget, with wedding and event planners already excluded.

The budget is written down week by week to December 20, with the Black Friday increase decided in advance and the holiday ads already approved and scheduled.

None of that guarantees a good season. It means the campaign reaches the busiest week already knowing what it is doing.

A budget for the whole season

Holiday spending is not one weekend. For most stores it runs from early November to the last shipping date, and for local shops to Christmas Eve.

Plan it by week. A modest amount through early November, while bidding learns and audiences fill. More from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. Steady through early December, then a shift to local pickup and gift cards once shipping cutoffs pass.

Google Ads may spend up to twice the daily budget on a busy day, balancing it across the month, so set daily budgets with that in mind.

Clicks often cost more in the busiest weeks, when larger retailers raise their budgets. Money spent earlier, at quieter prices, tends to go further.

Ads written and approved in advance

Write the Black Friday ads now, and get them through review while review is quick.

Set them to start and stop with the offer, using campaign dates or automated rules, so nothing depends on somebody being awake at midnight.

And send each ad to the page that matches its offer. A Black Friday ad that lands on the home page wastes the click it paid for.

The counter-case

Not every business needs a holiday campaign. A contractor or a clinic whose busy season falls elsewhere can leave November alone.

A store with a very small budget may do better concentrating it on a few days with simple manual bidding, rather than paying for weeks of learning it cannot afford.

And an account with campaigns running all year already has its tracking, learning and audiences in place. It needs a weekly budget plan, not an early start.

For a store starting or restarting campaigns for the season, though, the advice stands: start now, start small, and grow into the busy weeks.

Starting this week

  1. Test conversion tracking with a real order.
  2. Add the remarketing tags if they are missing.
  3. Update the privacy policy to match.
  4. Launch at a modest daily budget.
  5. Write the holiday ads and get them approved.
  6. Plan the budget week by week.
  7. Change little during Black Friday week.

Step one comes before everything else, because every other step relies on it. Bidding cannot learn from sales it cannot see, and a budget planned on missing figures is a guess.

Matching each ad to the page it lands on is covered in ad copy that matches the page it sends people to.

Frequently asked questions

Why do late holiday campaigns struggle?

A new campaign spends its first days in review, learning which searches lead to sales, and filling audiences. Started in Black Friday week, it learns during the most expensive days.

What is the learning period in advertising?

The time automated bidding needs to gather results after a campaign starts or changes significantly. Google Ads shows it as learning; Facebook calls it the learning phase.

When should remarketing tags go on?

Now. Lists only include visitors recorded after the tags are on the site, so tags added in late November leave almost nobody to remarket to in December.

How should the holiday budget be planned?

Week by week: modest through early November, more from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, steady into December, then local pickup and gift cards after shipping cutoffs.

Can Google Ads spend more than the daily budget?

Yes. It may spend up to twice the daily budget on a busy day, balancing it across the month, so set daily budgets with that in mind.

Does every business need a holiday campaign?

No. A contractor or clinic whose busy season falls elsewhere can leave November alone, and an account running all year needs a budget plan rather than an early start.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Holiday ads not switched on yet?

Test your tracking this week. We will check the account and set a weekly budget through to Christmas.

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