Black Friday 2026: what an online store prepares from September
Campaigns switched on in Black Friday week pay for heavily contested ad space while still learning who buys. What to set up, and when.
Why preparation decides Black Friday more than the budget does
A store that switches on its Black Friday campaigns in the week of the sales buys some of the most contested ad space of the year with campaigns that don't yet know who buys. Google and Meta put new and heavily changed campaigns through a learning period, and results are unstable while it lasts. In the one week where every day counts, you can't afford to pay for the learning.
The work that decides Black Friday happens in September and October: a clean product feed, approved promotions, sales tracked correctly, audiences built and an offer calculated on margin. In November, you simply raise budgets on a structure that already works.
Time works in your favour too. At Ritual Aromas, a premium aromatherapy store, the work on its Google Ads and Meta Ads campaigns took ROAS from 2.1x to 4.8x in two months, roughly the time between mid-September and Black Friday.
What to put in place in September and October
A product feed without errors
Check Merchant Center for disapproved products and warnings, and fix them now while there is time. Clear titles, correct prices and up-to-date stock decide which products appear in Google Shopping and Performance Max. For discounts, the feed has a sale price field (sale_price) and an effective date, so the displayed price changes on its own at the time you set. The detail is in our guide to the Merchant Center product feed.
Promotions submitted early
Merchant Center promotions, such as discount codes shown next to a product, go through a review before they appear. Submit them a few days before the start, so the offer is approved when the sales begin.
Sales tracked correctly
Compare the orders in your store with the conversions Google Ads and Meta report for the same period. If the platforms see far fewer sales than the store, automated bidding learns from a smaller business than the real one and may bid too cautiously exactly when it matters. A common cause is a cookie banner wired wrongly to the measurement tags, explained in our guide to Consent Mode v2 and server-side tracking.
Audiences built in advance
Customer and site visitor lists need time to grow, and the platforms need time to match them. Upload the list of customers who gave marketing consent to Google Ads and Meta, check that remarketing is collecting visitors, and build audiences from people who bought in the same period last year.
Creative and pages ready before the start
New ads go through approval, and in Black Friday week approvals can take longer. Prepare the creative, the copy and the offer pages in October and keep them paused until the start.
How to set the offer: start from the margin
A Black Friday discount starts from the margin on each product. The competitor's discount tells you what shoppers expect, but it doesn't tell you what you can afford.
For each category, work out the minimum ROAS at which a sale still makes a profit after the discount. A bigger discount shrinks the margin, and the minimum ROAS rises. On a low-margin product, an aggressive discount can turn every sale from ads into a loss, however much volume it brings.
Minimum ROAS = 1 ÷ margin left after the discount
A worked example in percentages: at a 50% margin, the minimum ROAS is 2. A 20% discount leaves a margin of 37.5% of the new price, and the minimum ROAS rises to about 2.7. The full method is in our guide to the minimum profitable ROAS.
High-margin products can carry the discount. Low-margin ones can stay at full price and still gain from the traffic the offer brings.
A calendar for the weeks before
In Romania, the big retailers hold Black Friday in November, usually ahead of the American one. The exact date comes from the retailers, but everything below can be done before any announcement.
- Now, in September: a clean feed, sales tracking checked, the customer list uploaded.
- In October: the offer calculated on margin, creative and pages ready, promotions submitted in Merchant Center.
- In the last weeks before: campaigns live at normal budgets, so they get through the learning period. Google Ads also offers a seasonality adjustment, built for short events, which tells the bidding system a rise in conversions is coming.
- In the week of the sales: bigger budgets on the campaigns that have already shown results, with a daily eye on stock and on budgets that run out early.
- After the weekend: new customers move into the Christmas audiences.
After the weekend: Black Friday buyers become Christmas customers
Black Friday brings many first-time buyers, and many of them come for the offer. Their value shows at the second order. Put them in separate audiences, send them a Christmas offer that fits what they bought, and exclude them from acquisition campaigns so you don't pay again for customers you already have.
Frequently asked questions
When should I start preparing for Black Friday?
In September. The feed, sales tracking and audiences take time, and new campaigns go through a learning period. If you switch them on in the week of the sales, you pay for that learning exactly when ad space is most contested.
Should I launch new campaigns just for Black Friday?
You can, but launch them early so they get through the learning period before the sales. It is often safer to use the campaigns that already bring sales, with the offer products highlighted and the budget raised in the week of the sales.
How big should the discount be?
As big as your margin allows. Work out the minimum ROAS after the discount for each category: at a 50% margin, a 20% discount raises the minimum ROAS from 2 to about 2.7. If your ads can't reach that threshold, the discount turns sales from ads into a loss.
What do I do with new customers after Black Friday?
Put them in separate audiences, send them a Christmas offer that fits what they bought, and exclude them from acquisition campaigns. The value of a Black Friday customer shows at the second order.
Want to go into Black Friday with campaigns that have already learned and an offer built on margin?
We look at your feed, your sales tracking and the structure of your Google Ads and Meta Ads campaigns, and tell you what needs to be in place by mid-October. Send us a request and we'll look at your store together.
Adela Mincea
Fondatoare și strateg în marketing de performanță · DAFE Digital · Formator ANC
Adela is a founder and performance marketing strategist with 10+ years of paid media across Europe, the US and Asia. She founded DAFE Digital in 2023 after agency roles in London and Hong Kong, in-house work inside client organisations, and independent consulting across 27+ industries.
