如何在BFCM周运营全漏斗电商账户

This year, Black Friday is Nov. 27 and Cyber Monday is Nov. 30 and winning Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) week with a full-funnel ecommerce account comes down to addressing three things, done in order. Fill the funnel in early November so there is more demand to capture, give your bidding room to capture it efficiently during the week, and keep selling to that same audience through December.

In September, I covered how to structure a full-funnel ecommerce account before Q4, meaning the exclusions, customer lists, and prospecting budget. This article is the playbook for running that account through peak season, phase by phase.

Fill The Funnel Before Black Friday

In my experience, the BFCM weeks that go best in our accounts are the ones where the work started in early November. By Black Friday, every retailer in your category is bidding for the same shoppers. In our accounts, what converts during Q4, specifically BFCM and Holiday, comes from people who found you in the weeks, or even months before. We see shoppers holding out for your best offers during this time and it’s your job to remind them they were looking, waiting to purchase, and get them to purchase. Your job leading up to the holidays is building up your prospecting and growing your funnel as much as possible to expand that audience that would convert down funnel during BFCM.

Ramp Meta Prospecting In Steps

The last thing you want heading into BFCM is your Meta ad sets dropping back into the learning phase. An ad set usually exits learning after about 50 results in the week after its last significant edit, and Meta notes that ad sets in learning are less stable and usually have a higher CPA. Meta also warns that frequent budget changes can send an ad set back into learning. So step budgets up gradually through early November, and your prospecting will be stable and spending efficiently before peak week instead of relearning the week it matters most. You don’t want to overpay during a season where you’re already paying above your baseline.

Launch Holiday Creative Before The Week

Meta recommends waiting to edit until an ad set is out of learning, because editing an ad, ad set, or campaign during the learning phase resets it. Build your BFCM creative early and launch it in the days (or week(s), depending on learning) before Black Friday, so the learning happens ahead of peak traffic instead of during it. On Google, the retailer guidance is to upload new holiday asset groups at least two weeks ahead so they are approved in time, and asset group scheduling lets you switch them on when the sale starts.

Move Your Google Targets Now

Google’s retailer guidance notes that a lower ROAS target can help maximize visibility for priority products in the weeks leading up to peak periods, when many people are browsing. So if you plan on lowering ROAS targets to build volume, do it in early November, before Black Friday week. Keep track of where your targets and budgets started so you know exactly what to reset them to in December, and while you’re at it, decide which date ranges you’ll compare in your January review.

Lock The Offer, Including One For New Customers

By now, you should have already decided the offer so everything downstream can be built around it. Merchant Center promotions let you mark an offer for new customers, and Google shows it only when it judges a shopper likely to be new. That puts your best offer in front of the people your prospecting is bringing in, but it does not guarantee that existing buyers won’t see it. Here is a quick checklist for Merchant Center we use:

Use sale_price instead of overwriting price. Keep price at the full value. That is what lets Google show the strikethrough and sale badge, which in the U.S. requires a 5% to 90% discount and a regular price charged for at least five of the past 30 days.
Match the site. The sale price has to match your landing page and checkout, with both prices shown on the page. Mismatches get corrected from your landing page or disapproved, and Google’s automatic fixes are not built for catalog-wide errors.
Add a time and time zone to sale dates. Without them, Google uses midnight to 11:59 PM UTC, so a Pacific brand’s sale starts at 4 PM on Thanksgiving and ends at 3:59 PM on Cyber Monday. Write it like 2026-11-27T00:00-0800/2026-12-01T00:00-0800.
Load promotions early. Google reviews every promotion before it shows, and free shipping promotions need a coupon code.

Capture Demand During BFCM Week

Once the week starts, the goal is capturing as much of the demand you built leading up to BFCM as you can, at the revenue you need and a ROAS you are happy with.

Give Google Room To Spend

Google’s retailer guidance is to plan budgets early and stay ready to capture extra sales, and its budget recommendations will flag campaigns where your ads could stop running on your busiest days. A campaign can spend up to two times your daily budget but no more than 30.4 times your average daily budget cap in a month. So you just want to be careful not to overspend leading into Black Friday and run out of room to spend during your peak revenue time of the year.

Tell Smart Bidding About The Promo

Smart Bidding already accounts for seasonal events like the holidays, but Google built seasonality adjustments so you can tell it about expected conversion rate changes from a specific promotion or sale ahead of time. Google’s retail guidance is to use one for short events where you expect conversion rates to change by more than 30% in under seven days, like Black Friday weekend, and only on campaigns with conversion history. You can set this from past results and if Black Friday converted at roughly double your November baseline yearly, on average, that is your input. For a longer promotion or smaller conversion rate fluctuations, adjust your ROAS targets manually instead, and remember to set them back afterward. A seasonality adjustment, by contrast, returns bidding to normal on its own when the window ends.

Let Harvest Campaigns Take The Extra Money

During BFCM week, in our accounts, prospecting CPMs hit their peak and prospecting doesn’t look great on reporting, because branded search and retargeting are converting at their cheapest. I would continue Top of Funnel (TOFU) prospecting because people are still in discovery mode but those mid-to-bottom funnel harvesting campaigns are going to be where the additional budget should be spent. On our accounts selling higher consideration products, we regularly see shoppers who first came in through November prospecting buy in December, which is why we keep it running through BFCM week.

Fix What Is Broken Early

Work with the team to confirm nothing is broken going into BFCM and what should be acted on during that week:

Product disapprovals and feed errors dropping items.
A promo live on the site but missing from your listings, or a price mismatch between feed and landing page.
Conversion tracking that has stopped firing. Fix it, then apply a data exclusion for the affected window. Google’s guidance is to exclude at least 90% of the affected clicks, never remove an exclusion once applied, and generally avoid backfilling the missing data.
Campaigns capped by budget that are hitting target.

Higher Meta CPMs, a single bad day of ROAS, Performance Max shifting spend between asset groups, and higher retargeting frequency are all normal for peak week in our accounts. They can wait until December 2.

Convert The Funnel In December

Early December is where the prospecting campaigns you kept running pay off. In our accounts it usually comes with less competition than Black Friday itself, which is great for ROAS.

Retarget BFCM Week Visitors Who Did Not Buy

Everyone who came to your site during peak week and left without purchasing is now your warmest audience. Lean into that. Build retargeting around them on both platforms, and lead with shipping deadlines rather than a deeper discount. In our accounts, the urgency of getting an order in before the shipping cutoff in the second week of December is one of the strongest messages of the season. It also lets you keep selling without training shoppers to wait for the next wave of discounts.

Reset Bidding Without Overreacting

When promo pricing comes off, conversion rates fall back toward normal. In our accounts that usually shows up as a few days of overbidding in early December that settles on its own. Reset targets back to where they were before the holidays, and give it a few days before reacting to the overbidding. Then clean up. Let sale price dates expire, end finished promotions, and pull countdown copy and time-limited assets from every campaign, including the ones nobody remembers building.

Read What Prospecting Produced

The new customers coming through in early December are the first real read on whether the full-funnel work paid off, and they are the number to bring into your January review.

Where To Focus Before Nov. 27

Winning with a full-funnel ecommerce account through BFCM week is mostly decided before Thanksgiving. Ramp Meta prospecting in steps, launch creative, and move Google targets early, and lock your offer and Merchant Center setup. Then give the bidder headroom and one seasonality adjustment once the week starts, hold prospecting flat, and spend early December converting the audience you built.

If you only do one thing this week, pull last year’s Black Friday conversion rate against your November baseline. It tells you whether a seasonality adjustment is worth setting and exactly what to set it to.

Key Takeaways

Winning BFCM starts in early November. Ramp Meta prospecting in steps and get holiday creative launched before the week, so your audience is built and out of learning before peak week.
Lock your offer and Merchant Center setup before Thanksgiving, including a new customer promotion that puts your sharpest offer in front of prospects.
During the week, give Google budget headroom and one seasonality adjustment for the hard promo window, and let harvest campaigns take the extra money while prospecting holds flat.
December is where the funnel pays off. Retarget BFCM week visitors who did not buy, lead with shipping deadlines, and reset bidding targets in steps.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock

FAQ

When should I start preparing my ads for BFCM?

Early November at the latest. Meta ad sets need about 50 results after a significant edit to exit learning, and Google recommends uploading new holiday asset groups at least two weeks ahead so they are approved in time, so budget ramps and creative both need lead time before Black Friday.

Should I turn off prospecting campaigns during Black Friday week?

Usually not. In our accounts, prospecting looks expensive on reporting during peak because branded search and retargeting are converting at their cheapest, but people are still in discovery mode, and the audience prospecting builds in late November is a big part of what buys in December.

Should I use a seasonality adjustment for Black Friday?

Yes, if you expect your conversion rate to change by more than about 30% over less than a week and the campaign has conversion history. For a longer promotion or a smaller lift, Google recommends adjusting ROAS or CPA targets manually instead. Base the adjustment on your own past promo results rather than a round number.

How much should I increase Google Ads budgets for BFCM?

Enough that your best campaigns are not capped on the busiest days. A campaign can spend up to twice its average daily budget on a given day but no more than 30.4 times it across the month, so a budget sized for an average November day can run out on Black Friday. Google’s budget recommendations will also flag campaigns at risk of not running on your busiest days.

What should I do with my ads after Cyber Monday?

Retarget BFCM week visitors who did not buy, and lead with shipping deadlines rather than a deeper discount. Reset bidding targets back to where they were before the holidays, then let sale price dates expire, end finished promotions and pull countdown copy from every campaign.