by Austin LeClear on November 20, 2022

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are one of the biggest shopping events of the year, and for eCommerce businesses, that means it’s got the potential to be one of the most high-profit times of the year. It can also draw in new customers and drive sales from existing customers alike, making it an extremely valuable opportunity.

In order to get your piece of the Black Friday sales pie, however, it’s essential to know how to market your products properly. Google Ads will expand your reach and put your ad campaigns— and your products— directly in front of people looking for them. The hard part, of course, is that a solid chunk of your competitors are already planning on using Google Ads to promote their Black Friday sales, too.

In this post, we’re going to go over 7 Google Ads Black Friday Tips for 2022 so that you can increase your impression share, reach your target audience, and maximize your sales.

1. Start Running Promotions Early

Let’s say you’re a consumer. You want to get new luggage for your spouse’s Christmas present, but it’s pricey, so you know you’ll be shooting for a Black Friday deal. Do you wait until Black Friday itself to try to see what you can find, or do you at least try to do some preliminary research a week or so in advance?

It’s common for people to research their sales purchases before the big events, sometimes weeks before Black Friday itself.

If you want to be part of that initial research process to capture truly high-intent users, having early promotions that mention your Black Friday sales is a great choice. These ads could take users to a landing page where they can see what deals you’ll offer on the big day, and even sign up for reminders.

While this isn’t a strategy that many brands use outside of the big box stores (which may send flyers or brochures), it is a good way to get ahead of the competition when people are researching a buying decision and are open to discovering new brands or products.

And for some brands, opening the option for customers to purchase a little early (think early in the week of Thanksgiving) can give you the ultimate competitive edge. This may be worth considering as well.

2. Remember That Black Friday Isn’t Over at Black Friday

Long gone are the days when Black Friday is just a single-day event. Some stores start their Black Friday sales as much as a week in advance, and Cyber Monday brings up the rear end of the holiday sales events for an added punch.

Cyber Monday is just as much of a massive sales day as Black Friday, so you need to reserve a solid percentage of your ad budget for the following Monday. Some users may miss Black Friday for any number of reasons, or they may circle around on Cyber Monday after they missed out (or couldn’t find) a deal they wanted on Black Friday.

Have ads ready to go, mentioning Cyber Monday sales in your Search Ads copy for best results.

3. Mention Black Friday Deals in Your Ad Copy

People who go shopping on big sales events aren’t just doing their generic holiday shopping. They’re looking for the best deals on the market.

And while sometimes they’re looking for gifts for someone else, they may be using Black Friday to find essential items they desperately want or need. Consumers may be hoping to snag a deal on that gaming console they’ve been saving for all year or relying on Black Friday to buy the kitchen appliances they want for their new build home at a decent price.

Because of this, they’re not looking for the best products; they may already know what they want and want to find great deals. Mentioning the words “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday sale” in your ad copy can signal to users that you’ve got the savings they’re looking for.

Consider testing phrases like “Black Friday sale,” “Black Friday Cyber Monday deals,” and “Best of Black Friday.”

4. Create Shopping Campaigns in the Merchant Center

Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales focus heavily on tangible goods. That means if you sell physical goods you should be running Google Shopping Campaigns.

Google Shopping Campaigns allow your ad to appear above standard text search results for qualifying searches, featuring a picture, title, brand name, and price of the product. Google will show the searcher the products that are most similar to what they’re looking for.

You can set up Google Shopping Campaigns through the Merchant Center.

Make sure that your product feeds are up to date, with current inventory information synced. You’ll also want to set up sales pricing in advance with all your Black Friday discounts, having that pricing set to go live the day your sales are running.

It’s also crucial that all the products in your feed are well-optimized. Make sure that you’re using keywords customers will use in the product title and description. You don’t just want to say “Black shoes,” for example; your product title will want to specify “Women’s Black Leather Loafers.”

For best results, start running these campaigns right now. That will give you time to test different product descriptions, titles, and images as needed. That way you’ll be ready for Black Friday 2022 when it comes.

You can read more about Google Shopping optimization tips here.

5. Market High-Demand Products on Their Own

Many businesses have certain high-demand products that consumers are chomping at the bits to get.

Most years, there will be a new or new-ish console that everyone is dying to get their hands on. In the pandemic, it was toilet paper.

When it comes to those big-ticket items your business is selling, make sure that you’re adding extra effort to market those specific products individually.

You won’t see Best Buy advertising “electronics”— you can bet they’ll have individual Google Search Ads geared specifically towards the most-wanted televisions and gaming consoles. That’s the best way to capture Black Friday users who are searching for specific products with search ads.

If you do want to increase your average order value and know that your high-value items will sell no matter what as long as people can get their hands on them, you can consider creating bundles. They buy nice luggage at a slight discount and they also get luggage tags and a neck pillow as part of a bundle. You increase the order value slightly and sell lower-demand items, too.

And we’ll talk about this more in the next section, but you’ll also want to be prepared to bid more on these items for the best results.

6. Know You’ll Spend More & Adjust Bids if Needed

Google Ads works like an auction. You’re bidding on placements in searches that use the keywords you’re targeting (or that are relevant to your product feeds), and you’re competing against everyone else who wants that same placement.

This means that during peak sales periods or for high-value keywords (including those targeting “Black Friday” during the week of Thanksgiving), you can expect your costs to go up.

No one loves this; we’re all about minimizing ad costs and maximizing return on ad spend (ROAS). However, if you don’t raise your bids as needed you’re likely to generate low-quality clicks predominantly and miss out on a significant portion of potential sales. Keep in mind that on Black Friday, searchers are extremely high intent; the advertiser that gets the first click is in a decent position to get the sale if the product and offer are what they’re looking for.

If you let Google automate bidding, this isn’t something you’ll necessarily have to worry about changing, but don’t be surprised if you see your cost per conversion jump a bit during the week leading up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And if you want a big push for a lot of sales, consider increasing your total budget for these campaigns during the sales period.

7. Test Out Competitor Keywords

If you want to try to grab some of the traffic that’s intended for your competitors, there’s no time quite like Black Friday to do so!

You can bid on your competitor’s branded keywords, allowing you to show up in searches users make for the competition.

Branded keyword campaigns targeting your competitors should be only a small portion of your budget, but you might be able to snag purchases intended for your competition with this strategy.

8. Use Seasonality Adjustments

If you’ve run Google Ads for last year’s Black Friday, you can leverage that data to prepare Google’s automated bidding for the increases in sales it should expect.

Under tools in settings at the top right of your Google Ads account, navigate to the Shared Library Column > Bid Strategies.

From here you can go to advanced controls and you will find Seasonality Adjustments as one of the options to choose from.

Using last year’s data, you can tell Google Ads what increases in conversion rates it should expect across different campaign types during Black Friday.

Using this tool can help Google increase budgets and bids properly during Black Friday to make sure you maximize the return on your ads.

Final Thoughts

Google Ads is going to be one of the best weapons in your advertising arsenal when it comes to holiday marketing— especially Cyber Monday and Black Friday 2022. Use these Google Ads Black Friday tips to stay ahead of the competition and increase your sales.

Need more help with Google Ads? Check out our Search Ads and Google Shopping Ads hubs!