Google Ads Checklist for Peak 2024 - During Peak

With customers starting peak shopping earlier each year, it’s important for advertisers to be on the ball. This doesn’t just involve preparing ahead of time, it also involves knowing what to be aware of during and after peak, and being reactive to the trends we’re seeing.

Recent research from Google categorises 40% of consumers as ‘always on shoppers’, constantly researching and bouncing around online and in store. On top of this, 24% of users have their shopping done by mid-October. This suggests that peak is getting earlier and longer each year, so we need to be reactive and use the information that the market provides us with.

In this blog, we will outline everything you need to add to your checklist during peak, in order to maintain higher ROI and maximise your profit.

1. Seasonal Budget Adjustments

One lesser known tool on the Ads platform is Google’s seasonal adjustment tool.  It can be found under Tools > Budgets & Bidding > Adjustments and can be used to inform Smart Bidding of expected changes in budgets and conversion rates for events like promotions or sales.

You can outline the dates of your sale, and inform Google of how much additional budget you would like to use on these dates, and / or how much of a jump in conversion rates you normally see during this time. This will help to better direct traffic, and maximise conversions and profits on key sale dates.

This tool works best for short sale periods (maximum seven days) and is best to use if you normally see a jump of over 30% in Conversion Rate during this sale period historically.

You can read more about how and when to use this tool here.

2. Avoid Frequent Major Changes

As most advertisers know, Google’s algorithm takes a little while to adjust to any major changes to strategy and targeting on the Ads platform. As such, major changes during peak should be avoided as much as possible as they can lead to performance fluctuation.

Changes to areas such as budgets and bid adjustments aren’t strictly off limits, as they are not considered major in Google’s performance algorithm. However, advertisers should avoid changing things like bid strategies, ad copy, and assets during key sale periods, as you can lose out on performance whilst Google adjusts.

3. Tailor Your Content

Peak-focused ads and assets should be uploaded and enabled on your account at least 2 weeks before your sale period. This gives Google enough time to embed the content in the algorithm, gain an understanding of our goals, and build some initial traction / attention around the offers.

Peak content should be separated into new campaigns and asset groups and should highlight seasonal messaging and offers. You’ll want to upload creatives and targeting for holiday products in separate asset groups, so as not to disrupt the performance of your ‘always on’ activity and your ‘evergreen products’.

Prioritise visual assets, as the more creatives you provide, the better performance will be. Make sure to split key product categories / services into their own sections, so as to tailor targeting and assets more effectively. However, be sure to avoid over segmentation, as this can actually lead to reduced performance.

Don’t forget to update and refresh any existing creatives as well, as you’ll likely see a boost in performance for your always on activity during this period.

4. Leverage Your Promotion

Alongside optimising content, it is also important to utilise Google’s wider targeting options to leverage your promotion.

Implementing promotion-based search themes and audience signals for Performance Max campaigns will help Google to identify people who may be interested in your offer. Make your targeting very specific, remember that we’re guiding Google and not the other way around.

Another area to consider is your long term approach post-sale. Not everyone will be ready to buy right now, but serving them a touchpoint with the website now might make them more likely to consider your brand once they are further down the buying funnel. Include broad, upper funnel search themes, and avoid adding specific terms that are already on your website’s landing page. Search themes should supplement existing assets and landing pages, not copy them.

One tactic that we have seen success with is adding the product titles of some of your historically best performing products as search themes. This will direct more traffic to the items we know sell, and help Performance Max campaigns to learn a lot quicker.

5. Audience & Customer Lists

Google Ads is a very data-driven platform, the more information we put in, the better the results we get out.

It is important to update your audience lists before, during, and after peak, as your customer base is likely to change dramatically throughout this period. We need to keep Google up to date with exactly who is buying our products at any given time, so their system can locate similar users who may also be interested in our offers. You can read more about Customer Lists and how to use them here.

You will also want to lean heavily on remarketing during peak, as users who have interacted with the site previously may be more inclined to purchase now there is an offer available. Utilise wider audiences like ‘website visitors’ to re-engage potentially interested users, as well as more specific audiences like ‘cart abandoners’ to capture any low hanging fruit.