Google Ads seasonality adjustments for Black Friday in Canada

Key takeaways

• Google Ads seasonality adjustments are for short events (Google calls 1–7 days ideal) where you expect a big jump in conversion rate. They’re not a general “holiday mode.”
• Smart Bidding already reacts to seasonal demand, so many accounts are better off doing nothing than guessing a number.
• Promotion Mode (open beta) is a different tool: it temporarily lowers your target ROAS and can add budget for 3 to 14 days.
• In Canada, check your “regular price” claims against the Competition Bureau’s tests before the ads go live.

Black Friday lands on November 27 this year, Cyber Monday on November 30 and Boxing Day on Saturday, December 26. Google Ads seasonality adjustments let you warn Smart Bidding that your conversion rate is about to spike for a few days. Used well, they help bids catch up faster. Used badly, they raise bids on a guess and burn budget. Here’s when to use one, how big to make it, and when Promotion Mode, total budgets or data exclusions are the better tool.

What are Google Ads seasonality adjustments?

A seasonality adjustment is a scheduled instruction that tells Smart Bidding to expect a higher (or lower) conversion rate between two dates. Bids rise or fall to match during the event, then go back to normal on their own when it ends. You don’t need to add a negative adjustment afterward. Google recommends them only for major, short-lived changes.

Key details from Google’s overview of seasonality adjustments:

• Length: 1–7 days is ideal; they may not work as well beyond 14 days at a time.
• Campaigns: Search, Shopping and Display (the overview also lists Demand Gen) on Target CPA or Target ROAS, plus Performance Max and App (beta) on any bid strategy. Not Travel.
• Your target stays the same. Only the conversion rate expectation changes.
• Manager accounts: One adjustment can apply to linked client accounts. Accounts linked later don’t inherit it.

Should you use a seasonality adjustment for Black Friday?

Only if you have evidence that your conversion rate will jump well above normal for a short, defined window, and your conversions happen quickly after the click. Google says Smart Bidding already accounts for seasonal events, so the adjustment is for changes it can’t see coming, like a deep one-off discount or a flash sale.

A practical way to decide:

Your situation	Usually the better call
Deep, time-boxed sale (a few days) with a clear lift in past years	Seasonality adjustment for the sale days only
Same offers as usual, just more shoppers	No adjustment; let Smart Bidding react
Month-long “holiday sale” or Boxing Week that runs 10+ days	No adjustment, or a short one on the peak days only
You want to trade efficiency for volume during a promotion (Target ROAS)	Promotion Mode, if it’s available in your account
Long sales cycle (B2B, high-ticket, leads that close weeks later)	Usually no adjustment; the lift in conversion rate won’t show up during the event
Tracking broke or your site went down	Data exclusion, not a seasonality adjustment

The common mistake is covering the whole “holiday season.” That long, gradual change is what Smart Bidding picks up on its own. If unsure, leave it off. For how the algorithm learns, see broad match and Smart Bidding: when it works.

How big should the conversion rate adjustment be?

Base it on your own history, not a rule of thumb. Compare last year’s conversion rate during the same sale days with the two to four weeks before it, for the campaigns in scope. If the offer this year is similar, that gap is your starting point. If it’s weaker, go lower. If you have no history, don’t guess big.

An illustrative example (made-up numbers): your Search campaigns converted at 3% in the weeks before last Black Friday and at 4.2% across the four sale days, a 40% lift. With a comparable offer, +30% to +40% for those four days is defensible. With a smaller discount, start lower.

Three checks before you enter the number:

• Use the conversion actions bidding uses. Micro-conversions in your columns will distort the lift.
• Look at conversion lag. If sales arrive days after the click, the lift is spread out and harder to capture.
• Check sale margins. A higher conversion rate at 40% off may not justify higher CPCs. See how to calculate target CPA from your real margins.

How do you create a seasonality adjustment in Google Ads?

You set it up under Tools, in the bidding adjustments area, about a week before the event. It takes a few minutes. The steps below follow Google’s instructions for creating a seasonality adjustment as of this month.

1. Click the Tools icon, open Budgets and bidding and click Adjustments.
2. Select the Seasonal tab and click the plus button.
3. Choose Conversion rate as the adjustment type.
4. Name it clearly (for example, “BF 2026 Search +35%”) and set the start and end dates and times to match the sale exactly.
5. Set the scope: campaign types, specific campaigns, or (App campaigns only) ad groups. Keep it to campaigns that actually carry the offer.
6. Enter the expected conversion rate change as a percentage.
7. Save, then click Create seasonality adjustment.

One event can include up to 2,000 specific campaigns. Agencies can create it once in a manager account, but check that every client’s sale dates really match first.

What is Promotion Mode, and how is it different?

Promotion Mode is an open beta that lets a Target ROAS campaign temporarily accept a lower ROAS, and optionally an extra daily budget, for 3 to 14 days. Seasonality adjustments keep your target and change the conversion rate forecast. Promotion Mode changes the target itself, then reverts when the promotion ends.

Key rules from Google’s Promotion Mode help page:

• Standard Search and Performance Max campaigns with a campaign-level Target ROAS. No portfolio strategies or shared budgets for now.
• ROAS tolerance runs from 5% to 90%. The extra daily budget isn’t available on campaign total budgets.
• Build new campaigns at least 48 hours ahead. Existing ones should have run one full conversion cycle on a daily budget.
• No CPC bid limits. During the promotion, make changes inside Promotion Mode. You can move the end date (within 14 days) but not the start date.

Google’s June 2026 announcement said access ran through account teams; the help page now calls it an open beta. If you don’t see the Promotion mode panel in your campaign settings, ask your Google rep. Google doesn’t document combining it with a seasonality adjustment, so pick one per campaign.

When should you use total budgets or data exclusions instead?

Use a campaign total budget when you’re launching a new, sale-only campaign with a fixed spend and fixed dates. Use a data exclusion only when conversion data is wrong, for example a broken tag or site outage during the sale. Neither replaces a seasonality adjustment; they solve different problems.

Campaign total budgets. Performance Max, Search and Shopping campaigns can run on a total budget for 3 to 90 days. Google paces spend to the end date and won’t charge more than the total. You pick the budget type at creation and can’t switch an existing campaign, so this suits a dedicated Black Friday or Boxing Week campaign. See About campaign total budgets.

Data exclusions. If tracking fails mid-sale, add an exclusion under Tools > Adjustments > Exclusions. Google says to cover the conversion delay too and not to remove an exclusion once applied. Times follow the account’s time zone, which matters if the account is on Pacific time and the outage happened in Eastern. See Use data exclusions for conversion data outages, and our conversion tracking guide for Canada to check your setup before the rush.

What’s different for Canadian advertisers?

The bidding tools work the same in Canada. What changes is the calendar and the rules on how you advertise a sale. Boxing Day and Boxing Week are a second peak here, and the Competition Bureau watches “regular price” and urgency claims closely at this time of year.

• Plan two peaks. Treat Black Friday to Cyber Monday (November 27–30) and Boxing Day (December 26) as separate events. One adjustment from late November to New Year’s is far beyond Google’s recommended length.
• Check your “was” prices. A regular price in an ad must pass the Competition Bureau’s ordinary selling price tests: either more than half of sales were at that price or higher, or it was offered in good faith at that price for a substantial period, usually within a year before or after the promotion. The Bureau repeated this in its November 2025 Black Friday reminder to businesses and advised keeping records of promotion dates and prices.
• Keep urgency honest. Countdown copy and “only 2 left” claims must be true. The Bureau lists reset timers and deadlines that quietly pass as examples of fake urgency cues.
• Quebec campaigns. If you run French and English sale ads, set up both language versions before the adjustment starts. Our bilingual Google Ads guide shows how to structure them.

Your Black Friday seasonality checklist

1. Confirm the sale dates, times and the account time zone.
2. Decide per campaign: no adjustment, seasonality adjustment, or Promotion Mode. Not both.
3. Pull last year’s conversion rate for the sale days versus the prior two to four weeks, using bidding conversion actions only.
4. Set the adjustment size from that lift, scaled to this year’s offer. Keep it to the core sale days.
5. Launch sale-only campaigns at least 48 hours early, with daily budget headroom for peak days.
6. Verify regular-price claims and urgency copy against the Competition Bureau guidance.
7. Test conversion tags the week before, then repeat the process for Boxing Day.
8. Afterward, record what happened for next year. If results disappoint, see our guide on explaining a bad month to a client.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to reverse a seasonality adjustment after the sale?

No. A seasonality adjustment only applies between the start and end dates you set. When the event ends, Smart Bidding goes back to its usual behaviour without a negative adjustment. Google specifically says you don’t need to add one. If you set the end date too late, edit it before the event finishes so the higher expectation doesn’t run into normal days.

Can I use seasonality adjustments with Maximize conversions?

It depends on the campaign type. Performance Max (and App campaigns in beta) support seasonality adjustments with all bid strategies. For Search, Shopping and Display, Google’s help pages list only Target CPA and Target ROAS. If your Search campaign uses Maximize conversions without a target, don’t count on an adjustment applying.

How long should a seasonality adjustment last?

Google calls one to seven days ideal and says adjustments may not work as well for more than 14 days at a time. For most Canadian retailers, that means one adjustment covering Black Friday to Cyber Monday and, if needed, a separate one for Boxing Day, rather than a single adjustment covering the whole holiday period.

Is Promotion Mode available in Canada?

Google’s help page describes Promotion Mode as an open beta and doesn’t list country restrictions. Whether you can use it depends on your account and campaign setup: it requires a campaign-level Target ROAS on Search or Performance Max. If the Promotion mode panel doesn’t appear in your campaign settings, ask your Google account team.

For the bigger picture on structure, bidding and budgets, see the Canadian Google Ads playbook.

Sources: Google Ads Help: About seasonality adjustments; Google Ads Help: Create a seasonality adjustment; Google Ads Help: About Promotion Mode; Google Ads Help: About campaign total budgets; Google Ads Help: About data exclusions; Google Ads Help: Use data exclusions for conversion data outages; Google: Bidding and budgeting updates to scale your growth (June 2026); Competition Bureau: Ordinary selling price; Competition Bureau: Fake urgency cues; Competition Bureau: Businesses, make sure your Black Friday “deals” are real (November 2025)

Platform details as of November 2026.