Seasonality adjustments reach Demand Gen

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📈 Your black friday seasonality adjustment settings filled in

Smart Bidding learns from recent conversion rates. On Black Friday, conversion rates jump within hours, and bidding can lag behind the spike. Seasonality adjustments warn Google in advance.

Demand Gen may now be on the list. According to Relevant Audience on October 24, Google's seasonality adjustments help page lists Demand Gen alongside Search, Shopping and Display for Target CPA and Target ROAS. Performance Max and App campaigns work with any bid strategy. The page creating adjustments hadn't caught up yet, and there's been no formal announcement.

Google calls the tool "ideal for short events of 1-7 days" and says it "may not work as well" beyond 14 days. One event can cover up to 2,000 campaigns.

Below are settings for two events, built from one store's history. Every number is illustrative, so swap in your own.

The history behind them

Conversion rate averaged 3% in the two weeks before Black Friday last year. It hit 5.1% on the day, a 70% rise. Cyber Monday reached 4.2%, a 40% rise.

Event 1

• Name: BF weekend 2026
• Dates: Black Friday 00:00 to Sunday 23:59
• Campaigns: Search, Shopping and PMax running the sale
• Expected conversion rate change: +60%
• Why +60%: slightly below last year's 70%, to stay cautious. The discount is my judgment. Raise it if this year's offer is stronger.

Event 2

• Name: Cyber Monday 2026
• Dates: Cyber Monday 00:00 to 23:59
• Campaigns: the same set, minus anything whose offer ends on Sunday
• Expected conversion rate change: +35%

About Demand Gen

Confirm the option actually appears for your Demand Gen campaigns before adding them. Until the documentation catches up, treat it as likely but unconfirmed, and keep Demand Gen in a separate event so you can remove it cleanly.

Settings to avoid

• One event stretched across all of November
• An end time later than the end of your sale, which leaves bids inflated into a normal Tuesday
• Copying last year's lift unchanged when your offer is weaker

Watch during and after

• Conversion rate during each event against your setting
• Cost per conversion on adjusted days
• Performance in the three days after, when bidding settles back down

If actual lift lands far from your setting, note the gap. It makes next year's numbers better.

Before you set anything

Pull last year's daily conversion rates from November 15 to December 5 and mark the days that spiked. Those dates and that lift fill in the fields above.

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 This framework argues that smaller marketplaces don't need to match Amazon's conversion rate to attract creators. By offering higher commissions and sharing those costs with sellers, they can increase earnings per click (EPC) despite converting fewer shoppers.

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Thanks for reading this edition! Keep pushing boundaries, testing ideas, and staying inspired. See you in the next edition with more ways to ignite your marketing success. 🥰