Your 2026 Google Ads BFCM Playbook: What to Start Doing Now

Black Friday Cyber Monday 2025 is officially behind us…praise be! Whether you crushed your revenue goals or spent half the weekend begging your CTR to stop tanking, one thing is true across the board:

The brands that win BFCM are the ones that plan early.

Not in October.
Not the week of Black Friday.
Months ahead.

Google Ads has become so competitive that “winging it” during peak season isn’t just stressful—it’s expensive. CPCs surge. Competition spikes. Machine learning gets chaotic. The brands that overspend are usually the ones that start too late.

So now, while this season’s lessons are still fresh, is the best time to build the strategy that will carry you into BFCM 2026 with confidence (and lower CAC).

Below, you’ll find three core strategies to focus on early in the year so you can maximize revenue when shoppers return next November.

Strategy 1: Use This Year’s Data to Build Next Year’s Funnel (Early)

The biggest mistake advertisers make?
Ignoring post-season data until Q4 rolls around again.

Don’t do that to yourself.

You have a goldmine sitting in your Google Ads account right now—audiences, search terms, creatives, and product-level insights that can help you warm the funnel all year long.

Start by auditing:

• Which campaigns drove the lowest CPAs?

• Which audiences converted at the highest rate?

• Which products earned the highest ROAS?

• Which search queries surged during BFCM?

• Where did Performance Max struggle vs. excel?

• Which creatives had above-average CTRs?

Those insights tell you exactly how to structure your 2026 warm-up strategy.

Your goal:

Start nurturing audiences by late summer so your remarketing lists are full, healthy, and ready for BFCM—without you having to overspend in a panic.

How to warm the funnel earlier next year:

1. Build YouTube + Display awareness campaigns by August.
These impressions are cheap, and they prime your BFCM retargeting lists.

2. Grow branded search by building stronger evergreen campaigns.
Stronger brand awareness = cheaper branded queries next BFCM.

3. Use this year’s high-performing Search campaigns as templates.
Don’t reinvent—optimize and expand based on what already worked.

4. Start populating your remarketing lists months before peak season.
More scale → lower CAC → more profit next year.

Why this matters

Google’s machine learning can’t sprint if it’s been walking all year. Give it time to train on the right customers, and you’ll enter BFCM 2026 already ahead.

Strategy 2: Refine Your Remarketing Based on 2025 Buyer Behavior

Now that you’ve seen how your customers behaved, you can segment smarter.

If you noticed:

• long decision windows,

• high add-to-cart but low checkout,

• or a flood of late-night conversions,

…that’s all data you should build into next year’s campaigns.

Use 2025’s insights to restructure remarketing for 2026:

1. Segment by intent, not just website activity.

Break audiences into:

• Cart abandoners

• Checkout abandoners

• Product viewers

• Quiz takers / blog readers / video watchers

• Previous purchasers

• High-value purchasers

Each requires a different message, different urgency, and sometimes different offer structures.

2. Build creative specifically for remarketing—not repurposed prospecting ads.

Your BFCM 2026 remarketing ads should focus on:

• social proof

• urgency statements

• price comparison

• bundles

• fast shipping/lifetime warranty

• restock alerts or limited inventory

3. Use dayparting based on this year’s conversion windows.

Look at your hourly conversion data from this past season.
If your customers buy between 8–11PM?
Bid up during that window next year.

If midday was slow?
Pull back to protect CAC.

4. Expand your RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads).

These convert higher during BFCM than almost any other tactic—especially for brands with higher prices.

Why this matters

Remarketing isn’t one audience. It’s a series of micro-intents. When you tailor your message and bidding around those micro-intents, you stop wasting money and start converting at a lower cost next year.

Strategy 3: Rebuild Your BFCM Offer Structure for 2026 (Now)

The offer landscape changes every year.
This year, maybe bundles killed it for you.
Or maybe the free gift outperformed a discount.
Or maybe last year’s offer tanked this year.

Pay attention to that pattern.

Start mapping out your 2026 offer structure in Q1/Q2:

1. Note what type of offer drove the highest ROAS in 2025.

• Sitewide discounts?

• Doorbusters?

• Bundles?

• Tiered discounts?

• Free gift with purchase?

Every audience responds differently.

2. Build offer-specific campaign structures next time.
This means:

• unique PMax campaigns

• unique feed labels

• unique landing pages

• unique Search campaigns

• unique ad copy & extensions

Google’s algorithm learns faster when campaigns are clean and aligned.

3. Keep your BFCM landing page LIVE year-round.
Just remove seasonal copy and keep it indexed.
This gives you:

• faster load times next year

• a consistent URL to build history

• better SEO

• a home base for offer testing

4. Start planning creative assets early—like, Q2 early.
Holiday creative takes time.
And Google Ads performs better when you feed it a diverse set of assets ahead of the rush.

Why this matters

Your offer determines your entire account structure.
If you don’t know the offer until November, your strategy will always be reactive.

Planning early = lower CPCs, cleaner learning, and stronger conversions.

Action Steps: Build Your 2026 BFCM Strategy Now

Here’s what to do immediately—while this year’s insights are still fresh:

1. Complete a full 2025 Google Ads audit.

Identify:

• your winners

• your sinkholes

• your wasted spend

• your best-performing assets

2. Expand your top-of-funnel strategy starting in summer 2026.

Feed your retargeting lists before they become expensive.

3. Rebuild (or at least reorganize) your structure now.

Tighten:

• campaign grouping

• naming conventions

• feed rules

• conversion tracking

• bidding strategy

4. Test new offers in Q2/Q3.

Your best 2026 BFCM offer shouldn’t be a guess.
It should be data-backed.

5. Build next year's creative calendar by March.

Don’t scramble in Q4—your team will thank you.

6. Plan budgets by September 2026.

Including:

• warm-up spend

• prospecting

• remarketing

• BFCM-specific budgets

7. Keep your BFCM page live.

Optimize throughout the year.

Now is the window where strategy actually matters. You’re not competing with Q4 chaos. You’re building from clarity, data, and intention.

If you want a customized blueprint—based on your numbers, your industry, and your goals—I can help you build a smarter, leaner, and higher-ROI BFCM strategy for next year.

→ Book a consultation, and let’s start mapping 2026 now.

FAQs

Q1: Why plan Google Ads BFCM strategies months in advance?
Google’s machine learning performs best when fed warm audiences, clean signals, and long-term data. Starting early lowers CPCs and improves conversion efficiency during peak season.

Q2: What should I analyze from this year’s BFCM Google Ads campaigns?
Review conversion rates, search terms, product performance, best-performing assets, remarketing strength, and hourly conversions. These insights shape your 2026 strategy.

Q3: How early should I start warming audiences for BFCM 2026?
Begin by late summer. You want strong retargeting lists in place before Q4, when CPMs surge.

Q4: What is the biggest mistake brands make during BFCM?
Launching too late and relying too heavily on Performance Max without structured Search, Shopping, and remarketing layers.