Black Friday 2026 in Google Ads — what to set up and what's new

Jakub Pytlik | September 25, 2026 | 8 min read

When people in Poland search for "black friday"

In 2026, Black Friday falls on Friday, November 27, and Cyber Monday on Monday, November 30. To see how interest is spread out in Poland, I checked the term "black friday" in Google Trends day by day for last season (chart above). A few things stand out:

• Interest starts building in late October. By early November, it is already roughly five times higher than in mid-October.
• The big jump comes a week before Friday. In 2025, between November 19 and 21, the index rose by about 70% (from 35 to 60 points).
• The peak is Friday itself. The next day (Saturday, November 29), the index drops by half — to 47 points.
• Cyber Monday in Poland is marginal. In 2025, it reached about 14% of Friday's value, and the day after, only 7%.

The practical takeaway: don't plan your budget "for the whole weekend through Cyber Monday," as US guides suggest. In Poland, what matters most is the last 7–10 days before Friday and Friday itself.

Data: Google Trends, term "black friday", Poland, daily values from October 1 to December 20, 2025. The values are relative (100 = the day of highest interest) and don't show the number of searches.

The plan: from 6 weeks before to a week after

The four stages from the graphic, broken down into concrete tasks:

1. 4–6 weeks before (mid-October – early November). Check that your account tracks sales correctly — at the peak of the season, every measurement error costs more than usual. Prepare sale prices and promotion dates in your product feed (the list of products with prices that your store sends to Google — more on that below). Write down in advance how much you can spend per day and what return on ad spend still pays off for you during the promotion — with a lower margin, that threshold is higher than usual.
2. A week before (from about November 20). This is when interest rises sharply, so your ads should already be talking about the promotion. Schedule promotion mode or a seasonality adjustment with exact dates. Check stock levels for your most important products.
3. Black Friday and the weekend. Watch whether budgets run out before the evening and whether your product feed still lists products you no longer have. Don't change your bidding strategy during the promotion — the algorithm won't have time to adjust before it ends.
4. A week after. Restore your usual settings (promotion mode does this on its own). Judge results after a few days, because some purchases are recorded with a delay. In an analysis of more than 4,200 accounts, Optmyzr showed that the week after Black Friday and Cyber Monday can be the most expensive. The share of clicks that ended in a purchase (conversion rate) was 7.3% lower than before the promotion, and cost per click was still 10.2% higher.

Budget and targets after the August 17 change

On August 17, 2026, Google changed how some campaigns with a target behave: those using target CPA (the average amount you want to pay per sale) or target ROAS (how much revenue every zloty (PLN) you spend on ads should bring in). The change applies when their budget isn't enough to cover all available traffic (known as budget-constrained campaigns). These campaigns now bid to reach the target you set — not, as before, to beat it. Google warned that campaigns that had been doing better than their target may now do worse — closer to the level you set.

What this means before Black Friday: if your budget runs out at the peak and you set a loose target "just in case," the campaign may spend money less efficiently than a year ago. Before the promotion, check whether your target really is a level you accept. If you're thinking about increasing your budget permanently, not just for the promotion, I wrote separately about when that makes sense.

Sale prices in your product feed

Many guides tell you to add a promotion in Merchant Center — the one with a "special offer" label next to the product. In Poland, that won't work. According to Google's specification, Merchant Center promotions show in 13 countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, but not in Poland.

What works in Poland: a sale price in your product feed (the sale_price attribute) together with the dates it applies (sale_price_effective_date). The crossed-out price and the new amount then show up on their own at the right time. One rule is non-negotiable: the price in the feed must be the same as on the website and at checkout. If the prices don't match, Google will disapprove the products — right when you need them most. I cover the product feed in more detail in my Google Shopping guide for online stores.

Promotion mode — new in 2026

In June 2026, Google released promotion mode in beta for Search and Performance Max campaigns. It answers a classic Black Friday problem: you manually lower your required return on ad spend, raise the budget… and then forget to undo it.

How it works:

• You set a start and end date for the promotion — from 3 to 14 days.
• For that period, you loosen your return on ad spend target (target ROAS) and you can set an additional daily budget.
• When the period ends, everything automatically reverts to your previous settings. As Google points out, you don't have to remember to switch it off.

At launch, it applies to campaigns using a target ROAS strategy — some sources also mention target CPA, so check your own campaign's settings to see whether you have this option. It's in beta, so promotion mode isn't available in every account yet. If you don't have it, you still have seasonality adjustments or manual changes with a calendar reminder.

Seasonality adjustments — when to use them and when not to

A seasonality adjustment is an older tool, available in every account. Google is clear about three things worth knowing before Black Friday:

• It works best for short events, from 1 to 7 days. For periods longer than 14 days, its effectiveness may drop.
• Automated bidding already accounts for seasonality on its own. An adjustment only makes sense when you expect a large, unusual change — for example, a one-day promotion with a steep discount, something the algorithm hasn't seen in previous weeks.
• After it ends, you don't need to set a "downward adjustment." The campaign returns to normal by itself.

It works with any bidding strategy in Performance Max, and in Search, Shopping and Display campaigns when they use target ROAS or target CPA.

New features that don't work in Poland yet

In September 2026, Google announced several new features for the holiday season. It's worth knowing which of them don't apply to advertisers in Poland, so you don't waste time on them:

AI Mode in Google Search itself (a conversation with AI instead of a list of links) works in Polish, but you can't buy directly in it yet. So for Black Friday 2026 in Poland, what counts are the proven basics: a well-prepared product feed, a sensible budget and properly set targets — plus promotion mode or a seasonality adjustment.

5 mistakes that cost the most

1. Last-minute changes. A new strategy or a heavily changed target on Black Friday itself is a recipe for chaos — the algorithm is still adapting to the new settings when the promotion ends.
2. Raising the budget manually with no plan to roll it back. The day after the promotion, the higher budget and loose target keep running while demand has already dropped. Promotion mode or a calendar reminder solves this problem.
3. Counting on Cyber Monday. In Poland, that day is a fraction of what happens on Friday. You're better off moving Monday's budget to the week before Black Friday.
4. A sale price only on the website. If your product feed has the old price, the ad will show an outdated amount or the product will be disapproved.
5. Judging results on Sunday evening. Some purchases are recorded with a delay, and the week after the promotion can be more expensive and weaker (see the Optmyzr data above). You'll get a reliable picture after a few days, comparing results with last year, not with October.

About the sources: Search interest data: Google Trends (Poland, 2025). Promotion mode: Search Engine Roundtable, ppc.land (Google's explanations), Smarter Ecommerce. Seasonality adjustments: seasonality adjustments documentation. The August 17 change: documentation on changes to target-based bid strategies. Sale prices and promotions: sale price attribute, Merchant Center promotions specification. Holiday features: Google blog (September 16, 2026). Data on the week after the promotion: Optmyzr.