The 2025 peak season will be more competitive and complex than ever, driven by intensifying international competition (with brands like Temu & Shein showing significant YoY growth in brand searches), increasingly deal-savvy shoppers, and unpredictable demand shifts. That is why planning ahead is more critical than ever.
To succeed, brands need to move early, execute with precision, and stay agile as demand fluctuates.
Below are key strategies across campaign setup, messaging, budget management and performance optimisation to help you cut through the chaos and win this peak season.
PHASE 1: Build Awareness Early
Capture Intent Early
Shoppers begin their discovery phase well before Black Friday, often using generic searches to explore products and scope out early deals, in the lead up to November.
However, this behaviour switches as we get closer to the peak moments of Black Friday and Christmas. Last year, we saw brand searches peaking over the Black Friday weekend – a clear sign that most consumers had already decided what to buy by then. We expect the same this year, making it critical that you are staying top of mind in the lead up to peak moments.
Further, with spontaneous shopping declining YoY, awareness and engagement in October can be the difference between being in the cart or being forgotten.
Keyword research
Target high-intent keywords that align with Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers for your products. Think: “Black Friday TV deals” or “Cyber Monday laptop offers” and ensure your ad copy includes relevant sale terminology. This will boost relevance and quality score during the most competitive ad season of the year.
Messaging That Cuts Through
With countless promotions flooding consumers’ feeds, your messaging has to work hard to stand out.
- Use headlines to highlight your biggest promotions to drive higher CTRs.
- Include countdown timers to create urgency for your offers.
- Ensure you cover as much real estate as possible by utilising all available ad extensions – a great way to highlight your key USPs and add extra value to promotions.
PHASE 2: Maximise Conversions During Peak
Once the discovery phase gives way to peak conversion windows, your setup needs to be ready to scale. That means flexible budgets, a flawless product feed, and tightly optimised campaigns.
Keep budgets flexible
It’s crucial to keep budgets flexible during peak to capture unexpected surges in demand, especially with deals starting earlier and earlier.
- Split your budget across the full promotional period.
- If early performance is strong, don’t be afraid to push spend as you’ll likely be fighting less competition. This will also help to avoid over-reliance on Black Friday itself to meet your revenue goals.
- Monitor your budgets throughout the day to ensure you aren’t hitting your daily caps early and missing late-day traffic.
Tip: Plan for ‘Fake Friday’ as we’ve seen a trend of traffic seeing a mini spike the Friday before Black Friday, with shoppers confusing the exact date of Black Friday.
Product Feed Best Practices
Your Google Merchant Center should be flawless before peak begins:
- Make sure that all of your products have been approved and are live.
- Check that all titles, descriptions, images and URLs are up-to-date, precise and include relevant information.
- Ensure that your pricing is up to date, and utilise sale price annotations to make your ads more appealing.
- Consider utilising promotions within GMC to further highlight key offers.
- Set up alerts within Google Merchant Center so any issues are flagged early and can be fixed.
PMax/Shopping Campaign Recommendations
Performance Max and Shopping campaigns can drive significant volume – but only when structured right.
- Double-check that your listing group filters are not excluding key products.
- Consider creating a PMax/Shopping campaign dedicated to peak season, highlighting your top products for maximum visibility.
- Regularly check the impression share metrics for this campaign and consider lowering your ROAS target in order to capture maximum demand.
- Make sure that your campaigns are not limited by budget.
- Don’t overlook negative keywords. Unlike last year, search term data is now available for PMax campaigns, so you can prevent irrelevant clicks and maximise your budget by regularly updating your negative keyword lists over the peak period.
Phase 3: Optimise & Extend Post-Peak
The peak period doesn’t end with Black Friday. Post-event analysis, smart retargeting, and last-minute omnichannel tactics can help you squeeze even more out of the season.
Start Testing Now
Make sure that you go into November with your campaigns fully optimised and not still in a learning phase. It’s vital that you make the most of the time between now and November. Google announced a whole host of betas such as AI Max at GML this year, and it’s important to test these ahead of peak to see if these products are right for your goals.
Going into peak fully optimised will ensure you are not missing opportunities due to performance lag or limited data.
Utilise Learnings from BFCM
While we don’t recommend testing in November, your campaign performance can still provide useful learnings that you can take into Christmas or Boxing Day.
Analyse the performance of your Black Friday campaigns to see what went well and what didn’t, and use this to optimise your campaigns for Christmas.
Make the most of your First Party Data
People often spend time researching in the lead up to Black Friday but aren’t necessarily ready to purchase.
- Create remarketing lists of non-purchasing visitors and target these users with ads for Black Friday deals when your sale goes live.
- Segment your audience lists based on the viewed product categories to further tailor your ad copy.
- Create lookalike audiences of your top customers for your demand gen campaigns to interact with potential new customers and drive awareness for your brand ahead of Black Friday.
Take Advantage of Last-Minute Shoppers
Even after your final delivery cutoff, there’s still revenue on the table.
- Adopt an omnichannel approach utilising local store tactics to drive revenue even after your Christmas delivery cut off date.
- We see a 9% increase in searches for “store” + “near me” as we move towards Christmas, so it’s important to make sure you are set up to take advantage of this.
- Consider shifting budgets to local campaigns after you hit your Christmas delivery cut off dates to capture last minute shoppers and drive them into your stores.
Prepare for Peak with Pattern
Peak season success in 2025 comes down to preparation, agility, and precision. Brands that start early, stay flexible, and move fast will outperform the rest. From discovery to doorstep, this is your moment to work smarter, not harder.
If you’re looking for an Ecommerce partner to help you succeed during peak season and beyond, get in touch with Pattern today.
