Saturday: read Friday properly
Don't judge Friday from one screen on Saturday morning. Google says GA4 data processing can take 24 to 48 hours, and figures can change while it does. For a firm count, use the orders report in your store platform, then compare it with Google Ads and GA4 as they settle over the weekend.
Three questions to answer before Monday:
- Which products sold, and through which campaigns? These are your Cyber Monday leads.
- Where did spend go without sales? Look at the search terms behind your Shopping and Search ads, and add negatives for the ones that will not convert.
- Did anything break? Check whether a page or checkout step lost more visitors on Friday than on a normal day.
Sunday: move budget to what sold
- Back the winners. Shift budget towards the campaigns and products that sold on Friday and away from those that did not. For a short window, a budget change is more predictable than a new campaign.
- Update the feed. If Monday's offer differs from Friday's, change the sale price and its effective dates now so the Shopping price matches the site on Monday morning. Mark sold-out products as out of stock.
- Check any seasonality adjustment. If you set one for Black Friday, check whether its dates cover Monday. Google suggests using them only when you expect a major change in conversion rate, and says they suit events of 1 to 7 days.
Bring back Friday's visitors
Google Ads calls remarketing "your data". It lets you show ads to people who have already interacted with your business, and Google gives the example of people who added something to their basket without buying. For Cyber Monday the useful options are:
- Dynamic remarketing: ads that show the products or services people viewed on your website or app.
- Your data segments for Search ads: your ads shown to past visitors when they search again after leaving your site.
- Customer Match: contact details your customers have given you, uploaded so you can reach them across Google products when they are signed in.
Your own email list is the other half. A short Monday email to people who bought on Friday, or signed up and did not buy, costs nothing per click.
Treat Monday as an online-only day
Run Cyber Monday as a day where every sale happens on your website. If you also have a shop front, nobody can walk in and ask a question, so your product pages and checkout have to answer everything a shopper would ask in person. Before Monday:
- re-test checkout on a phone, with a discount code if you use one
- put delivery times and any Christmas order cut-off at the top of the sale page
- make sure your contact options work and someone is watching them
The first week of December: keep the new customers
A sale weekend brings in people who have never bought from you. Google Ads has customer lifecycle goals to help with what happens next:
- New customer value bids higher for new customers than existing ones. It works with Search, Performance Max, Shopping and Demand Gen on target ROAS or maximise conversion value, and needs at least one purchase conversion goal.
- New customer only bids only for new customers, on the same campaign types.
- Re-engagement bids higher for lapsed customers than existing ones, in Performance Max.
Outside Google Ads, the basics still apply. Send a thank-you email after delivery with care or setup tips for what they bought. Exclude recent buyers from your sale remarketing, so they stop seeing ads for something they already own.
Then turn to Christmas. Put your carriers' Christmas delivery cut-off dates on your site and keep them current, and build gift pages around your bestsellers from the sale. Shoppers start early: in November 2025 Australians searched "christmas gift ideas" 49,500 times, according to Google Keyword Planner.
Want a hand with the weekend?
We run Google Ads and Shopping for Australian online stores. SatPhoneShop's Shopping campaigns reached return on ad spend peaks of up to 10x after its Merchant Centre feed was restructured. Six Barrel Soda's Search and Shopping campaigns across Australia and New Zealand reached a 6x return on ad spend.
Individual results vary with market, budget and starting position, and past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Average ROAS varies by industry.
Ask for a free Google Ads audit. Alex Yeldizian reviews your campaign structure, search terms and conversion tracking himself and tells you what he would change first.
Sources
- Google Keyword Planner, Australia, monthly searches for November 2025, pulled 11 Nov 2026 (opens in a new tab), checked 11 Nov 2026
- Google Analytics Help: Data freshness (opens in a new tab), checked 11 Nov 2026
- Google Merchant Center Help: Sale price [sale_price] (opens in a new tab), checked 11 Nov 2026
- Google Ads Help: About seasonality adjustments (opens in a new tab), checked 11 Nov 2026
- Google Ads Help: About your data segments (opens in a new tab), checked 11 Nov 2026
- Google Ads Help: About customer lifecycle goals (opens in a new tab), checked 11 Nov 2026
How this article was made: Alex Yeldizian researched it and checked every claim against the sources above, with AI helping to organise and summarise the notes. Reviewed on 11 November 2026.
