Should you advertise in the end-of-year peak season? Yes! But you should be careful. A lot of companies choose to advertise during this period, which means the demand for ad impressions will increase, as will the price. So, it’s getting more expensive? Yes, it’s getting more expensive to display an ad, but you shouldn’t be bothered by ad prices. Instead, you should be more focused on the cost of acquiring a new customer. If the price of an impression increases and the conversion rate also increases, then you need less impressions to get a customer. So the cost of getting a new customer does not go up.

So what should you do?

• Invest in brand advertising before the peak starts, so early November.

• Invest in performance advertising just before and during the peak. 

Tips and tricks

• Saturday is the most expensive day to advertise. For the calculations in the algorithm, the advertising week ends on a Saturday, so most spend is pushed to that last day. There is also an average increase in CPA. Don’t turn off your campaigns on a Saturday because you’ll end up back in the Learning Phase again. Just be aware of this detail, and if you run a campaign, start it on a Sunday or at the beginning of the week.

• Website conversions + Advantage Campaign Budget + lifetime budgets give the lowest CPAs on average.

• > $1k ad sets → automatic placements. < $1k ad sets → no automatic placements.

Set a minimum budget of $500–$1000 for best results. This gives the system the opportunity to reach enough conversions. As previously mentioned, your budget should be calculated as CPA expectation * $50.