Google Ads Sale Event Planner: budgets and bidding for a short sale
Plan a Diwali or end-of-season sale: dated steps, sale-day budget with GST and the seasonality adjustment.
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- Runs in your browser
- No sign-up
Your sale plan appears here
Pick a festival or type your sale dates, then add your budget and estimates. Or try the example: a saree shop in Bengaluru planning its Diwali sale.
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About the Sale Event Planner
Pick a festival such as Diwali or Republic Day, or type the dates of your own sale, and add your campaign types, bid strategy, normal daily budget and your estimates for the sale. The planner gives a dated timeline from today to a week after the sale: when to write sale ads and promotion assets, when to put sale prices in Merchant Center, when to raise budgets and when to create a Smart Bidding seasonality adjustment, or why your sale should not have one. You also get a budget for the sale days with 18% GST, checklists for before and after, a plan to copy and a calendar file. It runs in your browser and never signs in to Google Ads.
How it works
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Step 1
Pick the festival or type your sale dates, choose whether you have a promo code, and tick the campaign types that will run the sale.
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Step 2
Add your normal daily budget and conversion rate from Google Ads, and your estimates of extra demand and the change in conversion rate on sale days.
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Step 3
Work through the timeline from the top, set up the budget and seasonality adjustment it describes, tick the checklists and download the calendar file.
When a seasonality adjustment helps
A seasonality adjustment tells Smart Bidding to expect a change in conversion rate on set dates. Google says it is ideal for short events of 1 to 7 days, may not work as well beyond 14 days, and should be used only for major changes, because Smart Bidding already allows for normal seasonal patterns. It works with Search, Shopping and Display campaigns on Target CPA or Target ROAS, and with Performance Max on any bid strategy. It ends by itself: no negative adjustment is needed after the sale.
Budgets for the sale days
On any one day a campaign can spend up to twice its average daily budget, and not more than 30.4 times it in a month. For Search and Shopping campaigns a seasonal budget adjustment raises the budget for 3 to 14 days and puts it back by itself; other campaigns need a change by hand. The sale-day budget here is our estimate: your normal budget raised by the extra demand you expect, with 18% GST added as it is on your invoice.
What this tool cannot do
It does not sign in to Google Ads or Merchant Center, so it cannot create the adjustment, change budgets or see your real data. The extra demand and the change in conversion rate are your estimates, and the clicks and conversions per day assume the same cost per click, which often rises on busy days. Timings marked "our suggestion" are ours; the rest come from Google Ads Help and Merchant Center Help. Festival dates come from our calendar data and are checked each year.
Frequently asked questions
What is a seasonality adjustment in Google Ads?
An advanced Smart Bidding control that tells Google to expect a higher or lower conversion rate for set dates, such as a 3-day sale. You create it in Tools › Budgets and bidding › Adjustments, on the Seasonal tab, with the type Conversion rate and the change you expect. Bids return to normal after the end date by themselves.
Should I use a seasonality adjustment for Diwali?
Only for a short sale, ideally 1 to 7 days, when you expect a big change in conversion rate. Google's advice for Shopping and Performance Max describes a significant change, like more than 30%, in under 7 days. For the longer festive season, Smart Bidding adjusts by itself, and you can change your budgets and targets instead.
When should I raise my budget for a sale?
Google suggests adjusting budgets and targets 4 to 6 weeks before a peak season, and making target changes a few days before the key day. For Search and Shopping campaigns you can schedule a seasonal budget adjustment for the sale dates, and it goes back to normal by itself. Remember a campaign can already spend up to twice its daily budget on a busy day.
When should I add promotion assets and sale prices?
Most ads and assets are reviewed within one business day, but Google advises submitting several days ahead if you need approval by a date, and uploading new Performance Max holiday assets at least 2 weeks ahead. Merchant Center promotions should go in at least 24 hours before they start. Sale prices go in your feed with an effective date, so they start and end on time.
What if conversion tracking breaks during the sale?
Add a data exclusion, so Smart Bidding ignores the days with wrong conversion data. Do it quickly: Google suggests it for problems caught within a week, and not for problems older than 14 days in Search and Display. Our Account Anomaly Checker can show the days when conversions stopped while clicks carried on.
Sources and checks
Rules last checked
The Sale Event Planner follows these official pages:
- About seasonality adjustments (support.google.com)
- About average daily budgets (support.google.com)
- About promotion assets (support.google.com)
- Sale price [sale_price] (support.google.com)
Scores, limits and suggestions marked "our checklist", "our measure" or "our suggestion" are ours, not Google's or the platform's. How our tools work
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