Two things happen to your Google Ads account in late November. More people search, and more competitors bid. The first is why you want to be there. The second is why the same Google Ads budget buys noticeably less than it did in October. Businesses that do not adjust tend to spend their whole December budget by the middle of the month, on clicks that cost more than usual, from people who were never going to buy from them.
Why your costs move
Google describes the auction as weighing your bid, the quality of your ad and landing page, your ad assets, thresholds for the position, contextual signals, and how competitive the auction is. That last one is the seasonal variable. When more advertisers compete for the same searches, the price of a position rises even though nothing about your account changed.
Two useful implications. First, quality is not a nice-to-have in a competitive period, it is the thing that keeps your costs from rising as fast as everyone else’s. Google also notes what you actually pay is often less than your maximum bid. Second, since costs rise, your cost per customer rises with them, which is only a problem if you do not know what a customer is worth. BDC recommends watching acquisition cost against lifetime value. In December that ratio is the number to watch, not the click price.
Where the waste actually happens
The budget empties before the day ends
Higher click prices mean a daily budget is consumed sooner. If your ads stop running at two in the afternoon, you are absent for the evening, which for retail is the busiest part of the day. Check whether your campaigns are hitting their cap early.
Gift shoppers who are not your customer
Seasonal traffic includes a lot of browsing and a lot of research that never converts for a local service business. If you sell a service rather than a gift, December traffic can look great and convert terribly.
Ads for things you cannot deliver in time
Once shipping cutoffs pass, advertising a product that will not arrive before the holiday buys you refunds and complaints. Check the current deadlines on Canada Post and your other carriers directly, since they publish them each season, and plan to shift or pause those ads on the day they pass.
Running through your own closure
Ads continuing while your phone goes unanswered for a week. Enquiries arriving to silence are worse than no enquiries, because the person forms an opinion.
Broad keywords left unattended
Seasonal search behaviour produces query variations nobody anticipated. Read the actual search terms weekly in December rather than monthly, and add negatives as they appear.
What to change before the rush
Review your search terms report now and add the obvious negatives. Anything with the words free, cheap, jobs, DIY, or a competitor name you do not want to pay for.
Decide your December posture deliberately. If you sell gifts or anything people buy in season, this is when to increase. If you sell a considered service that nobody buys in the last two weeks of December, the honest move is to reduce then and put the money into January, when your competitors have exhausted their budgets and demand returns.
Make sure conversion tracking is working before volume arrives, because a December with no tracking is a month of data you cannot learn from. The chain from click to customer is in what a lead really costs.
Put your holiday hours everywhere: the ads, the site and your Business Profile. And if you are closed, either pause or say so in the ad, so nobody clicks a paid ad to find a locked door.
The January opportunity nobody plans for
The pattern we see every year is a business spending heavily through December, going quiet in January, and missing the cheapest, most motivated traffic of the quarter. Competitors have spent their budgets, auction pressure drops, and people who put decisions off until the new year start searching.
If your service is one people buy in January, hold back part of December to spend then. It is frequently the best value month of the year and almost nobody plans for it.
Frequently asked questions
Should I raise my budget for December?
Only if your customers actually buy in December. A raised budget in a category where nobody is buying simply spends faster on the same non-converting traffic.
My cost per click doubled. Did I do something wrong?
Probably not. Auction competitiveness is one of the factors Google names, and it rises seasonally. Judge the month on cost per customer rather than cost per click.
Should I pause during my holiday closure?
Pause or adjust the schedule, yes, unless you are collecting enquiries to handle on your return and your ad and site make that timing clear.
Is Black Friday worth it for a service business?
Usually less than for retail. People in discount mode are not typically choosing a long term service provider. Being present is fine, discounting heavily rarely pays.
When should I set all this up?
Now, in the quiet weeks. Changes made during the rush are made under pressure and with incomplete data, which is how accounts get broken.
Not sure your account is ready for the season? Book a free audit and we will check your budgets, negatives, tracking and schedule before the traffic arrives. More on our Google Ads page.
Technocure Digital Solutions is a bilingual digital agency specializing in website design, SEO and Google Ads. We have served clients worldwide since 2012 and have been based in Montreal since 2020. More about us.
