Amazon PPC A→Z · Lesson 39 · 3:42
Black Friday and Cyber Monday: a deal lowers what a click is worth A deal cuts your profit on every sale, so it cuts what a click is worth. Work out the click worth at the deal price, cap deal-day bids at it, and put bids back when the deal ends.
The video plays from YouTube (no cookies until you press play). 1 For every product on a deal or coupon: profit before ads at the deal price (price − cost of goods − FBA fee − referral fee on the deal price − returns; in the US also the deal fee and the holiday peak fee). Click worth = that × the conversion rate you've really seen, not a hoped-for jump. 2 Set deal-day bids at or under the new click worth (a schedule bid rule or by hand). Raise budgets for the deal days with a schedule-based budget rule, not every bid by a percentage. 3 On 1 December (or the day the deal ends), put bids back to the full-price numbers. Judge the deal days only after 7–14 days of attribution. Raising every bid for Black Friday, or keeping the full-price ACoS target. At 20% off, a 30% target costs $9.60 a sale against $8.20 profit, and the report's 37.5% ACoS looks like break-even when it's a loss.
0:00 Same bid, full price vs deal 0:26 The rule 0:51 The water bottle on a deal 1:31 What if more clicks buy? 1:43 The old bid on deal days 2:23 The common mistake 2:38 The tools, with limits 3:03 Do this week Show Hide 0:00 Running a Black Friday deal? Your old bid may now lose money. 0:04 One water bottle, one bid: a dollar twenty. At full price, a hundred clicks make thirty dollars. 0:11 At twenty percent off, the same hundred clicks lose thirty eight. 0:15 And the report still shows thirty seven point five percent ACoS, so it looks fine. Here's why it isn't. 0:22 Lesson thirty nine: a deal lowers what a click is worth. 0:26 Black Friday is November twenty seventh, Cyber Monday November thirtieth. Deal-day bids and budgets get set in the next two weeks. 0:35 The rule: a deal cuts your profit on every sale. So it cuts what a click is worth, unless a lot more clicks buy. 0:44 And Amazon's own holiday guide warns that in big sales events, conversion can stay flat, or even drop. 0:51 The example: our steel water bottle, forty dollars. After the product, the FBA fee, the referral fee and returns, fifteen dollars are left before ads. 1:02 One click in ten buys, so a click is worth a dollar fifty. 1:06 Now twenty percent off: thirty two dollars. The referral fee is a percentage, so it falls too: four eighty instead of six. 1:15 Left before ads: eight twenty. An eight dollar discount, and six eighty less profit. 1:21 So at one in ten, a click is now worth eighty two cents. Break-even ACoS falls from thirty seven point five to twenty five point six percent. 1:31 What if more clicks buy? At one in six, a click is worth a dollar thirty seven. Still under a dollar fifty. To keep a dollar fifty, almost one click in five would have to buy. 1:43 Now the old bid. A dollar twenty, a hundred clicks: a hundred and twenty dollars spent, ten sales. 1:50 At full price, ten sales leave a hundred and fifty before ads: plus thirty. On the deal, eighty two: minus thirty eight. 1:59 The report: a hundred and twenty spent, three hundred and twenty in sales. Thirty seven point five percent ACoS, the old break-even, so it looks fine. The deal's break-even is twenty five point six. 2:12 The deal-day bid: keep a fifth of eighty two cents. Sixty six cents. The same hundred clicks now make sixteen dollars, if one in ten still buys. 2:23 The common mistake: raising every bid for Black Friday, or keeping the full-price target. Thirty percent ACoS at thirty two dollars is nine sixty a sale, against eight twenty profit. Minus a dollar forty, on every sale. 2:38 The tools help, with limits. Budget rules raise a budget for the deal days, set in advance. But they change budgets, not bids, and the budget Amazon recommends doesn't know your margin. 2:50 Schedule bid rules set a deal-day bid that ends by itself. And a small loss can be worth it, for rank or new customers. Then do it on purpose, with a cap and an end date. 3:03 So this week: for every product on a deal, redo profit before ads at the deal price. In the US, add the deal fee and the holiday peak fee. Then the click worth, with the conversion you really saw. 3:16 Cap deal-day bids at that number. Raise budgets with a budget rule, not every bid by a percentage. 3:23 On December first, put the bids back. And judge the deal days only after seven to fourteen days, when the late sales are in. 3:31 A deal lowers your price. So it lowers what a click is worth. 3:35 Next lesson: what a click costs, and why that keeps changing. See you there. Not affiliated with Amazon. Numbers in this video are a worked example. Published 2 November 2026.