Seasonality Adjustments in Google Ads. The quick explanation is that these are a helpful feature that can nudge the system from one place instead of manually changing bid strategies at the campaign or portfolio level. Like other things in Google Ads they can be scheduled to start and end but note they only last so long. Check out what Google says about them below.
Maybe in most cases Seasonalty Adjustments handle seasonality well BUT if you’re like many ecommerce advertisers, I highly doubt you have rock-star, Black Friday like performance for all days Friday – Cyber Monday. Many site do best Black Friday & Cyber Monday while the weekend days between them are “OK.”
We’ll if the AI truly got things right you’d see more even ROAS for all 4 days. For some accounts I oversee, the system could have been more reserved on the weekend days so it would have been viable to use Seasonality Adjustments to pull back during the softer days and possibly accelerate again Cyber Monday. Generally, I would agree smart bidding works well assuming a campaign has enough volume but not always. For special situations you can use a seasonality adjustment to sort of “override” the system and push it in the desired direction.
Smart bidding largely works well when things are “evergreen” or “business as usual,” but it doesn’t have a crystal ball. You know your customers better than Google, you also know your promo calendar, Google does not.
If an offer is well planned and well timed it would be wise to use an adjustment, particularly for a multi-day sale.
Too Long Didn’t Read
Seasonality Adjustments are a good one to have at your disposal. I like it because it’s 1 lever that can be pulled to affect many campaigns. Don’t assume Google is perfect and always gets things right day to day. Google makes money on all clicks you only make money on clicks that convert.