How to not lose money on Black Friday
Your break-even ROAS at your sale price, your rules for when to spend more or pull back, and a checklist for every week from October to the day after Cyber Monday. All in one Notion playbook for stores running Meta and Google Ads.
The number that fools most stores on Black Friday
Ever had a Black Friday where the ads report looked amazing and the bank account didn't? It usually starts with a discount nobody ran through the math.
Same product, same cost to make and ship. The discount pushed your break-even up by about a third, and neither Meta nor Google will show you that.
Their dashboards count the revenue and never see what the product cost you.
Illustrative numbers from the playbook's worked example, not a benchmark. Your margins will differ, which is why the calculator is included.
By the weekend, you'll have four things written down
Your break-even ROAS at your Black Friday price
So you know which ads are making money while they run.
Your scale, hold and cut rules for each day
Decided in October, while you can still think straight.
A store that can take the orders
Stock, shipping cutoffs, checkout, discount codes and support, checked off one by one.
Your emails and texts ready to send
From the teaser to the last hours of Cyber Monday.
Every page of the playbook ends in a checklist you can finish, so nothing stays at "I should look into that."
Eight sections, in the order the decisions actually get made
Every page ends in a checklist you can finish.
Read This First
Your break-even ROAS, the three ROAS numbers that don't mean the same thing, and how to tell customers you'd have gotten anyway from customers your ads actually brought in.
Inventory & Operations
Stock, shipping deadlines, support coverage and returns. A perfect campaign pointed at an out-of-stock product still loses the sale.
Website & Conversion
Where paid clicks turn into orders, or quietly don't: mobile checkout, discount codes, speed and trust signals.
Creative & Messaging
What to brief your photographer, designer or creator to produce, and why generic "50% off" creative underperforms.
Traffic & Paid Ads
Why budgets break when they go up, the spend rules to write in advance, a Saturday-morning diagnosis order, and four questions to ask whoever runs your ads.
Launch: Black Friday Day-Of
A runbook for November 27 itself, plus what to do if the site, the payment gateway, your stock or your carrier breaks.
The Weekend & Cyber Monday
How to keep the weekend going, then give Monday its own reason to buy instead of repeating Friday's offer.
After BFCM
The section most playbooks skip: did you actually make money, and how to win back the customers you just paid to acquire.
The tools you'll open every day of the weekend
Break-even & target ROAS calculator
Enter your price, costs and discount. Get your number, then a Scale, Hold or Cut call for each weekend day.
BFCM master checklist
Every task tagged by phase and priority: 🔴 do it or lose sales, 🟡 do it if you can, 🟢 bonus.
The 2026 timeline
Every phase counted back from Black Friday, November 27.
Email & SMS templates
Teaser, launch, urgency and Cyber Monday, ready to edit and send.
Budget & spend rules worksheet
Set your triggers before the pressure hits.
Common mistakes
The expensive ones, so you can skip them.
Hi, I'm Paola.
I'm an ex-Googler. I managed enterprise ad accounts at Dentsu/Merkle, and I've worked in performance marketing since 2020. Today I run Google and Meta ads for e-commerce brands in the US and Canada.
I judge every ad dollar by one thing: did it make the store money? On one store I worked on, better tracking showed that the sales Meta was taking credit for would have happened anyway. We paused Meta, and the store kept the $6,000 a month it had been paying Meta for them.
I wrote this playbook because I kept seeing the same Black Friday from inside different accounts: a lot of effort on the ads, very little on the number that decides whether they were worth it.
Is it right for your store?
It's for you if you sell online, you're already running (or about to run) Meta or Google Ads, and you want to know your numbers before Black Friday instead of finding out in December.
Skip it if your store hasn't made its first sales yet, or you want step-by-step campaign building inside Ads Manager. Meta's and Google's own holiday guides cover that well.
Questions brands ask
Is this a course?
No. It's a working plan for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2026. Every page ends in a checklist you can actually finish.
How do I get it?
You enter your name and email, and the playbook is sent to that email. Open it and click Duplicate (top right) to copy it into your own Notion, so the checkboxes save and the tables hold your numbers.
Do I need a Notion account?
Yes. You duplicate the playbook into your own Notion workspace to use the checklists and tables. A free account works.
Is it really free?
Yes. There's nothing to pay and no card to enter. You give your name and email, and the playbook is sent to you.
Does it teach me how to build campaigns in Meta or Google Ads?
No. It's written for the owner one level above the account: what good looks like, so you can judge the plan in front of you and ask better questions of whoever runs it.
Is it too late to start?
No. Every phase is mapped to real 2026 dates, counted back from Black Friday (November 27) and Cyber Monday (November 30), so you can jump straight to the section that matches where you are on the calendar.
What if something isn't working?
Message @theadsgirl on Instagram and I'll sort out your access.
Decide the number before the weekend, not after it.
Free: the plan, the calculator and the checklists. Black Friday lands on November 27, and every week you wait is one less week to fix your stock, your site and your spend rules before it does.
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