Black Friday 2026 is November 27. Cyber Monday follows on November 30. Four months sounds like plenty of runway. For most Amazon sellers, it is not enough.

The campaigns that perform best during BFCM are not the ones configured the week before. They are built on months of conversion history, keyword data that was calibrated through Q3, budget rules that were set up and tested in October, and dayparting schedules that already account for the different buyer behavior during peak shopping days. Sellers who start in November are working with cold campaigns against competitors who started in August.

This checklist runs phase by phase from July through the event. Work through it in order. The items in earlier phases create the foundation that later phases depend on.

Phase 1 (July and August): Foundation

The work in this phase is less about BFCM specifically and more about getting your account in the right state to take advantage of it.

Task
Why it matters for BFCM
Pull last year's BFCM data (if available). Note which campaigns ran out of budget and when, which placements converted best, which keywords drove the most volume
Last year's patterns are your baseline. If you ran out of budget at 11am on Black Friday, you need a higher ceiling this year and a budget rule to enforce it
Identify which campaigns will be active during BFCM and which will not. Not every campaign needs to run at full spend during the event
Budget concentration matters more during BFCM than at any other point in the year. Knowing which campaigns get the increase and which stay flat prevents diffuse spend
Audit and clean your current campaigns. Cut keywords with consistent spend and no attributed sales. Fix structure problems
Every dollar wasted before November is a dollar that could have built conversion history. Clean campaigns going into Q3 convert better in Q4
Record your current daily budget baseline for each BFCM campaign
Budget rules increase from a baseline. If you do not know what the baseline is before the rule fires, you cannot set the increase correctly

The budget rules guide covers how baselines work and how the restore step functions after the event window closes. Setting the baseline correctly now is what makes the October rule setup straightforward rather than a guessing exercise.

Phase 2 (September): Bidding calibration

September is when campaign history starts mattering directly. The conversion data your campaigns accumulate in Q3 affects how Amazon's algorithm treats your ads going into Q4.

Incrementally increase bids on your highest-performing BFCM keywords. Do not wait until October to start. A keyword with three months of conversion history at a competitive bid position enters BFCM in a different state than one that was just boosted in November.

Model your BFCM budget requirements. Use your current daily spend as the baseline and estimate how much you will want to increase during the event window. Build your ceiling from the bottom up: start with your baseline, add your estimated demand increase, add a buffer for competitive cost pressure. Write this number down. It becomes your Event rule parameter in October.

Decide your ACoS stance for BFCM. Many sellers accept a higher ACoS during the event window intentionally, treating it as a moment to take market share and drive rank rather than optimize for immediate margin. Others hold to their standard target. Neither is wrong. The important thing is deciding before the event rather than reacting to numbers mid-event when it is hardest to think clearly. What counts as a good ACoS covers how to think through this decision based on your margin structure.

Begin reviewing your dayparting data for BFCM context. Buyer behavior shifts during Black Friday weekend. Late-night and early-morning hours often see higher conversion rates than they do during standard weeks, driven by deal-seekers who are actively shopping outside normal hours. Check your own account data from past Q4 periods if you have it. This shapes the dayparting schedule you will build in October.

Phase 3 (October): Full setup

October is when everything gets built, tested, and verified. Nothing should be set up for the first time in November.

Configure your Event rules for the BFCM window. In Off Hours, an Event rule lets you set a budget increase for a specific date range with a defined peak period and a wind-down schedule after the event. Set the rule to activate November 27, hold through November 30, and restore to baseline December 1. Verify the baseline snapshot is capturing the right number before the rule fires.

Build your BFCM dayparting schedule. Standard overnight pauses need to be reviewed before BFCM. If your normal schedule pauses campaigns at midnight, that rule may cut you off exactly when Black Friday deal volume is peaking. Build a modified schedule for the event window: consider running without an overnight pause on Black Friday itself, or shortening the pause window, based on what your historical data supports. The dayparting guide covers how to read your hourly data to determine which windows genuinely underperform.

Test all rules before November. Check that the Event rule logic is correct. Verify the budget increase percentage is what you intended. Confirm the restore date is set and will fire automatically after Cyber Monday. A rule that looks right in October is a rule you can trust in November.

October setup checklist
Status
Event rule configured with correct start date (Nov 27), peak period, and restore date (Dec 1)
Set in Off Hours before Oct 31
Budget baseline snapshot verified for each BFCM campaign
Confirm the number matches your current daily spend
BFCM dayparting schedule built and reviewed against Q4 hourly data
Modified overnight schedule ready to activate Nov 27
All rule logic tested and verified
Done before Nov 10

Phase 4 (November): Execution

Two weeks before (around November 13): Final budget review. If your account performance in October updated your estimate of what you will spend during BFCM, adjust the Event rule parameters before the event starts. This is the last clean window to change the ceiling without touching anything mid-event.

48 hours before Black Friday: Verify all rules are active in the Off Hours dashboard. Confirm the Event rule is live and the start date is correct. Check that your modified dayparting schedule is loaded. Do not make changes on Black Friday morning.

During the event: Monitor daily, not hourly. Campaign performance during BFCM is often erratic on short time horizons because of compressed demand and rapid spend patterns. Looking at hourly data mid-event and adjusting bids based on what you see is one of the most common ways sellers make expensive mistakes. Check once in the morning, once in the evening. If something looks genuinely broken, fix it. Otherwise, let the rules run.

After Cyber Monday: Confirm the restore rule fired and budgets returned to baseline. Run a post-event review: what did you actually spend versus what you modeled, which campaigns overdelivered or underdelivered, and what would you change. Document this for 2027. The sellers who do BFCM well every year are the ones who debrief every year.

The principle underneath all of it

BFCM advertising is not a campaign setting. It is a system you build in advance, test before the event, and let execute without manual intervention during the highest-traffic days of the year. The goal is to arrive at Black Friday with nothing left to configure.

Parkway Home, a home decor brand we have worked with, ran their first structured BFCM prep in Q3 the prior year. They came into the event with baseline data, a tested Event rule, and a modified dayparting schedule. They did not adjust bids on Black Friday. They checked the dashboard twice. The rules handled everything else.

The full BFCM strategy guide covers the broader framework for structuring your campaigns around the event window, including how to approach Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display alongside Sponsored Products. The checklist above is the operational layer on top of that strategy.

Frequently asked questions

When should I start preparing Amazon ads for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Start in July or August at the latest. The campaigns that perform best during BFCM are the ones with months of conversion history, calibrated bids, and pre-built automation rules. Waiting until October means starting behind. The checklist in this post runs July through the event itself.

How much should I increase my Amazon ad budget for Black Friday? The right increase depends on your category, your margin, and how aggressively you want to compete. The first step is knowing your current daily baseline on each campaign so you have a reference point. Budget rules can pre-schedule the increase to activate automatically when the BFCM window opens. Do not set the increase without first knowing what baseline you are multiplying from.

Should I run Amazon ads 24 hours on Black Friday? BFCM is one of the few periods where running ads during overnight hours can make sense, particularly in the early hours of Black Friday when deal-seekers are active. Verify this against your own account data from prior years rather than applying a standard overnight pause that might cut you off during a conversion spike. If this is your first BFCM, run without a pause and use the data to inform next year.

How do I set up BFCM budget rules on Amazon? Event rules in Off Hours let you set a budget boost for a specific date range, a peak period, and a wind-down after the event. The rule captures your current baseline before the event starts and restores it automatically after Cyber Monday. Set this up in October so you have time to verify the logic before November.

Off Hours Event rules handle the BFCM budget increase and post-event restore automatically, so you are not manually adjusting campaigns during the highest-traffic days of the year. Start a free 14-day trial.