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Q4 is the wrong time to experiment on your own account.
These are the 69 checks we run on client accounts before Black Friday. Tracking, feed, structure, website, scaling. Make your own copy and work through it.
What's in the sheet
69 checks in three parts. Every row has a tick box, a progress status and a priority column, and most link to a worked example.
Getting the account ready
Conversion tracking, product feed, customer lists, campaign structure and the default settings that quietly cost money.
Getting the website ready
Landing pages, whether the offer actually shows on product pages, shipping cut-offs and mobile checks.
Running and scaling the sale
Budgets, bidding, each sale phase from Halloween to Cyber Monday, and winding down cleanly after.
New in the 2026 edition
The platform moved again this year, and so did what we do on accounts. Some of what's been added:
- Planning data exclusion windows for PMax and Smart Bidding
- Duplicating winning campaigns for each sale phase instead of rebuilding them
- An assetless PMax or Shopping campaign for on-sale items only
- Testing PMax Seasonal Themes for Black Friday creative
- Reverting budgets and bidding the same day the sale ends
- A January win-back plan for the post-Q4 dip
Use it yourself, or let us help
The checklist is yours to run start to finish without us. Most brands that ask for help do it for one of two reasons. They're too busy, even with AI making the work easier. Or they don't want to spend their own Q4 budget finding out what doesn't work.
If either sounds familiar, there are three ways we work with eCommerce brands:
Managed Google Ads
We take full ownership of the account, including everything on this checklist.
See Managed Google AdsThe In-House Accelerator
We build the account properly, teach your team to manage it, and hand over control step by step.
See the In-House AcceleratorOne-to-one coaching
Direct advice from Jeremy on the calls that are expensive to get wrong. No retainer.
See one-to-one coachingBuilt by the people who run it
Liam Healey
Liam specialises in feed optimisation in Google Merchant Center. That's where a lot of Q4 goes wrong: sale prices that don't update, promotions that never show, products disapproved the week it matters.
He's one of the team who works through this checklist on client accounts every autumn.
Hear it talked through
The Q4 episode of The Google Ads Unleashed Podcast walks through the checklist and the reasoning behind it.
Questions
Is it really free?
Yes. We ask for your name and email, then the sheet opens straight away.
What format is it?
A Google Sheet. You make your own copy, so you can edit it, assign rows and track progress with your team.
Who is it for?
eCommerce brands already running Google Ads: Search, Shopping and Performance Max. If you aren't spending on ads yet, most of it won't apply.
Do I need an agency to use it?
No. It's written so an in-house marketer or founder can work through it alone.