PPC
Ultimate Guide to Dominating Black Friday PPC in 2023

Black Friday is a special day for PPC. Normally, we’re able to launch new campaigns and carefully mold them into perfection so we can reap the rewards for months, if not years to come.
Black Friday in Google Ads is different. You have a very short time to make the absolute most out of what you do. The wrong ad, bid, or settings can ruin your results.
No matter your strategy, the tips below will help you maximize your potential. We’ll be covering exactly what you need to do to adjust your bids and budgets, ad text and extensions, display and remarketing ads, keyword strategy, Shopping campaigns, and more.
Quick note: Whenever I refer to Black Friday, I’m actually talking about the entire Black Friday weekend. Some advertisers treat Black Friday differently from the rest of the weekend, while others see it as a five-day sale, starting on Thanksgiving and ending with Cyber Monday.
Table of contents
How to prepare your Google Ads campaigns for Black Friday
In order to prepare for Black Friday, it’s essential to understand what promotions you’ll be running. It’s taking it back to ecommerce 101, but defining what promotions you’ll run will make a lot of sense as I go through the rest of the tips.
So first of all, find out:
- What will your offers be?
- Will you have enough stock?
If you don’t have a large stock, consider being less aggressive in your bidding or just pushing the product via Shopping or Search – whatever works best for you.
If you’re not sure you’ll have enough stock for a specific promotion, make sure you have a backup offer ready for your more generic keywords.
🎁 Get more holiday marketing tips here!
Review last year’s performance
I’ve written extensively about getting more success with PPC during seasonal swings, so I won’t dig too much into looking at historic performance.
The gist is that it’s crucial not to pretend this year is a single event. Despite the changing landscape in PPC, there are several areas that you can learn from based on historic performance. Some of these are:
- What did you learn from the ads you ran? Did any generic messaging perform better than others?
- Did ads that described the product benefits/features do better than the ads with price, shipping, and other specific info?
- What bid did it take you to get into the first position?
- Did any keywords or product categories turn out to be hard to advertise in?
- How did the sections of your account that didn’t have a promotion do?
- How big of an increase in spend did you experience? (Note, if you were capped out by your budget, then this is an important step for you to review)
- Was your Display Remarketing a bust or did it succeed on the day itself?
- What happened in the days after Black Friday and Cyber Monday? How much do you need to lower your bids in the immediate days after the promotion to avoid losing money?
And so on. Learn from what happened last year and you’ll be able to get more out of this year.
Define your rules of engagement
Before we get into the nitty-gritty I want to touch on one more non-PPC matter.
Chances are you’re not the boss. And even if you’re the boss, then this section will be healthy for you to prepare in advance.
Consider the following scenario: You’re expecting to spend $5,000 on Black Friday and aiming for an 800% ROAS.
However, Black Friday comes along and by 1 p.m. you’ve spent the entire $5,000 and have a ROAS of 1,100%. What do you do?
All the PPC managers yell: INCREASE THE BUDGET. But how much? What can the business afford? How much stock is left? And what if the ROAS was 700%? Should you still increase the budget? If you don’t have any stock left, do you have a backup promotion ready?
Having your rules of engagement set for the day can be incredibly powerful. You might think you’ll deal with that dream scenario if it happens, but what if on that same day your site starts loading slowly because of the high traffic AND your boss needs to pick up his sick daughter from school?
All of a sudden, you can’t get an answer until it’s too late.
Rules of engagement have the potential to save you a huge headache and give you a better opportunity to get the most out of the sale weekend.
Budget and bidding tips for Black Friday PPC
Bidding is one of the trickiest areas to work with. Not necessarily on Black Friday itself, but afterward. If you run any type of automated bidding, you’ll have to run bids manually for at least 1-2 weeks after Black Friday due to the influx of data.
I haven’t personally found a bidding system where I can tell the system to ignore data generated in a specific time frame when it runs its algorithms. This poses an issue, as you’ll convert much better on Black Friday than in the weeks after. Depending on your industry, this might be a big issue.
To solve this, I typically do the following:
Download your bids the week before Black Friday
If you’re running automated bidding in Google, then remove the bids and look in Google Ads interface to see what the bids are. There are a few issues you should watch for, though.
Depending on the day and time you download your bids, you might get a different bid than the one that’s running the rest of the time. Especially with Google’s own ROAS and CPA bidding, automation changes dynamically based on day of the week and time of day (amongst other factors).
Therefore, there is a chance you might not get the actual bid you should reinstate after Black Friday, but it’s the best chance you have. It’s much better to reinstate a previous bid that might be 20-30% off than continue running the bids you had for the Black Friday weekend.
Increase your budget, significantly
It goes without saying that you have to increase your budget quite a bit on Black Friday.
For example, searches for smartphone deals go up 10X.
While searches for toys increased by 50%:
Ad writing tips for Black Friday
Writing ads for Black Friday is similar to writing ads for promotions throughout the year. Make sure they are relevant to the sale and use an adequate amount of ad space so users are aware of the promotion you’re running.
There are some specific factors you need to take into account for Black Friday, though.
I’ve split up the tactics in Mandatory and Recommended. If you’re new or this is your first Black Friday you can choose to just follow the mandatory tactics. But if you’ve been around the block, make sure you invest the extra time to do the additional Recommended tactics.
Mandatory for all:
- Set up a Promotion asset
- Add Black Friday references in your ads
Recommended for intermediates:
- Consider changing your sitelinks to specific products that will be in high demand.
- Consider adding Inventory References
How to set up Google Ads promotion assets
The promotion asset should be an essential part of your ad writing strategy moving forward. Your ads for Black Friday are no exception.
Promotion assets look like this:
The extra line of ad text can really help set your ads apart from your competitors. The fact that it highlights a Black Friday sale is just the icing on the cake.
On top of this, you should also set your promotion to only run in a specific time frame. For Black Friday, this might be from Friday to Sunday.
This will give your ad additional space and add a sense of urgency to your offer.
Just remember, all ad assets aren’t necessarily guaranteed to show. It’s not enough to solely rely on the promotion asset to highlight your promotions.
Add Black Friday references in your ads
One of the oldest best practices is to make sure your ads are relevant, and one of the best ways to do that is to reference current events like Black Friday.
You can keep it simple, for example:
If you want the biggest impact for the least amount of effort, you can just change the second headline in all your ads to text referencing your Black Friday offer. This can be done super quick in the Google Ads interface.
For a higher CTR, better conversion rate, and ROI, I do recommend spending the time to write more specific ad copy for your most important products and categories.
Remember, Black Friday is a high-volume day. Any time you invest in writing better ads will pay off more than any other time of the year (with the exception of the Christmas season) – even if the ads only run for that day.
Change your sitelinks to specific, high-demand products [recommended]
Sitelinks are usually not the biggest focus area when writing ads. Most advertisers just take a minute or so to put in a couple of random sitelinks.
On Black Friday, it might be worthwhile to add a bit of extra finesse to your sitelinks. One idea is to include the specific products you run promotions for in your sitelinks.
So, let’s say you are running a campaign for Bluetooth speakers. Normally, you might have sitelinks like these:
- Most popular BT speakers
- Newest BT speakers
- BT speakers on sale
- All BT speakers
On Black Friday, consider adding sitelinks that are more specific to the offers you’re running:
- Soundlink: 33% Off Now
- 20% Off All Bose
- 25% Off Bose Headphones
- All Black Friday Sales
The reason why I advise going a bit broader than normal is because during Black Friday you are more likely to convince consumers to buy something they weren’t really out to get.
Many of us will just start searching for various products to see what deals are out there. Just because someone specifically searches for Bluetooth speakers it doesn’t mean they can’t be interested in headphones or other types of speakers if there is a good deal to be had.
Add inventory references [recommended]
Let’s say you create a killer promotion for Bose speakers. It’s right in the middle of being a sought-after product, at the right price with an exceptional promotion.
You start selling it and you can see that it’ll sell out by noon. Boom!
But you could have taken advantage of this in your ads. By indicating how many products are left, you can create even more scarcity.
Just make sure you have backup promotions for when you run out of a specific product.
Tag your current ads with the label “evergreen”
Running PPC for clients always makes you think of ways to do things more efficiently. Especially in eCommerce, as there are times of the year when the workload increases significantly.
Black Friday is that day.
Before you start your Black Friday ads, you should take all the ads in the ad groups where you will be adding the Black Friday promotion and add the label Evergreen.
That way you can easily pause the ads and reactivate them again when the sale is over.
The same way, you should label all your Black Friday ads with BF. You should probably add the year to your label as well. So for 2023, you’d add the tag BF-2023. That way you don’t accidentally activate last year’s ads next year.
Write your ads at least a week in advance
You know those annoying emails you get from Google Ads about your paused ads being disapproved?
There’s a reason behind the madness, and it’s for days like Black Friday.
When you prepare your ads in advance (and upload to your Google Ads account) you’ll make sure that they get approved, or disapproved, well in advance of you actually needing them to run.
It’s a common mistake to write, or upload, your ads the same day that you need them. You’ll lose valuable time.
Use an automatic rule to pause and activate ads
The exact way you should build the rule is like this:
Just in case, I recommend checking the ads in your account and live in the search results. Even though I’m a big fan of automation, I’ve seen these things go wrong for the stupidest reasons.
While it’s not fun, you can normally live with ads not being live for half a day or even a couple of days, but on Black Friday you can’t afford to lose out on one hour of downtime.
How to maximize your Black Friday Google Shopping returns
Shopping campaigns are tricky when it comes to Black Friday. You have a lot less control than your regular Search campaigns, but Shopping campaigns still account for more than 50% of the revenue in most e-commerce Google Ads accounts, so you need to get this part right.
Create a new Shopping campaign
There are a couple of angles you can take with Google Shopping campaigns on Black Friday, but my go-to approach is the following:
- Create a new Shopping campaign for your most important products
- Use a “SPAG” structure (single product ad groups)
- Start it at least one week in advance, preferably two weeks
Depending on how many products you have, it can be super easy for individual products to slip through the cracks in your Shopping campaign.
By creating a new campaign, you’ll be able to keep an eye on the specific products you’re expecting will perform very well on Black Friday.
Just remember that if you’re using a tactic like segmenting your Shopping campaigns based on search query, then you should continue this with this campaign. You can quickly get in trouble with your ROI if you change that strategy for your key products all of a sudden.
Add storewide promotions to your new Shopping campaign
Okay. So you have a promotion that runs storewide with 20%. I get it.
It still doesn’t mean that all your products are equally important. If you look at your orders from the last 60 days, you must have a list of 10, 20, 50 products that vastly outsell the rest of your products.
Add these to the new Shopping campaign.
How to prepare your Shopping feed for Black Friday
This is where you need to make a decision. Do you run with a promotion that requires a coupon code (as listed above), or do you lower pricing in your feed and see it reflected in the ads?
Often, this decision will be made for you either by the strategy you take as a business (coupon or no coupon) or by the restraints of your platform.
If you run with the coupon code, then it’s crucial that you set up Promotions in the Merchant Center. Otherwise, your price in your Google Shopping ads will not reflect the actual lower price and it will undoubtedly decrease your CTR.
Lowered prices need to be reflected in your feed
It’s crucial that your feed contains the same price as on your website for each individual product. For two reasons:
- If your price isn’t lower in your feed, then your ads will show your original price, which will severely cripple your success on a day like Black Friday.
- There is a strong likelihood that Google will catch the price discrepancy and disapprove your product.
Again, from the time you catch this to the time the product gets approved by Google might take 4-6 hours. This is time that you can’t afford to lose. And that’s if you catch it at all!
I recommend regenerating/updating your feed and sending it to the Merchant Center right after you update the prices on your website. This might be midnight or it might be the day before. The second the prices on your website are updated, you should update your feed.
This is especially important as products go out of stock throughout the day.
Update your feed more frequently on Black Friday
Usually, you set your shopping feed to update every 24 hours. Typically at night.
On Black Friday I highly recommend you update it more frequently. Especially as products go out of stock or as you change your promotions.
Black Friday tips for remarketing
Most ecommerce stores run Dynamic Remarketing, but on Black Friday sending generic messages will not break through the digital noise.
I advise creating a new audience list solely for Black Friday. This means you’ll create a brand new audience the day before Black Friday that doesn’t include previous visitors:
This way you can set a more aggressive bid for the people who’ve visited your site on Black Friday and another bid for the people who visited your site before Black Friday.
Bonus tip: decrease remarketing bids after Black Friday
Lower your remarketing efforts in the days after Black Friday. Most users will have bought what they needed, or they simply weren’t interested in the first place.
Consider static image ads for your remarketing
I would highly recommend some sort of static images in your remarketing mix on Black Friday. Your regular dynamic display remarketing ads most likely look something like this:
Again, usually, this works great. But on Black Friday you’ll want something that pushes through the noise and delivers a message that adequately reflects the scarcity of the day.
Having some banners designed in the most popular sizes can be an easy win, and it shouldn’t cost you much if you use a site like Upwork to find a designer. If your store has an in-house designer, then spending some time on the designs in exchange for a pizza is well-worth the results you’ll most likely get.
The only thing I will add, which will complicate things, is to try to segment your retargeting when you do this. Meaning if a user visits the speaker section, then you’ll show a Black Friday display ad that contains your speaker promotion, etc.
You can try a general, generic banner, but it’ll be more effective if you put in the extra effort and create better-targeted ads.
Again, if your store is beyond a certain size this might prove impossible to do in practice. When you work at scale, you have to somehow limit your efficiency with hands-on tactics for the sake of getting out to as many people as possible.
Black Friday PPC keyword strategy tips
Your keywords should more or less stay the same for Black Friday.
I would highly recommend adding or reactivating keywords that have previously been paused for products you’re running promotions for. On Black Friday, most of your keyword portfolio will convert better than it will the rest of the year, which means you can afford to re-enable those keywords you paused due to low performance.
The exact opposite is also true. With keywords increasing three to four times in search volume, you want to consider pausing parts of your Google Ads account that you are not running promotions for.
Here’s an example of a search term that increased significantly when comparing to the same day a week before Black Friday:
With the added volume and the fact that your competitors will run promotions, which consumers are likely chasing, then your standard pricing will most likely not do anything to incite them to buy from you instead.
Advertise for “black friday + my keyword”
Yes, definitely.
You’ll already show up when someone searches for your keyword, so you might as well control the search by adding black friday to some of your keywords.
However, it will not make or break your success. In big markets, though, you want to be able to control it better. Let’s say that you’re selling Bose speakers, and you show up fine for searches on the keyword bose speakers, but you’re in position six for bose speakers black friday deal.
This search term might convert much higher than your regular keywords, so if your market is big enough it’s an excellent tactic to add black friday to your keywords.
Don’t advertise for the keyword “black friday“
It’s too broad for you to target effectively.
The exception is to create a campaign only targeting your remarketing lists that target the word Black Friday. Find your largest list. Say, anyone who’s visited your site in the last 6 months. Anyone who’s bought from you, well, ever. Add all of them to a remarketing list for search ads campaign with the Targeting targeting setting:
By doing this, you’ll show an ad to anyone who has ever visited your site and searches for Black Friday deals.
Since they’ve already visited your site once before, or possibly even bought from you, we can assume that they have some interest in the products you’re offering, despite them not showing any intent outright. (Remember–brand affinity dramatically increases CTR and conversion rates.)
Black Friday scenarios to be prepared for
Scenario #1: Low average position on key products
Make sure you review the early stats when it comes to your average position on Black Friday. If you’re coming in low for some of your key products, consider increasing your bids.
Throughout the day you can decrease or increase as you normally would based on ROAS, but you need to make sure your keywords have a fighting chance in a proper position.
Your position should preferably be in the 2-3 average position range. This will depend a lot on your ROAS, but the higher position your get, the more ad extensions and CTR you’ll get–which all results in more sales.
Scenario #2: No sales of key products
You need to be ruthless about admitting to yourself if you’ve been beat. It might not even be related to your Google Ads efforts.
Does your competitor run a better offer than you?
If so, then you might want to mimic their promotion or cut your losses. It’s incredibly difficult to beat a competitor that’s severely beating you on price under normal conditions.
On Black Friday with zombie-like consumers chasing deals like that kid on the Walking Dead, it’s almost impossible.
If you’re not getting anything out of your Black Friday efforts in some of your campaigns, consider solely focusing on remarketing. That way you’ll only show your ads to people who’ve visited your site before. With this strategy, you’ll bank on the fact that these consumers know who you are, which has been proven to impact your conversions significantly.
Scenario #3: Budget maxed out
You should routinely check in on your budget. Make sure that you’re not maxed out, or about to max out. If you are maxed out, consider adding more budget based on your rules of engagement that you’ve established.
What to do after Black Friday?
Make sure you do the following in your PPC account once the Black Friday madness is over:
- Reinstate your old bids
- Pause Black Friday ads
- Re-enable your evergreen ads
- Do an after-action report
- Have a beer and enjoy sending out all those orders!
When you review your performance in the days after Black Friday, make sure you don’t take these days into account. For many advertisers, the days after Black Friday can be a time to lose a lot of money.
Wow, Black Friday PPC is… a lot…
If this was more than you could handle, I don’t blame you. It was a bit of a brain dump.
I created a checklist version of this article that you can print out or save for later. Get your simplified Black Friday checklist here.
I’ve also summarized the most actionable Black Friday PPC tips below:
For Bids
- Download your bids a week in advance, so you can reinstate them after Black Friday
- Increase your budget, significantly
For Ads:
- Set up the promotion extension
- Add Black Friday references to your ads
- Consider changing sitelinks
- Consider adding inventory references
For Shopping
- Add a new campaign with your most important products (or the products you run promotions for)
- Use Merchant Center promotions, OR include sale_price in your feed
- Upload your updated prices in your feed around midnight
Remarketing
- Focus your bids around your most recent visitors
- Decrease your bids significantly in the days after Black Friday, or exclude Black Friday
Keywords
- Add previously paused keywords that cover products that are on sale
- Increase bids for low-position keywords that cover products that are on sale
Whatever you do, it’s crucial that you set yourself up for success on Black Friday. Take the time and acknowledge that you can’t just be in maintenance mode.
Get out of your comfort zone and start making some changes in your account.
Want more Black Friday tips? Find out how to drive results from your Black Friday Facebook ads!
PPC
The Easy Guide to Facebook Video Ads for Any Business

Social media platforms are focusing more and more on video content. Facebook used to be a place for folks to upload their photos into albums to keep them organized and share what they’d been up to, but with the increase in popularity of TikTok and Instagram Reels, users are now so much more accustomed to scrolling through endless videos designed to make them laugh, cry, or stay informed. With this change in user behavior, it’s now more important than ever to be sure you’re creating engaging content that cuts through the noise and stands out.
An example of a Facebook video ad.
Video ads on the Meta Business platform (which reaches Facebook and Instagram) is a great way to do this. Although the ability to churn out video ads regularly was reserved for brands with big budgets in years past, new tools and AI have helped democratize this and now any brand can advertise using high-quality videos without spending much at all.
In this post, I want to talk through some best practices for Facebook video ads and show you some tools you can use to execute those strategies.
Table of contents
Facebook video ads best practices
Follow these Facebook video ad tips to squeeze the most out of your Facebook ad costs.
1. Create videos in all aspect ratios
If you’ve used Meta Ads recently, you probably know there are tons of different placements your ads can show up on the network. The good news is that to cover this vast list of placements, you only need to come up with three distinct aspect ratios for your video ads:
Having videos in each of these aspect ratios ensures you’re eligible to show in all the placements you’d like to.
We’ll talk later about how you can make these aspect ratios if you don’t have a dedicated creative team, but in the ad creation process, you’re able to select different video files to fit into each aspect ratio. Facebook will then automatically serve the creative with the right sizing for each spot to ensure you have the best-looking ads.
Now, while it might not seem like a huge deal to have all three ratios, I think it’s actually one of the easiest things you can do to help make sure your ads look good and stand out. In the image above, you can easily see how different an ad will look in the vertical and horizontal placements if you only have a square image. They’re not bad, necessarily, but they certainly don’t have the high-quality, professional look that most users have become accustomed to in recent years.
🛑 Want to know how your Facebook ads are really performing? Find out with our free Facebook Ads Performance Grader!
2. Be prepared for all sound options
If you’re a Facebook or Instagram user, you’ve likely visited the platforms in all sorts of scenarios. With full sound while sitting on your couch or in your bed. Maybe you have your headphones in while out in public, or maybe you’re even one of those crazy people with their sound up on the subway. But odds are, there have been at least a few instances where you were on those platforms and didn’t have the sound on at all.
For each of these instances, you were bound to see ads and the level of volume you were using likely had an impact on how sticky those ads were for you. Designing your ads to be digestible regardless of a user’s sound level is highly important.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself while crafting Facebook video ads sounds:
- Do you have an engaging/entertaining voiceover?
- Is there music you can choose to fit the mood of the ad?
- Do you have subtitles for the voiceover in case someone’s sound is off?
- Is the voiceover clear and easily understandable even in a loud environment?
3. Get your main message across in the first 3 seconds
No matter what the original purpose was for someone to visit social media, the main point is that they’re not there to view your ads. I feel very confident in saying that for the majority of people visiting Facebook or Instagram, they’re not there to see what product or service you’re selling.
Similar to ads on YouTube, users are pretty easily able to skip and scroll past the ads on Facebook and Instagram. That is, unless you run non-skippable ads, but those are pretty rare. So, you need to make sure you’re making a big impact in the first few seconds of your ads…before the remainder of it is skipped. If you do a good job of creating a compelling hook in that short time, you can certainly draw their attention for longer, maybe up to 15-30 seconds, some even longer. But odds are, your views will be short so you need to be front-heavy.
In this time, it’s important to get your business name and core brand messaging across so that even if a user does scroll past you, you’ve at least made that much of an impact. They’ll have a higher chance at brand recall later if they’ve heard your name in that brief intro. This can include text, voiceover, business logos, and more, so be creative, engaging, and entertaining.
4. Blend into the platform aesthetic
In my experience, the best ads on Facebook or Instagram (I’m typically an Instagram user) are ones that blend into the platform aesthetic. The ads that typically entice me the most are the ones I don’t really know are ads until I look down to see the Sponsored messaging down at the bottom.
The best way to discover this is to become a user of the platform itself. For Instagram, go to the Explore tab and type in some of your key terms, maybe the same ones you use for search or maybe some terms that mirror the interest or behavior targeting you’re using for your campaigns.
See what the grid looks like. What shows up? What brands are there? How are they marketing to people? While you may not want to become just part of the noise, blending in allows you to make a greater impact and feel more natural to the audience.
For example, I have a renewed interest in landscape photography and am in the market for a new camera. If I were a camera brand (or someone selling camera-adjacent things), either of the two grids above could help give an idea of what my ads can/should look like to blend into the platform. Then, make sure you follow the other best practices above to get your message across.
💡 Ready to improve your Facebook ads? Get 16 effective strategies for Facebook ads to try now!
5. Retarget users who engage with your videos
I might be biased, but one of the biggest mistakes I think advertisers make is not retargeting people who watch their Facebook videos. Sure, they might find their way to seeing you again through prospecting or they may remember you enough to come back to your site, but why would you target people (who you seemingly thought were valuable) once, then not work to target them again? Especially after they are already aware of you?
On the Facebook ads platform, you can make audiences of users who have engaged with your videos in many different ways. Just head to the Facebook ads audience manager and choose Video as your source for an audience.
From there, you can choose how they have interacted with those videos. Did they watch the whole thing? A certain percentage of it? Think about where your value propositions and messaging hits in those videos and be sure to include that in your audience filters.
Next, you can choose the videos you want to retarget people from. Yes, you can select only certain videos if you think they’re more impactful, part of a separate campaign, etc.
Lastly, you can choose how long you want to reengage with someone who watched those videos for that amount of time. One error I see is always setting the time frame to the longest possible setting. Now be honest…if you saw a video ad once 180 days ago, do you think you’re still a hot prospect for that brand? Probably not. Make sure you keep that in mind when making these audiences. Higher engagers can likely stick around longer, but lower engagers probably should be let free from your retargeting grasp a bit sooner.
Helpful Facebook video ad tools
Now that we have some best practices out of the way, I want to talk about how to make the Facebook video ad creatives. Not every Facebook video ad has to be done by a hugely expensive creative shop. Some can be done just as well with your own means, and sometimes for free! Here are some of the top Facebook video ad creative resources your business can take advantage of:
Yes, phone cameras are acceptable
A big expensive camera only makes world-changing videos when there’s an amazing photographer or videographer behind the lens. For most people, a camera phone will do just fine. In many cases, they’ll do better than if you tried to use an expensive camera due to all the ways the tech companies are making them easier to use.
Next time you need to put together a video, take a shot with your phone first. Many times, those videos will turn out great, and will help fit you into the platform aesthetic naturally as much of the content on Facebook and Instagram is also shot on a phone.
Facebook’s cropping tool
Once you have a video, there are options in Facebook ads to adjust your creatives for different sizes.
In the image above, you can see we have a square video that needs cropped to vertical. Granted, this would be a terrible user experience, but if your video does lend itself to this easy cropping, there is an option directly within Facebook to do that for you.
Facebook video builder
If you don’t already have any creatives and you need to build something almost from scratch, Facebook also has a video creation tool you can use to put together videos.
You can use existing images combined with Facebook’s video ad templates to make a video for your account. There are tons of templates that allow you to control for colors, text, timing, and more. Just lead on the user-friendly builder and you’ll end up with a platform-ready Facebook video ad in no time!
Canva
While there are some paid in-platform upgrades, Canva is a great tool to get just about any type of creative made (video or otherwise).
There are countless free templates you can customize to help promote your brand. Canva also includes easy options to convert one theme into a new aspect ratio, helping you to cover all the video sizes as I mentioned above. In short, if you’re a novice to video marketing but need to get something done, you should check Canva out.
Create great Facebook video ads today
Facebook and Instagram video ads are a great way to interact with your customer base and are only getting more necessary as other platforms lean into video. It doesn’t take any particular expertise or deep pockets to get your Facebook video ads up and running. Just a bit of patience and some guidelines and you’re on your way!
When you want to improve your results, follow these Facebook video ad best practices:
- Create videos in all aspect ratios
- Be prepared for all sound options
- Get your main message across in the first 3 seconds
- Blend into the platform aesthetic
- Retarget users who engage with your videos
PPC
How to Make a Click-Worthy YouTube Thumbnail (+Free Tools!)

With millions of videos vying for attention, your YouTube thumbnails serve as the first point of engagement for potential viewers. These seemingly small images carry significant weight in attracting clicks and views.
YouTube thumbnails provide a snapshot of your video content, setting expectations for what viewers can expect. A well-crafted thumbnail not only piques interest but also conveys the essence of the video.
In this article, I’ll share everything you need to know about YouTube thumbnails, including tools to create them, tips to keep in mind, and other lessons I’ve learned from running my own YouTube channel.
Table of contents
What is a YouTube thumbnail?
A YouTube thumbnail serves as a visual snapshot of what a video contains. It appears as a small image next to the title of the video on YouTube’s search results page, related videos section, or the recommended videos section.
This image plays a crucial role in attracting potential viewers and encouraging them to click on the video. The design and content of this thumbnail often influence the decision of a viewer to watch the video or not. Therefore, it holds significant importance in the world of YouTube content creation.
YouTube thumbnail size
The best YouTube thumbnail size is 1280×720 pixels. This is an aspect ratio of 16:9. The minimum width you should shoot for is 640 pixels.
You should also shoot for a relatively small file size—under 2MB. YouTube thumbnails can be saved as JPGs, GIFs, or PNGs.
YouTube thumbnail tips
Your YouTube journey begins with a single image—the thumbnail. This seemingly small, but critically important element is the initial gateway for your viewers.
“If people don’t click, they don’t watch. So, you want to give them something to click,” said YouTube star MrBeast.
Here are some tips to create effective YouTube thumbnails.
Make them engaging
Think of your thumbnails as digital hooks to capture your audience’s attention. Make them visually striking, vibrant, and engaging.
💕 Want more tips and ideas? We’ve got 130+ for you! Get the guide >> 130+ of the Best Online Marketing Tips for Generating More Traffic, Leads, & Sales
Be consistent
Building a recognizable brand on YouTube starts with consistency in your thumbnail design. A uniform style helps viewers easily identify your content. In addition to consistency in your thumbnail design, keeping a close eye on others in your field who share your audience is a smart strategy.
Checking out what your competitors are up to can give you helpful clues about how many people click on their stuff. This helps you see how your channel’s look, content, titles, and colors stack up, so you can ensure you’re putting your best foot forward.
As you can see below, MrBeast’s thumbnails are visually striking and attention-grabbing, featuring bold colors, expressive facial expressions, and compelling imagery. He maintains a consistent style in his thumbnails, making them instantly recognizable to his viewers and helping build a strong brand presence on YouTube.
Represent your video accurately
Your thumbnail should provide an honest representation of your video. Misleading thumbnails can lead to viewer frustration and backlash.
Create an emotional impact
It’s well known that emotions are contagious. This means that watching someone else have an emotional reaction to something can cause you to have the same reaction.
Humans react to other human faces, and it’s an easy trick to get more people to click on your YouTube videos. Humans will naturally assess the emotional state of the face. When their mouth is open, it’s usually to show that they are surprised. When someone sees this surprised reaction, they are enticed to see what is so surprising.
🚨 Speaking of emotion…get our free guide >> 135 of the Best Words & Phrases for Marketing with Emotion
Learn and adapt
Continuously analyze your analytics to adapt your content and strategy based on audience feedback and changing trends.
The thumbnail below was my first to go well (in relation to my other videos). The simple title in the thumbnail, the upward arrow, society’s current fascination with ChatGPT, the length of the video, me in it—smiling and wearing something that matched the color scheme of the thumbnail. These are things I took note of as potential drivers of success for future videos and thumbnails.
Free YouTube thumbnail makers
Here are a few YouTube thumbnail creation tools to try, including the one I use for all my thumbnails.
1. Fotor
I use an app called Fotor to create my thumbnails. Fotor is a fantastic all-in-one platform that makes thumbnail creation a breeze. It’s an easy-to-use photo editing and graphic design tool, available in web, desktop, and mobile versions. It provides a full suite of tools that cover most image editing needs, including face retouching and image-generative AI.
Fotor also includes advanced AI-powered tools such as background remover, image enlarger, and object remover, which make complex edits simple.
I created a super simple video walkthrough where I use it to create a YouTube thumbnail. Check it out here.
2. Canva
Canva is a design tool (with a free option) that can help you create impactful YouTube thumbnails. Simply navigate to the site, choose YouTube thumbnail as your design option, and find an already-created template to customize or create your own design.
Within Canva, you can adjust colors, add your own images, and brand your YouTube thumbnail with your business logo.
3. Visme
Visme is another online design tool that makes it easy to create YouTube thumbnails. Like Canva, Visme has already created templates that you can choose and customize according to your branding.
Simply choose your template, customize it, download it, and you’re all set!
Start making effective YouTube thumbnails with ease
Creating a great YouTube thumbnail is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to effective video marketing on the site. But the right YouTube thumbnail strategy can help you build consistency, attract people to click on your videos, and increase engagement with your content.
PPC
12 Holiday Emails for Customers (Templates & Examples!)

How to put your customers into a holiday slumber 😴 :
To our valued customers,
As the end of the year draws near, we’d like to take this opportunity to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of you for your support. Thank you for choosing us and we wish you a wonderful holiday season and happy new year!
Want to send an authentic holiday email this year that your customers will actually want to read? This is your cheat sheet!
Table of contents
How to use these holiday email templates
This post contains both the copy and creative you can use for your holiday customer appreciation emails. These emails are longer and more personalized—great for your most loyal customers or for businesses with a small client base. If you want shorter, more general copy, head on over to my holiday greetings and messages.
The copy is also pasted into some templates I made in Canva, which you can access with a free Canva account!
Here’s the link to the templates in Canva.
Holiday customer email tips
In such a short piece of content as this, small details have big effects. Here’s how to get it right.
- Express gratitude! Customer appreciation is the goal here.
- Keep it short and use a conversational tone. This is an e-toast, not a live journal.
- Be inclusive of all holidays, and be warm and positive, but not overly hyped—the holidays can be difficult for many people.
- Make it visual with creative graphics or a team photo.
- Share your growth and achievements to give customers a reason to stay confident in your business. BUT make it about them—the growth you achieved with their support. What you achieved together.
- Connect it back to your mission (NOT your value prop).
- Focus on the future. Speak to an ongoing relationship, but not through a CTA or sales promotion. Save that for your year-in-review email.
Words & phrases to make your holiday email message authentic
Take a gander through these words and phrases you can use that the other gajillion businesses out there aren’t using:
Instead of ‘valued customer’
Don’t call them valued, make them FEEL valued through your messaging.
- Dear customers
- To our awesome customers
- To our customers near and far, old and new
- To all of you
- To each and every one of you
- To the Baker & Co. family
- To the SparkLife community
- To you and your families
- Dear customers, partners, and your families
- Friends
- First name (if you have a small list and can MANUALLY do it).
Instead of ‘exciting year’
It’s been a…
- Lively
- Rewarding
- Exhilarating
- Electrifying
- Wild
- Awesome
- Zestful
- Refreshing
- Bustling
- Bright
- Spirited
- Rousing
- Rigorous
….year!
Instead of ‘as we approach’
Any “as we.” As we approach, enter, wind down, you know them all. How about:
- Every year, I/we
- If you’re like us, you are…
- As the saying goes…
- One of my favorite quotes is
- Ask a question
- Whether this email finds you ___ing, ____ing, or ___ing, we hope it finds you well!
- As I sit here listening to [unique/meaningful/inclusive song name]
- Exactly 11 months ago, we were…..
- When we started out this year we _____. Little did we know…
- Here at ___ we believe in ____, so…
- One of our core values here at ____ is ____.
- As I write this email, I’m watching the snow falling outside my window for the first time this year.
- As it turns out…
Instead of ‘take this opportunity to’
Take THIS opportunity to remove yourselves from the mileu by using phrases like:
- Words can’t describe our…
- We’re reaching out to say…
- We want you to know that…
- We extend our deepest…
- It is with pride and joy that we…
Instead of ‘thank you for your support’
Nothing wrong with this statement, but make it better with specifics.
Thank you for…
- Trusting us with your ____
- Using ____ for your ____ needs.
- Confidence and loyalty to _____
- How much you’ve [taught us, inspired us, encouraged us, etc..]
- Choosing us as your ____ provider
- Giving us a reason to come into work each day
- Showing up to our events
- Your reviews, social shares, votes
- Positive vibes, enthusiasm
5 holiday email templates any business can use
To make your life easier, I’ve compiled some templates that incorporate the tips and words and phrases above. Check’em out.
If you want to You can also customize them in Canva
Template #1—Achievement-focused
To our customers:
Without your enthusiasm and energy, we wouldn’t be where we are now.
Thanks to your feedback, we added eight new features to ProductName this year and earned our highest rating on ReviewPlatform yet. And because of your referrals, we helped twice as many small businesses get online this year than last. And because of you, we love our jobs!
Not only are we excited for 2022 with you, but we also have some big goals and big ideas that we can’t wait to share. So stay tuned! But for now, enjoy the holiday season!
With many thanks,
The ProductName Team
Use the Canva link above to customize this template.
Template #2—Fun & grateful
To the BusinessName community,
As the saying goes, “Gratitude is like gravy—put it on everything!” So we pour out our thanks to you for choosing BusinessName as your PainPointSolver.
Your patronage, your presence, your reviews and shares—all of this keeps our business alive and makes our line of work a pleasure each day.
We wish you all the best this holiday season and look forward to another great year with you!
With thanks,
All of us here at BusinessName
Use the Canva link above to customize this template.
Looking for more creative ideas? How about these 41 Pre-made Holiday Social Media Posts & Canva Templates.
Template #3—From the owner
To each and every one of you,
As I sit here listening to InclusiveMeaningfulSong, I am reminded of how grateful I am to have you in my circle.
StudioName is rooted in relationships, health, and growth and you are the ones who bring it to life. Every day I am blessed with the new energy, new perspectives, and new friends you bring to our studio each day.
I wish all the blessings returned to you during this holiday season and the year to come. Can’t wait to grow with you in 2022!
See you soon,
YourName
Use the Canva link above to customize this template.
Template #4—Mission-centered
To our work out warriors,
Whether the holidays make you happy or sad, giddy or stressed, one thing we can all feel is gratitude.
And that is why we extend our personal thanks to you—for showing up, for trusting us with your health, for your smiling faces, and your feedback.
We are on a mission to make fitness fun and accessible to all and it is dedicated members like you who help us make this possible.
However you’re feeling this holiday season, know that we appreciate you and we can’t wait to see you next year.
Stay well,
The GymName Team
Use the Canva link above to customize this template.
Template #5—Wrap-up with thank you
So…how do you wrap up a fantastic year in X words? We figured it out:
- 32,695 orders
- 200 blog posts
- 84 five-star reviews
- 5 new employees
- 2 awards nominations
- 1 HUGE thanks…
To YOU!
None of this would be possible without all of your shares, likes, comments, and confidence in our resources. This is what keeps us eager to find new things to teach you each day. You are the lifeblood of BusinessName and together, we’re helping more and more people find jobs they love.
Thank you for playing such a pivotal role in our growth. We wish you the best this holiday season and the year to come.
Let’s do it all again next year!
The BusinessName Team
Use the Canva link above to customize this template.
7 real holiday email examples & what makes them great
Here are a few real holiday customer appreciation email examples with non-generic intro sentences and attractive design. And you may also want to check out these additional customer appreciation ideas!
Patchwork: A poem!
You can have a lot of fun with this one!
- Big thanks
- Lots of text but once you start, you can’t stop.
- Visually appealing—although a face would be nice.
Rock Content: Tasteful reminder
This short and sweet holiday email from Rock Content is perfect with:
- Friendly and warm messaging acknowledging my hard work this year.
- A cute GIF of champaign glasses clanking.
- A tasteful reminder of the value it offers at the end.
Hello, Kristen!
✨We are passing by to wish you Happy Holidays!
2022 has been a year full of challenges and achievements. We know you’ve worked a lot this year. Now, it’s time to relax a bit and enjoy the holidays!
We hope you have a great time with friends and family. Enjoy the next few days to recharge your batteries with good times, getting ready to make beautiful things happen in 2023!
Remember that we will always be here to help you deliver high-quality content strategies and enable growth opportunities!
Enjoy the Holiday Season!
🎄🎅🎁☃️❄️
Rock Content Team.
BuildOn: Super-specific
Consider something like this if you’re a nonprofit.
- Just the right amount of gratitude and inspiration
- Visual with smiling face
- Shares specific achievements made possible by YOU
This season, we’re thankful for your support!
With your help, buildOn has empowered thousands of students and strengthened hundreds of communities across the globe.
In the U.S., tens of thousands of urban students have invested nearly 1.4 million hours of service into transforming their communities and empowering themselves. Today, 674 schools are bringing quality education and a chance out of poverty to 90,000 children and adults in the developing world.
None of this would be possible without you. THANK YOU!
WE: Verrry versatile
WE has some inspo in store for you.
- Positive without overdoing it
- Conversational and inclusive messaging
- Attractive visual, although a face would be nice
- Sincere appreciation, could use some specifics
“With the new year comes a sense of renewal: an opportunity to bring out the best in ourselves, moving forward with positivity and purpose. Thank you for being part of the WE Movement this year—whether you’ve been with us every step of the way or have just joined, we truly appreciate having you in our community.
Together, we change the world.”
Office Luv: Faces!
Office Luv nails it.
- Actual employee faces!
- Short and sweet
- No “we’d like to take this opportunity to..”
Later: Future-focused
The thank you section of Later’s 2020 December newsletter is one to model after.
- Conversational tone, with emojis
- Specific thank yous
- Future-focused
- Has a CTA, but just to Instagram profile
2020 has been full of challenges in the social media world and beyond, and we wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you. <3
Thanks for turning up, reading our emails, joining the conversation, sharing the love on social – you’ve made all of our days a little brighter this year.
We promise 2021 is going to be bigger and better than ever – so stay tuned for more new blogs, training, and of course, exciting new Later features!
[Stay tuned]
Chiropractor: Super-personalized
Try out something like this if you’re a solopreneur.
- First name personalization
- Inclusive graphic and smiling face
- Fun poem
- Sense of community
- Sincere thanks
Happy Holidays Kristen!
I know by this point everyone is nestled in and hopefully enjoying friends, families, and holiday cheer! Yet I didn’t want this season to go by without an official Merry Christmas from our home to yours!
We count you among our friends and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your dedication to your health and in creating your healthy home and life. It means more to us than you know, so thank you!
Wishing you joy and peace,
Dr. Lizie
Send a holiday email this year that your customers will appreciate
You now have all the words, phrases, tips, and templates you need to send an authentic holiday email message to your customers. You have no excuses!
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