October brought the first unBoxed and Accelerate features into live accounts. Amazon's new campaign intelligence dashboard reaches all US sponsored ads advertisers this month, sitting on the campaign overview page and explaining what is driving results across targeting, bids, and budgets.
The tool that acts on those insights is not here yet. Keyword auto-optimization, which adds keywords and pauses underperformers inside existing settings, is now scheduled for the US in January 2027, so this peak will be run the familiar way, with bids, budgets, and rules that advertisers set themselves.
Two betas also open in late October. Review Requests lets brands invite recent buyers to leave a rating, using the same bidding and budget controls as other campaigns, for products under 1,000 ratings. DVA+ moves display, video, and audio into one campaign type in open beta, alongside the Branded Conversations format announced at unBoxed.
One thing still missing is Amazon's official event window. As of mid-October, Amazon had not confirmed its 2026 Black Friday dates, although its 2025 Black Friday Week ran from November 20 to December 1, so plan for a longer event than the two headline days.
Every new tool this month helps you understand the peak. None of them will manage it for you, so the plan still has to be written by a person.— Andrejs Klimovskis, Founder, INNELS
Demand is set to be bigger than last year. Adobe forecasts record US online holiday spending of $275.1 billion, with Cyber Week, the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, forecast at $47.5 billion and Cyber Monday the largest single day at $15.1 billion.
Black Friday is the faster riser in that forecast. Adobe projects $12.9 billion for Black Friday, up 9.2%, growing faster than Cyber Monday, which means two genuine peaks to fund rather than one. These are projections rather than results, so treat them as direction, not a target.
On the ramp, Amazon's own holiday guidance is specific. It recommends lifting daily budgets by 20 to 30 percent three to five days before the event, pre-setting schedule-based budget rules before traffic arrives, and adding performance rules that raise budget only when ROAS clears a threshold you choose.
For the peak days themselves there is no universal multiplier. One planning guide uses 2 to 3 times normal spend on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and about 1.5 times on the shoulder days as an illustrative start, and we agree with its main point: the daily shape of the budget matters as much as the total.
The right number for your amazon ppc cost comes from last year's account data. Look at average time in budget, missed impressions, and which campaigns capped before evening, then weight new budget towards proven hero ASINs instead of spreading it evenly.
A campaign that runs dry at noon on Black Friday has the best bids in the world and no visibility. Fund the hours before you fund the keywords.— Niks Saknitis, PPC Manager, INNELS
Across the accounts we manage, the most common peak mistake is not underbidding. It is raising every bid at once, including broad and auto campaigns, which pays premium event prices for low-intent traffic while exact match winners lose their placement.
Amazon's guidance points the same way. It suggests aggressive bids on high-intent exact match terms, moderate bids on phrase and branded terms, and conservative bids on broad match, plus switching deal ASIN campaigns to dynamic bids up and down and raising Sponsored Brands target CPC by at least 30 percent on top keywords.
Dayparting needs a different setup for these five days. Many accounts throttle overnight in a normal week, but deals launch at midnight and Adobe recorded Cyber Monday 2025's peak spending between 8pm and 10pm, so a normal schedule can switch ads off during the most valuable hours of the year.
The same guide notes that brands saw stronger ROAS on Black Friday than on Cyber Monday in the 2025 Pacvue and Helium 10 benchmark, which is how we plan the week. Black Friday is usually the more efficient day, and Cyber Monday evening is the one to protect with budget.
Raise bids on a short list of exact match terms you already trust. Everything else should stay where it is and earn its way up.— Mario Reambonanza, PPC Manager, INNELS
At INNELS, we treat the Cyber Five as one event with two peaks and three shoulder days. The plan is built before Thanksgiving, staged as dated rules with a start, an end, and a restore, and then left alone. We record baseline budgets and bids for every hero campaign first, because that is the restore target for December 1.
During the event our job is mostly monitoring. We watch budget pace rather than ACoS on the two peak days, release extra budget to campaigns converting under target before they cap, and add clear negatives from Black Friday's search terms over the weekend so Cyber Monday does not pay for the same waste.
The work that wins Black Friday is finished by Wednesday. On the day itself, the only real decision is which winners get more budget before the evening.— Niks Saknitis, PPC Manager, INNELS
December 1 is where margin quietly disappears. Do not cut amazon sponsored ads to zero, because Amazon reports that 31% of shoppers planned purchases between Cyber Monday and New Year, but do bring every budget, bid, and schedule back to the baseline you recorded before the event.
Lower first what you raised for the event. That means the extra bid on hero exact match terms, the top-of-search placement modifiers, the higher Sponsored Brands CPC, and dynamic bids up and down on deal ASINs, which should return to their normal strategy once the discount ends.
Pause, rather than delete, any event-only campaigns and deal-specific creative, and pause keywords built around Black Friday or Cyber Monday phrasing. Keeping the structure gives you a ready-made starting point for next November without carrying it into December.
Then harvest the event's search terms, graduating converters into exact match and turning wasted spend into negatives. Amazon's guide also recommends continuing remarketing after the event to reach recent visitors, and new buyers from the peak are natural candidates for Review Requests where your products qualify.
If you scale for the peak, write the restore before you press go. The money leaks in December, not on Black Friday.— Mark Daniel Zalomajev, Founder, INNELS
INNELS is an amazon ppc agency that plans peak season around margin, not just volume. Our amazon ppc management service covers day-by-day budget shaping, bid tiers for hero keywords, event dayparting, rule setup, and the December 1 restore.
If you want a second opinion before Thanksgiving, book a call or request an amazon ppc audit. You get a review of last year's peak, a budget plan for the Cyber Five, and a post-peak checklist built for your account, with no obligation to change amazon consultant or agency.
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