Are Facebook Ads More Expensive in December?
Yes. From Black Friday through Christmas, your cost per result can climb because fewer of your buyers are in the market, and the CPM is only part of the problem. CPMs can drop two or three days after Christmas, around December 27 or 28. Launching new campaigns into that window usually makes it worse.
I've managed more than $121 million in Meta ad spend since 2013.
Are Facebook ads more expensive in December?
Yes. In the accounts I've watched, Facebook ads often become more expensive through December because cost per result rises as the available buyers thin out.
I've watched the same seasonal arc many times when campaigns stayed running from August through the end of December.
They worked great in August, dropped a bit as September came in, dropped more in October and became more sluggish in November. Then, at the end of December, they turned around and started selling again.
That pattern came from how the market bought, not necessarily from a problem with the ads.
Algorithms tend to work better on lower budgets. Part of the reason is that the algorithm has to adjust to seasonality.
Your slow season has fewer people buying. If you try to spend more money than there are buyers available, performance declines. You're asking the algorithm to keep finding the same number of qualified buyers when fewer of them are currently in the market.
Two or three days after Christmas, somewhere around December 27 or 28, I've watched CPMs suddenly drop in a single day. Campaigns that were left running started selling again.
That is why the expensive part of December is not only the CPM. The bigger problem is forcing the same budget through a market with fewer active buyers.
Should you launch new Facebook campaigns during Black Friday?
No. You have almost zero chance of launching a new campaign from Black Friday through Christmas and beating a campaign you started a year ago.
The new campaign has not been optimized yet, and you're launching it during the worst launch window of the year.
A new campaign starts in the Proof of Concept phase. It is judged on money spent, not on how many days it has been running.
Your KPI is the target cost per result your numbers can afford. During Proof of Concept, a campaign with zero results gets turned off once it has spent 1x your KPI. It also gets turned off when its cost per result passes 150% of KPI.
That gives the campaign a specific amount of money to prove it can produce a result at a cost your business can afford.
When you launch during the Black Friday through Christmas window, you spend that test budget while fewer of your buyers are in the market. The campaign is less likely to clear its checkpoints before the test budget is gone.
The common reaction is to think your existing campaigns have broken, replace them with new ones and expect the fresh campaigns to fix the dip.
In this window, the new campaigns usually do worse than the campaigns you already had running.
Why did my Facebook ads stop working in November and December?
Your ads may not have stopped working at all; you may be seeing a normal seasonal dip and mistaking it for an advertising problem.
The cycle usually starts when sales decline during a slower month. The owner assumes the ads are the problem because the ads are something that can be changed immediately.
They replace the ads, launch new campaigns and start moving things around inside the account. Performance gets worse because those changes do not create more buyers in the market.
My rule of thumb is that anything you change in an ad account has only about a 33% chance of making it better. Roughly two out of three changes either leave performance the same or make it worse.
That does not mean you never change anything. It means you make a change only when the numbers say you have to.
Before touching the account, compare the dip with the same period last year instead of comparing it with last month.
For example, an ecommerce account in 2023 followed the same seasonal wave it had followed before while the account was up 15% overall. Looking only at the decline from the prior month made the account appear to be failing. Looking at the year over year trendline showed that it was still growing.
If you live and die by what today's CPA or CPM did, normal daily movement will make you act when the longer trend says to wait.
When the seasonal pattern and current campaign status support waiting, say this to yourself:
"This is normal; if you just wait it out, everything is going to be fine, but if you switch things now, you're probably going to make it worse, and then you'll be angrier than you are today."
Should you turn off your Facebook ads for the holidays?
Do not automatically turn off an existing campaign for the holidays, but do turn it off if its current results put it in Red.
Judge every campaign against your KPI, the target cost per result your business can afford.
Green means the campaign is at or below 100% of KPI. Leave it running.
Yellow means the campaign is between 101% and 150% of KPI. Leave it running and watch it.
Red means the campaign has zero results and/or is above 150% of KPI. Turn it off.
The line is 150% instead of 100% because daily results swing. A campaign can move above its target temporarily without becoming a campaign you need to shut down.
"Leave it running during a seasonal dip" does not mean leaving a Red campaign running. Holidays do not make a campaign with zero results or a cost above 150% of KPI acceptable.
A campaign already in the Scaling phase follows its Scaling rules. If it is outside KPI but still Yellow, leave it alone and do not raise the budget.
If it is in KPI, only scale once the full budget is actually spending. A vertical budget increase waits until the full daily budget has spent for 3 straight days.
Seasonality changes how cautiously you interpret a dip. It does not remove the limits that protect your budget.
How should you set your Facebook ad budget month by month?
Set your annual budget first, then weight your monthly spend toward the months when your buyers are more likely to buy.
The flat-budget plan creates both sides of the problem. You overspend during weak months and underspend during strong months.
Start by pulling multiple years of your own data. Look for the months that consistently perform better, the months that perform worse and the stronger or weaker weeks within each month.
Set the minimum monthly budget you can hold and plan the complete budget on an annual basis. Then weight expected sales by month and weight your ad spend by month.
In weaker months, spending less gives the algorithm more room to find the buyers who still fit your numbers without forcing the budget.
In stronger months, go in already planning to spend more. Ads tend to work better when more of your market is buying, and stopping after you hit your usual monthly target can cause you to sell yourself short.
You can also redistribute the same annual spend without adding any new money.
Here is a worked example, not a client account:
| Plan | Strong months | Weaker months | Annual total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flat | $10,000 x 12 | $10,000 x 12 | $120,000 |
| Weighted | 4 at $15,000 | 8 at $7,500 | $120,000 |
Both plans spend $120,000 over the year. The weighted plan places more of that money in the months when more buyers are available and less in the months when demand is weaker.
For growth, look at the conversion rate from the same month last year and assume the same rate in your plan. If that month was profitable and you want 20% more from it, plan 20% more spend.
A $10,000 month would become a $12,000 month.
The point is not to spend the same amount every month and hope demand cooperates. It is to put the budget where your own sales history says the buyers will be.
What should you run instead of new campaigns in a slow month?
Run more back-end promotions to people who already know you instead of forcing new cold campaigns into a weak buying period.
Put more of your own time into that area during the slower stretch. You already have people who know your offer, so focus your internal promotions there while cold-market demand is lower.
Map next year's internal promotion calendar alongside your media buying plan. Then work the plan a quarter at a time so your advertising budget and back-end promotions support each other.
In 2023, I turned all my own ads off for November and December. I turned them back on at the end of December because January is when my market takes off.
That was based on how my market bought. Your plan should come from your own multi-year data, not from forcing the same monthly spend through every season.
Frequently asked questions
Are Facebook ads more expensive in December?
Facebook ads can become more expensive in December because cost per result rises when fewer of your buyers are in the market. CPM is only part of the problem. If you keep forcing the same budget through a weaker buying period, performance can decline even when nothing is fundamentally wrong with your ads.
Should you launch new Facebook campaigns during Black Friday?
No. A new campaign launched from Black Friday through Christmas has almost zero chance of beating a campaign you started a year ago. The new campaign is still in Proof of Concept and must spend money to clear its performance checkpoints during the worst launch window of the year.
Do Facebook ad costs go down after Christmas?
They can drop quickly after Christmas. In accounts I've watched, CPMs have dropped two or three days after Christmas, around December 27 or 28. Campaigns that stayed on then started selling again as the market turned. Use your own historical results to confirm whether your market follows the same pattern.
Should you turn off your Facebook ads for the holidays?
Do not turn them off automatically. Leave Green campaigns at or below 100% of KPI running. Watch Yellow campaigns between 101% and 150% of KPI. Turn off Red campaigns with zero results and/or a cost above 150% of KPI. Leaving campaigns on during a seasonal dip does not mean ignoring a Red campaign.
What should you run instead of new campaigns in a slow month?
Run more back-end promotions to people who already know you. Put more of your own time into those promotions, map next year's promotion calendar alongside your media buying plan and work the plan a quarter at a time. This lets you support sales without forcing new cold campaigns into a weak period.
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