If you have been noticing CPCs climbing on your Google Ads accounts over the past two weeks, it is not random. Major e-commerce platforms — Trendyol most visibly, but not alone — have substantially increased their Google Ads investment heading into Black Friday 2025, particularly in fashion but also across home and decor. That investment plays out as auction pressure across the category. Higher bids, a bigger share of impressions going to the biggest advertisers, and more expensive clicks for everyone else.
Why Black Friday 2025 is different
Black Friday auctions get noisy every year. What makes 2025 different is the scale of a few very large international platforms treating Greece and neighbouring markets as priority growth territory. When Trendyol, Temu, Shein-category players, and similar-sized retailers move significant ad budget into the same two-week window, the local auction dynamics shift faster than most mid-size advertisers can react.
Concretely, across the accounts we run, we are seeing:
- CPC inflation in fashion ranging from 30% to well over 100% depending on category specificity
- Impression share loss on previously comfortable branded and category terms
- Conversion rate pressure from competing offers visible on every SERP
The brands that maintain performance through this window are not the ones that outbid the big platforms. They are the ones that avoid the head-on auction and win on structure, targeting, and creative.
What working smarter looks like right now
Three levers consistently make the difference in accounts we are managing through this year's surge:
Timing. Budget front-loaded into the two weeks before Black Friday week tends to produce better ROAS than budget spent during the peak itself, because CPCs during the pre-week are still manageable and the audiences built in that window pay off during the peak.
Targeted, not broad. Broad Performance Max and generic Shopping campaigns get crushed by the big-budget players. Tightly structured campaigns with clear audience segmentation and negative keyword discipline keep performance defensible.
Creative that justifies the click. In a SERP packed with deep discount offers from international platforms, the offers that win are specific, credible, and tied to a concrete reason the user should buy from you rather than the cheapest option. Vague "Black Friday sale" creative gets ignored.
Black Friday is not just a sprint. It is a strategy.