Workshops · BFCM 2025 · English · PART 2 Workshop
(8) Wave Surfing Intraday Scaling
(8) Wave Surfing Intraday Scaling
- Definition and goal
- 2023 and 2024 examples
- Warm up warm up warm up
- Five keys to wave surfing profitably
- How to execute this strategy
- Example 1: Spending $100-500/day
- Example 2: Spending $500-2,500/day
- Example 1: Spending >$2,500/day
- Stop loss mentality
Definition and goal
Intra-day scaling strategy for major events (like Black Friday) that consists of:
- Managing the budget by the hour,
- Maximizing the ad spend
- while maintaining good ROAS
- Following historical patterns
Black Friday is THE MOMENT of the year to do this.
As you’ve seen all these past months, I usually scale intraday (1 or 2 times) on the best day of the week.
That’s great, but that’s not hyperscaling.
Lower ad spend (POAS):
The goal of wave surfing is to lower the risk,
- I follow a demand pattern that is proven
- I manage the budget on an hourly basis
Can’t fuck it up, it’s basically impossible.
Also, do not try to control your ad spend for Black Friday.
Usually it’s double of what you spent on Thursday (the day before),
But it can surprise you and be more.
Enter Black Friday like, “I don’t know how much I’m about to spend, but I’m here to scale and control”.
2023 and 2024 examples
Historical best hour window of the day
2pm-10pm
Sales pattern on the previous Black Friday:
Basically, looks like the rest of the year: 2pm-10pm
Facebook Hourly Ad Spend: The Day of Black Friday
Shopify Revenue
The Day of Black Friday
Another clear case;
Historical best hour window of the day
2pm-8pm, but midday is good
Previous black friday: midday
Warm up warm up warm up
Probably the most important thing,
You need to get the “feeling” of your own ad account, with your specific demand waves, and see how the budget adapts and reacts, what’s the effect, etc.
Warm up means you do “mini wave surfings” every day prior to Black Friday,
For example, from November 21st to November 28th.
As you can see, during midday in all the week I’m spending 300-400€, but what is artificially changed is the wave: 4pm-10pm, I go from spending 400-500€ there, to spending 1000€/hour.
Five keys to wave surfing profitably
- High converting set up
Great offer, good ad creatives, good CRO/AOV - Andromeda structure + Overbidding
Diversification, signal quality
High cost caps, bid caps - Know your numbers
Minimum ads manager ROAS
Minimum Blended ROAS
The blended ROAS I work with is
Total shopify revenue / Meta ad spend
How to calculate the blended ROAS (weighted average)
What approx percentage of my sales come from email
What approx percentage of my sales come from social media
(...) Google Ads
Example:
30% email, 20% social, 50% ads
Then if the ads manager ROAS must be at least 2.5,
Your blended ROAS must be at least 5.
If Meta ads represents 80% of purchases,
And you want a ROAS of at least 2.5
Then your blended ROAS will at least be 3.12
- Hourly management
Every 1h or 2h, check how things are going
For lower budgets, the window is every 3h. - Have 3 tabs open at all times
And of course the ads manager.
How to execute this strategy
You can’t decide today, on Black Friday at 2pm how much I increase the budget.
First, the warm up will give you a lot of learnings.
Second, you start and see the reaction,
Black Friday: 1pm, wave is starting based on historical pattern and BFCM 2024 pattern.
If I have 5 CBOs, I will start by increasing the budget by 70% on all of them.
Wait for 2h, see the reaction.
And you keep on doing this.
2 things can happen:
- ROAS breaks = Stop increasing
- ROAS is still good, can push more = Keep scaling
After the 2h, you go at it again,
If ROAS still has a lot of room and sales are going crazy,
Now at 4pm is when you need to double the budget on key campaigns.
Look after 1 hour -> How much the ad spend increases and how much the revenue increases.
Look after 2 hours -> How much the ad spend increases and how much the revenue increases
If I see that I have a LOT of margin/room to play, I'll increase it again.
Look after 1 hour -> How much the ad spend increases and how much the revenue increases.
Look after 2 hours -> How much the ad spend increases and how much the revenue increases.
You basically keep on doing this.
Trick: Take screenshots of the ads manager roas, or write it down on an excel sheet. You cannot track it per hour.
And if you start the day at 1pm at ROAS 4, and after 2 increases, at 6pm the ROAS is 2, that means that in the window from 1pm-6pm the ROAS was like 1.2 = BAD.
*The scaling needs to happen fast, if you see good numbers. Otherwise you will be late and by 9pm you will increase budget by 5x, 10x or 20x but meta will not absorb the budget.
Overbidding becomes very important now,
At those crazy budgets, the cost cap absorbs the budget increase, on an hourly basis, much faster.
I think creative diversification will also help with this.
A CBO with 20 different ads, will find ways to spend the extra 1000€ per hour you gave it.
But an ABO with 1 ad, will find difficulty.
----
When wave surfing, work ON THE HOUR.
Is a 50% budget increase enough?
Well, if your current account daily budget is 500€ (around 21€/hour),
Then increasing by 50% means you go to 31.5€/hour.
That might get you 1 extra sale, so this is not crazy scaling.
Peak moment: 5pm-10pm → 5h with a “crazy daily budget”
At some point you will “feel” the wave, and you will need to react fast.
Buy LOTS of link clicks at peak hours.
To increase overall hourly budget by 50%,
Option 1: Scale every single thing by 50%
Option 2: Scale good CBOs by MUCH MORE than 50%
- 5 CBOs +70% in budget
- 2h
- Revenue slow
- 2h
- 5 CBOs x3
So, if your current account daily budget is 500€ (around 21€/hour), and you need to go to 100€/hour because on Shopify you’re making 1,500€/hour, then you need to multiply the account budget by 5.
That means the CBO that is at 1k, will need to go to 5k.
Again, think on the hour.
Similar to last year, and we can develop more cases, personalized on some of you, in the next weeks:
Example 1: Spending $100-500/day
Practice during the Black Week
- The proportional of 300€/day is 12.5€/hour
(Of course 1am-6am you almost don’t spend, but.) - To see an impact from 12€/hour I will need to at least check 2-3-4 hours
- So instead or hourly management, you do it by window
00-10am: low volume, not good CPC
10am-4pm: high CPMs, not many purchases
4pm-00: low CPM, lots of purchases, historical wave
Example 2: Spending $500-2,500/day
Practice during the Black Week
- The proportional of 2k per day is 83€/h
- If my CPA is 20, I have 4 purchases per hour
If I increase the daily budget from 2000 to 3000, which apparently is a lot,
I only increase the hourly ad spend from 83 to 125
Which === go from 4 purchases per hour to 6 purchases per hour, maybe
Example 3: Spending >$2,500/day
- 105€/hour
- You will need to go to €500/hour at peak times
- To do that, the budget has to 5x
- But just putting 5x on 1 CBO will not 5x the total account hourly budget,
- So on key campaigns you need to MORE than 5x
Stop loss mentality
Wait for wave confirmation,
And then push.
Stop loss mentality = NO RISK.
If ads manager roas goes to my minimum, and blended also, then I stop increasing. I still have more hours to go.
NO RISK
When you check per hour, you might have maximum 1-2 bad hours.
Then correct and done.
ERROR:
Another one, blended roas still very good >4 for this brand back in 2023.
