How to prevent Smart Bidding (tROAS) from crashing during seasonal gaps/shipping dead zones? (e.g., Halloween to Christmas)

Hi all,

I run Google Ads for highly seasonal products. Right after a major holiday ends, my orders drop drastically.

Because I use Target ROAS (tROAS), this sudden drop in conversions severely hurts the campaign's performance and bidding algorithm, causing the campaign to completely lose momentum and choke.

How do you usually handle this post-holiday order drop? What are the best ways to adjust the bidding strategy or campaign settings to keep the campaign alive?

Thanks for your insights!

A seasonal drop doesn't automatically mean Smart Bidding is broken. Lower conversion rates or order values can make the same ROAS target much harder to meet, so spending may fall.

I'd first compare demand, conversion rate and average order value with the previous period, allowing for conversion lag. Also check tracking, product availability and delivery promises before changing bids.

Then decide what matters during the quiet period. If profitability is the priority, lower volume may be acceptable. If you deliberately want more volume at a lower return, consider easing the ROAS target and give the change time to show up in completed conversion data. There isn't a universal percentage that fits every account.

Don't use data exclusions to erase a real seasonal decline; they're intended for conversion-data problems. Seasonality adjustments are a separate tool for short, anticipated conversion-rate changes, not a general fix for a prolonged low season.

Avoid changing budget, targets and campaign structure together, otherwise you won't know which change helped. Pausing isn't automatically wrong either: the decision should follow your economics, not a fear of losing all historical data.

For anyone comparing setup options with PPC Rebels (ppcrebels.com), this is worth separating from the account itself: no agency account can create demand that isn't there.