PPCChat | Getting Ready for Q4 | 25th August 2026

Posted August 26th, 2026 by Amita & filed under PPCChat.

This week’s PPCChat discussion focused on Q4 planning and the growing role of AI in holiday advertising. With Google and Microsoft highlighting AI-powered shopping and agentic experiences, the conversation explored how advertisers should prepare for the Q4 season and what AI could mean for their holiday strategies.

Here are the links of Google’s AI holiday guidance and Microsoft’s latest insights on AI-powered shopping:

Q1: Where are you generally in your Q4 2026 preparations?

Totally ready: signed, guy who works for a platform. But more seriously, seems like people are later to planning than normal since things look so volatile. @Aaronlevy

I don’t think any of G’s agentic stuff is going to be ready in time, they may release it but it won’t do anything @Aaronlevy

Is anyone truly ready? @navahhopkins

I am lead gen only so Q4 is not to me what it is for others…@NeptuneMoon

It also is only August…who knows what’s going to come out between now and then. @revaminkoff

And yet Halloween stuff has been in stores for 6 weeks already. We rush EVERYTHING.. @NeptuneMoon

I remember the days of mid-july q4 planning. but then again i worked at an agency that also handled fulfilment. @Aaronlevy

I don’t need to get ready. I do lead gen and it’s mostly some budget increases here and there. No promotions to launch, no feed to optimize, no new offers and discounts, etc. It’s business as usual with more budget. That’s it. @YacineElHichri

I’m with @NeptuneMoon in that I only do lead gen so Q4 is only something I’ve heard of from others. @Pete_Bowen

@Pete_Bowen I did it one time for an ecomm DTC brand and hated it. We also host all the holidays at our house so I enjoy it being just regular workload. @NeptuneMoon

I find the “I’m in lead gen” answer really interesting because there are related queries to products that have to do with the lead gen industries. Are folks putting extra protections in place to mitigate crossover? If not, I will shamelessly plug Clarity’s topic insights to see if you’re accidentally presenting as more of an answer for the e-commerce part of your service. @navahhopkins

Kind of….is it Q4 already. @alimehdimukadam

@navahhopkins I think the I am lead gen means that I am not under pressure like ecomm folks are and my workload does not significantly increase in amount or intensity in Q4. @NeptuneMoon

That’s fair! I just think that calendar Q4 success means accounting for higher competition and potential additional negatives. @navahhopkins

In fact, some lead gen advertisers sit out the whole Black Friday period. Due to increased CPCs @NeptuneMoon

@NeptuneMoon and @navahhopkins I don’t use PMax (very rare) or Shopping campaigns to worry about feed optimization, new discounts and offers, updated pricing, updated SKUs, etc. I don’t have new products coming up. My clients (Coaching, Outplacement, Clinics, B2B Fintech, etc.) don’t have Black Friday offers or Christmas deals. What I am expecting though is to ramp up spend a bit after a slow summer. One of my clients is also testing a new service, but it’s a small one and doesn’t require extensive preparation. @YacineElHichri

We’re deep in planning and dealing with all the tariff volatility. No-one knows exactly what is happening, and my auto clients need to get ready for the US being…weird? and new competitors from China. In the financial world, please don’t ask, I need therapy just for that. advice to newcomers: ONLY accept finance clients when you’re not in a trade war. @JuliaVyse

Some clients totally ready, some clients I am guiding them to be MORE ready this year (just had to push someone’s content strategy up as they tend to be JIT or late for seasonal topics). I’ll be pushing the clients that have campaigns to at least decide their overall strategy for holidays by the beginning of September. It’s funny that our LEAST experienced business owners are the MOST ready. @ynotweb

Q2: Are you doing anything different in your Q4 2026 preparations? If so, what are you planning differently this year and if not, why not?

I wouldn’t say crazy different, and I’m now building in more expectations of clients ‘suddenly’ finding more money to spend in November and telling us about it Dec 1…@JuliaVyse

@JuliaVyse happens EVERY YEAR. To @navahhopkins‘s point before about lead gen, I expect a lot of change to fall out of the couch cushions this year….@Aaronlevy

It felt like everyone was being really conservative to start the year and likely will have use-it-or-lose-it budget..@Aaronlevy

Server Side Tracking – pushing as much as possible. And – WebMCP for AI.. @alimehdimukadam

It is interesting that 30 days post limited budget changes in G Ads will be Sept 18, just at the start of Q4. @NeptuneMoon

One of my clients is suffering greatly after that change. daily standups, lots of meetings, it’s been…a lot @JuliaVyse

The US-Canada tariff stuff is starting to factor in as that plays out – I hadn’t expected that. I think I’m more used to expecting changes and the unexpected at this point, so less locked into planning. The last few years have been so volatile on so many fronts.. @revaminkoff

Trying to push clients into longer holiday campaigns– in addition to holiday sales starting earlier and earlier, I suspect the economy is going to be bad enough that having people plan out their purchases earlier will be better for some of them, especially the ones with higher priced items. @ynotweb

Q3: Is agentic shopping factoring into your thinking or planning? If so, how are you planning to try to optimize for it?

Not this year. We’re talking about visibility in the AI space, but agentic is a way off for some of my retailers. @JuliaVyse

No-ish? we’re paying really close attention to it, but i don’t think anything will really hit critical mass until the world picks one commerce protocol (UCP vs. ACP vs. whoever else is in the running) @Aaronlevy

I am finding the whole agentic is here now discussion fascinating. Clearly the platforms think/wish this to be so. Is it really for average people? I have major questions on that. Google cites massive usage numbers on AI Overviews which you can’t opt to not see and AI Mode which it pushes you to from the practically unavoidable AI Overviews. So color me skeptical.. @NeptuneMoon

Also agree with @NeptuneMoon, getting it working is one thing. getting users to use it….. i mean it worked so well with voice agents. @Aaronlevy

I’d like to see more accuracy from agentic first…@revaminkoff

UCP does seem like it will be the winner. @navahhopkins

Asking for a friend: why on EARTH would a retailer structure their data for a 3rd party agent rather than investing in their own loyalty program? SEO was a wierd handshake the whole time, and now they want structured data for Sam Altman? I don’t see it. @JuliaVyse

Is anyone doing anything specific to try to be visible for agentic search or transactions now? @NeptuneMoon

@JuliaVyse depending on the platform, they’d do it to reach their customers at no cost @navahhopkins

Only if the volume matches what they could have with older SEO. I think a lot are playing the waiting game. @JuliaVyse

@NeptuneMoon we’ve done a ton of stuff for aeo/visibility. pro and a con as we get ton of ai-sourced leads but AI hallucinates stuff we can’t do. Not really focused on agentic per se as much as re-formatting content. @Aaronlevy

On UCP in general – there’s a misconception that most merchants have a heavy lift. Unless you’re planning to build a direct integration (not advised for most brands), partners like Shopify, Swipe, and PayPal are doing the heavy lifting to integrate so all brands need to do is add the UCP fields into the feed and flip the switch in their corresponding Merchant Center. We talk about this in our Microsoft agentic shopping playbook. @navahhopkins

If you read surveys on attitudes toward AI, for regular people, it is more negative than positive. And I think the tech sphere overestimates the average person’s willingness to give control of purchases over to essentially a bot. AND laws and policies for financial institutions have not caught up to this actually happening. How will chargebacks work in this system? Were is liability for unwanted actions taken by an agent? Many, many questions not addressed yet.. @NeptuneMoon

That’s fair – I just think folks are missing an important surface if they don’t make their catalog compatible with AI surfaces (especially since most of those are organic placements and cost exactly zero dollars to serve) @navahhopkins

Agreed that AEO is important and becoming more so – just think there’s a line from finding it in a search and like, being comfortable getting AI to subscribe to something for me. @revaminkoff

Is anyone doing anything specific to try to be visible for agentic search or transactions now? We’re building grids that tell us which queries always populate ai overview, map packs, sponsored search results, and then which ones the client organically shows up for based on their position on page. Then, we’re prioritizing sponsoring search queries where we’re not competing with those elements or their own organic listings. Still early days ,but we’re testing it for 2 clients (one ecom, one local leadgen). Hoping to have some good data on this in the next month or two. @timmhalloran

I don’t think it will take off until next year-end or maybe even 2028. But definitely should prep and be ready. The reason why I say late next year or even 2028 is % of people who have paid subscription individually * trust deficit .The good thing though is the payments network is built and Cloudflare can also help you with pay per crawl – x402 @alimehdimukadam

@timmhalloran please share what you find! @NeptuneMoon

No. We’ve had other providers try to push it for certain ecomm clients, but since their clients never signed up for the pilot program for UCP, I am guessing it will either be a last minute scramble or a next-year thing. The non-standard ecomm clients are not ready and I probably won’t recommend even trying it with their limited budgets. @ynotweb

Q4: What are your thoughts/predictions for Q4 2026 – average, weaker or stronger and why do you think what you think?

I think we are in for a rough Q4 this year. We visited the same beach we have for the last 5 summers. It was very visibly much less busy. The number of cold emails I get every day offering me business financing or lines of credit have also skyrocketed. @NeptuneMoon

Average is tough to say bc what is average anymore?? I’m the opposite, bullish on it – think there will be pent-up demand and pent-up supply. and to my ponit before, I surmise that people’s slow start to the year is going to yield aggressive revenue chasing in Q4…@Aaronlevy

I feel like the US in general is in very questionable circumstances on a number of fronts right now. The housing market is also a mess. @NeptuneMoon

Yes it is – starting to see real estate companies do better (as it becomes a bit of a buyers market) but i’m sure the pendulum will swing the other way. @Aaronlevy

For ecomm folks – are clients and stakeholders expecting a year the same as 2025, better or worse? @NeptuneMoon

Ya I think the macroeconomic/geopolitical things are the main levers right now. General uncertainty + stress usually depresses consumer sales. But perception could swing whichever way between now and then. So I guess my answer is a non-answer. I think Amazon and Walmart are going to do just fine. @timmhalloran

It’s become cyclical – the second order effects of Hormuz are yet to follow. @alimehdimukadam

@NeptuneMoon Clients always expect a better year than the one before. whether that is realistic is a different question. @revaminkoff

I predict an extremely BAD Q4 overall, for the same reasons you bring up Julie. No one has been at our touristy beach town (in the midwest) all summer. The RV storage lots are FULL of unused RVs. The small businesses here that rely on summer tourism are floundering, some of them are already planning on pulling the plug after the season, real estate is stagnant– houses have sat on the market for months.
I will be curious to see how our California neighbors are doing when we return. Its generally better there for longer, but I think that bubble will also be feeling it in 2027. @ynotweb

@alimehdimukadam Iran is not some backwater uninformed country either -they absolutely recognize the economic importance of Q4 to American businesses. So I count nothing out on that front. Did I mention my degree is in International Politics? @NeptuneMoon

I hope nothing happens – a lot of things are turbulent in terms of sentiment in masses globally – it’s like an angst that is waiting for a trigger @alimehdimukadam

For two of my clients that came on either late 2025 or early 2026, I am still optimistic I can help them do better or beat last year, but that’s just because they either didn’t have large marketing budgets last year or wasted it by not having professional help. The ones that have been going for 2 or more years, I’ll be happy to match or be somewhat stable. Its next year I’m extremely worried about for them all. @ynotweb

And I blame the news and content and rage-bait cycle because the doom loop will suck you in @alimehdimukadam

I very much hope so too! @NeptuneMoon

Q5: Anything else you want to discuss regarding Q4 2026?

Thinking about yourself personally: how much of your Q4 shopping is for others vs. self “gifting” bc your never on sale products go on sale? @Aaronlevy

Almost all gifting for me. @NeptuneMoon

Curious if anyone has any good low-season (colder weather) strategies for the home & garden sector (home improvment, home services, local services). I’ve got my go-to LSA + Google Non-brand easy-exacts + a dribble of YT/Meta to feed to top funnel. But I’d be curious if anyone is trying something novel I’m not considering. I haven’t dabbled in Nextdoor/Reddit in years for this industry but curious. @timmhalloran

I’m not much of a shopper and we have a holiday “rule” in my family, so no shopping for myself until after December 25th. @ynotweb

@timmhalloran off season is a great time to sell membership plans that bump you up for high season and include let’s say AC tune up service. For anything that includes outdoor things like landscaping, hardscaping etc. it is selling the dream of that cool outdoor space when it is gray and cold and wet. @NeptuneMoon

@timmhalloran In those verticals, we typically focus on themes like a)getting the home “guest-ready” for the holidays in Q4 and b) “New year, new look” sort of campaigns for Q1. Sometimes we do “give the gift of home improvement” for high-end buyers. @ynotweb

@Aaronlevy I’ve already got my price alerts setup across Slickdeals/Amazon and Google.

Aerogarden
Energy drinks
A few golf clubs
A fancy office chair
Govee lights
And a bunch of other random stuff.. @timmhalloran

@timmhalloran Nextdoor I’d recommend for testing. all unconventional channels. should be tested – you’ll hit a diamond mine. @alimehdimukadam

We had a customer do something REALLY fun with weather for a pool services company. basically any time the weather gets nice in winter garden-y people want to go outside and get some work done, so he’d have campaigns reactivate and bids go up any time a thaw was in the forecast. bc everyone else would be “dark for the season” @Aaronlevy

Also buy now pay later type language for home services can help lock in business when people are tapped for funds. @NeptuneMoon

Uber has weather-based surge pricing. We have surge bidding. @alimehdimukadam

Asking for no reason in particular…I’m curious when folks lock their budgets and campaigns as opposed to leaving room for adaptions/tests. The Microsoft ethos (coming out soon!) tends to lean towards final tests in October and lock in November. Wondering how much that matches up to your workflow. @navahhopkins

We didn’t even mention the Super El Nino that is coming to the US this fall and winter… buckle up y’all it is going to be intense. @NeptuneMoon

@navahhopkins Love the speed & frequency of updates that are being shipped! @alimehdimukadam

@navahhopkins a lot of small businesses are not locked until mid-November. Some of them do not even want to start until November, frankly. @ynotweb

@navahhopkins I’m guessing there will be a LOT of slush fund money in november/december this year. but most enterprise ones I worked with in the past would have a soft-lock done by october. But far fewer doing hard code freezes (for better or worse) as they keep some nimbleness, both in terms of optimization and budget flexibility. @Aaronlevy

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