Black Week on otto.de: measure rankings, save your data and evaluate it properly in December

Why rankings behave differently during Black Week

In the week around Black Friday (27 November in 2026) and Cyber Monday (30 November) a lot happens on otto.de at once: sellers cut prices, raise ad budgets, stock runs out and far more shoppers search. Positions that are stable for weeks at other times shift within a day.

That makes the sale week the hardest time to evaluate. If you look at your rankings on 1 December, you see a mix of your own measures, your competitors' measures and demand that will not exist in January.

Before: the baseline

Record a baseline by the Monday before Black Friday at the latest. Export the organic position, the ad position and the best position of the last 30 days for every tracked search term. This file is your point of comparison – without it you can only guess later whether a product rose or fell.

Note the current price, stock level and daily Sponsored Product Ads budget for each product as well. For 30 products that takes half an hour and saves hours in December.

During the sale week: daily, but only what matters

During Black Week, check the ten to twenty search terms that bring the most revenue every day. The usual rhythm is enough for the rest. Checking daily does not mean reacting daily: a drop from position 8 to 15 in one day is normal this week.

Act only on three signals:

1. The product drops out of the top 120 entirely. The most common cause is empty stock or a failed price import.
2. The ad position disappears. Usually the daily budget has run out, often by mid-morning.
3. A competitor you didn't see before stays above you. Check their price before you cut yours.

The change log

Keep a simple table with four columns: date, product, change, reason. Every price cut, budget increase, restock and text change goes in. In the rush of the sale week you otherwise forget within three days why a price was changed on Tuesday.

Without this log the later evaluation is worthless: you see that a product rose on Thursday but no longer know whether it was the discount, the ad or the competitor running out of stock.

Afterwards: wait two weeks, then compare

Don't evaluate on 1 December but around 14 December. By then sale prices are reset, budgets are back to normal and positions have calmed down. Then compare three points in time: the baseline, the sale-week average and the mid-December state.

• Mid-December better than before: the extra sales of the sale week strengthened the product for good. This is the effect you want.
• Better only during the sale week: the visibility was bought – through price or ads. That is not wrong, but it is not a ranking success.
• Mid-December worse than before: check stock, reviews from the sale week and whether a competitor held on to its new position.

Write down the lessons for next year

Write three sentences while the week is still fresh: which products stood better after the sale than before, which measure did not pay off and what you will prepare earlier next year. Put the baseline and the log in the same folder. In October 2027 that is your most important planning document.

Frequently asked questions