Should I let AI agents manage my ads during Black Friday?

Let them make the changes that can only lower spend and can be undone, such as pausing an ad that is spending badly, because speed matters most at peak. Keep anything that raises spend, changes a price or reaches customers on approval, and set your spend limits before the week starts.

Can an agent raise my Black Friday budgets on its own?

In Cresva, only inside a goal you approved that sets a daily spend ceiling, and only within the per-change caps: at most a fifth of the live budget per change, at most twice per campaign per day, and never on a campaign's first day.

How do I stop every agent at once?

Pause all agents on the Autonomy page. An Admin or Owner gives a reason and types PAUSE. You can also choose to stop changes you have already approved, so nothing is written until you resume.

Black Friday Week: What to Let Agents Do and What to Lock

Black Friday is 27 November this year and Cyber Monday is 30 November. For four days the cost of a slow decision and the cost of a wrong one both go up. An agent that pauses a runaway ad at two in the morning is worth more that week than any other. An agent that raises a budget into a broken checkout is too.

This post applies the same table we use every week, set out in what agents should be allowed to do in an ad account, to peak week. It is a plan written before the week, not a report of how it went. The results post comes after, from real data.

Leave these running on their own

If the brand is at Safe actions, the changes that can only lower spend and can be undone are the ones to keep. They are also the ones where speed matters most during peak.

Pauses of Meta campaigns, ad sets and ads, and of Google campaigns, ad groups and keywords. A pause can only cut spend, and a resume undoes it.
Pausing an email flow in Klaviyo, for example a flow that is firing on stock that has sold out.

If you are not at Safe actions, peak week is not the week to move there for the first time. Changing the level is a deliberate step with its own confirmation, and the right time to take it is after a few quiet weeks of proposals you would have approved anyway. Choosing an autonomy level covers how to decide.

Switch these to ask for the week

Every action on the Autonomy page can be set to Always ask me, separately from the level. These are the ones to consider for peak, with the reason.

Change	Normally at Safe actions	For peak week	Why
Create a Shopify discount	On its own, within the Largest discount limit	Always ask me	Your Black Friday offer is planned. A discount nobody planned competes with it, and stacks on it at checkout if your codes allow combining.
Resume something paused	Only under a goal's daily ceiling	Always ask me, unless the goal was set up for peak	A resume restarts spend at the budget it was paused on. Something paused in October may have been paused for a reason that still holds.
Move a budget	Only under a goal's daily ceiling, within caps	Keep under a peak goal, or Always ask me	Caps hold during peak exactly as any other week: at most a fifth of the live budget per change, twice per campaign per day. If that is too slow for your plan, make the move yourself rather than loosening the cap.

Action names as shown on the Autonomy page. Bids, keywords and prices already ask at every level, and anything that cannot be undone already needs a typed SEND.

Set the limits before the week, not during it

The Limits tab on the Autonomy page holds the numbers every change is checked against at the point it is written. Set them on a quiet day, when you can think about them.

Daily spend on their own. The most agents may spend in a day without asking, across chat and every goal. If you want agents to move money at all during peak, this is the ceiling over all of it.
Largest daily budget per change. The most daily budget one change may set on a campaign or ad set, whether it ran on its own or was approved. Raise it deliberately for the campaigns you plan to scale, not as a reaction on the day.
Budget changes per day. A count, from midnight UTC. A busy peak day is when a loop of small changes is most likely, and this is the stop for it.
Largest discount, Price floor, Highest price, Largest price move. Prices always wait for a person, but these still bound what can be approved. Check the floor sits above your Black Friday price, or the change you planned will be refused on the day.
Recipients per send. Sends are never on their own, but check this is big enough for your peak email, or the send you approve will be refused.

Write peak into a goal

A goal is where money is delegated, and it carries four things you sign: the channels, the kinds of change it may make without asking, the daily spend it may move, and an end date. For peak, set the end date to the day after Cyber Monday. The end date is checked on every action, so nothing the goal authorised carries on into December. Setting a goal agents can act on goes through each field.

Know where the stop is, and test it

Pause all agents is on the Autonomy page. It needs an Admin or Owner, a reason, and typing PAUSE. Goals stop taking steps, and changes agents would make on their own are not made.
It has a second option. Ticking "Also stop changes you approve" means nothing is written to your accounts, approved or not, until you resume. Decide in advance which one you would use.
Make sure two people can use it. If the only Admin is asleep at the wrong moment, the stop does not exist.

Check Approvals more often than usual

Proposals expire after seven days, which is generous in a normal week and far too slow at peak, when a proposal about Friday is worthless on Saturday. Check Approvals at least morning and evening from Thursday to Monday, and make sure whoever checks has Admin on the brand: anybody else sees the queue as view only.

Where we got peak-week thinking wrong before

Until 2 October, three of the four places our system asked "does this raise spend?" treated resuming a paused campaign as costing nothing. In peak season, when paused campaigns are routinely switched back on, that would have been the most common way an unwatched change raised spend. It now counts as exactly the budget it restarts on, which is why resumes sit with budget moves in the table above rather than with pauses.

The peak-week checklist

Do not change the autonomy level during the week.
Leave pauses running on their own if you are at Safe actions.
Set discount creation and resumes to Always ask me for the week.
Set Daily spend on their own, Largest daily budget per change and Budget changes per day on a quiet day.
Check your price floor and recipients per send against what you have planned.
Put peak spend in a goal whose end date is the day after Cyber Monday.
Make sure two people can use Pause all agents, and decide which version you would use.
Check Approvals morning and evening, Thursday to Monday.
On 1 December, set the overrides back.

Set your limits before the week Every brand starts at Ask first. Set up a peak goal, check the Limits tab, and watch what the agents propose before you let anything run on its own.