Your catalog has a bigger job this Q4.
It supplies the products, prices, and images behind your dynamic product ads. Increasingly, it also supplies the information AI shopping systems use to answer questions and help people choose what to buy.
That puts more weight on every product detail. The right size. The current price. Whether the item is actually available. Whether the offer applies.
Meanwhile, your team still needs to prepare Black Friday creative, manage changing promotions, and give shoppers a reason to order before delivery cutoffs.
We built Your Q4 DPA Playbook to help you connect those pieces. It’s a free, nine-page guide with a fillable readiness scorecard, a holiday planning framework, and practical creative examples your team can use.
Download the free Q4 DPA Playbook
Your catalog needs to answer better questions
Consider a shopper asking an AI assistant for “a blue sneaker under $60, available in size 8.”
A product record that says “Everyday Sneaker — Available” leaves a lot unanswered. Is the blue version available? In size 8? Is the advertised price available to everyone, or does it require a membership?
This is becoming a practical consideration for retailers. Google’s new Catalog capability for its Universal Commerce Protocol lets connected agents retrieve product details such as variants, inventory, and pricing. Read Google’s announcement.
For your team, the starting point is straightforward: make the product information accurate, specific, and consistent across the feed, product page, and connected shopping integrations.
The playbook shows which details to review and what a more useful product record looks like.
Start with your Q4 Catalog Readiness Score
Before your team builds another holiday template, find out where the gaps are.
The playbook includes 18 checks across product information, the buying experience, and campaign readiness. Review a sample of ten campaign products, check each verified yes, and count your score.
You’ll check things like:
- Whether stock is accurate for each variant.
- Whether the advertised price matches checkout.
- Whether offer codes and restrictions are visible.
- Whether an evergreen fallback is ready when a promotion ends.
Your result falls into one of three bands: Repair first, Close the gaps, or Ready to rehearse.
It gives your team a shared starting point. Send the scorecard to your ecommerce, paid media, and creative leads, then agree on the first three fixes.
Plan for The Seven Moments
Q4 contains several different buying decisions. Your catalog creative should reflect them.
A shopper browsing for a gift in October needs different information from someone comparing Black Friday deals or checking whether an order can still arrive on time.
The Seven Moments framework maps that progression:
Evergreen → Gifting → BFCM → Cyber Week → Holiday → Shipping Cutoff → Last Chance.
For each moment, the playbook pairs the shopper’s question with a creative direction. It also explains what to confirm when you switch: the product set, offer, landing page, and owner.
Your team gets a framework it can reuse throughout the season.
Turn the plan into catalog creative
The guide includes examples for gifting, Black Friday offers, and delivery-cutoff urgency, plus a workflow for applying product-level video across your catalog.
You’ll see how to:
- Make the payable price and offer conditions clear.
- Use a Marpipe countdown to show time remaining before a confirmed delivery cutoff.
- Switch to eligible pickup or digital options after shipping deadlines pass.
- Generate a video for every SKU using Marpipe’s Product Level Video.
A final week-by-weekday action plan helps your team move from reviewing the catalog to preparing the launch.
Get your catalog ready before the holiday rush
Download the playbook, start with the scorecard on page 4, and choose your first three fixes.
Then use the creative examples and The Seven Moments framework to prepare what comes next.
Download the free Q4 DPA Playbook
