Monitoring hourly budgets and targets is essential during Black Friday and Black Week. The Black Friday report refreshes every hour, allowing you to monitor spend and conversion goals hour by hour, across markets and channels, and compare actual performance against your plan directly in your dashboard.
This article explains how to prepare your Google Sheet, connect it to Alvie and add it to your Black Friday report.
If you haven't set up your Black Friday report yet, please refer to How to set up the Black Friday report before proceeding.
Note: The hourly budgets and targets for the Black Friday report work differently from the budgets and targets available in the Precis Starter Report and Alvie's Home page, which use date ranges (date_from / date_to). The Black Friday report uses one row per hour, rather than date ranges.
For information on budgets and targets in the Precis Starter Report and Alvie's Home page, see Add-ons for the report and How to work with Budgets and Targets on the Home page.
Step 1 - Copy the template
You can find the Google Sheets template for hourly budgets and targets here.
Open the link and click Make a copy to create your own spreadsheet.
Important:
Keep the exact same column header names. Do not rename them.
Maintain the standard tabular format, with headers in the first row and data in the rows below.
For more information, see How to format a Google Sheet for a pre-defined report.
Step 2 - Fill in the columns
The template includes the following columns:
Column | Required | Description |
date | Yes | Calendar date for the budget or target (e.g. 2026-11-28). |
hour | Yes | Hour of the day as an integer between 0 and 23 (e.g. 9 represents 09:00–10:00). |
market | Yes* | Must match the Custom Market Grouping labels configured in your Black Friday report. |
channel | Yes* | Must match the Custom Channel Grouping labels configured in your Black Friday report. |
currency | Yes | ISO currency code (e.g. EUR, SEK, DKK). Monetary values are converted to the report's target currency. |
budget | Optional | Planned ad spend for the specified date, hour, market and channel. |
target_conversion_value | Optional | Planned conversion value (revenue) for the specified hour. |
target_conversions | Optional | Planned number of conversions or transactions for the specified hour. |
target_clicks | Optional | Planned number of clicks for the specified hour. |
* At least one of market or channel must be populated. Rows where both fields are empty are ignored.
Important rules
One row per combination: Each row represents a specific date, hour, market and channel combination. Do not use date ranges.
Market and channel names are case-sensitive: Values must match the custom grouping labels configured in your Black Friday report exactly.
Hour format: Use integers between 0 and 23. Do not use time formats such as 09:00 or 9 AM.
Currency conversion: All monetary values are converted into the target currency configured in your Black Friday report.
Unused metrics: Leave any metrics you don't need blank. For example, you can provide only budget values without conversion or click targets.
Example rows
date | hour | market | channel | currency | budget | target_conversion_value | target_conversions | target_clicks |
2026-11-28 | 9 | Denmark | Google Ads | DKK | 5000 | 20000 | 80 | 1200 |
2026-11-28 | 10 | Denmark | Google Ads | DKK | 6000 | 25000 | 100 | 1500 |
2026-11-28 | 9 | Sweden | Meta Ads | SEK | 4000 | 15000 | 60 | 900 |
Step 3 - Add your Google Sheet to Alvie as a Data Source
Next, you need to connect your spreadsheet to Alvie.
Go to Setup → Data Sources
Click Connect New Data Source
Select Google Sheets from the list
Select the Google credentials that have access to your spreadsheet.
Enter the ID or URL to your Hourly Budget and Targets spreadsheet.
Click Connect Data Source.
Step 4 - Add hourly budgets and targets to your Black Friday report
Once your Google Sheets connector is active, you can add it to your Black Friday report.
Go to Data Insights → Reporting Solutions.
Find your existing Black Friday report. If you haven't created one yet, make sure to create one first by following this guide.
Click on the three dots on the right-hand side of the configuration details and select Edit configuration.
In Step 2 - Data sources, scroll down to the Other section. Click Edit under Google Sheets.
Select your Hourly Budgets and Targets Google Sheets source from the dropdown.
Click Save.
Important: Market and channel grouping labels configured in your Black Friday report must match the channels and markets in your spreadsheet.
Step 5. How budgets and targets appear in the report
Hourly budgets and targets are joined to performance data using the following dimensions:
Date
Hour
Market
Channel
The following fields are then made available in BigQuery and Looker Studio:
Field | Description |
| Planned advertising spend |
| Planned conversion value |
| Planned number of conversions |
| Planned number of clicks |
The report retains hours even when there is no matching data in the other dataset:
Budget-only hours: Hours with budgets or targets but no performance data yet will still appear in the report. This allows you to monitor planned spend and targets ahead of actual activity.
Performance-only hours: Hours with performance data but no corresponding row in your spreadsheet will also appear. Budget and target fields will be empty for these hours.