Overview
The BFCM Command Center brings together three parts of your holiday workflow. Planning and Live Tracking holds your sale goals, budget, important campaign moments, and conditions to monitor. Live Pacing uses that plan to put actual performance in context when the sale begins and data is available. Competitive Intelligence helps you review publicly available competitor ad activity and the insights presented in your account.
Set up the plan before the sale so you have a clear reference when results arrive. Your targets and milestones describe what you intend to do; they are not forecasts or proof that a campaign launched.
Before you begin
Have your sale dates, overall goal, planned paid-media budget, and channel allocations ready. Check which ad channels are connected to your Triple Whale account. If you want a historical reference, choose a completed period with data in your account. A recent period can provide context for a first BFCM, but it is not a prior-year holiday comparison.
Decide which competitors you want to follow before setting up Competitive Intelligence. That view uses public ad signals, not access to a competitor’s private sales, spend, or return on ad spend.
How the Command Center works
Your plan supplies the targets and context. Live Pacing compares incoming performance with that plan during the sale. Competitive Intelligence gives you a separate view of competitor activity so you can consider what is happening in the market alongside your own results. A competitor’s ad or offer is a signal to investigate, not evidence of its performance or a reason to change your plan automatically.
Set up Planning and Live Tracking
Open the planning page. In Triple Whale, open BFCM Command Center, then Planning and Live Tracking.
Review the Planning Reminder prompt. If you want the scheduled reminder shown in your account, review its details and select Activate automations. Activation enables the Automation; it does not mean a reminder has already run. You can continue building your plan without counting a future reminder as a completed result.
Check Data Settings. Open Data Settings and confirm the currency and timezone for the plan.
Choose your measurement settings. Select the attribution model and attribution window you want to use. The attribution window is the period in which a conversion can receive credit after a marketing interaction. Wait for the settings to show a saved state before moving on.
Load a historical baseline. In Historical baseline, choose a completed date range with available data and select Load baseline. Review the displayed revenue, orders, average order value, ad spend, and breakdowns. Use the period as a reference, not a prediction of BFCM results.
Add your sale goal. In Goals, Budget and Guardrails, choose the metric you want to monitor, enter your target, and set its scope, such as a full-sale goal. Keep only the goal cards you intend to use.
Set the sale period. Enter Sale starts and Sale ends for your promotion. Check both fields again after making your selections.
Set your paid-media budget. In Channel Budget and Targets, enter the total budget you plan to use across paid channels.
Allocate that budget. Add each connected channel you plan to use and enter its share. Check the allocation summary to make sure the channel amounts add up to your total budget.
Choose channel targets. Set a relevant metric and target for each channel you want to monitor. For example, Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) compares attributed revenue with ad spend. A channel target is separate from your overall sale goal.
Add campaign context. In Campaign Context, select Add Milestone and record an important planned moment with its date and a useful note. Confirm that it appears on the timeline. A milestone records context; it does not verify that an activity happened or caused a result.
Configure live-tracking conditions. In Configure Live Tracking, set thresholds for the measures your team has decided to watch. Leave other conditions unset until you have meaningful limits for them. Setting a threshold does not mean an alert has fired.
Set up Competitive Intelligence
Open Competitive Intelligence in your Triple Whale workspace. It is a separate Command Center experience from Planning and Live Tracking.
Choose the competitors to follow. Add or review the brands relevant to your BFCM market. Check that you have selected the intended public brand pages rather than a similarly named brand.
Review the available ad signals. Use the competitor view and daily brief to examine public Meta ads, recurring creative themes, offers, and examples from the ads. Open an ad’s source when you need to check the original public listing.
Decide how to keep the view current. If Competitive Intelligence offers a daily-refresh Automation in your account, review its schedule and choose whether to activate it. Use the visible Refresh control when you need to request a manual update. Activating an Automation does not prove that a scheduled run has completed or delivered a brief.
Read the insights in context. Compare what the brief highlights with the underlying public ad examples. If peer benchmarks appear in your view, use them only when the qualifying peer group is available. Do not treat competitor creative or an AI-generated idea as a verified performance result or an executed change to your campaigns.
Check your setup and use it during the sale
Return to Planning and Live Tracking and confirm that your measurement settings, baseline period, sale dates, goal, budget allocation, channel targets, milestones, and chosen conditions appear as intended. Check the Competitive Intelligence view for the brands you meant to follow and the latest available brief or refresh state.
Once the sale begins and data is available, use Live Pacing to compare actual performance with your plan. Review changes against your campaign milestones and other context, but investigate before attributing a change to any one event. If a scheduled brief is missing, check the Automation’s status, run history, and destination rather than assuming it ran or was delivered. See My automation did not run or did not deliver.
If you want scheduled results in Slack, connect Moby to Slack, invite Moby to the destination channel, and set that destination in the Automation. Opening Moby notifications alone does not configure Slack delivery.
Frequently asked questions
Can I make a BFCM plan if this is my first holiday season?
Yes. Choose a completed period with data in Historical baseline and use it as recent operating context. Do not treat it as a comparison with last year’s BFCM. You can still set your sale dates, goals, budget, and tracking conditions based on the plan you intend to run.
Why is some historical baseline data missing?
First, check the selected dates and whether your store and relevant ad channels have data for that period. A partial baseline does not necessarily mean there was no historical activity; some sources or metrics may be unavailable in the view. If you expect a metric that remains missing, share the date range, metric, and message shown in the app with Triple Whale support rather than filling the gap with an estimate.
Do I need to activate the Planning Reminder to create my plan?
No. You can work through the Planning fields without treating the reminder as a completed step in your sale plan. If you activate the Automation, check its status and schedule separately. Activated means it is enabled, not that a reminder has run or been delivered.
When will Live Pacing show results against my plan?
Live Pacing needs your sale plan and actual data from the sale period to make a comparison. Before the sale begins, or while data is unavailable, a pending or pre-live state is not a performance result. Check your sale dates and plan entries before drawing conclusions from a missing comparison.
Does setting a live-tracking threshold send an alert immediately?
No. A threshold defines a condition to watch. It does not mean that the condition occurred or that a notification was sent. Set limits your team would find meaningful, then check the relevant run or notification record when you want to confirm an alert was produced.
What does a campaign milestone tell me?
A milestone records a planned or known event, such as a promotion or campaign change, so you have context when reviewing performance. Adding a marker does not launch the campaign. If results change near that date, investigate the underlying activity and data before assigning a cause.
What competitor information can I see?
Competitive Intelligence uses publicly available Meta ad activity from the brands you follow. It can help you review ad examples, messaging, creative themes, and offers. It does not reveal a competitor’s private sales, ad spend, ROAS, or campaign results.
Will Moby automatically make changes based on the Command Center?
A plan, insight, or suggested next step is not an executed account change. If a supported Moby Action is available, what happens next depends on the action and your account’s approval settings. Review the action’s status before assuming anything changed in a connected platform.
How do I send scheduled results to Slack?
Opening Moby notifications does not enable Slack delivery. Connect Moby to Slack, invite Moby to the destination channel, and configure that channel as the Automation’s destination. If a result does not arrive, check the Automation’s run and delivery status using My automation did not run or did not deliver.