Summer, the season when it's super hot, everyone is on vacation somewhere except you, and there is a huge shift in consumer behavior, which leads to fluctuating revenues. This change can be an opportunity or a risk for your campaigns, and only proper preparation can help you make the most of June, July, and August.
Some verticals see a huge jump in interest and clicks. These are mostly things that cover cooling, pools, vacation, or other summer things, but some verticals just go down the drain for those few months a year. This means that if you are running the same things without adapting or changing things up, you might be actively missing out on revenue and extra profits.
Preparation is everything. Marketers who prepare for changes and adapt their strategies beforehand have a big advantage over those who just leave everything on autopilot. Luckily for you, we have prepared some of the things you should pay special attention to and do before the heat waves hit!
Understanding the Summer Shift
Every season has its own quirks, and adapting to each of them is the key to consistent revenue and success. For summer, we have a lot of vacations, people being outside instead of glued to their devices, and changes to the popularity of certain niches.
-
Focus on Mobile Devices
People are more on the go than inside. Desktop devices are less and less popular every year, but during summer, the difference is even bigger.
As most people are somewhere about, mobile devices have become the undisputed king. This means your LPs, ads, and content should be optimized for the small screens, or you will lose conversions
-
Different Peak Hours
The standard 9-to-5 digital behavior dissolves a bit as people are more active in the evenings again, browse social media mostly during afternoons, and spend less time online during weekends as they are outside.
Your ad scheduling needs to reflect these changes as well. Before committing to anything, run a few broad campaigns that would give you better insight into what the peak hours look like for your audience.
-
Lower Attention Span
People who are on vacation (especially European geos, as they have close to a month of free time from work) have more free time for entertainment and shopping. While this sounds great, there is also an issue: their attention span is much lower as they are easily distracted.
Your ads need to be extra engaging, and your messages and CTAs clear and able to cut through the noise to reach your audience.
-
Vertical Changes
Most verticals will perform a bit differently during summer, but finding out just what those changes are can make a huge difference in how you optimize your campaigns.
- Positive change: Travel, e-commerce for summer fashion, outdoor gear, home improvement, and entertainment apps see a significant increase in popularity.
- Negative Change: Verticals like some B2B services, finance, and education usually see a slowdown during the same period.
- Needs Adapting: Other niches like iGaming or streaming services still work, but they require different approaches so that they reach their target audience.
You need to see where your niche falls into this spectrum and adapt it accordingly.
Things You Can Do To Prepare
So, now that we covered that most verticals need some changes to adapt to the changing season, it's time to see what you can do to lay some groundwork beforehand and adapt your campaigns!
-
Check Last Year’s Data
If you have last year’s data, you should use it. If you analyze the results properly, you will have an exact reference to what worked and what didn't in the past.
Analyze the niches you ran, your angles, what your KPIs (key performance indicators) were, what days of the week, and time of day had the most conversions, which traffic sources were the best, etc. You can even use the help of AI bots to help you analyze massive clumps of data faster.
-
Do a Creative Review
Look at your current live ads and try evaluating if they still make sense for the season. If it's an e-commerce offer, check if the product is still interesting for summer, or if the angle is a bad one for the season. Try finding things that don’t match the “summer vibe” and take note of them so you can change them up.
-
See What Your Competitors Are Up To
If you can, do some spying on your competitors. See what they are advertising, how they are approaching their audience, and what angles they use. Check if they have any summer-specific sales, if their ads have changed, and what trends they are following.
Taking Action
Once you have the basic prep work done, it's time to take action!
- Refresh Your Creatives
Creatives make the biggest difference always. Having ones that visually and emotionally connect with summer can be a great way to boost revenues.
- Creatives
Swap out dark, indoor, or cool-looking images and videos with outdoors settings that are bright, vibrant, and fun. You can showcase your products being used in a fun way outside, at the beach, or while making BBQs. Try fitting them to the season so that they are more effective.
- Ad Copy
Your style should reflect the season. Using words like “Summer sale”, “Beat the Heat”, and “Melting Prices” can always get people in the mood to check out what you have to offer.
Adapt Your Targeting and Scheduling
People change their habits a bit during summer, and your targeting and scheduling needs to reflect that!
- Double Down on Mobile
As we mentioned before, mobile is the undisputed king of summer. Everyone is online a bit less, but when they are online, it's on their phones.
Adapt your placements, creatives, and landers to fit this. Make everything clear to read on smaller screens, load fast, and easy to navigate!
- Adjust Your Ad Scheduling
Use the data you collected when preparing for these changes (read the section above this one to refresh your memory) and find a schedule that works for your audience.
Shift your ad delivery times to reflect the new peak times for your audience. In most cases, you will also need to increase bids during evenings and weekends for the best results.
- Use Geo Targeting
You can try targeting popular vacation spots, destinations, beach towns, and even festivals with custom ads. If your niche fits these somehow, you can make custom creatives for these events and rake in a bunch of revenue!
- Re-evaluate Your Bids and Budgets
Summer is dynamic, and your budgets and bids need to be flexible as well!
- CPC Changes
If you have a more seasonal niche like travel, expect competition to heat up. This means you will have to increase bids and budgets to stay competitive. For other niches, you will see less competition, and thus have better results even on smaller budgets.
- Holiday Spikes
Depending on where you advertise, find the key holidays and work around them. Give more budgets for the days leading up to a holiday to better capitalize on it.
Sometimes it's even smart to pump budgets into those campaigns during the holiday, as some bigger companies pause their ads in the same period.
- Stay Flexible
Monitor your performance daily and don't be afraid to change things up. Staying flexible is the key to capitalizing on these changes!
Align Your Offers with the Season
A great ad for the wrong offer can still fail, so make sure that your offers fit at least somewhat with the season.
- Promote Relevant Products
This is straightforward. Push summer products like apparel, gardening tools, outdoor equipment for ecommerce, travel offers for services, and find things that match and make sense to advertise for.
- Create Promotions
If there are any special events or holidays, make sure to make custom promotions just for them. You can also do broader promotions like “Summer Sale” but being more specific often gives better results.
- Reframe Existing Offers
For evergreen offers like iGaming, apps, or subscriptions, all you need to do is reframe the approach a bit to get more eyes on the product. Angles like “the perfect way to pass the time on your flight” or “lazy summer nights” always work!
Conclusion
Summer, like any season, needs some adaptation to work best. Even small changes can make a huge difference in performance. So, don’t just go on autopilot and hope for the best. Make proactive decisions and choices to increase your chances of success.
Don’t treat your campaigns as just continuations of winter or spring campaigns. Think of them as something unique that is here to capture your audience right now!
Please log in to Facebook to access the comments section