Don’t put your Google Ads on ice this winter
If you run a home or garden business, summer is probably the time of year when everything feels full-on. More people are outside, more projects are getting started and more customers are searching for the products and services they need to get them done.
Once autumn arrives, things naturally start to slow down. When you see demand dropping, switching off your Google Ads until spring might seem like an obvious way to save budget. But lower demand doesn’t mean no demand, and switching everything off could mean missing customers who are still searching.
The better approach is to look at what actually changes during winter and adapt your campaigns around it.
Your customers are still searching
Someone who wants a new patio, landscaped garden or major outdoor project might be less likely to get started in the middle of December, but that doesn’t mean they stop thinking about it. People can spend weeks or months researching a project, comparing products, getting an idea of costs and finding businesses they might want to use.
Someone browsing fencing, paving or landscaping services in January could be the same person making an enquiry or placing an order when the weather improves in March. Keeping some Google Ads activity running means you can be there during that research, rather than only trying to reach them once they’re ready to buy.
That doesn’t mean running exactly the same campaigns at exactly the same budgets you used at the height of summer. Search behaviour changes with the seasons, and your Google Ads should change with it.
Some demand doesn’t disappear with the sunshine
Your overall search volumes might fall after summer, but look a little closer and you may find certain parts of your business behave very differently.
Fencing is a good example. During summer, replacing a fence might be something a customer wants to do because they’re spending more time in the garden. Come winter, strong winds and bad weather can turn it into a job that needs sorting quickly. Damaged panels, loose posts and fallen fencing can all create a different kind of demand.
The same can apply elsewhere in the home and garden market. Some searches are driven less by the time of year and more by repairs, maintenance, weather or problems that need fixing. Rather than seeing overall demand fall and assuming all your advertising should stop, look at which products and services people are still actively searching for.
Your competitors might be easing off too
You probably won’t be the only business looking at advertising spend once summer is over. Some competitors will reduce their activity, while others may switch their campaigns off altogether and wait for spring. That leaves more room for the businesses that stay visible.
With fewer advertisers competing for the same searches, you have an opportunity to capture more visibility and a greater share of the available traffic. When someone does search for a product or service you offer, being one of the businesses still showing up puts you in a stronger position to win that click while others are sitting out the quieter months.
It’s not about spending heavily when demand isn’t there. It’s about recognising when reduced competition creates an opportunity. If valuable searches are still happening, maintaining the right campaigns can help you stay front of mind, capture more of the available market and keep your business visible while competitors wait for spring.
A winter visitor becomes a spring customer
Not everybody who clicks your ad in November or January is going to become a customer there and then, particularly if they’re planning a bigger purchase or project.
They might browse a few products, look through your services and decide to come back once the weather improves. With the right tracking and remarketing in place, that first visit can still have value. You can build audiences of people who have already shown an interest in your business and reach them again later, rather than introducing yourself from scratch when spring arrives.
Those visitors can also tell you something about what’s coming next. The products they browse, services they look at and searches that bring them to the website can all give you an early indication of where interest is building before peak season gets underway.
Don’t wait for spring to start working it all out again
If you switch everything off for several months, you lose that period of learning. By the time you return to your campaigns, customer behaviour may have shifted, priorities might have changed and the ads or landing pages that performed well last summer may need some attention.
That can leave you on the back foot trying to make decisions and changes at the same time as demand is starting to climb. Keeping the right campaigns ticking over gives you a much clearer picture of what customers have been searching for, which messages are getting a response and where you might want to increase your budget as the season changes.
Instead of flicking the switch back on and hoping last year’s approach still works, you can head into spring with campaigns that have been actively managed and improved throughout winter.
Keep learning while things are quieter
Winter is also a useful time to test different ad copy, review the searches triggering your ads and see which products or services continue to attract interest. You can tighten up campaigns that have become too broad, try different messages and take a closer look at whether the landing pages you’re sending people to are actually doing their job.
You might discover that a campaign you thought was mainly a summer performer continues bringing in good enquiries. Another might show very little demand and become an obvious place to reduce spend. You could even spot interest beginning to grow around a particular product or service as spring gets closer.
Keep your Google Ads working all year round
Summer ending doesn’t mean every campaign needs to keep running at full speed until spring. Budgets can come down, priorities can shift and some campaigns may deserve more attention than others. The important thing is making those decisions based on what customers are actually doing rather than assuming the end of summer means the end of search demand.
At 21Digital, we manage Google Ads around how demand changes throughout the year. That means looking at where customers are still searching, where it makes sense to reduce spend and how the quieter months can be used to improve performance ahead of your next peak season.
Whether you want to get more from the campaigns you’re already running or work out where your budget is best spent over autumn and winter, get in touch with our team today. We’ll help make sure your Google Ads keep working when it makes sense, so you’re not starting from scratch when spring arrives.
