Seasonal Ad Budget

Targeting seasonal sales can have a tremendous effect on your business. Still, it is not easy to find the additional money to capitalize on the opportunities that these certain seasons offer.

Focusing on seasonality with your digital marketing strategy can be incredibly useful, not least because it prevents you from being caught out by changing consumer trends as the year unfolds. There can be an enormous value put on certain events or times of the year, such as the winter holiday season or flagship commercial events like Black Friday.

This is because there will be a considerably higher rate of consumption during these periods, whether it is families hunting for last-minute gifts or individuals searching for the best deal during Black Friday weekend.

Of course, given that certain times of the year tend to attract higher amounts of consumers, every business worth their salt will be vying for their attention. It is therefore imperative that you implement a digital marketing campaign specially tailored for the event or season to maximize your brand exposure, land more sales and outrank your competitors on search engines.

This is especially important if your business relies heavily on seasonal sales. When your cash flow is inconsistent, and your products are only relevant or popular at certain times of the year, then it is crucial that you make the most of the demand. After all, it could mean the difference between you being able to stay afloat or going under during the ‘off-season.’

Having said this, standing out from the competition can quickly become expensive – especially if the season traditionally sees an uptake in sales (such as Christmas or the summer holidays). Unless you can budget effectively, you could see a lot of your additional revenue being spent on seasonal ads.

To help you to create the most cost-efficient digital marketing campaign possible, here are some useful seasonal ad budget tips.

The Value Of Key Trading Times Such As Black Friday And Christmas

Firstly, it is important to recognize why you might want to make a concerted effort to promote your products at certain times of the year.

After all, seasonality can seem bizarre to prepare for, especially if your business has a range of evergreen products that have no additional relevancy during seasons. You might imagine that seasonality only affects companies that are dependent on the weather or sudden consumer demand, such as farmers and Christmas tree growers.

However, the truth is that seasonality can significantly affect the number of products you sell. For example, in the US, 61% of restaurants experience a shortfall of up to 20% in customers during the summer season.

Therefore, you need to pay close attention to seasonality and how mastering it can positively affect your company.

Indeed, the most compelling reason is that it can be highly lucrative and boost brand awareness considerably. Consider for a moment the intense consumer behavior during December each year, as the lead-up to Christmas triggers a rush towards buying vast quantities of gifts, food, drink, and other products.

Similarly, the annual Black Friday event creates a huge consumer spending uptake. In the US, customers spent $5 billion on Black Friday, demonstrating the power of seasonality.

By positioning your products at the center of this melee, you can land yourself considerably more sales than normal. What’s more, if your business relies on seasonality to sell its products and services, you will want to maximize these certain times of year to ensure your business can survive for the rest of the year.

How Does Seasonality Impact Ad Budgets?

However, despite the potentially lucrative benefits of seasonality, it can take a heavy toll on your advertising budget. This is because more businesses will compete for the attention of a certain number of customers, throwing everything at boosting their sales.

This is an unusual phenomenon because, during ‘normal’ periods of the year, companies spread out their advertising efforts across many months rather than weeks or even days. This lessens the chance of you overlapping with another company that is spending all their ad budget at the same time.

You can quickly end up spending far more than you usually would trying to outgun your competitors rather than focusing on making each penny go as far as it can. It is therefore imperative to find the best daily budget for Facebook ads.

Get The Most Out Of Your Budget With Good Targeting

The number one way to maximize your daily budget Facebook ads is to ensure you are targeting the right people.

To do this, you should conduct thorough market research which identifies the exact people you want to target. This could involve advanced targeting techniques that rank prospects in your market based on key metrics like location, demographic, browsing behavior, and other relevant identifiers.

By being precise with your targeting, you minimize the chances of someone failing to click on your ad and buy a product. When you cut out those who are likely to sit on the fence or find your products surplus to requirements, you will speed up the process and ensure you don’t waste money on anyone who isn’t likely to become a customer.

It is for this reason that companies with the largest budgets don’t always succeed with their advertising. Although additional resources can help increase your chances of attracting attention, you could be out-positioned by smaller but more effective teams if you’re wasting that money with inaccurate targeting.

What Is The ‘Best’ Daily Budget For Facebook Ads?

The next question you are likely to ask yourself is, what is a good daily budget for Facebook ads? This is understandable because, at first, you may be reluctant to throw money at a campaign that might not succeed.

However, if your targeting is accurate and you have a detailed understanding of your target market, you shouldn’t need to spend huge amounts on your Facebook ads.

The answer will vary depending on your current marketing strategy target, your wider business goals, and how much spare capital you must invest in Facebook ads. Not only this, but Facebook advertising costs can vary depending on a few key internal factors. For example, Facebook ad costs fluctuate based on the time slot you choose.

Certain months, days, or even hours are more expensive than others, so bear this in mind when deciding your posting times. If you were to place an ad on Cyber Monday or Black Friday, it is understandably going to cost more than if it was a ‘normal’ Monday or Friday.

Furthermore, your target market will influence the amount of money you spend. This is because you might be trying to reach an unresponsive audience that would not typically click on an ad for your product or a hyper-responsive market that is ready to buy.

Key factors like demographic, gender, interests, location, and other metrics can bump up the price, too, especially if countless other marketers target a particular audience. As with any form of advertising, the more competition you have for a set of eyeballs, the more you are going to spend.

As a rule of thumb, you should allocate at least $1 per day on Facebook ads as a minimum spend. However, you may also want to consider whether a Facebook ads daily or lifetime budget is the best approach for your business. Both have their own benefits and limitations, so you must weigh up your options to maximize your seasonal campaign.

Daily budgets are typically easier to set up and get started with, and Facebook will only ever spend what you tell it to spend daily. This makes managing your budget easy and ensures you get bang for your buck daily.

What’s more, if you predict that your advertising spend will vary from day to day, then choosing the daily option gives you the leeway to adjust the cost as you go. However, keep in mind that any adjustment in spending should be within a 20% average; otherwise, the algorithm will be confused, and your ad performance may dip considerably.

Despite these great benefits, it is worth knowing that when you set a particular spending limit each day, Facebook will aim to spend all the available cash, regardless of performance or your particular goals.

Whereas with lifetime budgets, you set the total budget for the campaign upfront. Facebook will spread this over the timeline, adjusting spending on certain days depending on current performance.

These factors are worth considering when weighing up Facebook ads lifetime vs. daily budget for your seasonal ad campaign.

Scale Up Your Ads

Another detail to focus on with your seasonal ad budgeting is how to scale up your ads during a boom period.

To do this, start by breaking the entire campaign into bite-size chunks. If you were focusing on Q4, it would be something like: ‘pre-Black Friday, ‘Black Friday, ‘pre-holiday period,’ and ‘holiday period.’

You should then set certain performance goals for each period, depending on the eventual target you want to hit. You should also decide which advertising tools you wish to use to achieve these goals in each section – such as Facebook ads.

By doing this, you can ensure you are sensible with your budgeting over a certain timeline. For instance, if your budget is limited in the busiest period, you should consider using dynamic product ads (DPAs) because you don’t have to waste money creating the ad from scratch.

Consider The Sales Funnel And Apply It To Your Sector

Of course, once you have successfully executed an ad campaign, you need to remember that these site visitors need to be converted into customers.

This means creating a dedicated sales funnel that effortlessly and efficiently converts prospects into customers on your website. The exact funnel model you use will depend on your sector, but it is a crucial element that should not be neglected.

If you need help with your ad campaigns, our team can help. Get in touch today!