The Slow Season Fallacy of PPC Advertising

Too much money for not enough leads. If your business is seasonal you'll want to tune in to see how to beat the dip during shoulder season.

Jeff Sexton

April 28, 2022

The Slow Season Fallacy of PPC Advertising

One thing about Pay-Per-Click Advertising that most business owners say they love is its instant-on, instant-off capability. You can pause or stop a PPC campaign if you’ve got too many leads to handle. And you can start it back up again when you need more leads. Makes sense, right? Except that seasonality erases that benefit. Now, if your business isn’t seasonal, skip this article — but if it IS seasonal, pay attention: You can only use PPC ads to bid on prospects who are actively searching on relevant keywords — i.e., customers who are in the market for what you sell right now. So when almost no one is in the market for what you sell — i.e., when it’s slow season — then almost no one is searching on relevant keywords. That means there’s almost no opportunities for you to bid on. 'Cause search engine can’t create customers for you that don’t exist. And if everyone in your industry is trying to ramp up PPC spend during the slow season in order to bring in what few customers there are, then guess what happens?Exactly. You pay through the nose and still can’t get enough leads!

Slow Season PPC vs. Mass Media Branding

Here’s the thing: mass media branding can’t and won’t change your seasonality. Your busy season will still be busy, and your slow season will still be slow. But if you’re growing, you’ll get to the point where you’re doing as much business during your slow season is as you used to do during you busy season. Mass media branding CAN make that happen. Unfortunately, mass media can’t create customers that don’t exist; it can only increase your market share of existing customers. However, when some of the customers your branding has convinced to buy from you end up needing what you sell during your slow season, you’ll get those customers for the same spend as any other time of year. You already bought those leads at bargain-basement prices, and can now (mostly) opt-out of the PPC bidding wars.*This is how you end up still having a slow season while doing much more business than you ever used to do during that season.

What This Means for You

So if you’re relying on your PPC spend to get you through the slow season, you’ll want to rethink that plan. And if you haven’t yet started investing in long-term, mass media branding campaign, now is the time to start. Lead generation fueled by branding won’t change your seasonality, but it will provide real growth that continues from season to season. And isn’t that what you really want?

(Online Advertising)

(Pay Per Click)

Jeff Sexton

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