• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, August 4, 2010

Who would have guessed it, but the Web is a seasonal medium for advertisers!

For years there was little to no seasonality in online because it was masked by the overall growth of the medium, but in the last two to three years publishers have been seeing signs of a seasonal advertising flow for advertisers: many advertisers appear to decrease their spending in the summer months. 

I found this odd, so I did a quick, informal survey and reached out to 10 marketers and 10 publishers whom I know. They all agreed the trend exists; their advertisers tend to spend less in the summertime, not because of any perceived decrease in traffic during those months, but rather because of additional outside factors.

The first factor was that for many of these advertisers, key drive periods for selling products were fall, winter and spring.  This was a unifying theme for packaged goods, retail and even direct-to-consumer apparel brands.  Some had a strong push for back-to-school while some waited for holidays, but they all took the summer as a lighter period in their flights.

The second driving factor that emerged: some advertisers wanted their digital to flight in a similar pattern as their offline media.  Many traditional marketers decrease TV and print in the summer months due to reruns and less engaging content while the majority of Americans are traveling and spending time outside. These advertisers have found their online and offline efforts work better when they run in tandem. 

It makes sense, especially when you read how search and TV interact and scale to help one another engage with the customer.   Most of those I spoke to say they tend to leave search running, though at a lower commitment, along with some key partnerships.  They also tend to focus more attention on social, but the costs for social and community management are not considered "ad dollars" for most brands, and therefore emerge from a separate budget.

The thing that didn't make sense to me is, this trend seems to present an advertising opportunity. If summer is when your competitors are slowing down, you should be ramping up and looking to get involved in a deeper conversation with your customers while it costs less to get them started and while they aren't being deluged by other brands. 

If fewer advertisers run in the summertime, and your key drive periods are in the fall or winter, strategically you should be spending money to drive registrations and "likes," engaging your audience via email and social, so that you can present them with offers and incentives in the key drive periods rather than trying to generate awareness then.  It can cost less to acquire their names and data in the summer -- and then you're ahead of the game when it really counts!

The other thing you should be doing is using earned media outlets, like social media, during this period by creating a fresh, more exciting editorial calendar to drive engagement and increase consideration while things are slow, in hopes that you can convert prospects to customers quicker when you need them! 

Even if seasonality on ad spend is occurring, you shouldn't be taking your eye off the online tactics.  Digital media is a year-round effort and it requires your attention all the time if you want to get the most out of it.  Your audience is not abandoning the Web during the summer, so why should you?

And don't even get me started on mobile!  Summertime is when mobile gets the most traffic, but that's a column for another day!