{"id":44928,"date":"2025-01-24T11:48:32","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T11:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/advertising\/seasonality-in-marketing-how-to-plan-your-2025-budget-for-higher-roi\/"},"modified":"2025-01-24T11:48:32","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T11:48:32","slug":"seasonality-in-marketing-how-to-plan-your-2025-budget-for-higher-roi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=44928","title":{"rendered":"Seasonality in Marketing \u2013 How to Plan Your 2025 Budget for Higher ROI"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Seasonality in marketing means that there\u2019s a fluctuation between high-growth and low-growth periods for every business.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are times of the year when customers line up to buy your product\u2026 And there are months when it feels like the whole world has forgotten about you\u2026<\/p>\n

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\"seasonal<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Once you\u2019ve been through a couple of annual marketing strategy plannings, you\u2019ll begin to notice a pattern: these fluctuations are happening every single year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For example, when doing the global quarterly marketing budgets at Bolt, I realized that it didn\u2019t make sense to invest the same amount of budget (let\u2019s say 100% \/ 12 months = 8.3%) every single month throughout the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To make matters even more complicated, Bolt was operating in 25+ countries and hundreds of cities. The seasonality<\/strong> that, in the case of ride-hailing, depends on the weather and consumer patterns, was not the same across different markets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The high season in the UK v.s. South Africa v.s. Australia meant very different things \u2013 and very different months of the year. And yet \u2013 not all marketing leads of international brands think in terms of local<\/em> seasonality.<\/p>\n

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\"full<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Perhaps it was the need to plan 25+ markets\u2019 budgets in a few weeks\u2019s time that led us (not just me, there was a whole team of smart growth people and data analysts behind the project) to look into ways to structure and automate our seasonal marketing planning<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

While seasonality is different in every industry, the strategic tactics are still more or less universal. <\/strong>And that\u2019s exactly what this guide will be about: understanding the basics of seasonal thinking and applying it in your own marketing strategy, on top of being aware of the latest marketing trends<\/a>.<\/p>\n

P.S. Seasonality does not only affect your marketing results.<\/strong> It should be a fundamental consideration for the entire high-level business strategy<\/strong>, including product and growth. And this makes the approach relevant also for the CEOs and other people with fancy C-letter job titles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Feel free to follow along the step-by-step flow of the guide or jump to any section that interests you most.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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  1. The principles of seasonal marketing planning<\/li>\n
  2. Understanding the seasonality in your business<\/li>\n
  3. Building the toolset and structure for seasonal strategy<\/li>\n
  4. Implementing the marketing strategy in sync with seasonality<\/li>\n
  5. Revising the marketing strategy as the market changes<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So, so, so\u2026 Let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n

    1. The principles of seasonal marketing planning<\/h2>\n

    The first rule of Seasonal Planning is: you do have to talk about it <\/strong>before<\/em><\/strong> the season begins.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The right time to plan the next year\u2019s and next quarters\u2019 business strategy and marketing budgets is not at the end of January (as it happens to be in 95% of companies). This should be done in November-December of the previous year. At least a few weeks before the next quarter begins.<\/p>\n

    Because\u2026 What if your highest-ROI period for marketing is right at the beginning of January? What if this is the best possible time to invest in low-cost advertising while the competition is still recovering for a Q4 holiday period \u201changover?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Or even if the best time to launch a large-scale marketing campaign is at the beginning of March, you will have to start talking to the agencies and ad real estate vendors already a few months ahead in time to get the best possible deals + have top-quality creatives ready in time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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    \"marketing<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

    The second rule of seasonal planning: not all months are created equal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    I can\u2019t really think of a business that would benefit from the exact same level of consumer interest throughout the year. If you look at the chart by Statista \u2013 on online retail sales value in the UK \u2013\u00a0you see that there\u2019s always a drop in Q1 and a huge spike in Q4.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    \"e-commerce<\/figure>\n

    It\u2019s common knowledge (I suppose?) that e-commerce brands have the highest number of sales in Q3, during the period leading up to Christmas. There are the shopping holidays like Black Friday and other made-up consumer f\u00eates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    So if you\u2019re not in e-commerce, it might be a smart thing for you to not invest in paid ads during this high-competition period.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    But what if the super competitive Q3 period is also when your<\/em> business is growing the most?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    While during Black Friday Meta ads cost<\/a> might go up, the data by Nest Digital<\/a> indicated that also the ROAS (return on ad spend)\u00a0 of Meta ads was higher. So, in the end, it was worth for some advertisers to pay (say 20%) more per 1,000 ad views because there was also a (say 45%) higher buyer interest.<\/p>\n

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    \"black<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

    So what are you to make of this?\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Should you invest more marketing budget during high-competition periods of the year<\/strong> (especially Q3) when the cost of advertising is higher?\u00a0<\/p>\n

    If this is the time of the year when the customers\u2019 interest in your product is high then yes, you should.<\/p>\n

    However, and this is important (!): you should not invest the same amount of budget throughout <\/em>the 3-month high-growth period.<\/strong> You should allocate most of your budget to be spent at the beginning<\/em> of that period.<\/p>\n

    As you make a big marketing investment (say running a large-scale brand marketing campaign) at the beginning<\/strong> of a high-growth period, you will have a heightened customer interest throughout that period. Meaning more purchases and a higher total revenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    If you invest an equal budget during all three months of the high season, you will lose out on the momentum that a higher initial investment would have brought. By the time the last month\u2019s investment should begin to deliver results and turn into conversions, the customer interest has already waned.<\/p>\n

    The third rule of seasonal planning: turn up the confidence level<\/strong><\/p>\n

    I\u2019ve made this mistake myself, and I\u2019ve seen other marketers do it: when doing seasonality-based marketing planning, the difference in marketing spend between months is often minimal.<\/p>\n

    But hey, the worst case scenario is this (done by way too many companies):<\/p>\n

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    \"seasonal<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

    I suppose you see what is wrong with the chart\u2026 Each of these months you would spend the same amount of money. But during some months, the investment would bring you a 200% + ROAS and in other months, you\u2019d have a negative return on ad spend.<\/p>\n

    If you\u2019d stop reading the article here, you\u2019d probably go back to your marketing budget plans and do something like this: a hesitant reshuffling of the budgets between months.<\/p>\n

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    \"seasonal<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

    But no, this is still not what you need. Even now, you will spend way too little during months with 200% + ROAS and way too much during periods of low customer interest.<\/p>\n

    What you want to achieve with seasonal marketing planning and budgeting is something at least as bold as this:<\/p>\n

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    \"seasonal<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

    The above chart doesn\u2019t reflect any actual businesses\u2019 marketing budgets. But what it does reflect is the biannual marketing spend boost that far-sighted brands do at the beginning of every high season. (Yes, there are usually 2 high seasons for businesses per year. But it can vary.)<\/p>\n

    How to create an annual marketing budget<\/strong> that, taking into consideration the seasonality in your business, allocates the most optional percentage of budget to each month<\/strong>?\u00a0<\/p>\n

    Mostly, by doing two things:<\/p>\n