Most people love the summer. It’s warm, people are going on vacation, and it seems like everyone is having fun with outside activities. But for marketers, summer is not the greatest time for running campaigns. Search volumes for core keywords are dipping, website traffic is lighter, and usually reliable campaigns are starting to look sluggish, among other signs. Welcome to the so-called “summer slump”.
Many affiliates panic at this and try to fix it by dumping more money into their campaigns or slashing budgets across the board, hoping for the best. Both are losing strategies. A slow season isn't a problem that just goes away, you need to actively make changes to adapt to it and increase the chance of success.
You don’t need to make huge adjustments to your spending, it's time to tune your campaigns. The quiet months are ideal for trimming down the fat from ad spend, optimizing core operations, and building new and improved assets and strategies that will help boost revenues even higher once the slump is gone. So, let's learn together how you can adapt to slow summer sales and improve your ROI!
Don’t Panic, Diagnose Your Slump
Before you make any drastic moves, confirm that it's actually a seasonal trend you are experiencing and not a deeper problem with your campaigns.
The first step is to look at your historical data and compare it to before. Pull up your data for June, July, and August of last year and the year before that. Do you see the same pattern of decreased traffic and conversions? If so, you can confidently assume that the same thing is happening right now and that you are experiencing a summer slump.
This is important to know because you need to know why your ads stopped working and adjust to the problem accordingly. This helps you make better changes and adjustments that have better effects on your campaigns.
Cut Waste Without Killing Growth
If you confirmed a seasonal issue, then you should make it a priority to improve and optimize your campaigns to get a better return on ad spend (ROAS) on a smaller volume of traffic.
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Analyze Your Ad Spend
Go through your ad accounts and focus on their performance. Look for everything that isn’t providing a clear, positive return.
- Pause Underperforming Keywords/Ad Groups
Sort your campaigns by CPA or ROAS over the last 30 days. Any keywords or ad groups that are spending money without converting, or where the cost per conversion is unsustainable, should be paused.
- Scrutinize Top-of-Funnel Campaigns
Broad awareness campaigns with goals like “Reach” or “Views” are often the first place to cut back. During a slow period, you want to focus your limited budget on users with higher intent, who are further down the funnel.
- Analyze Your Channels
Check out which of your traffic channels is doing what. Some of them will be hit by the summer slump more than others. Relocate your budget accordingly and cut back on channels where it doesn't make sense to run.
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Refine Your Targeting
When traffic is low, you can’t afford to target broadly. Now is the time to narrow your focus to only your most valuable audience segments.
- Double Down on High-Intent Audiences
Focus the majority of your budget on the retargeting audience that already visited your website, engaged with your social media, or are on your email list. These warm audiences are far more likely to convert than cold prospects.
- Layer Your Targeting
Add extra targeting layers to your existing audiences. For example, instead of just targeting an interest, layer it with demographic or behavioral signals that have performed well in the past. The goal is to shrink the audience size but increase its quality.
Build Assets For The Future
You can turn a slow period into a competitive advantage for the future. Think of all the things you can’t achieve during the rush season, now it's time to do it!
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Go All-in on SEO and Content Creation
Paid ad performance may go down, but the value of organic reach never does. So, this could be the perfect time to build out your long-term assets.
- Write Evergreen Content
Create blog posts, guides, and resource pages that will attract traffic for months if not years. Do deep keyword research now, and you’ll be ranking for valuable terms when search volume picks up!
- Conduct a Technical SEO Audit
Fix broken links, improve site speed, optimize your site structure, and clean up your metadata. Improve the fundamentals that have a major impact on your organic performance all year round!
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Nuture Your Owned Audience
You might have fewer new visitors, but you have an existing audience on your email list and social media profile, so nurture them!
- Lead Magnets and Webinars
Create valuable new resources, like a free e-book, webinar, or something else that can engage your current list and capture new leads at a lower cost.
- Clean Your Email List
This is the perfect time for list hygiene. Remove inactive subscribers to improve your deliverability rates, ensuring your Q4 emails actually land in the inbox.
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Test, Experiment, and Learn
The stakes are lower during a seasonal slump, so you can afford to experiment a bit!
- Test new channels
Always wanted to try out the new and trendy platform? Now is the time! Start with small tests with low budgets so you can learn what audiences respond to on that channel. With enough data and time, you will learn the basics and be ready to scale when it matters.
- Experiment with Bold Creatives
Try out that edgy and unconventional ad copy, or video idea you were too nervous to run during the peak season. The cost of failure is lower, and you might discover a new winning angle that can help you!
Prepare for the Rebound
Summer slump usually ends around mid to end of August, so get ready for it! Plan your holiday campaigns (like Black Friday) ahead of time. Do your keyword research, segment your audience, outline promotional offers, draft your ad copy, etc. When your competitors are scrambling in October, you will be ready!
You should also build your creative library. Edit new videos, create new ads, design banners and creatives for your ads, and prepare for special sales and promotions. Having a library of creatives ready to get launched is a huge advantage!
Don’t Go Completely Dark
While it's crucial to lean, turning off all your advertising is a mistake. Going completely dark means you lose all your momentum. Your retargeting audiences will shrink, your social media pages will look abandoned, and your algorithms will lose data they need to perform effectively. When you try to ramp back up, you will be starting from a dead stop, which is always hard. The goal is to trim down on excess spending and improve ROI, not disappear completely.
Conclusion
A seasonal slowdown is not a crisis; it's something that has to happen sooner or later. Even if your campaigns don't perform as good as usual, it's a perfect time to freshen up and prepare for the inevitable return of performance.
Lower unnecessary spending, optimize your current content and campaigns, and keep running at a stable and profitable pace. With the right optimizations, changes, and strategy, you can turn the summer slump into a profitable period!
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