Posted by: Janessa Seewald, Account Manager

You’ve just gone through all the necessary steps for creating a PPC campaign – selected keywords, developed text ads, etc. You’re ready to pull the trigger and make it all go live, right? Well, there’s one thing that you might have overlooked, and that’s tying your PPC budget to seasonality.

By seasonality, I don’t just mean seasons and holidays. Think about the times of year that your customers are searching for your services or products and when most sales are completed.

For example, in the travel industry, the majority of consumers aren’t searching for vacations during the month of December. They’re too focused on their holiday shopping. Typically, they’ve already booked their vacations for the beginning of the year by then. Knowing this information, it wouldn’t make sense to allocate the same dollar amount to your PPC campaign in this “valley” month as opposed to a “peak” month such as October or March. While you definitely don’t want your program to go dark during the valley months, you do want to allocate the majority of your budget to the months that generate the most return.

If your business doesn’t experience this type of seasonality in regards to sales, you should still consider the trend of your customer’s searches over the year. There are several free tools, including Google Trends, which present a timeline of search volume. This can help you determine which months you want to allocate the majority of your dollars.

Remember, budget allocation should be fluid, so don’t be afraid to make adjustments throughout the year based on the latest trends.