The Issue With Relying on Q4

When Q4 is doing all the hard work, everything else suffers.

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Outside of peak, budgets get cut. Creative goes stale. Campaigns that needed attention months ago get left alone because ‘it is not the right time.’ 

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By the time October arrives, you are scrambling to get the account ready instead of building on a solid foundation. 

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And if Q4 underperforms - a bad week on Google, a shipping issue, a competitor who outbids you - there is nothing left to fall back on.

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Most brands accept this as normal. 

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It is not. 

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It is just what happens when the foundations are not built to work year-round.

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How To Thrive All-Year Round

The brands that perform outside of Q4 have:

• The right campaign structure running consistently
• Creative that gets refreshed regularly
• A full understanding of their profitable targets
• Knowledge of when to push and when to pull back

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Understanding KPIs matters more than most people realise. Before we touch anything in an account, we calculate the real profitable MER. Not in-platform ROAS. 

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The actual revenue required to be profitable once you factor in margins, refunds, fees and monthly bills. 

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Once you have that number, slow months stop being so scary, because you know exactly where the bottlenecks are and what needs to be done.

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The other piece is staying active when competitors go quiet. 

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When spend drops across a category, ad costs fall, and impression share opens up. 

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The brands that keep going in those windows come out of them with better data, cheaper acquisition costs, and a stronger position heading into peak.

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Barstools.co.uk came to us three years ago. July is the worst month in furniture - people are outside in the sun, far fewer people are buying.

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Last July, we grew their monthly revenue by over 500% compared to when they first started with us. Net profit up 92% year on year. 

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We doubled their ad spend and nearly doubled their profit in their WORST month of the year.

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That happened because the foundations were already there. And their competitors had gone quiet, which we took full advantage of.

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The Bottom Line

If your business only really works in Q4, you are not in a bad position yet. But you are one difficult November away from one.

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The brands that make Q4 their best quarter (not their ONLY quarter) are the ones that spent the rest of the year building towards it.

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