Every summer several clients ask us the same question. August has a reputation as a dead month: people go on holiday, half the businesses wind down and the instinct for many brands is to switch the campaigns off until September so as not to throw money away. It sounds reasonable, but in most cases that instinct is wrong, and pausing completely can cost more than it seems.
Our position is clear. Except in specific cases, in August it is not worth switching advertising off, it is worth adjusting it. Let us see why, and when reducing does make sense.
Why so many brands pause in August
The reasons to pause are intuitive, which is why so many people do it:
- People are on holiday. The feeling is that nobody is thinking about buying, they are thinking about the beach.
- Purchase intent drops in some categories. There are sectors where August really is weak and conversion falls.
- The team is away. With fewer hands to watch the campaigns, switching off looks like the prudent option.
- Saving the budget for September. The idea of holding the investment back for the return and for Q4 is tempting.
They are legitimate arguments, but almost all of them start from an incomplete picture of what really happens in the summer.
Why pausing usually costs you
When you look at the data beneath the myth, switching the campaigns off has costs that are not obvious at first glance:
- Not everyone is away, and not all month. The idea that there is nobody around in August is exaggerated. Many people take only two weeks, holidays are spread across the whole month, and by the second half most already have one eye on the September return. The audience is still there, even if its rhythm changes.
- Demand does not disappear, it shifts. Many people leave, but even more move to a holiday home, in the countryside, the mountains or the coast. They are still connected and still buying, just to a different shipping address. There are categories that even grow in summer.
- CPMs fall in August. Since many advertisers pause, there is less competition for the same spaces, so the cost per impression usually drops. Just when advertising is cheapest, pausing makes you give up that saving.
- People spend more time on their phones. Holidays, downtime and more hours of scrolling. Attention does not disappear in summer, in many cases it increases.
- Pausing resets the learning. This is the most expensive cost. By switching the campaigns off and turning them back on in September, they return to the learning phase and take days or weeks to recover their performance, right when the most important quarter of the year begins. It is the same effect we explain in why your ROAS drops.
- You cede ground to your competition. Whoever stays active acquires at a lower cost while you are away, and reaches September with an advantage.
So what do we recommend doing instead of pausing?
The sensible alternative is almost never to switch off, it is to adapt. These are the levers:
- Lower the budget instead of cutting it. If you want to spend less, reduce the investment, but keep the campaigns alive so you do not lose the learning.
- Lean on retargeting and your evergreen campaigns. What already works keeps working with little supervision.
- Clear your summer stock. August, with the summer sales, is a good moment to shift the seasonal stock you have left before the season ends. Advertising helps you move it in the final weeks.
- Make last-minute buying easy. Many people order seasonal products at the last minute (swimwear, towels, parasols, fans, barbecues, summer clothes, sunglasses) for their holiday home. If your shipping policy is clear and they know it arrives fast, you win the sale, so keep the delivery times well in view. A small trick that works very well: offer scheduled delivery for the return (for example the 16th of August or the 1st of September), so whoever is away buys without fear of the parcel arriving at an empty house.
- Adapt the creative to summer. A message and images that fit the August context perform better than carrying on with the May creative.
- Take advantage of the low CPMs. If your product sells in summer, it is a good moment to acquire at a lower cost. And if it does not sell, use those cheap CPMs to build brand, grow a community and capture leads for the new season.
- Prepare September. Arriving with your campaigns already optimised and your audience warm is an enormous advantage over whoever starts from zero.
When it does make sense to reduce or pause
Being active is not always the right call. There are cases where cutting back hard, or even pausing, is the reasonable thing:
- Highly seasonal products that do not sell in August. If your category genuinely shuts down in summer, do not force the machine.
- Teams with no capacity to watch the campaigns. Leaving campaigns active and unattended can turn out worse than pausing. If there is nobody to watch them, it is a risk.
- Cash constraints. If cash flow is tight, prioritising makes sense, and August may be the month to sacrifice.
- Businesses heavily dependent on B2B customers. If your customer winds down in August, your demand genuinely falls.
Even in these cases, whenever you can, it is better to reduce than to switch off completely, so you do not lose the accumulated learning.
Decide it with your data, not with the myth
The conclusion is that the decision is not made with the phrase "nobody buys in August", it is made with your numbers. Look at your history of previous Augusts, your vertical and your margin. Check what really happened to your sales and your profitability in August, not what the general intuition says.
And measure it where it matters, in POAS. If in August your campaigns are still profitable in real terms, switching them off is giving away sales and ceding ground. If they genuinely are not, then reducing makes sense. The answer is in your data, and it is different for every brand.
Frequently asked questions
Should you pause advertising in August? As a general rule, no. Pausing completely usually costs you, because it resets the learning phase right before Q4, and because you give up cheaper CPMs. In most cases it is better to adjust the investment than to switch the campaigns off.
Why do CPMs fall in August? Because many advertisers pause their campaigns, so there is less competition for the same ad spaces. With less demand for inventory, the cost per impression drops and advertising is cheaper than usual.
Does pausing campaigns affect performance when I return? Yes. When you reactivate them, they go back to the learning phase and take days or weeks to recover the optimisation they had. That happens right at the start of September and Q4, the worst moment to arrive with your campaigns thrown off.
What do I do instead of pausing in August? Lower the budget if you need to, but keep the campaigns active. Lean on retargeting and what already works, adapt the creative to summer, take advantage of the cheap CPMs to acquire, and reach September with the optimisation intact.
In what cases does it make sense to reduce or pause? If you sell a highly seasonal product that does not move in August, if you have nobody to watch the campaigns, or if cash flow is tight. Also if you depend heavily on B2B customers who wind down in summer. Even so, better to reduce than to switch off completely.
How do I decide whether to pause or not? With your data, not with the myth. Review your history of Augusts, your category and your margin, and measure in POAS whether your campaigns are still profitable. If they are, keep them. If not, reduce. The decision is different for every brand.
If you are not sure what to do with your campaigns this August, we will look at it with you. At STRAT we analyse your history, your category and your profitability to decide whether it pays to maintain, reduce or pause, and we adjust the management of your paid media campaigns to the real seasonality of your business, not to what the calendar says.
