Vacation
People are traveling, about to travel, or recovering from travel.
Half the country has not mentally returned from break.
Out of office replies are off but the people are not back.
In effect New Year's Day (6d before through 9d after)
Your target demographic is at a lake.
Coverage there is bad in every sense.
In effect Memorial Day (2d before through 1d after)
Record numbers of Americans are in a car, an airport, or a lake house.
TSA throughput is up and your session duration is down.
In effect July 4th (7d before through 3d after)
Your audience is in a car crossing three states with the family group chat muted.
In effect 12-21 to 12-25
Half your audience is traveling and the other half is pretending to work from Cabo.
Neither half is clicking.
In effect 03-01 to 04-10
Spring break is staggered by school district, so demand is dissolving one region at a time.
By the time Texas comes back, Florida leaves.
In effect 03-01 to 04-10
College students are off the grid in a way that specifically excludes your retargeting pool.
In effect 03-05 to 03-31
TSA throughput is up and your conversion rate is down. These facts are related.
In effect 03-01 to 04-10
Families are crossing the country to watch a name get read aloud.
Nobody converts from the bleachers.
In effect 05-10 to 06-15
By late June the entire country is planning the same week off.
Purchase decisions are deferred until the cooler is packed.
In effect 06-16 to 06-30
It's July. Your target audience is drinking something out of a plastic cup near a body of water.
In effect Jul
Out-of-office density has crossed the threshold where outreach becomes performance art.
Reply to any thread and count the auto-responses.
In effect 06-15 to 08-15
Summer Fridays are in effect, which means Thursday was the last business day.
This applies to your audience, your agency, and the person who approves your creative.
In effect Jun, Jul, Aug · Fridays
Your agency contact is also on vacation, per an auto-reply with no end date.
In effect 06-15 to 08-15
Everyone is squeezing in one last trip before school starts, all at the same time.
The overlap is total. There is nobody left to advertise to.
In effect 08-01 to 08-15
Europe is closed for August. All of it.
If any part of your funnel touches the continent, it reopens in September.
In effect Aug
It is a summer weekend, so your audience is at a lake with no reception.
In effect Jun, Jul, Aug · Sundays, Saturdays
Re-entry from vacation is slower than the vacation and less photogenic.
Inbox triage comes first. Discretionary browsing is weeks out.
In effect 08-16 to 08-31
Half the org is out of office and the other half is covering for them, badly.
This includes the org you work at and the org you sell to.
In effect 12-15 to 12-31
Use-it-or-lose-it PTO is expiring, so the workforce is vanishing in unscheduled increments.
Coverage plans exist in writing only.
In effect 12-01 to 12-31
People are planning travel, and planning travel is a full-time job.
Every session you paid for ended on a flight comparison tab.
In effect May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep
Your audience is in the air, at the beach, or in line at a rental car counter.
In effect May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep
Everyone is recovering from travel, which consumes more than the travel did.
The laundry, the statement, the photos no one will ever edit.
In effect May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep
PTO density has reached levels no purchase decision can survive.
Every approval chain now contains at least one out-of-office reply.
In effect Jun, Jul, Aug, Dec
A long weekend is always either approaching or receding.
The brain leaves the Wednesday before and returns the Wednesday after.
In effect always in effect
Out-of-office replies now outnumber replies.
Your nurture sequence is nurturing autoresponders.
In effect Jun, Jul, Aug
Summer Fridays emptied every office by noon.
In effect Jun, Jul, Aug · Fridays
Spring break has removed students and their parents from the market simultaneously.
In effect Mar