October is the cheapest ad month of Q4 and most brands sit it out.
They save the budget for November, walk into the most expensive CPC environment of the year cold, and call it strategy.
Here is why that is expensive.
Ad costs climb through Q4 as every seller with a credit card piles in. In October, CPCs are still close to normal. By late November you are paying a premium for the same click.
But cost is only half of it. The bigger issue is that ranking takes time. A keyword you start bidding on in November does not have the sales history to rank organically during the weeks that matter. You are renting position at peak prices instead of owning it.
So we pace the opposite way
October is for buying rank cheaply on the keywords you intend to win in December, and for testing creative while the mistakes are still affordable.
November is for defending the positions October earned and going hard on the terms that already convert for you.
December is for margin. Pull back on discovery, ride the branded and high-intent traffic, and stop paying tuition in the last three weeks.
Moving 30% of the budget earlier
A brand we work with had always front-loaded November. Last year we moved 30% of their Q4 budget into October.
Their November CPC was 22% lower than the prior year for the same keywords, because they were bidding from an organic position instead of buying one. Q4 revenue was up 41% on a 12% higher spend.
Q4 is not a spending contest. It is a sequencing problem, and it starts before anyone feels festive.
Is your Q4 budget weighted toward the cheap month or the expensive one?