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Off-season

The off-season is the part of the year when demand for a store's products is regularly lower than in its other months.

How it works

Seasonality makes some months strong and others weak. The off-season is the weak stretch: fewer people look for the products, so orders fall and each unit of ad spend brings back less. A dip counts as seasonal only if it returns at the same time of year, because a seasonal pattern has a fixed, known period. A one-off fall after a feed error or a budget cut is not a season.

Weak months differ from store to store. In GetProfit data on 96 stores (July 2025 – June 2026), August was among a store’s three weakest months for 40 stores, July for 38, February and April for 33 each. Together, months below a store’s median month fell short of it by a median 10.8% of yearly ad revenue. The slow season playbook covers what to do in them.

Where you see it

  • GetProfit portal: Assortment and seasonality shows revenue by month over two years with the return line. It says whether the pattern repeats, from “Confirmed by two years” to “Too little data — analysis impossible”.

Not to be confused with

  • Seasonal gap — a stretch when the store sells below a normal month and no category is strong. An off-season can belong to one category while another carries the store.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “ROAS fell in August, so the campaigns stopped working.” Right: ROAS falls with demand. In the same 96 stores, ROAS in the three weakest months was a median 0.70 of ROAS in the three best. Compare it year over year: August against last August, not against July.
  • Wrong: “Revenue drops in the off-season only because demand drops.” Right: 61 of the 96 stores also cut spend in their weakest months to below 70% of peak-month spend, so they made part of the dip themselves. The other 35 kept spend above that line, and revenue still fell.
  • Wrong: “A seasonality adjustment will prepare Smart Bidding for the off-season.” Right: Google calls seasonality adjustments ideal for events of 1–7 days; beyond 14 days they may work less well. An off-season lasts months.

Sources

  • Create seasonality adjustments — Google Ads API: events of 1–7 days, less effective beyond 14. Checked 2 October 2026.
  • 2.3 Time series patterns — Forecasting: Principles and Practice (3rd ed.): a seasonal pattern has a fixed, known period. Checked 2 October 2026.
  • GetProfit data: 96 online stores, July 2025 – June 2026, detrended monthly ad revenue.