Run a sale when people are already looking for your product. A discount works best on buyers who were close to buying anyway, so the right time is a window of days or weeks when demand for that product is rising. Keep the sale open for as long as that window lasts.
The usual advice points to the big shopping holidays or the end of a quarter. Those are the dates everyone else picks too, so your discount goes out alongside hundreds of others.
Why does a sale on the same date as everyone else get lost?
A sale on a big fixed date gets lost because every seller knows about that date and discounts on it. Your offer competes with all of theirs for the same shoppers on the same days.
Ad auctions get crowded on those dates. More advertisers bid for the same people, so each impression costs more and your ads show up less often for the same spend.
The offers also blur together. A shopper scrolling past twenty discounts in an hour does not remember which one was yours, unless you are the biggest name in your category.
Many buyers on those dates are bargain hunters who shop the event itself. They respond to the discount and are less likely to come back at full price.
When is the best time to run a promotion?
The best time to run a promotion is when events have been building that give your buyers a reason to act, and demand for your product is rising because of them. People in that stretch are already comparing options, and a discount gives them a reason to choose you now.
Compare two shoppers. One sees an ad for a home security camera on a random Tuesday with no reason to want one. The other just closed on a house, in a month when home sales have been climbing for a while, and is making a list of things to set up. The same discount means something very different to each of them.
A discount on a product nobody is looking for mostly gets ignored. A discount on a product people are already shopping for helps them decide.
What is a demand window?
A demand window is a period with a start and a stop when demand for a specific product rises. It comes from events that build up over weeks and converge, rather than a single headline.
These are demand windows with the product and the buyer's reason named:
- Home sales rising for a third month, so new owners shop for smart locks and doorbell cameras in the weeks after they move.
- Hiring climbing month over month, so companies buy onboarding software ahead of new start dates.
- Gas prices creeping up for several weeks, so commuters start pricing e-bikes.
- Grocery prices up for a third straight month, so households look at chest freezers and warehouse club memberships.
- Mortgage rates easing week after week, so homeowners who waited start getting quotes for new flooring and cabinets.
- Rents rising for several months in a row, so more people move and book movers and storage units.
If you cannot name the product and the buyer's reason, you have not found a demand window yet.
Which approach to timing a sale works best?
Timing a sale to a demand window works best for most products, because it puts the discount in front of people who already have a reason to buy. The two common alternatives each leave something out.
| Approach | What it answers | What it misses |
|---|---|---|
| Discounting on the big shopping holidays | When shoppers expect deals | That every competitor is discounting the same week |
| Discounting when your own sales dip | When you need revenue | Whether anyone is looking for the product then |
| Timing the sale to a demand window | When buyers have a reason to act, and who they are | Hourly patterns, which you tune afterward |
How do you find the right demand window for a sale?
You find the right demand window by asking what happens right before someone needs your product, then watching for signs that it is happening more often. Moving house, hiring staff and a bill that went up are typical triggers.
Your own accounts can confirm a window once it opens. Search terms for your category rising week over week, or more add-to-carts with no change to your ads, are signs that demand is climbing.
Those signals show up after the window has started, and a sale takes time to prepare. Verdius is software that predicts when demand for a product will rise and who to target then. It finds windows ahead of time for each product, with a start date, a stop date, the events behind each one and the audience to reach.
How do I know if demand for my product is rising before I commit to a discount?
Watch the events your buyers respond to and look for several weeks of movement in the same direction. If your buyers are new homeowners, a third month of rising home sales is a stronger sign than one good week in your own store. Verdius watches these build-ups for you and alerts you when a window for your product opens.
Should I run my sale on Black Friday or pick a different week when fewer brands are discounting?
Run it on Black Friday only if your own past results show that week works for your product. Otherwise, a week when demand for your specific product is rising gives your offer less competition and buyers with a clearer reason.
Is a flash sale or a longer sale better for a small store with one product?
A longer sale that matches the demand window is usually the better fit for a single product. A flash sale reaches only the buyers who happen to see it in those hours, while a window-length sale is there whenever each buyer is ready.
How long should a sale run?
A sale should run for the length of the demand window behind it. If demand for your product rises for three weeks, a three-week sale fits, and a 48-hour flash sale in the middle catches a slice of the buyers and misses the rest.
A few rules help:
- Start the sale when the window opens, or a few days after, once interest shows in your own results.
- End it when the window closes, since a discount after demand fades gives away margin to people with no urgency.
- Keep the same offer for the whole window, because changing the discount mid-sale confuses buyers who saw the first one.
Verdius gives each window a start and a stop and alerts you when it opens and when it closes, so your sale dates can come straight from the window.
| Window length | Sale length | Why |
|---|---|---|
| About a week | The full week | Buyers act fast, so the offer needs to be there from the first day |
| Two to four weeks | The full window, one steady offer | Buyers compare options, and a stable price helps them decide |
| Longer than a month | Start near the peak and end on a set date | A deadline gives buyers a reason to act before the window fades |
What should you do with ads before a sale?
Before a sale, set up the campaign, the creative and the audience so they can go live on the first day of the demand window. A sale that starts a week late misses buyers who were ready at the start.
If you have time, run a small campaign in the week before the window to build a list of interested people, then retarget them once the sale starts. People who visited without a discount are some of the most likely to buy with one.
Choose the audience from who is in the window. If it comes from rising home sales, target people who recently moved or are shopping for a home. If it comes from rising hiring, target people who manage teams or run operations at growing companies. Verdius does this step for you: each window comes with the audience to reach, by age, income, location and interests, in the terms ad platforms already use.
What should you do with ads during a sale?
During a sale, put your ad spend inside the demand window and watch results daily for the first week. The window is when the most buyers are looking and the offer has the most pull.
If cost per sale holds steady or falls as the window builds, you have room to spend more. If it climbs fast, check your targeting before you raise spend. For more on timing budget changes, see when to increase ad spend.
Hour and day tuning can help once you have enough sales to see a pattern. The guide to the best time to run ads covers how to do that without cutting hours too early.
What should you do with ads after a sale?
After a sale, scale ads back once the demand window closes. Most people who were going to buy have already bought, and ads at full volume now reach people without a reason to act.
Keep a small campaign for people who visited during the sale but did not buy, and show them the product at its regular price. Some of them were close to deciding.
Then compare cost per sale inside the window with the weeks before it. That comparison shows how well the sale was timed and what to adjust for the next window.
How does Verdius help you time a sale?
Verdius is software that predicts when demand for a product will rise and who to target then. For each product it finds optimal windows to run ads, each with a start and a stop, ranked against each other, which gives you the dates for a sale and the order to plan them in.
Each window also lists the events behind it, such as home sales climbing so new owners shop for doorbell cameras, and the audience to reach. Verdius reads your ad accounts, Google Analytics and Search Console, and you set up and run the sale ads yourself. See plans for what each one covers.
So when should you run a sale?
Run a sale when demand for your product is rising, keep it open as long as that lasts and end it on a set date. Discounts timed to a demand window reach people who were already looking, while discounts on the date everyone else picked compete with every other offer that day.