Updating Social Ad Creative for The Winter Season
In The Winter Months, Social Ads with Images of Pools on Average Received -28% Less Link Clicks Than In The Summer/Fall Months.
Performance of Pool Images in Social Ads In Different Seasons: In paid social ads we often highlight amenity photos to attract users to the property site. We recently tested how pool images for properties in different locations perform in the Winter season. Throughout Q4 of 2021 we tracked the performance of facebook ads with pools as the hero image to see if performance of these ads shifted throughout the winter months.
Findings
Below highlights the change in key performance indicators of multiple ads that had pools as the hero image. Below results are comparing Summer & Fall months of Q3 (July- September)compared to Winter months of Q4 (October – December).
| Property | Change in Ad Spend | Change in CTR | Change in SVR | Change in Ad Reach | Change In Link Clicks |
| Property 1 (Florida) | -1%(- $3.00) | -13% | -25% | -26% | -17% |
| Property 2 (Tennessee) | +4%(+ $15.00) | -16% | -43% | -17% | -26% |
| Property 3 55+ Community(Florida) | +16%(+ $98.00) | -26% | -25% | -40% | -68% |
| Property 4(Chicago) | +3%(+ $1.00) | -3% | -11% | +10% | -1% |
Conclusion
Keeping pool images in social ads during the winter months caused ad performance to decrease. In order to increase ad success, properties should change out images of pools in the winter months and instead highlight other property amenities.
Main Takeaways
- Targeting
When beginning this test, we assumed that properties in warm weather locations, such as Florida would not see the same decrease in ad performance as properties in cold winter locations, such as Chicago. In reality, we found the opposite to be true in that properties in warm weather locations highlighting pool amenities in their ads saw a greater drop in traffic than properties in cold weather locations highlighting pool amenities. While location impacts ad performance we found that ultimately it does not change the end result of ads decreasing in key performance indicators.
- Spend
Regardless of an increase in spending, keeping pool images in social ads resulted in a decrease in CTR (click through rate) as well as SVR (site visit rate). Increase in spending will be wasted if ad imagery of pools is not changed out in the Winter.
