For most trades I'd turn the ad budget down for the winter and leave it on, and for a few outdoor trades a short pause is fine as long as the ads come back six to eight weeks before spring. Pausing doesn't delete anything, but the account has to relearn when it restarts, and the best spring jobs get decided over the winter. Trades that sell heat, plumbing or indoor work should keep spending, because winter is when their phones ring.
Should you pause your ads when the busy season ends?
Usually not all the way off. Turn it down, and keep it running if you can hold the floor. When the phone slows in November, ads feel like the easiest line to cut, since nobody seems to be calling. The leads still coming in through the fall and winter are mostly planners, like the homeowner pricing a patio for May or the couple who wants the basement finished before a baby arrives. They book with whoever was in front of them while they were deciding, which I went through in booking the slow season. Pull every ad in November and that whole group goes to the competitors who kept a small budget running. The exception is a budget that can't stay above the floor. If the most you can spend through the winter is $10 a day, I'd rather you pause and restart properly in late winter, because an account that small mostly pays for guesses.
What happens to an ad account when you turn it off for a few months?
Nothing gets deleted, and the platform has to relearn when you turn it back on. Your campaigns, your ads and the history of every lead stay in the account while it's paused. The cost shows up at the restart. Google's help pages say a bid strategy goes into a learning period when it's "recently created or reactivated," and the numbers swing more than usual while it lasts. Expect the same on Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram. Its help pages say an ad set needs about 50 results in a week to finish learning, and a local account coming back from three months off has no recent results to work from, so the first couple of weeks back usually cost more per lead. Plan for those weeks by restarting early enough that they're behind you before your season opens, which I covered in how long before ads work.
Which trades should keep their ads running through the winter?
Any trade whose busy season is winter, plus any trade that works indoors. HVAC is the obvious one, since a furnace that quits in January is an emergency call, and plumbers get frozen and burst pipes. Roofers get leak and ice-dam calls all winter even when replacements slow down. Indoor work like renovations and basements books straight through, and so does interior painting. Detailing shops sell interior packages and salt cleanup. The trades I'd turn down hardest have nothing to install until the ground thaws, like landscaping, interlock, pressure washing, decks, pools and turf. Even those should run a small budget behind a spring presale from January on. If you sell snow removal on the side, run it as its own winter campaign to the same streets you mowed all summer.
What should your ads say in November and December?
Whatever a customer can buy or book right now, which depends on your trade. HVAC and plumbing ads should sell the furnace tune-up, the no-heat call and the water heater that's on its last legs. Outdoor trades sell a spot on the spring schedule, with a deposit holding the date and first pick of the good weeks. Renovators can sell a January or February start to the homeowners who spend December thinking about the kitchen. Build the ads from your own jobs and name the season in them, because a green lawn in a December ad looks like it's been running since June. One cost to plan for in late November. Retailers pile into Facebook and Instagram around Black Friday, and GeistM, which tracks ad prices, found the cost to show an ad on Meta rose about 11% in the second half of November 2025, so expect your cost per lead to creep up through the holiday stretch.
How much should you spend on ads in the slow months?
Enough to stay above the floor, and not much more until demand comes back. On Meta, about $35 a day is where an account starts learning, and I start clients at $50 a day or more. Google search needs closer to $100 a day, and in a trade where winter searches dry up, that money can't find enough clicks to spend. For an outdoor trade, the winter plan is often one Meta campaign at the floor, running a spring presale to your service area, with Google off until late winter. For HVAC, plumbing and roofing repairs, winter is the season, so the budget should go up if anything. If the floor is more than the business can carry for a few months, pause it, keep the money, and restart at full budget six to eight weeks before your first jobs. I went through the full math for setting a number in how much you should spend on ads.
When should you turn your ads back on for spring?
Six to eight weeks before your first booked jobs, and earlier for big-ticket work that gets designed and quoted. A landscaping crew that starts installs in mid-April should have ads live by late February, and a hardscaper selling $30,000 backyards should be running in January, because those buyers collect two or three quotes and take their time deciding. The first two to three weeks back cost more while the platform relearns, and you want them finished before the phone would have started ringing anyway. Bring new ads with you. The ones you paused in October probably wore out on the same local people over the summer, and running them again in March gets a tired response at full price (why your ads stopped working goes through why). Film your last fall jobs this month so the spring ads have fresh footage.
What should you do with the leads that came in this year and never booked?
Work them before spring, because those people already found you once and you paid to get them. Pull every lead from this year that got a quote or a call and didn't book, and sort them by job type. In January or February, send each one a short text that names the job they asked about and offers a spot on the spring schedule, something like "You asked about a retaining wall back in August. I'm booking April and May installs now, want me to hold a week for you?" Some will have hired someone else and a few will have moved. Say you have 150 of them and 3 to 5 percent book. That's about 4 to 7 jobs from people you already paid to find, and it runs alongside the spring ads. A follow-up system can send these on a schedule and chase the ones who don't answer, so nobody has to remember in January.
How I handle the slow months with a client
I'd rather settle the winter plan with a client before the season ends than in the first quiet week. For trades whose winter is busy, the budget goes up behind the furnace and leak calls. For the outdoor trades, one campaign stays on at the floor behind a spring presale, the year's unbooked leads get worked in January, and the budget goes back up six to eight weeks before the first jobs with new ads shot in the fall. If a client can't hold the floor through the winter, I'll tell them to pause and restart properly, because $10 a day doesn't teach the platform anything. If you're deciding what to do with your budget this month, book a call and bring what a job is worth to you and when your season starts.
