Should you run Google Ads in the off-season?

Should you spend money on Google Ads off-season? For outdoor recreation businesses, the correct answer actually isn’t “it depends.” For most outfitters, guides, and outdoor operators, it’s: scale way back, but don’t go dark.

That’s not the same as “keep spending what you spend in July.” And it’s definitely not “pause everything and restart in April.” Both of those are expensive mistakes, just in different ways.

The case for keeping ads running

Off-season CPCs for outdoor recreation keywords drop significantly. When your competitors pull their budgets in October, the auction gets cheaper. Terms that cost you $2.50 a click in June might run $1.00 to $1.50 in January. You’re buying the same shelf space at a discount.

That matters for a few reasons.

First, people do search for outdoor trips in the off-season. Not as many, but the ones who do tend to be planners. They’re researching a summer rafting trip in February, comparing guided fishing options in January, scoping out campgrounds for a family reunion in March. These aren’t tire-kickers. They’re the advance bookers who fill your calendar early and often book premium packages.

Second, Google’s algorithm learns from your campaigns over time. When you pause entirely, that learning resets. Smart Bidding strategies need continuous data to optimize. Turning campaigns off for four months and flipping them back on in spring means you’re re-training the algorithm right when competition and CPCs spike. You’ll spend the first two to three weeks of peak season paying more for worse results while Google figures out your account again.

Third, brand defense. If you bid on your own business name during peak season (and you should), stopping in October lets competitors or OTAs pick up those clicks for pennies. Someone Googles your outfitter by name in December, and the top result is a booking aggregator that takes a 20% commission on the sale you could’ve captured directly.

What off-season ad spend should actually look like

Don’t run your peak-season playbook at peak-season budget. Off-season Google Ads for outdoor businesses should be a fraction of your summer spend, pointed at specific goals.

A reasonable off-season budget for a mid-size outfitter or campground is 15% to 25% of your peak monthly spend. If you’re spending $3,000 a month on ads in June, plan for $450 to $750 a month from November through March.

Where that money goes matters more than the total. Three campaign types earn their keep in the off-season:

Retargeting past site visitors. Everyone who looked at your trip pages or campground listings last summer but didn’t book is sitting in your remarketing audience. Reaching them in January with an early-bird offer or deposit incentive costs almost nothing on display (outdoor hospitality display CPCs average around $0.23) and catches people when they’re starting to plan again.

Brand campaigns on your business name. Keep these running year-round. The cost is minimal (usually under $100/month for a local operator) and it prevents competitors and aggregators from sitting on top of your branded searches.

Early-bird search campaigns on planning-stage keywords. “Best time to raft the Colorado River” or “summer campground reservations [your state].” These queries signal someone actively planning a future trip. They convert at a lower rate than peak-season “book now” searches, but they convert at a lower cost too. A 3% conversion rate at $1.20 a click is a better deal than 6% at $3.00 a click.

When off-season ads are a waste of money

Not every operator should be running paid search through the winter. If any of these describe your situation, you’re probably better off redirecting that budget to content and SEO lead time.

You don’t have a booking system that accepts reservations more than 30 days out. If someone clicks your ad in January and can’t actually book a July trip, you’ve paid for a click that goes nowhere. Fix your booking flow first.

Your website converts poorly. If your landing pages haven’t been updated since 2021 and your trip pages are a wall of text with no clear call to action, paid traffic will bounce just like organic traffic does. Ads amplify what’s already working. They don’t fix what’s broken.

You’re spending under $500 a month total. At very small budgets, off-season search ads spread too thin to generate useful data. You’d get more from putting that $500 into three blog posts that build organic traffic for years. We’ve written about why off-season is the best time to invest in content. For operators on tight budgets, that’s the higher-ROI play.

You’re in a market with essentially zero off-season search volume. A seasonal campground in northern Maine that’s buried under snow from November to April has a different calculus than a year-round RV park in Texas. Check Google Trends for your core keywords. If the line goes flat, don’t fight it with ad spend.

The real answer is both, weighted differently

The best-performing outdoor businesses we’ve seen don’t choose between SEO and Google Ads in the off-season. They shift the ratio.

Peak season might be 60% paid, 40% organic effort. The off-season flips that. Maybe 20% paid, 80% organic. You keep ads running at maintenance level for brand defense, retargeting, and early-bird capture. Meanwhile, you’re publishing the content that will rank year-round and bring in organic traffic that doesn’t cost per click.

A zipline operator running the same campaigns year-round told us their ROAS went from 10:1 in July to 2:1 in January. Same ads, same landing pages. The demand just wasn’t there. When they cut winter ad spend by 70% and redirected half of those savings into content production, their spring organic traffic was up 40% the following year. The ads didn’t fail. They were just the wrong tool for the job at that time of year.

Spend a little, build a lot

Keep ads running at a maintenance hum. Retarget last season’s visitors, defend your brand name, catch early planners. But don’t throw peak-season money at off-season demand and wonder where the ROAS went.

The off-season is a content investment window. Google Ads are the accelerant you pour on once the organic fire is burning.