Strategy

How to use Google Trends to plan a seasonal campaign

Use five years of Google Trends data to spot recurring demand, check it against sales or leads, and put preparation and launch dates on the calendar.

Vladlens Kecko · 2026-11-13 · 4 min read

A seasonal campaign needs enough lead time to build the offer, test the destination and reach customers as interest starts rising. Use Google Trends to identify a candidate window, then use your own sales or qualified lead data to decide what to do with it.

1. Set up a comparison you can repeat

Open Google Trends Explore. Select the market you actually serve, choose Past 5 years, and start with Web Search. Pick one phrase a customer would use and compare it with one close variant in the same chart. Keep geography, search type and date range consistent. A search term looks at the words searched, while a topic groups searches about a concept across languages. Save the chart settings and record which type you selected. Google’s guide to comparing search terms and topics.

2. Look for a repeatable rise

For each year, write down when interest first rose, roughly when it peaked, and when it fell back. Check whether a promotion, weather event or news story could explain a single spike. If a local term has sparse results, try a broader relevant phrase or a topic. A wider market can help you form a hypothesis, but validate timing locally. The 0–100 scale represents relative search interest within the chosen chart. A zero can mean too little data to display, and 100 marks the peak within the chart. Google’s explanation of normalization and sampling.

3. Put dates and a decision rule on the calendar

In this hypothetical example, a shop sees interest in a product category start rising in late August in four of five years. Its own orders rose in September in three of those years. The owner uses the August signal to prepare a modest launch and checks orders before increasing spend.

Use a weekly chart if it offers enough detail to choose a start window. Compare the same weeks in previous years in your analytics or CRM, and note stockouts or campaign pauses that might explain differences. If you have little historical data, use the trend to time a small test and write down what would justify expanding it. Put the review date and decision owner in your 90-day marketing plan.

Our growth strategy service helps turn demand evidence into a campaign calendar. Book a free 30-minute founder-led growth review for a short written plan with three priorities.