A lot of businesses are affected by the weather, and even more could improve their Facebook advertising by taking it into account. Our agency noticed some of our social media advertising clients were seeing increased sales during specific weather conditions or times of the year. This led us to investigate if there was a way to target audiences experiencing temperature fluctuations or severe weather events. The effectiveness of this strategy was surprising, to say the least.

So, whether your advertising is “under the weather” or not (couldn’t resist!), you can leverage weather forecasts to increase conversions using weather-based targeting automation tools for your Facebook ad campaigns. This guide will cover what weather-based targeting is and how to use it on Facebook. I’ll also share some ideas and examples of effective weather-based Facebook ads.

What is weather-based targeting?

Weather-based targeting allows you to create automated rules for your advertising accounts. These rules can activate or deactivate your ad sets based on specific temperature or weather system criteria. You can also use weather-based automation rules to adjust your bids and change creative assets to better resonate with the current weather in a given location. Let’s explore how to implement this in Facebook advertising.

How to use weather-based targeting on Facebook

Third-party services allow you to set up these automated rules. You will generally set up your Facebook campaigns, ad sets, and ads as you usually would. However, remember to maintain consistency in your ad copy, creative, and landing pages when addressing the weather for a specific audience. We’ve found that keeping the campaign level active is best, while the ad sets should have the opposite setting to the rule in your weather automation service. For example, we chose to use WeatherAds.io. Their platform requires enabling ad sets and their ads only when the criteria set in their dashboard are met, activating and deactivating at the ad set level. You can reverse this setup, but if you want your ad sets to activate when a heatwave is approaching, set your ad set in Facebook Ads Manager as inactive initially to prevent it from running regardless of the weather.

Example via WeatherAds.io The ability to target different types of weather is a great feature of some weather-based targeting services. You can target by temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit or by weather events that happened in the past seven days, are currently happening, or are forecast for the next seven days. Similar to other platforms with automated rules, these services have qualifier options like equal/less than, equal to, and equal/greater than, allowing you to set whether your ads should show or not when those conditions are met. Besides temperature-based targeting, these service providers usually offer various weather type options. You’ll commonly find rain, snow, sunny, cloudy, wind speed, humidity, pressure, UV index, thunder, storm, hail, blizzard, hurricane, tornado, ice, fog, and freezing rain.

Two things to watch out for with weather-based campaigns on Facebook

The setup is straightforward. However, we encountered a couple of issues during setup and the initial runs of our weather-based rules. Regarding custom location targeting, Facebook only allows a maximum of 200 custom locations per ad set, making the setup process potentially time-consuming. For example, targeting the entire US would require setting up 17 ad sets, each with no more than 200 locations. Another potential issue is that these ads might restart the Facebook learning phase with each activation. Although this can disrupt optimization and performance, we haven’t observed a significant enough impact to warrant discontinuing these automated rules.

Weather-based Facebook ad ideas for each season

Now that you understand why weather-based campaigns could be beneficial for your business and how to set them up, let’s look at a few examples of successful weather-based Facebook ads to get you started.

Create summer weather campaigns

As summer begins, businesses selling barbeque grills, ice cream, vacation rentals, air conditioning units, summer sandals or swimsuits, swimming pool cleaning services, landscaping services, or other relevant products or services can use the weather to boost their conversions.

Image via CaliforniaPools For example, if your target audience is browsing Facebook or Instagram on their device during a heatwave, use your ad copy and creative to present a solution to their discomfort. If your customers reside in hurricane-prone areas, consider using weather type targeting to help them prepare ahead of time and potentially utilize your products or services.

Fall starts as soon as the temperatures drop—and so can your ads

Don’t fall behind! As autumn approaches in a few short months, start creating campaigns that will be ready to launch later this summer. Amplify these campaigns with temperature-based automated rules or those triggered by rain or wind as people begin thinking about fall. Plan for Labor Day sales, back-to-school campaigns, or showcase your new fall clothing or shoe lines as temperatures start to cool.

The feeling of approaching fall weather is palpable, and capitalizing on those feelings can influence how people respond to your ads. Incorporating the season into your ads can also be beneficial in getting your audience thinking about the coming cooler weather.

Speak to winter weather in your ads

As winter approaches, test some of the snow, rain, wind, and temperature rules that best align with your geo-targeting. If you sell snow tires, warm beach vacations or snowy mountain getaways, snow blowers or shovels, or HVAC services, this could be your time to shine. This also applies if you manage ads for a delivery service. Since people are less likely to go out in cold weather, use this to your advantage by catering to audiences who might be more willing to pay for the convenience of an on-demand service.

One of our clients, Indow, a custom window insert company, found success using weather-based automation with Facebook Ads. This strategy increased their leads while lowering their cost per lead for their energy-efficient, draft-reducing window inserts. We tested targeting audiences we had previously seen success with and applied temperature-based rules to further optimize performance. We utilized a mix of video and static image ads on Facebook and Instagram, showcasing people bundled up in their homes in the creative, while the ad copy addressed drafty windows and presented our solution.

Image via Indow As expected, we saw improved performance because the ads resonated more strongly with people experiencing coldness in their homes or commercial spaces due to their timeliness. It’s fascinating to witness the direct impact of a well-timed ad.

Use spring in your ads—as it appears in your target locations

Spring into action! After a long, cold, rainy, or snowy winter, many people look forward to sunshine and warmer days. As you head into spring, take advantage of rising temperatures and the end of rainy or snowy forecasts to showcase your products and services. Whether it’s outdoor apparel or gear, open-toed shoes, car washes, gardening gear, allergy or pollen solutions, sunglasses, or gutter-cleaning services, tailor your message to your audience based on their local forecast. If possible, incorporate the weather into your creative, as Starbucks did below. The more your ads reflect someone’s geographical location and the current season, the better they might perform.

Image via Starbucks

Test out weather-based targeting in your next Facebook campaign

Combining weather-based automation rules with audience targeting, geolocation, compelling ad copy and creative, and relevant landing pages can help you achieve more conversions, no matter what they may be. We’ve seen success in driving more leads, scheduling calls with sales teams, and boosting sales by using weather-based automated rules in conjunction with our existing and new prospecting and retargeting campaigns. Hopefully, this will be a new strategy for you, and you’ll find success instead of letting it be a “missed” opportunity!