The Fourth Quarter Is Not the Most Profitable for All Brands: Billo Ad Data Shows Every Category Has Its Own Peak Month for Ad Returns
The fourth quarter isn’t the most profitable for every brand, according to new data from marketing platform Billo. Data showed that across 13 product categories, the best-performing month landed in seven different months of the year.
Home & Garden brands earned the most per ad dollar in July 2025, Baby & Toddler peaked in January 2026, and Electronics didn’t peak until May 2026, all outside the fourth quarter most brands plan around.
The company analyzed nearly 168,000 Meta video ads placed over the last twelve months, from July 2025 through June 2026, measuring ROAS, or return on ad spend: purchase value divided by ad spend.
“You can watch thousands of campaigns and see the same mistake every year,” said Donatas Smailys, co-founder and CEO of Billo. “Gift categories made Q4 look like the answer for everyone, so brands whose real peak is July or May just borrowed the same calendar without checking their own numbers. Every campaign we’ve analyzed tells a different story about timing. A brand pouring its best creative into November when its category actually peaks in July is burning its strongest work on one of its weakest months.”
Every category has its own peak month
No single month works for every category. Home & Garden, for example, earned its best return in July 2025, a full quarter before most brands start ramping up holiday budgets. Apparel & Accessories and Software also peaked in that same month.
Each figure below is that category’s ROAS, meaning the dollars in purchase value earned per dollar of ad spend, in its single best month:
● Summer peak (July 2025). Home & Garden ($5.33 per ad dollar), Apparel & Accessories ($4.77), Software ($2.06)
● Early autumn peak (September 2025). Sporting Goods ($4.76), Services ($2.88)
● Q4 gifting peak (November-December 2025). Animals & Pet Supplies ($2.08), Business & Industrial ($2.69), Health & Beauty ($2.44), Food & Beverages ($3.07), Toys & Games ($2.90)
● Winter peak (January-February 2026). Baby & Toddler ($5.83), Arts & Entertainment ($5.67)
● Spring peak (May 2026). Electronics ($5.01)
Only five of these categories, the Q4 gifting cluster, actually peak in the fourth quarter. The highest return in the entire window belongs to Baby & Toddler, which earned $5.83 per ad dollar in January, not November or December. That figure, along with Arts & Entertainment’s February peak and Electronics’ May peak, comes from the first half of 2026, the more recent of Billo’s two half-year reports, so Billo considers each of these three the strongest month so far, not a confirmed annual pattern.
“The Q4 rules work for gift categories, since that’s where it was built,” said Donatas Smailys. “The mistake is applying it everywhere else, as if every category shops like a holiday shopper. The same blind spot shows up with clicks: a brand chasing whatever month gets the most clicks falls into the same trap as a brand chasing Q4. Both are optimizing for a signal that isn’t the one that actually pays.”
What brands should do
Check when your own category has performed best over the past year before setting a second-half budget. Billo’s benchmark reports break ROAS down by category and month, so brands can compare their results against that baseline.
Not every category has a clear seasonal pattern to check against. Services, Business & Industrial, and Baby & Toddler show no repeatable peak in Billo’s data. Brands in these categories should spread their spend evenly across the year rather than concentrating it in a single month.
“Every brand we work with already has the answer to when their season is, it’s in their own ad data,” said Smailys. “The mistake is looking at the calendar instead of looking at your own numbers. Once you build creative around your actual peak month, you’re feeding the algorithm exactly when it’s most likely to convert.”
Methodology
Billo publishes these benchmarks twice a year, covering ROAS, CTR, and hook rate across 13 categories, drawn from tens of thousands of Meta video ads. The current window runs from July 2025 through June 2026, presented across two half-year reports rather than a single calendar year: 88,329 ads and $122 million in ad spend in the first half of 2026, and 80,069 ads and $105 million in spend in the second half of 2025, for a combined $418 million in tracked purchase value. ROAS is calculated as purchase value divided by ad spend. Full data for both reports, including the CTR and hook rate benchmarks referenced here, is available on Billo’s site.
