With Q4 just around the corner, this week’s PPCChat session focused on how experts expect Q4 2025 to unfold, the steps they’re taking to prepare, and the concerns their clients or stakeholders have raised. The discussion, hosted by Julie F. Bacchini, offered plenty of valuable insights.
Q1: Is Q4 a big deal for the accounts you manage? Why or why not?
For about half my clients Q4 is huge (ecommerce clients). For my B2B clients it is just another quarter, lol @Ichasse
Q4 is always a busy time @navahhopkins
I don’t think Q4 is the be-all-end-all for anyone in our portfolio but it is a big deal to different clients for different reasons. @revaminkoff
Gotta be careful what I say now with a Microsoft employee in here, lol. Good thing I usually say nice stuff about Microsoft compared to Google! @Ichasse
Yes, but not for ecom reasons. It coincides with important public health messaging about respiratory illness, and anything related to university students starts with the Fall semester. And of course, my alcohol client will be pushing hard from now until Jan 1. @JuliaVyse
@JuliaVyse – Right – I think there’s a tendency to associate Q4 with eComm alone, but there’s a lot going on – EOY contracts, 2026 contracts, seasonality (or not), etc. @revaminkoff
It’s not a particularly busy time for my clients @NeptuneMoon
I’m curious if folks have already locked in the channels you’re using in Q4 or if there are still decisions being made. @navahhopkins
@navahhopkins There is a strategy question coming. @NeptuneMoon
Yeah, my b2b clients have scattered fiscal years so their crunch times vary. @Ichasse
For B2C Ecom/DTC brands it is. For ou B2B ecom, and a few lead gen clients… just another month of the year,’ @duanebrown
@navahhopkins I just had a client tell me they were not seeing enough from a channel the other day and asked me to see if we can find another channel to put more $$$ into. Most of the brands I work with are very willing to move money around or to test new channels to find opportunities. @Ichasse
Q2: How are you feeling heading into Q4 for the accounts you manage? Are you expecting a banner Q4 or a terrible Q4 or something in between? What is making you feel the way you are?
I have a question about how clients and stakeholders are feeling coming up. @NeptuneMoon
I’m concerned about the economy. @revaminkoff
In between. Our clients are feeling careful but looking for strong results from this season. @JuliaVyse
I think the economic situation is going to have a negative effect on sales / people & businesses being willing to spend money @revaminkoff
I think it is going to be a rough Q4. Too many economic factors pointing in the wrong direction for a super strong one. @NeptuneMoon
My own personal feelings are a little complex. @JuliaVyse
At least here in the US. @NeptuneMoon
Things have not been the same since 2020 and may never be at this rate. The rise in CPC costs, less visibility, less controls, things that worked are not working the same, etc… All this is leading to an environment where brands and even myself are not super confident in great quarters. @Ichasse
I am expecting to start seeing sale promos and emails this month. I see brands trying to front run capturing spend from people this year. @NeptuneMoon
@NeptuneMoon, I have some overseas clients and it has been the same there as it is here to be honest. I don’t think anyone is going gangbusters unless you take over an account from someone who was doing a terrible job or a new brand who did not see the profits we were seeing in 2019 and prior. @Ichasse
Clients who had a banging year are thinking Q4 will be great,… maybe not amazing but way better than average. For those who had a steady year, things will be good. Not losing any money. For everyone else… will see how it plays out. I take a wait and see how it plays out. Lots can happen in the next 60 days to change how Q4 would go. @duanebrown
Every day items like groceries are so expensive here. I don’t know how families on tight budgets are doing it. Oh and electricity costs are way up too @NeptuneMoon
Without much discretionary spending it will impact ecom brands hard. @Ichasse
I will be interested to see if folks set realistic goals, lower ones, or aggressive ones…and the eventual market sentiment that ensues. @navahhopkins
That is what I think is going to happen @Ichasse – you can’t spend what you don’t have. And defaults on buy now pay later are way up. @NeptuneMoon
One of my CMO friends basically has told me they expect a blood bath. Not sure I am that pessimistic, but I don’t believe it will be amazing for sure. @Ichasse
It feels like folks have been conditioned to expect less (or at least tolerate more) @navahhopkins
@NeptuneMoon So one of my clients is a public utility with a mandate to offer Hydro-Powered electricity, and steward lands and waters that create that energy. The current conversation about grid efficiency and ai data centres is a very weird one up here. @JuliaVyse
It is all the little stuff that adds up too. Every streaming service it seems is raising prices. ANd that stats show that people are dropping them or rotating them in response more now @NeptuneMoon
Inflation has slowed in the US, but that does not mean the prices went back down for stuff, we just stopped the bleeding so to speak. Folks still don’t have much money to play with compared to 2019. @Ichasse
@navahhopkins that’s grim. @JuliaVyse
Businesses seem to typically be looking at YoY – but it’s a hard cycle because every Y isn’t necessarily always going to be better than the next, for reasons that have nothing to do with the marketing plan, to everyone’s point. @revaminkoff
I make this point because I believe brands should expect more and set realistic goals @navahhopkins
I buy similar foods weekly, and I can tell you some things are north of 50% more expensive. I am not particularly price sensitive, but you can’t not notice it. It is massively more expensive to buy the same groceries now vs. a year ago. @navahhopkins But they won’t…..@NeptuneMoon
2019 was our last great year for ecom. You could almost do no wrong and see increases in revenue for your spend, lol. You had to be really incompetent to mess up an account (folks still did, but it was harder to do). @Ichasse
And let’s not also forget interest rates are holding around 7%. Big difference from when they were 2% @NeptuneMoon
Median price for a house in the US is in the mid 400s now, but median income is still 60-70k/year. Hard to afford living costs + fun stuff. I don’t know how kids do it today to be honest. We bought our homes before 2019, so we are lucky, but the folks just graduating college now have it pretty tough if they want to try and buy a home, plus have all the fun stuff. @Ichasse
Saw this earlier today @NeptuneMoon
Q3: Do you have special strategies you will be employing for Q4 2025? Are they locked in or still forming? And do they differ from what you did in Q4 2024?
Strategies have to be fluid now. Google is changing their platform every couple of months now, so campaigns that worked really well are now spending $0. I don’t think we can say it will be the same anymore, honestly. We have to be very agile, and the brands we do work for need to understand this. I know @navahhopkins will like this, but brands have asked that we move more $$ from Google into Microsoft since it has actually been doing better for a lot of brands vs. Google lately. We need to keep an open mind and put money where it is working harder for us. @Ichasse
A few clients will do the same deal/promo as last year. Some we are still working out what we will do. Goal is be profitable and grow the net new customer numbers for the business. Set us up for 2026. @duanebrown
I think it is a lot harder to shift on the fly with how the platforms all work now and that is hard on brands who want to pivot if a strategy they thought would slay (as the kids say) and it just isn’t. @NeptuneMoon
Look at your with the Gen Z slang, nice job! lol @Ichasse
I am the parent of a middler schooler. @NeptuneMoon
@Ichasse that’s great to hear! It’s important to remember that importing a campaign straight from Google (or Meta/Pinterest) is fast, though you may get better results if you take the time to honor ad group level controls, Microsoft auction prices, and other considerations. @navahhopkins
Q4: Are clients or stakeholders concerned about Q4 2025? If so, do they have specific concerns they have shared with you?
In B2B not so much, but for ecom 100% folks are concerned. The retail sector (not all areas), but many are struggling to hit their overall goals. @Ichasse
Some clients are concerned about general/macro economic conditions and others are pretending everything is awesome. It’s kinda unnerving. @NeptuneMoon
No one has expressed Q4 concerns because some are just concerned about the year as we went and are numb to the crazy changes in how ecom works this year. @duanebrown
Q5: Despite it being a critically important time for many businesses, platforms have a history of making changes right before or even during Q4. Do you have any predictions about what we might see this year?And/or what would be your worst nightmare to roll out in Q4?
If AI gets jammed in other places during Q4 I would not be in any way shocked. I shared an article yesterday about how YouTube is applying AI to creators’ videos without their permission. I could see that kind of stuff happening quite easily. @NeptuneMoon
Google has been on a tear this year and last. AI would be the biggest thing I could see them leaning into more in Q4 if anything. @Ichasse
Ginny Marvin has a new Google Ads podcast that was an interesting listen. They are very much all in on AI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McvxgvZ3M0A I feel like platforms should have a moratorium on major changes to the way things work from September through the end of the year. Like do not roll things out in that period.@NeptuneMoon
I agree that more AI changes are probably coming this period – and I’m waiting for my video action campaigns to be forced to demand gen too. (They’re outperforming the demand gen campaigns right now, so I’m keeping them separate until forced) @revaminkoff
PPCChat Participants
- Reva Minkoff @revaminkoff
- Duane Brown @duanebrown
- Julia Vyse @JuliaVyse
- Navah Hopkins @navahhopkins
- Julie F Bacchini @NeptuneMoon
- Lawrence Chasse @Ichasse
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