Why seasonality is a strategic lever for enterprise apps

Most apps treat seasonal peaks like isolated wins, chasing a surge in app installs or app store ranking without a long-term plan. 

But when app seasonality is handled strategically, it becomes a growth multiplier that drives higher app downloads, better monetization, and stronger lifetime value across the entire year.

In this guide, we’ll break down how enterprise teams can use app seasonality to sharpen campaigns, optimize app marketing, and build year-round revenue engines.

Table of contents

• What is app seasonality?

• Seasonality by vertical: Where it hits hardest

• How growth teams can turn seasonality into a revenue engine

• How marketing teams can amplify seasonal intent

• What do during the off-season

• Final thoughts

What is app seasonality?

App seasonality is the predictable rise and fall of user behavior, app downloads and revenue across different seasons, holidays, and cultural events. It happens because consumer needs shift during specific periods, creating sharp spikes or drops in app store visibility, trial starts and conversions.

Common seasonal events that influence buying and engagement include:

• Major holidays like New Year’s Eve and Christmas Eve

• Cultural moments like back-to-school season and tax season

• Seasonal trends like fitness surges in January or travel booms in summer

• Shopping app spikes during the holiday season

A fitness app, for example, often sees app installs and trial starts surge in January when users set health goals for the new year. 

Without a plan to capture this intent, app developers risk losing long-term value. For many apps, 70–80% of annual revenue is tied to just 1–2 key months, making it critical to map strategy to seasonal peaks.

The key takeaway? Seasonality is not just a wave to ride once a year. It’s an important part of app marketing that smart teams use to drive more predictable, sustainable growth across different seasons.

Seasonality by vertical: Where it hits hardest

Seasonality does not hit every app the same way. Different app categories experience unique spikes based on cultural habits, consumer behavior and market-specific timing. 

Growth teams that understand these seasonal patterns can build more targeted campaigns, improve app store ranking and drive stronger LTV during critical peak periods.

News apps: Capturing attention during high-interest events

News apps often see surges during elections, major global events and national holidays when users seek more information and updates. 

For example, Le Monde leveraged in-app events and seasonal promotions tied to national elections to achieve 10x more clicks than average on its subscription offers. 

Timely campaigns combined with app store optimization helped it capture demand when user attention was already high.

Health and fitness apps: Riding the resolution wave

January and early summer are critical for health and fitness apps, as consumers refocus on wellness goals. 

For example, Runna, a leading running coaching app and Purchasely customer, sees its largest spikes in app installs towards the end of December and through January. 

Data from Sensor Tower backs this up, showing that Runna experienced a decrease in downloads from 7K to 4K through Q4, but saw a significant boost to 12K as the quarter closed.

Source: Runna

By aligning paywall offers with New Year fitness goals and using seasonal themes in app marketing, fitness apps can maximizes acquisitions during these short, high-intent windows.

Education apps: Surfing the back-to-school rush

Education and EdTech apps experience major seasonal peaks in September and January. Back-to-school season and the start of the calendar year both spark a rise in app downloads and paid conversions.

According to data from Adjust, in January 2022, app installs were 5% higher than the yearly average. In September 2022, they were 24% higher than average.

Apps that prepare early with updated app icons, fresh app store screenshots and targeted seasonal campaigns often outperform competitors during these months.

Note: Looking for some paywall inspiration for your education apps? Check out this article.

Finance apps: Tapping into tax season urgency

Finance and tax apps peak heavily in Q1 as users prepare for tax filing deadlines. High-intent users search for solutions around deductions, refunds and filing assistance. 

Apps that run seasonal promotions and adjust app store optimization with seasonal keywords like “tax refund” or “file taxes” can capture outsized market share during this high-demand window.

How growth teams can turn seasonality into a revenue engine

Seasonal peaks are not won by scrambling once traffic hits. They are won by planning months in advance. 

Growth teams at top apps focus on sharpening acquisition, pricing and lifecycle strategies before the peak season ever begins, using data and predictive models to frontload success.

1. Pre-peak: Seed high-intent acquisition early with lookalike audiences and predictive LTV models

Smart mobile app marketers use predictive LTV modeling to identify segments with the highest potential spend and retention, then target those lookalike audiences through apple search ads, paid social and influencer partnerships.

Apps that rely only on broad targeting often waste budget during the most expensive advertising periods. 

Instead, try modelling seasonality trends from previous years to forecast acquisition costs, payback periods and LTV curves. 

Running small in-app events or promotions before the official peak period also warms up audiences. 

For example, a shopping app might launch a soft holiday season sale in late October to build an engaged retargeting pool before Black Friday. 

Apps that invest in early high-quality acquisition not only see lower acquisition costs but also generate a more loyal and profitable user base during seasonal peaks.

Note: If using Purchasely, you can integrate these models with your in-app subscription flows, creating early-cycle user experiences that are more likely to convert and retain through the full peak season.

2. During peak: Run aggressive A/B testing on pricing, placements and feature gating

Peak season is when traffic volume is highest, which means experiments can reach statistical significance faster. 

Growth teams that aggressively test during this window unlock huge performance gains that would take months to achieve during slower periods. 

Every part of the monetization funnel — from pricing to paywall messaging — needs to be treated as a testable asset.

Key areas to focus A/B tests during peak season:

• Pricing models: Test different price points or subscription plans to find the sweet spot between conversion and ARPU. Stretch, a fitness app, used Purchasely’s Paywall Builder to A/B test the addition of a quarterly plan to its subscription offering. The result was an 18% boost in conversion rates, proving that even subtle shifts can drive major gains when intent is high.

• Placement and feature gating: Experiment with when and where to show paywalls, onboarding flows and premium upsells. Higher user intent during seasonal peaks makes users more receptive to gated features if the value proposition feels urgent and time-sensitive.

• Promotional messaging: Run tests on limited-time offers or seasonal themes to create urgency. Testing different holiday season creatives, discount structures or bundle deals can highlight what drives not just clicks but also high-quality subscriptions.

With Purchasely, you can use dynamic seasonal campaign templates to spin up variations quickly without heavy developer involvement. This allows rapid iteration at the exact moment when speed matters most.

3. Post-peak: Use behavioral segmentation to retain newly acquired users through targeted re-engagement

The real ROI of peak season is not just in how many users you acquire, but how many you retain once the rush fades. Post-peak is where great growth teams pull ahead, using behavioral segmentation to keep newly acquired users engaged, subscribed and spending.

Instead of relying on basic cohort messaging, enterprise teams can program full-funnel experiences that adapt in real time based on user behavior, subscription status and app activity.

At Purchasely, we call this programmatic funnel engagement. Teams can track when users cancel auto-renew, complete onboarding or interact with paywalls, then automatically deploy the right re-engagement message at the right time.

For example, apps can trigger a loyalty offer when a user downgrades a plan or deliver a contextual upsell when users revisit premium content. 

By using Purchasely’s intelligent funnel engagement, mobile app marketers move beyond simple retargeting and instead nurture long-term loyalty, higher LTV and stronger retention rates across all seasons.

This level of real-time, behavior-driven communication ensures that seasonal gains are not just temporary spikes, but the foundation for compounding growth through every cycle.

How marketing teams can amplify seasonal intent

Marketing teams hold the key to turning seasonal interest into lasting value. 

When messaging, creative and user experience work together across every touchpoint, apps capture higher-intent users, drive stronger app downloads and ultimately improve monetization during peak season. 

Here are some ways to take advantage of seasonal intent:

1. Align your App Store presence with seasonal campaigns

By the time users land in the App Store, they have already seen your seasonal marketing across social, digital, influencer, outdoor or TV. Their expectations have been set. If your App Store page feels disconnected from that experience, you risk confusing and losing them.

Optimizing your app store strategy to match your seasonal campaigns is critical. 

You can:

• Incorporate seasonal keywords and messaging into App Store Optimization (ASO) efforts

• Ensure paid App Store media reflects the same themes, offers and creative assets users saw in external campaigns

• Update app icons and screenshots to reflect seasonal themes and promotions

Consistency strengthens trust, smooths the user journey and leads to higher conversion rates during peak periods.

2. Use custom product pages

Custom product pages in Apple Search Ads can be a game-changer. 

Redbox Mobile, an app marketing and user acquisition agency, saw user conversions leap by 20% after creating more than 30 different custom product pages.

For example, Bumble created a custom product page designed to mirror Tinder’s default page, making it more familiar to users switching platforms. 

In Apple Search Ads, custom product pages can be directly linked to search result ads and Today tab campaigns. 

Search result ads capture high-intent users actively searching for a solution, while Today tab ads build awareness among users not yet searching but fitting the ideal profile. 

Both entry points benefit when tied to custom pages built for specific seasonal moments.

3. Create in-app events

Creating in-app events is an effective way to inject seasonality directly into the app experience and boost acquisition. When users see timely, relevant in-app events tied to seasonal peaks, it signals that the app understands and responds to their needs.

For example, dating apps that create Valentine’s Day-themed in-app events attract users motivated by the season. This is what dating app Pure did in the example below:

Timely in-app events create urgency, boost engagement and improve the emotional connection with users during key moments.

4. Make sure your website is in good shape

While mobile apps drive engagement, purchases often happen across multiple channels. A strong web presence is essential during seasonal peaks. 

Consumers may discover an app on mobile but complete a subscription or purchase on the website after further research.

Take Babbel, for example. 

Although it is one of the most downloaded language learning apps, in the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020, 62% of its purchases came via the website rather than the app. 

Ensuring that seasonal campaigns extend to web landing pages, checkout flows and lead capture points can significantly lift total conversions during high-interest periods.

What to do during the off-season

Okay, so what to do during quieter months? These are not dead months. App revenue and installs may dip between peak periods, but the off-season offers a critical opportunity for enterprise teams to set the foundation for stronger performance during the next seasonal surge.

Use the off-season to:

• Deepen engagement and build loyalty with new features. Launch updates that improve core functionality, expand premium offerings or add features users requested during peak season. Investing in product depth strengthens retention when acquisition slows.

• Run lower-risk monetization and UX experiments. Test new pricing models, upsell flows or paywall designs in a less volatile environment. Smaller traffic volumes make it easier to run controlled experiments without major revenue risks.

• Nurture free users through onboarding reactivation and upsell flows. Re-engage dormant users with personalized onboarding sequences or introduce targeted upsells designed to move free users into paid tiers over time.

• Prep campaign assets and product updates for the next seasonal surge. Build and test creative, messaging strategies and landing pages early so you can move faster and more effectively when demand spikes again.

Teams that treat the off-season as a strategic asset (not a waiting period!) are the ones that consistently outperform when peak periods return.

Final thoughts

The best app teams know that big results come from treating every peak and quiet stretch as part of a bigger growth plan.

If you’re serious about turning seasonal momentum into lasting success, now is the time to get ahead. Build deeper relationships, fine-tune your strategy and set yourself up to win not just the next peak season, but every season after that.

Ready to turn seasonal spikes into year-round growth? Purchasely is an app experience platform that helps mobile apps build personalized journeys, optimize paywalls and maximize subscription revenue. Book a product tour and see how Purchasely can power your seasonal strategies.