Ottawa has real winters and short, busy summers, and trade demand follows. The businesses that do well are the ones that prepare a month before each rush instead of reacting to it. This calendar sets out what to do, season by season, so your marketing is ready when customers start searching and quieter when they aren't.
Use it as a template. Your exact timing depends on your trade, so check your own job history by month and shift the plan to match.
Before you start: find your own peaks
A calendar you can trust is built from your own records. Pull your jobs and leads for the last two years, count them by month, and mark:
- your two busiest months;
- your two quietest months;
- any sudden spikes, such as the first hard frost, a heat wave or a big storm.
Plan backward from those peaks. Marketing that goes live the week demand arrives is late; ads need testing time, and new pages need weeks to be indexed.
Late summer (August to early September): prepare for the cold
For heating, insulation, plumbing and electrical trades, this is setup time.
- Refresh your heating service pages in English and, if you run a French track, in French. Ask your French copywriter for updates now, not in November.
- Check your Google Business Profile: hours, services, photos and holiday hours for the fall.
- Build or test ad campaigns for furnace repair, boiler service, frozen pipes and similar searches, at a low budget, so they're tuned before demand rises.
- Plan offers you can honour, such as maintenance visits booked before a set date.
- Brief your office on handling a rush of calls, including French calls if you advertise in French.
For landscapers and exterior trades, late summer is also the time to promote fall clean-ups and to start booking snow-removal contracts if you offer them.
Fall (mid-September to November): push before the rush
Demand for heating and winter preparation builds through the fall. This is where ad budgets rise.
- Increase Google Ads spend in the weeks before your usual peak, watching cost per lead against your ceiling. Our Google Ads page explains the ceiling.
- Prioritise your core wards. When demand spikes, it's tempting to take calls from everywhere. Long drives in winter traffic cost more than they look.
- Ask for reviews after every completed job. Fall and early winter are when many trades complete the most work, so it's a good window to build prominence for next year.
- Watch for rebate-related searches. As of October 2026, Ontario's Home Renovation Savings Program, delivered by Save on Energy and Enbridge Gas, lists rebates for upgrades such as cold-climate heat pumps and smart thermostats. If your trade installs eligible products, a clear page explaining that you can help customers with the process may attract searches. Programs change, so check the official page and confirm details with the administrator before mentioning any amount.
Roofers and exterior trades should push hard early in the fall, before freeze-up limits work.
Winter (December to February): emergencies, then the lull
Early winter brings emergency calls for heating, plumbing and electrical trades. Late winter is often quiet.
- Keep emergency campaigns running with a clear focus on fast response. Make sure your ads only run when someone can actually answer.
- Use missed-call text-back if crews can't answer on the job. A tool like the one described on CallText.chat can stop urgent callers moving on to the next company.
- In January and February, cut ad spend on non-urgent services, but don't switch everything off.
- Do the slow work. The quiet months are ideal for building new service pages, improving your website, writing answers to common customer questions and, if you're planning one, launching a French test at a modest budget. See our French campaigns guide.
- Plan your spring. Book your copywriter, photographer or website work now.
Spring (March to May): thaw, water and renovations
Spring in Ottawa brings melting snow, wet basements and the start of renovation season.
- Plumbers and waterproofing trades: promote sump pumps, backwater valves, drainage and basement water work as the thaw arrives.
- Roofers: promote spring inspections and repairs after winter damage.
- Renovators, landscapers, fencing and deck builders: launch spring campaigns in March and April, when homeowners plan projects.
- HVAC companies: start air-conditioning tune-up campaigns in late spring, before the first heat.
- Refresh photos on your profile with winter jobs you've completed.
Spring is also a good time to review your service area using last year's numbers, and decide whether to expand.
Summer (June to August): the second peak
Summer is busy for cooling, landscaping, roofing, renovations and exterior work.
- Raise ad spend for summer services, again watching cost per lead.
- Lean on reviews and photos from spring work.
- Avoid overcommitting. If your schedule is full, reduce ad spend rather than paying for leads you can't serve quickly.
- Start late-summer preparation for fall at the end of July.
Where housing type changes the calendar
Ottawa's housing mix affects timing. In the 2021 Census, single-detached homes made up 41.7% of occupied dwellings, and row houses 21.4%. Homeowners in houses make their own decisions and respond to seasonal ads. In apartment and condo buildings, work is often planned by property managers and boards on their own schedules, frequently months ahead. If you serve those buildings, market to managers well before the season, not during it.
A simple year at a glance
| Months | Main focus |
|---|---|
| Jan–Feb | Lower spend, build pages, French test, plan spring |
| Mar–May | Thaw and renovation campaigns, AC tune-ups late, review service area |
| Jun–Aug | Summer peak, reviews and photos, prepare fall at month's end |
| Aug–Sep | Fall setup: pages, profile, test campaigns, office briefing |
| Sep–Nov | Push before the cold, focus on core wards, reviews |
| Dec | Emergency campaigns, missed-call text-back, year-end review |
Common mistakes
- Launching ads the week demand arrives. Too late to tune them.
- Switching everything off in the quiet months. You lose momentum and data.
- Taking calls from everywhere at peak. Winter drives across town wreck margins.
- Forgetting the French side. Seasonal French pages need the copywriter booked early.
If you'd like a calendar built from your own job history, the contact page explains what to send, and the services hub shows how we'd run each season.
Frequently asked questions
When should an Ottawa heating company start fall marketing?
Prepare pages, offers and tracking in August, and raise ad budgets in September and early October, before the first cold snap brings a rush of urgent searches.
Should I stop advertising in the quiet months?
Not entirely. Lower spend, but keep your best-performing campaigns running at a reduced budget and use the time for SEO, reviews and website work that pays off later.
Does this calendar apply to every trade?
The pattern of preparing before a rush applies to every trade, but the peaks differ. Heating, roofing, landscaping and renovation trades each have their own timing, noted in each season below.
Where does a French campaign fit in the year?
Launch or test a French track in a moderate month, not at your peak, so you have time to fix problems before the busy season.