The weather changes have a direct impact on retail sales. Think about it; how many of you shop in the midst of torrential rain or snowfalls? Why do we order hot soup at times and cold salad the other days? Except for Christmas Eve as a high-traffic retail season, it is only natural that customers find warm, sunny weather more welcoming.
It affects mood, motivation to buy, and even which channels people choose, such as shopping in-store versus online. In fact, many retailers consider weather the second-biggest influence on consumer behavior. Smart retail marketing harnesses the weather’s power to influence your customers’ actions by launching campaigns and weather-triggered advertisements.
Retail businesses call it “weather-based marketing” – a strong driving force that has a massive impact on retail and hospitality industries.
What's Weather-Based Marketing?
Weather-based marketing uses real-time conditions to trigger the right message at the right moment. It replaces static seasonal planning with responsive offers that match what customers are experiencing.
How do Weather Changes Affect Sales?
If you look at what you do each day, you’ll see weather affects how you travel, shop, and interact. Research indicates that as weather goes from severe to mild conditions, various retail industries observe minimum to extreme alterations in their gross profit.
The most basic example of this fact is the ice cream sales. Generally, we believe that hotter temperatures tend to spike up the ice cream revenue. However, that isn’t always the case in cooler climates like the UK. Research shows that ice cream sales tend to rise with warmer temperatures but can plateau or even decline when it gets too hot, as people are less willing to go out or worry about the product melting on the way home.
There’s a simplified model named “Profit of one Degree,” which illustrates how the weather affects retail sales. Based on analyses by weather-retail analytics firms, a 1°F increase in summer can be associated with roughly 1.2% higher beer sales, 2% higher soft-drink sales, and 8% higher strawberry sales. Conversely, a 1°F drop in cooler seasons can correspond with higher demand for items like soup and jackets.
So, overall, weather-based marketing is an important tool. Businesses that integrate such analytics and information to curate their marketing strategies find a substantial difference in their sales.
How to do it?
Despite the weather being fickle with little reliance on forecasters, it might appear that exercising weather-based marketing is futile. Not at all.
For something that has such a profound effect on consumer behavior, it is only logical for retailers to strategize their inventory, deals, and marketing tools accordingly. It would help them to invest their advertising dollars in the right places and at the right time.
Let’s explore how to incorporate a weather-based marketing strategy, both for predictable seasons and unplanned events.
Email marketing
For many retailers, email is the simplest channel for launching weather-based campaigns. This can turn into an email campaign for every season that compels consumers to take purchase action based on weather conditions. Weather forecasts and upcoming seasons can easily help retailers curate their email marketing content ahead of time.
Ad campaign
Weather-responsive digital-out-of-home (DOOH) adverts are extremely effective. Retailers can launch a campaign based on the weather information they collect from forecasts. Further, they can prepare pre-made advertising templates for expected events.
DOOH advertising can be on billboards, LCDs, or digital signage. Weather-based ads displayed on walkways, streets, and out of stores are proven to impact retail sales enormously.
Examples of Companies with Weather -Responsive Advertising
La Redoute
An offline fashion store, which employed a weather-based DOOH ad campaign. The series of ads involved a model who donned lighter summer clothes when the weather was warmer and changed into more layers as the wind would get cold.
Additionally, La Redoute showed temperature readings and probable forecasts as an informative piece for viewers. The campaign led to around an increase of 17% in product sales along with a 34% increase in their website traffic.
For a service that does not exist as a brick-and-mortar store, those figures are a whopping success. Similarly, Stellar Cidre marked an increase of 65.6% annual sales, year after year, for as long as they used this tactic.
McDonald's
Another great example is McDonald’s weather-reactive outdoor campaign in the UK. Using real-time data from the Met Office in April 2018, digital billboards showed local forecasts using McDonald’s menu items as weather icons. For instance, if “Wednesday” predicted rain, McDonald’s ad campaign reflected the information with a pack of fries upside down to suggest rainfall. A steaming hot coffee icon for ‘Friday’ showed a hotter temperature for the day. Dynamic content software updated the icons hourly based on live weather data, similar to how digital signage systems refresh content automatically.
How to Measure Weather-Based Campaigns
To justify ongoing investment, track how weather-triggered campaigns perform versus your normal baseline:
- Conversion metrics: increase in sales, basket size, or add-on items when the trigger is active.
- Traffic metrics: store visits, website sessions, or app activity during targeted weather conditions.
- Media efficiency: CPM, CPC, or CPA competitiveness versus always-on campaigns, especially for DOOH and paid social.
- Operational impact: inventory sell-through, spoilage, and demand forecasting accuracy for weather-sensitive products.
Testing different weather triggers like temperature thresholds, rainfall levels, or timing, helps refine the strategy over time.
In-store Weather-Based Digital Signage
It is worthwhile to note that the inception of digital signage and software has supported weather-based marketing like never before. The technology allows retailers to update the rapidly-changing weather data using real-time figures received from the forecasting meteorologists.
In addition to DOOH ad campaigns, you can run weather-dependent advertisements on your in-store digital signage. It does not require any extra spending.
Be it in store windows, at the entrance, or the points of sale, digital signage solutions can serve as some smacking weather-based adverts. You can trigger consumer action using marketing language and special offers based on forecasted temperatures.
A weather-based condition system is a software feature that allows retailers to change the display’s content dynamically. And the content includes action-driving, weather-triggered messages that appeal to their customers. A digital signage content management system allows simple streamlining adverts with your regular display content as well.
Retail
For instance, a clothing retail business can sell outdoor or waterproof jackets in the light of rain-predicted upcoming days. When forecasted for light, breezy weather, you can update the software to run ads selling hiking gear in-line with a promotional deal for limited periods, such as free shipping.
Moreover, pharmaceutical companies can switch to weather-based content for selling drugs for colds and flu. The temperature drops low, sunscreens where the sun shines down too high, or hay fever medication in high pollen count areas.
Restaurants
Restaurants can benefit a lot from weather-based events, even with simple, straightforward offers. Meanwhile, all they need to do is streamline their brand with the weather conditions and offer some deals. For instance, “rainy-day pizzas” or “free coffees all-day.” Alternatively, you can opt for the standard “buy one get one free” for a hot, summery day.
Tourism Retailers
Hoteliers can collect weather data and forecasts to offer discounts on hailstorms or heavy rainfall beforehand. If it starts to rain unpredictably or gets too hot outside, you can update in and out of hotel digital signage to increase foot traffic by offering special deals for that period exclusively.
Besides, contextualized advertising uses weather-based events to be ready to sell at the right time. Several industries actively run marketing campaigns using weather to their advantage. It is called “weather hacks,” which helps them capitalize on consumer behavior.
Conclusion
Weather-based marketing gives retailers a practical way to connect with customers at the right moment, using real-time conditions to guide offers, content, and inventory decisions. When you combine accurate weather data with digital signage, email, and targeted advertising, even small adjustments can create measurable gains in sales and customer engagement. As consumer expectations rise, businesses that respond proactively to weather shifts will be better equipped to capture demand and stand out in a competitive market.
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