The U.S. splits into five boat-sales seasonal zones
Year-round, Spring peak, Early summer, Late summer, and Short season. Each has a different start date, peak, and length.
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Data study
When Boat Buyers Search: The 5 Seasonal Zones of U.S. Boat Marketing
Boat-buying seasons by state
Ratio is average monthly searches in summer (June to August) against winter (December to February). Hover a state for its peak month and ratio. Data pulled October 10, 2026.
50states mapped by monthly search demand
5seasonal zones, each with its own calendar
15keywords tracked in every state
5 yrsof Google Trends data to check the timing
Every boat dealer knows when their busy season hits. Far fewer know when their buyers start looking online, and that gap is where a lot of marketing money gets wasted. A dealer who turns on ads in May, in a market where buyers started searching in March, is paying to reach people who already picked a dealer. SEO work that starts in April usually does not pay off until the season is over.
So Hamad and our SEO & Research team at Moto Marine Digital mapped it. We pulled 12 months of Google search data for boat-buying and boat-service searches in all 50 states, then checked the timing against five years of Google Trends data. The states fell into five seasonal zones, and each zone has its own calendar.
The biggest takeaway for dealers is about the off-season. It is not the time to stop marketing. It is when you build the things that win next season, and in the north it is also when your service department hits its own peak.
Download the state-by-state data behind every number in this study.
Key findings
The two months before the season decide how it goes
Spring-peak markets get busy in March, so ads need to be live by January or February. The three summer zones get busy in May, so ads need to be live in March and April.
The timing repeats every year
In five years of Google Trends data, each of the four seasonal zones got busy in the same one- or two-month window every year.
Searches are packing into fewer months
The gap between summer and winter search levels grew from 2022 to 2025 in every zone with enough data. In Late summer it went from 1.89x to 2.31x.
There are fewer buyers to go around
Google interest in “boats for sale” fell from 2022 to 2025 in all 30 states with complete data, by a median of 40%.
Winterization is a second season
The Short-season zone produces 5.8% of U.S. boat-buying searches but 19.2% of winterization and shrink-wrap searches.
Clicks got cheaper as demand fell
Average cost per click for “boat dealers near me” fell 42% from 2022 to 2025, from $3.85 to $2.22, while searches for it fell 22%. In 2026 it kept falling, but the shopping terms turned back up: “boats for sale” clicks are 32% higher than in 2025.
The five zones
We grouped the states by how their searches rise and fall across the year, not by weather maps or guesses. The table below shows which states fall in each zone and what each zone’s calendar looks like.
A few placements may surprise people. Minnesota lands in Early summer instead of Short season because the Minneapolis area starts searching earlier than the lake towns. Texas, Virginia and Kentucky also land in Early summer. Their searches climb past 110% of average in March, but the peak does not come until June.
How each zone’s year runs
Every zone follows the same Build, Ramp, Harvest rhythm. What changes is when each phase starts and how long it lasts. From the monthly numbers, we built a marketing calendar for each zone with three main phases:
Build
Searches below 80% of average
Work on SEO, site cleanup, inventory pages, Google Business Profile, reviews, tracking, and account restructuring.
Ramp
The two months before Harvest
Ads go live, budgets climb, and boat show and preseason promotions run.
Harvest
Searches at 120% of average or more
Spend the most, answer leads the fastest and keep inventory current.
Service marketing runs on its own seasonal calendar alongside these phases. “+ Service” months below are when winterization and shrink-wrap searches run at 1.5 times their average or more. Wind-down is the stretch between Harvest and Build.
Zone by zone
Each chart shows the zone’s buying demand by month. 100 is the zone’s average month, so 150 means 50% busier than average and 50 means half as busy. The strip underneath is the marketing calendar that comes out of it.
- Build
- Ramp
- Harvest
- Wind-down
- + Service
Year-round
Florida, Hawaii
Florida and Hawaii never really shut down. Florida’s buying searches peak in April at 145% of the monthly average, and even its slowest month (October) holds 66%. In Florida, “boats for sale” ranges from 9,900 searches a month in the fall to 22,200 in spring.
The five-year Google Trends data shows a long, flat stretch of high demand from March to July instead of one sharp peak, and the busiest month moves around from year to year. There is no real off-season here. Build work has to happen while you are still selling, and October to December is the lightest window for it.
Winterization barely shows up here, at 8.7 searches for every 1,000 boat-buying searches, so the service opportunity is repair, all year long. “Boat repair near me” stays above its average from February through October.
Spring peak
Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee
The Southeast and Arizona get busy early. Buying searches jump from 78% of average in February to 137% in March and stay above 135% through July. The single busiest month is June, at 163%, but most of the season is already moving by spring.
Google Trends shows the same June peak in every year from 2022 to 2025. That makes January and February the Ramp months. Campaigns, budgets and inventory pages need to be live before the March jump, not set up in reaction to it.
Fall service runs later here than up north. Winterization and shrink-wrap searches peak in November, and repair searches climb above average in March, right as the buying season starts.
Early summer
Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Wyoming
This is the biggest zone, with 34.4% of all U.S. boat-buying searches. It covers Texas, the Plains, the Ohio Valley and the upper Midwest metros, including Minnesota. Minnesota lands here because the Minneapolis area starts searching earlier than the lake towns, and the metro drives the state total.
Searches build through March and April, jump in May to 159% and peak in June at 176%. What stands out is how fast the season ends. Demand drops to 106% by August and 40% by November.
This zone got busy in May in every year of the five-year Trends data, which puts the Ramp in March and April. Winterization peaks in October, and this zone produces more fall service searches than any other, 36.5% of the U.S. total.
Late summer
Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Washington
California, the Pacific Northwest, the Northeast, Utah and Alaska peak later and stay busy longer. Buying searches reach 180% of average in July and are still at 135% in August. Short season is the only other zone where August counts as Harvest.
Google Trends puts the peak in July in three of the four full years, with June in 2024. August still sells here, so cutting budgets on August 1 means walking away from a busy month.
Fall service peaks in October, and this zone produces 33.4% of U.S. winterization and shrink-wrap searches. Repair searches climb above average in April.
Short season
Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Vermont
Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire and Vermont have the shortest and steepest season. July searches run at 219% of an average month, and November and December fall to about a third of average. New Hampshire has the biggest summer-to-winter swing of any state, at 3.9x.
This zone produces only 5.8% of U.S. boat-buying searches but 19.2% of winterization and shrink-wrap searches. That is 142.7 fall service searches for every 1,000 buying searches, about 16 times the Year-round zone’s 8.7. For a Short-season dealer, the service department is the off-season business.
These states are small, so the five-year Trends data is thin. The data we do have shows the season getting busy in May every year.
Show the monthly index for every zone as a table
100 = the zone’s average month for buying searches. Harvest = buying searches at 120% or more of the zone’s average month. Ramp = the two months before Harvest. Build = below 80% of average. Wind-down = the months between Harvest and Build. Source as above.
What to do in the Build months
Every summer zone has five or six months when buying searches sit below 80% of average. Shutting everything off in those months is the most common mistake I see dealers make. The work that wins in June has to be done by March, and most of it takes months to show results.
Here is what belongs in the Build months.
- SEO and content. Build local landing pages for each city you sell into, plus model pages, brand pages and buyer guides. Rankings take months, so start while nobody is buying.
- Site cleanup. Fix slow pages, broken inventory feeds, outdated pages and tracking before the traffic shows up.
- Google Business Profile and reviews. Update categories, photos and hours. Ask last season’s buyers for reviews while the purchase is still fresh.
- Ad account restructuring. Rebuild campaigns, negative keywords and audiences now, so the Ramp is a budget change and not a rebuild.
- Service campaigns. Run winterization, shrink wrap and storage campaigns in the fall, then spring service and repair, so the off-season still brings in revenue and keeps customers in your database.
Service searches peak when boat sales slow down
Service demand runs on its own calendar. Winterization and shrink-wrap searches peak in October in the three summer zones and in November in the Spring-peak zone, months after buying searches have dropped off.
Spring service does not show up the way most people expect. Almost nobody searches for “boat dewinterization” in any state. Spring demand shows up as “boat repair near me” climbing above its average in March or April, depending on the zone. Dealers should target the repair and service searches people actually make, not the industry term.
Five years of data show the same timing
One year of data can mislead, so we checked each zone against five years of weekly Google Trends data for “boats for sale.” Each state is scored 0 to 100 against its own five-year peak, so the lines show shape and direction rather than raw search counts.
The same pattern in every zone
The season is getting sharper
Summer interest (June to August) compared with winter interest (December to February), 2022 and 2025. A higher number means a shorter, steeper season.
Every state with complete data is down since 2022
Change in average “boats for sale” interest, 2025 versus 2022, for the 30 states with complete data in both years. Bars are colored by zone.
Show the five-year data by zone and year
Source: Moto Marine Digital analysis of Google Trends data via DataForSEO, “boats for sale,” weekly, October 2021 to October 2026, by state. States with gaps in a year are left out of that year.
Three things stand out
The timing holds. Florida is the exception. Its long, flat stretch of demand means its start month moves around from year to year. In the other zones, Early summer and Short season got busy in May in every year we could measure. Spring peak got busy in April or May and peaked in June every year. Late summer got busy in May or June and peaked in June or July. A dealer can plan a calendar around these windows with confidence.
One note on Spring peak. The 12-month search data shows these states jumping in March, while the five-year Trends data, which tracks only “boats for sale,” shows the jump in April or May. Both point the same way. Ads need to be live by February.
The season is getting sharper. The summer-to-winter swing grew from 2022 to 2025 in every zone with enough data. It went from 1.65x to 1.94x in Spring peak, 1.91x to 2.24x in Early summer and 1.89x to 2.31x in Late summer. Buyers are packing their searching into fewer months, which makes Ramp timing matter more each year.
Interest is down from the post-pandemic peak. Google interest in “boats for sale” fell from 2022 to 2025 in all 30 states with complete data, by a median of 40%. That lines up with industry sales data. NMMA reported that new powerboat retail unit sales fell 9.1% in 2024, to 231,576 units. Google Trends measures share of searches rather than raw counts, so treat the 40% as a direction, not a precise number. The direction is clear. Fewer buyers are searching, so each one is worth more, and the dealers who show up first in each zone’s season get a bigger share of them.
Does our data match what happens on the water?
Search data shows when people look. To test it against real-world boating, we compared it with three independent U.S. sources.
The U.S. Coast Guard’s Recreational Boating Statistics 2024 counts boating incidents by month, a reliable proxy for how many boats are on the water. Incidents climb from 68 in January to a peak of 905 in July, then fall to 95 in December. Our national buying-search curve follows the same shape, with a correlation of 0.82. Shift searches one month earlier and the match tightens to 0.92: people search about a month before they are on the water. And 32% of buying searches happen from March to May, against 22% of on-water activity. Spring is when people shop. Summer is when they boat.
0.82correlation between buying searches and boats on the water
0.92with searches shifted one month earlier
32% vs 22%of buying searches vs on-water activity, March to May
The cooling we see in Google Trends shows up in sales, too. Beyond NMMA’s 9.1% drop in 2024 new powerboat sales, Boats Group’s 2025 Market Index shows North American boats sold on its marketplaces falling from 44,309 in 2023 to 39,559 in 2024 and 36,195 in 2025, while average days on market across its marketplaces rose from 155 to 224.
Three sources measuring three different things point the same way. The boating year is predictable, buyers start looking before the water warms up, and each buyer is worth more than they were three years ago.
What happened to the cost of a click
You might expect a shrinking market to get more expensive to advertise in. From 2022 to 2025, the opposite happened. As boat-buying searches fell from their 2022 peak, average Google Ads cost per click fell too, and on the terms dealers care most about it fell faster than demand.
“Boat dealers near me” dropped from $3.85 a click in 2022 to $2.22 in 2025, a 42% decline, while searches fell 22%. “Pontoon boats for sale” fell 43% in cost against a 28% drop in searches. On the broad “boats for sale” terms, cost and volume fell by about the same amount. Many advertisers who piled in during the boom have pulled back, which leaves room for dealers who stay consistent.
The pattern within each year points the same way. Averaged over 2022 to 2025, clicks ran about 10 to 30% below their yearly average in June and July, when search volume peaks, and above it from October through December, by as much as 30% in November. The one price jump on the shopping terms (“boats for sale,” “pontoon boats for sale” and “used boats for sale”) comes in March, when advertisers rush in at the start of the season. Dealers whose campaigns are already built and running avoid that scramble.
2026 update: shopping clicks are getting more expensive again
We compared the first nine months of 2026 with the same months of 2025. The picture splits in two. On the dealer and service searches, clicks kept getting cheaper. “Boat dealers near me” fell another 9%, to $1.94, and “boat repair near me” fell 10%, to $4.85.
On the shopping searches, the trend reversed. “Boats for sale” clicks rose 32%, to $0.82, and “pontoon boats for sale” rose 27%, to $1.01. “Used boats for sale” and “boats for sale near me” rose 15% and 14%. Searches fell on every term, by 8% to 23%.
Even after this year’s rise, every one of these clicks is still cheaper than in 2022, from 5% cheaper on “boats for sale” to 42% cheaper on “boat dealers near me.” The takeaway for dealers: fewer people are searching for inventory, and more advertisers are paying to reach them again. The Ramp months matter more than ever, because a campaign that is already built can bid on those shoppers before March prices kick in.
Google’s cost-per-click figures are Keyword Planner estimates, not actual auction prices, so treat the month-by-month pattern as a direction. Your own account data will show your market’s real costs.
Spotlights: Montana and New Hampshire
Two of the most seasonal markets in the country sit in the Short-season zone.
Montana
32x
“Boat dealers near me” went from 10 searches in December to 320 in July, a 32x swing. Winterization searches peak in September at 140, a month earlier than most of the north, so Montana dealers need fall service campaigns live by late August. Around Flathead Lake, “boats for sale kalispell” gets about 70 searches in July and about 10 a month in winter.
New Hampshire
320
New Hampshire has the biggest summer-to-winter swing in buying searches of any state, at 3.9x. “Boat shrink wrap” reaches 320 searches in October, compared with 20 to 40 a month from April to July. “Boat storage near me” peaks in September. For a Lakes Region dealer, September and October are a second season.
Town-level data for places like Whitefish, Laconia and Lake Winnipesaukee is too small to chart, because Google reports most months at its minimum of 10. That is why these spotlights use state-level data.
How we ran the study
Search volume. We pulled Google Ads search volume through DataForSEO for 15 keywords in each of the 50 states, covering September 2025 to August 2026. Buying searches combine five terms, “boat dealers near me,” “boats for sale near me,” “boats for sale,” “used boats for sale” and “pontoon boats for sale.” Fall service combines “boat winterization,” “boat winterization near me,” “boat shrink wrap” and “boat shrink wrap near me.” Repair uses “boat repair near me” and “boat service near me.”
Drawing the zones. We turned each state’s buying searches into a 12-month curve, showing what share of the year’s searches happened in each month, and grouped states with similar curves using k-means clustering, a standard statistical method for sorting data into groups. We tested four and five groups. Five groups split the steep northern states away from the rest, so we used that split, with one change. We grouped Florida with Hawaii as a Year-round zone instead of with the Spring-peak states, because its summer-to-winter swing (1.4x) is far smaller than any Spring-peak state’s (1.8x or more). With four groups, Florida and Hawaii also landed together.
Five-year check. We pulled weekly Google Trends data for “boats for sale” in every state from October 2021 to October 2026. Google leaves gaps for weeks with low search volume, so a state’s year only counts when every month has at least three weeks of data. That left 30 states with complete 2022 and 2025 data.
Cost per click. We pulled DataForSEO’s historical keyword data for six national U.S. terms. It stores Google’s monthly cost-per-click estimate and search volume back to 2021. Yearly figures are the average of the monthly values.
Spotlights. We also pulled city-level volume for Kalispell, Montana, and Laconia, New Hampshire. Most terms there came back at Google’s floor of 10, so the spotlights use state data plus one local term.
Full tables for every step, and the raw numbers behind them, are in the downloadable data workbook.
Limits of the data
- One year of exact volumes. Google Ads volumes cover 12 months. The five-year check uses Trends, which shows shape and direction, not exact counts.
- Rounded numbers. Google Ads reports volume in set steps, such as 18,100 or 22,200, which can shift a peak by a month in flat markets like Florida.
- States are big. A state’s curve mixes its cities and lake towns. A dealer in northern Minnesota will see a later, steeper season than the Minnesota average.
- Trends gaps. Small states often lack complete Trends data, so the five-year findings lean on larger states, and the Year-round and Short-season zones each had only one or two states with full data.
- One data glitch left out. The plain keyword “boat dealers” shows a December spike across the country that looks like a Google data error, so we left it out of the curves.
- Searches are not sales. This shows when people search, not when they buy. Buyers often search for weeks before they purchase, which is one more reason to ramp early.
What boat dealers should do with this
Your marketing calendar should follow when customers actually search for boats, not just when your showroom gets busy. The whole study comes down to one rhythm: Build, then Ramp, then Harvest.
Build
Fix SEO, inventory, website, tracking and campaigns while searches are low.
Ramp
Launch ads, increase visibility and prepare the sales team two months before the rush.
Harvest
Capture demand, respond quickly and maximize qualified leads at the peak.
Service marketing runs on its own seasonal calendar alongside these phases.
Here is how to put the data to work.
- Know when your buyers start searching. Find your state in the five seasonal zones above. Use the monthly search patterns to plan your marketing around when demand starts climbing, not just when it peaks. Lake towns and resort markets may follow a different schedule than their state average.
- Get your advertising running before the rush. Spring-peak markets should ramp up in January and February; summer markets in March and April. Florida and Hawaii should maintain year-round visibility. Don’t wait until your busiest sales month to launch campaigns.
- Spend more when buyers are actively searching. Increase Google Ads budgets during your zone’s peak months, as long as campaigns are generating qualified leads. Our data shows average clicks became cheaper between 2022 and 2025, making paid search worth evaluating rather than automatically cutting. In 2026, clicks on shopping searches like “boats for sale” started climbing again, so lock in your campaigns during the Ramp months.
- Use the slow months to build next season's visibility. Improve your website, SEO, inventory pages, Google Business Profile, and marketplace listings. Audit your advertising campaigns and fix tracking issues. Have these improvements ready before search demand rises.
- Turn service into a second marketing season. Promote winterization, shrink wrapping, and storage when local demand rises in the fall. In the spring, target repair and maintenance searches. Our data shows northern dealerships have a particularly strong opportunity to generate service business after boat-buying demand drops.
- Plan for a shorter, more competitive buying season. Search demand is becoming more concentrated, and Google interest in boats for sale has declined from its post-pandemic peak. Respond quickly to inquiries, keep inventory accurate, and track which channels actually produce qualified buyers.
Don’t market at the same intensity all year, and don’t disappear when the season ends. Build during the slower months, ramp up before buyers arrive, and invest where search demand and actual sales opportunities justify it.
Frequently asked questions
When should a boat dealer start advertising for the season?
About two months before your zone gets busy. In the Spring-peak zone (the Southeast and Arizona), that means January or February. In the three summer zones, it means March and April. In Florida and Hawaii, demand never stops, so ads run all year and step up in January and February ahead of the March climb.
Should boat dealers stop marketing in the off-season?
No. Shift from paid acquisition to building: SEO, site cleanup, inventory pages, Google Business Profile, reviews, and ad account restructuring. In the northern zones, fall is also the peak season for winterization and shrink-wrap searches.
When do people search for boat winterization?
October in most of the country, November in the Southeast and Arizona, and September in Montana. Most winterization searches come from the north. The Short-season zone produces 19.2% of U.S. winterization and shrink-wrap searches.
Is boat buying interest going down?
Yes. Google interest in “boats for sale” fell from 2022 to 2025 in every state with complete data, by a median of 40%, and NMMA reported that new powerboat retail unit sales fell 9.1% in 2024. Demand is still large and seasonal, but dealers are competing harder for each buyer.
What is the busiest month for boat buying searches?
It depends on the zone. Florida peaks in spring and stays high into summer. The Southeast and the Early-summer states peak in June. The Late-summer and Short-season zones, which cover the Northeast, the Pacific coast and the far north, peak in July.
Download the data
Every number in this study can be checked. The workbook has the monthly Google search volume for all 15 keywords in all 50 states, each state’s zone, the zone calendars, the cost-per-click history and the five-year Trends tables.
Sources
- DataForSEO. Google Ads Search Volume API. State-level Google Ads search volumes for 15 keywords, September 2025 to August 2026, pulled October 10, 2026.
- DataForSEO. Google Trends Explore API. Weekly “boats for sale” interest by state, October 2021 to October 2026, pulled October 10, 2026.
- DataForSEO. Historical Keyword Data API. Monthly Google Ads cost-per-click and search volume, U.S., 2022 to 2026, pulled October 10, 2026 and October 22, 2026.
- U.S. Coast Guard. Recreational Boating Statistics 2024, Table 12, incidents by month. Published June 24, 2025.
- Boating Industry Canada, reporting NMMA data. NMMA Reports 9% Decline in 2024 New Boat Retail Sales. March 2025.
- Boats Group. 2025 Market Index (copy hosted by Denison Yacht Sales). North American boats sold and days on market, 2023 to 2025.
Companion post: The Page One Report: Who Ranks for “Boat Dealers [City]”.
Want a marketing calendar built for your zone?
We plan dealer campaigns around the local season, so budget goes where the buyers are searching. Talk to the team about your market.
- Your Ramp, Harvest and Build months, by market
- Ad budgets live before buyers start searching
- Off-season SEO and fall service campaigns