The courier sets the end date

Eid al-Adha falls on Friday in Saudi Arabia, and every Eid campaign I have ever seen is scheduled to the holiday. End date: the sixth. Creative says in time for Eid. Budget paced to the night before.

The courier has a different date. Somewhere in the operations inbox there is a message from the delivery partner saying the last guaranteed dispatch for Eid delivery was Tuesday, or Monday, or, in the west of Saudi Arabia, where Hajj is thickening every road out of Jeddah this week, earlier than that. Marketing was copied, or was not. Either way the ad is still running.

So from the moment the courier's date passes, the campaign is doing something that looks like selling and is not. Every order it takes is a promise the business has already lost the ability to keep. The customer ordering on Wednesday for a table on Friday is a complaint that has not arrived yet, and a refund, and a message to the family group about the brand that ruined the Eid order.

The days after the cutoff look free. The budget is approved, the creative is made, nobody has to lift a finger for it to run. That is exactly why they are the most expensive days in the plan. The spend is the small part. The cost is a customer who believed the ad, was let down by the calendar, and will not read the next ad as carefully.

The honest version is easy and almost nobody does it. Print the cutoff on the ad, not the holiday. Order by Tuesday for Eid. Then, on Wednesday, change the promise or stop.

The end date of a campaign is the last promise it can keep, and the person who knows that date works in the warehouse. Marketing is usually the last to be told.