The Timing Buffer That Almost Cost Us Baby of the Year — And How to Avoid Our Mistake

If you are competing in Baby of the Year, right now you have already been through two or three Thursday cutoffs. You have felt the anxiety of watching the clock tick down toward 7PM Pacific. You have probably sent your final vote reminders too late, at least once, and wondered afterward whether some votes did not make it through.

This post is about that specific problem. The Thursday timing buffer is one of the most actionable pieces of information in this entire training. It costs nothing to implement. It requires no additional supporters. It simply requires doing what you are already doing at a slightly different time.

What Happens at 7PM Pacific Every Thursday

Every Baby of the Year round ends on Thursday at 7PM Pacific which is 10PM Eastern, 9PM Central, and 8PM Mountain. For the rest of this blog, I will refer to Eastern Standard Time since we live in Boston and that reflects our time zone. 

In the 30 minutes before that cutoff, something predictable happens. Tens of Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of parents competing across of thousands of groups all send their final vote reminders at roughly the same time. Their supporters all try to cast their final votes simultaneously. The Baby of the Year website and its voting processing system, including the Facebook verification process, experience significant traffic spikes.

This congestion is not a malfunction. It is a predictable consequence of everyone doing the same thing, at the same time. Free votes submitted during peak congestion have a higher rate of processing delay than votes submitted during lower-traffic periods. In some cases those delayed votes do not register before the official cutoff.

The contest rules acknowledge this dynamic. The Baby of the Year official rules state that Colossal is not responsible for technical malfunctions or failures and that proof of submitting a vote is not considered proof of delivery or receipt.

In plain language: if your supporter tries to vote at 9:58PM Eastern and the website is slow, that vote may not count. And, Colossal's rules explicitly release them from responsibility for this outcome.

What Happened to Us

During our Baby of the Year Quarterfinals run we were in a close competitive position heading into our final Thursday cutoff. We sent our final push communications around 9:15PM Eastern, about 45 minutes before the 10PM Eastern cutoff.

Several supporters reported trying to vote in the final 20 minutes and experiencing slow loading times. A few were not sure whether their votes went through. The only way we could verify was seeing if their vote shown up within the backend dashboard of our contest profile.

We advanced. But, the margin was smaller than it should have been. When we looked back at the pattern across multiple Thursday cutoffs, we realized that our rounds where we had communicated earlier in the evening consistently produced more votes than the rounds where we pushed communications late.

The connection is not complicated. Earlier communications mean supporters vote earlier. Earlier votes mean lower traffic periods. Lower traffic periods mean higher processing reliability.

The Donation Vote Window Is Even Tighter

Free votes have a 30-minute risk window before the cutoff. Donation votes have a tighter window still.

Donation processing involves a financial transaction, in addition to the vote recording. Payment processing at high-traffic volumes introduces an additional layer of potential delay. Supporters who plan to make a donation for your baby on Thursday should ideally do so before 9PM Eastern, not in the final hour.

This is especially important for your high-value donors who may be making larger contributions. A donor who tries to make a $50 donation at 9:45PM Eastern and experiences a processing delay has just lost 50 votes and 50 dollars from their account with no guarantee of when the transaction will complete.

The Three-Wave Thursday Strategy

Rather than a single final push on Thursday evening, build your Thursday communications in three waves.

Wave one — Thursday midday

A simple reminder that voting closes tonight. Include the time in the viewer's time zone. This wave reaches your supporters during their lunch hour or afternoon break when they have a natural moment to pause and vote without the pressure of the cutoff being imminent.

Wave two — Thursday early evening around 6PM Eastern

A more urgent reminder that the cutoff is four hours away. Mention the specific round and what is at stake. Give supporters the direct link to your baby's profile. This wave reaches people during dinner and early evening when attention is available and the deadline feels real but not desperate.

Wave three — Thursday 8PM to 8:30PM Eastern

Your final push. Explicit about the time remaining. Specific about the exact action needed. This wave hits more than 90 minutes before the 10PM Eastern cutoff giving every supporter ample time to vote before congestion peaks in the final 30 minutes.

After 9:30PM Eastern you have done what you can do. Sending additional messages after that point reaches supporters who either already voted or will not vote regardless. The messages during peak congestion add noise without adding votes.

How to Build This Into Your Campaign Starting Now

If Baby of the Year is currently in the Top 10 or Top 5 round, you still have multiple Thursday cutoffs remaining. Except for Top 20, Wildcard, and Quarterfinals, every round through Finals runs through Thursday. Wildcard is three days, from Friday to Sunday evening, while Top 20 and Quarterfinals last for about 10 days, whereby they both have a Thursday cut off, but those rounds last 3 days longer then other rounds which are only 7 days long. There is no round too late to start using the timing buffer strategy.

Set three calendar reminders for every Thursday from now through November 5th. 12PM Eastern for wave one. 6PM Eastern for wave two. 8PM Eastern for wave three.

Write your wave messages in advance, so you are not creating them under pressure the day of. The content changes based on which round you are in and how competitive your position is. But the timing structure stays the same every week.

What the Free Training Covers About Thursday Strategy

The Thursday cutoff is covered in detail in the free strategy training at Voting Academy along with the specific messaging frameworks for each wave and how to adjust the urgency and framing of your communications based on which round you are in.

If you are competing right now in Baby of the Year and you want the complete Thursday framework before your next cutoff the training is free and available immediately.