W-29 open — closes Aug 02
Independent desk — Tallinn, since 2021
Alo Promos reads the seasonal retail calendar and records when each campaign window opens, how wide it runs, and the day it shuts. We publish when there is something on the ledger worth reading. That is the whole editorial policy.
July is the widest month of the year: 26 of its 31 days sat inside an open window. September holds a single day. This is why we do not publish weekly.
The ledger — nine windows, one year
W-04 — 18 days
Jan 02 — Jan 19
Closed
W-09 — 14 days
Feb 24 — Mar 09
Closed
W-15 — 15 days
Apr 06 — Apr 20
Closed
W-22 — 11 days
May 22 — Jun 02
Closed
W-29 — 28 days
Jul 06 — Aug 02
Open — 4 days left
W-34 — 14 days
Aug 18 — Sep 01
Opens in 19 days
W-41 — 14 days
Oct 05 — Oct 19
Not yet open
W-47 — 11 days
Nov 20 — Dec 01
Not yet open
W-52 — 11 days
Dec 26 — Jan 06
Not yet open
Scroll the ledger sideways — bar width is the window’s length in days
The mail — what we send, what we never send
One issue per window. When a window opens, we write it up once: what the window covers, the dates it runs, and the exact day it closes. When the window shuts, we stop writing about it. There is no follow-up, no reminder series, and no second attempt at the same story.
A dated headline, three to four short paragraphs of context, and the practical part — the code or reference you need, if the window has one, plus the terms in plain language. It reads in under two minutes. Anything that cannot survive that edit does not go in.
Nine times in 2026, going by the ledger. Some months carry two issues, most carry none. September of last year held a single open day and we sent nothing at all. A quiet month means the calendar was quiet, not that the desk was.
No daily digest, no re-sends dressed as corrections, no message whose only purpose is to keep an address warm. We do not sell, rent, or trade the list, and we do not send on behalf of anyone else. Every issue carries a one-click exit at the foot, and leaving takes effect the moment you use it.
Two editors and one researcher, working from Tallinn. We read published retail calendars, seasonal trade notices, and public merchant announcements, then check the dates ourselves before an issue goes out. If we get a date wrong, the correction goes in the next issue with the error named.
Specimen — trimmed from W-29
This is the top of the issue that went out when the Midsummer window opened on July 6. It is reproduced here at trim size, crop marks and all, so you can see the format before you hand over an address.
Issue W-29 Jul 06, 2026
The widest window on the 2026 ledger is also the least urgent. Twenty-eight days is long enough that nothing forces a decision until the final weekend — which is exactly when the useful part arrives.
Reference for this window
CODE_PLACEHOLDER
Continues in the full issue — terms and closing date
Questions the desk actually gets
Because the calendar does not keep one. A window opens when merchants open it, and that lands on a Tuesday as readily as a Saturday. Committing to a weekly send would mean writing on weeks when nothing had happened, and the only way to fill those issues is with filler. We would rather send nine good issues than fifty-two padded ones.
Three tests. The window has to have a published start and end, so we can tell readers when it closes. It has to cover more than one merchant, so the issue is about a season rather than a single shop. And there has to be something a reader can act on. A window that fails any of the three stays on the ledger but does not get written up.
We store it to send you the ledger, and we record whether each issue was delivered so we can tell a dead address from a quiet reader. That is the whole file. No profile, no third-party enrichment, no sharing. The privacy notice sets out how long we keep it and how to have it erased.
Every issue has an unsubscribe link at the foot, and it works on the first click — no confirmation page, no survey, no offer to send you less instead. You can also mail contact@alopromos.com and we will remove the address by hand. Either way it is done within the day.
Some windows carry a referral arrangement, and where one applies the issue says so in the terms line at the foot of the page. It never changes which windows go on the ledger — a window earns its place by having real dates and covering a real season, and we have written up windows that pay us nothing at all.
About the desk
Alo Promos began in 2021 as a shared spreadsheet between two people who were tired of finding out about a seasonal campaign the week after it ended. It is still mostly that spreadsheet, now with a masthead. We are independent, we take no editorial direction from the merchants on the ledger, and we publish under our own name from a registered address in Tallinn.
The one rule: an issue goes out when a window opens, and not otherwise. If your inbox is quiet for six weeks, the calendar was quiet for six weeks.
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