A new year brings a lot of plans to change habits, but historically speaking in online advertising, it brings lower RPMs (Revenue per mille, or revenue per 1000 sessions).
Why RPMs Drop in January
Shopping slows down in January, wallets are worn, and sales taper off. In a less aggressive spending period, fill rates are lower and there is less competition for ad inventory, making Advertiser CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) lower. And outside of the occasional year where the Super Bowl falls in January itself, there aren’t many events tied to content creation or a spike in ad spend.
Because of this, advertisers typically spend the largest amount of their annual budget in Q4, or October-December. Additionally, media buyers usually plan to spend on a quarterly basis, and with the new plans comes new creative, new product pushes different deals, and promotions. Campaigns start slow and gain traction over time. January is the start of a new quarter and a brand new year. Direction can change last minute, creative approvals come down to the wire, campaigns start late.
All of this results in lower revenue to start the new year. That said, this makes it a good time to try new things and make adjustments - since you can do that without worrying about the impact of making changes.
Ways to Maximize Your January
1. There’s less risk in January than any other month of the year as well. It’s the best time to test that list of recommendations you’ve been meaning to do for months. Try slowly introducing your audience to affiliate programs or test new SEO content strategies. Create some videos or switch up your internal linking strategy. This will allow you to gain insight on performance with less risk if your users have a negative reaction to the strategies you try.
2. We've previously hosted online session on how SEO and user experience tips can help increase your RPM. January’s the time to start implementing those recommendations. SHE Media Partner Network members can watch the full session in their dashboard - just login and go to our Support section and it'll be right on your homepage.
These tips include increasing your font size on mobile, writing longer articles, breaking up content more, and adding a monetized video strategy into your content. All of these recommendations are SEO and UX best practices, but can also increase your RPM.
3. Take this time to get ahead on your editorial calendar. Ranking in Google organic search will be harder and more competitive than ever in the year ahead. Make informed and intentional decisions when it comes to what you write and how you deliver each piece to your audience.
Review your data from last year, and note which posts performed best in which months. Do keyword research ahead of time to plan content that you know people are searching for. Take the time to check the search results to see who is ranking in the top spots for your potential targeted keyword and create something better!
4. Get your top-performing content in top shape. Look at your top 20-50 performers and replace outdated information, low-quality images, and broken links.
5. Take a minute and update your About page & social profiles. This is where brands look for potential sponsored content partnerships.
6. Do a site audit of your own from a device you've never used to visit your site- do you have pop-ups or banners that cover up any of your ads? On mobile, do you have any buttons that cover the ads? Making adjustments with those plugins is often the easiest way to improve your viewability.
Like-wise, if you turned off the adhesion ads, try turning them back on! Because they're always visible, they have an higher viewability rate, which raises the viewability score for your entire site - and puts you in the position for better creative. It might not amount to much in January, but as the ad buys increase, it puts you in a better position.
7. The elephant in the room - not all topics you might blog about are topics that advertisers want to run ads with. As we learned with COVID, advertisers will have lists of keywords that they want to avoid. If you're writing about topics about serious issues (like COVID, war/conflicts worldwide, or some social issues) - you might not be monetized the same as if you're writing about the latest movie you saw. While these topics can lead you to clicks, they might not result in top earnings, so make sure that you're linking to related posts that WILL earn you more in those posts.
8. Last - reach out to the SHE Media team to ask about SEO help or a site audit! Take a look at our ad products and see what you might not have tried yet. This is a great time to look at your viewability and consider creating a mobile only strategy for some of your ads. As more of us use our phones more than computers or tablets, you want to make sure you're thinking about that audience specifically.
Don't hesitate to reach out to SHE Media's support team at support@shemedia.com today!
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.