Why does my revenue seem to increase or decrease without me making changes?
Digital advertising and marketing follow a strong seasonality pattern that has a direct effect on publisher earnings. While this can be rewarding or frustrating, the good news is that this seasonality is very predictable. Once a publisher is aware of the seasonality they can take advantage of it to maximize revenues (or limit reductions).
What causes this seasonality?
There are many factors that affect this seasonal behavior in spending, but most of these factors are well-known by the publisher community. While publishers are aware of many of the factors that increase advertising spend, they are often less aware of how this can lead to corrections to normal levels in spending.
Some of the global and major factors affecting all publishers, regardless of geography, are the year changes, month changes and quarter changes. These are the direct result of government tax policies around the world that encourage spending before the end of the month/quarter/year. Due to the benefits of spending "untaxed profits," most of the biggest spending buyers increase their budgets before the end of their accounting term (month/quarter/year). This technique is used by the buyers to invest excess and unplanned profits into marketing and future profits. This results in CPM increases at the end of every month, quarter and year immediately followed by a correction in the following days.
Other known increases:
Major shopping days based on holidays (e.g. Black Friday and Cyber Monday)
Political elections
Geography-based political/social campaigns or local elections
Other known decreases:
Good weather (weather is one the best predictors of the "addressable market" and users time spent online, better weather directly correlates to and causes decreased internet consumption)
The exact day of major national or religious holidays (people may not use the internet as much on these days unless it is a shopping holiday)
Weekends and after major holidays
Known revenue impacting dates
Most publishers have seen these seasonality effects by looking the highest year-end earnings in December, followed by the lowest year-start earnings in January. What may not be as obvious are the smaller seasonal changes like the gradually increasing budgets from April through June, followed by the correction to normal levels the beginning of July (quarterly effect in play).
Dates that advertisers are known globally to increase spend to higher than normal levels:
Gradually from October 1st until Dec 31st with a strong willingness to spend excess budgets during the second part of December
Gradually from January 1st until March 31st with a strong willingness to spend excess budgets during the second part of March
Gradually from April 1st until June 30th with a strong a strong willingness to spend excess budgets during the second part of June
Gradually from July 1st until September 31st with a strong willingness to spend excess budgets during the second part of September
Dates that advertisers are known globally to adjust spend to normal levels:
January 1
April 1
July 1
October 1
How can I use seasonality to my advantage?
The best time to start thinking about seasonality and advertising budget increases is when your revenue is trending up. Depending on the site owners' ability to influence traffic, understanding seasonality and being a proactive marketer (of your own media business) may help you increase your overall revenue and profitability further.