Easter is almost here and publishers should not miss the chance to increase their revenue. Although it seems that there is a trend towards a less strong seasonality, most businesses still profit from special dates and public holidays. So, if you want to make the most of the upcoming season, here is how publishers can prepare for Easter. Keep reading!
Let’s talk about seasonality first
Seasonal peaks in traffic and eCPMs are opportunities for publishers to increase their revenue. That’s good news, right? But here is something even better: seasonality can be predicted. We can see how the pattern always repeats during the same weeks over years. Therefore we can plan our activity to get the most out of it.
Like we’ve just said, seasonality for publishers means higher CPMs and volume of traffic. So, opportunities come from two different directions: users and advertisers.
Users spend more time on the Internet during their holidays and they also research and buy presents online. The more searches, the more opportunities for your website to become visible and therefore, to see an increase in the number of visitors.
This is a good reason for advertisers to increase their budgets and make a bigger effort to promote their products and services. The more competition, the higher the CPM. So, it’s a great chance for publishers to grow their advertising revenues.
But how can publishers actually leverage Easter?
Prepare for Easter early
Here is the best tip you need: Start preparing your site as early as possible. But what does “preparing” mean exactly? Make sure your site is optimized and can stand really high traffic peaks. Also, work on seasonal and related content before the traffic and CPM increases actually happen.
Because seasonal opportunities depend on your audience almost entirely, knowing the specifics of every segment will help you plan your strategy better.
Is your site fully optimized?
In other words: can your site benefit from the traffic increase or that would actually be a problem? Remember that high CPMs also depend on higher traffic volumes, so making sure your site in top shape is absolutely necessary if you want to take advantage of seasonal revenues.
Here is what you should start checking before it’s too late and you find yourself looking for a hidden chocolate egg:
- Is your site attractive? If you want users to spend some time on your site and to keep coming back, make sure that: design is nice, navigation is easy and content is clear and engaging. UX is all that matters!
- Does it load fast enough? No one wants to waste their time waiting for a site to load, right? Don’t forget to double-check site speed on mobile too. This is particularly important as the number of mobile users keeps growing.
- Is it mobile optimized? Since we are already talking about the speed of your site’s mobile version, let’s just check everything else, shall we? Just test your site on mobile to evaluate user experience across devices. Make sure to deliver a great one on mobile too.
- Does your content include relevant seasonal keywords? Some keyword searches spike on search engines during the holiday season. Have you identified them and included them in your content?
- Do you have a content strategy to bring more traffic to your site? Speaking about content… Partnering with other writers, journalists or creators and sharing each other’s content helps you increase reach. So does it to expand and intensify your social media activity.
Are you ready to benefit from increased CPMs?
An optimized website is a great first step, but there are still some other aspects you should take care of if you really want to meet and exceed advertisers’ expectations while increasing your revenue.
- Viewability: The higher the viewability, the easier it becomes for publishers to benefit from increased CPMs. In order to perform better here, Google recommends improving lazy loading and placing ads above-the-fold. Also, reducing passbacks.
- Blocked Ads: Reduce the number of blocked ads to avoid lowering competition for your inventory.
- Dynamic allocation: Some platforms offer dynamic allocation options that can maximize revenue without compromising delivery.
- Multi-size pricing: the logic here is pretty obvious, but it’s still worthwhile to remember it. Publishers can maximize CPMs by allowing different ad sizes to compete in the same slot.
Monitor and analyze results is as key to prepare for Easter
Making sure that you can track the activity correctly is a must if you want to evaluate your actions and strategy.
Sometimes we focus so intensely on doing things right, that we actually tend to believe that it is not necessary to take a close look at the data. But still, confirming what we already believe to know is as useful as finding out that there are still aspects that we can improve. It will definitely help you prepare for Easter!
Monitoring the activity and analyzing the results is part of the process too. Even if you are already seeing an increase in revenue, you will never know if that increase could be even higher without gaining a better understanding of data and analytics in general.
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How can publishers benefit from increased CPMs?
Improving their viewability, reducing blocked ads, allowing different ad sizes and creating a dynamic allocation can help publishers to increase their CPMs.
What can publishers do to prepare for Easter?
Some tactics include making your website more attractive, making sure it’s loading fast enough and optimized for mobile, use seasonal keywords and have a well-thought strategy.