What goes up must come down: Ad budgets after the holidays

According to a source at Google, it is completely normal for ad budgets to be down at the beginning of the year. This January is just like every January. It is a time of the year when there is a predictable low point in the ad budget cycle. And that’s because everyone–consumers and advertisers–spent all their money over the holidays!

Marketers use up their budgets for ads on the big push between Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. By January the budgets are spent and demand is down for ad space. At the same time consumers are taking stock of the new year and limiting their spending and marketers know that.

Marfeel’s publishers and bloggers may notice a change as ad revenues in the industry go down momentarily in response to this slow moment of the year.

The good news is that this is totally normal. Revenue is expected to drive upwards after a few weeks.

This dip in ad revenue after the holiday season is followed by a steady climb through March with another dip around August before rising till the end of the year.

It is an established cycle.

The graphs below measure the value of advertising over the course of a year. The data is based on the ad network Marfeel uses. And the metric used is the eCPM, an industry standard which determines the relationship between the publisher’s earnings from ad revenue and the total number of impressions the publisher has given the advertiser.

 Figure 1. United States

Figure 2. Spain

One can see a clear pattern of a low point in the first quarter and a high point during the fourth quarter. The consumer and advertising frenzy of the holidays has to come down eventually. Unfortunately, publishers and bloggers may feel that slump in January.

Keep publishing great content. Engage your readers. Enjoy the process. And our premium advertising solution will deliver greater revenue just as soon as the post-holiday blues fade away!

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