As most publishers know, advertising revenue fluctuates throughout the year. It’s a predictable pattern—some quarters boost ad earnings, while others, like the start of the year or the summer months, see a slowdown. In ad tech, this can be seen in an eCPM Seasonality.
The ideal time to optimize your ad monetization is before peak season arrives in November and early December. This lets publishers take advantage of the outsized demand from advertisers during the end of year shopping season that drives CPMs through the roof. The stars are aligning for the advertising world in Q4 2024, and publishers should seize the opportunity. In this post we’ll provide tips and tricks to ensure publishers maximize their Q4 ad revenue. Let’s get into it!
Why It’s Best to Improve Your Ad Setup Before Q4
There’s a few key events in Q4 2024 that will result in peak demand from advertisers:
U.S. Presidential Election (November 5, 2024)
U.S. political ad spending has reached record levels this year, potentially hitting $12 billion by election day—a nearly 30% increase from the 2020 election. While linear TV, or traditional TV, remains the top choice for campaigners, digital channels are increasingly important because they allow for targeting specific voter groups. PACs (Political Action Committees, advocacy groups, and related organizations will also invest heavily in digital advertising to sway voters. Emarketer found that digital ad spending will make up 28.1% of all political spending in 2024, compared to 14.1% in 2020. Most of this digital ad spend will go towards programmatic formats.
Impact: Political advertisers are likely to snatch up a significant amount of ad inventory, limiting the availability for other advertisers and driving up prices. Non-political advertisers will have to pay more to serve their ads, which means higher CPMs and ad revenue for publishers.
Duration: The impact will intensify as the election date approaches, with a peak in late October and early November.
Black Friday (November 29, 2024)
Originally a U.S. tradition, Black Friday has evolved into a global event that impacts shopping habits and marketing strategies worldwide. It was once synonymous with long queues outside of storefronts and shoppers battling for the last discounted TV. But now, Black Friday has increasingly become a digital phenomenon. More retailers offer digital deals alongside their in-store promotions, making it easier than ever to participate in it. Despite challenges such as inflation and growing concerns about the environmental impact of consumerism, Black Friday remains a highly anticipated event for shoppers and retailers alike.
Impact: To keep up with the increasing demand, retailers and e-commerce brands are increasing their ad spending, especially in programmatic advertising campaigns. Programmatic lets brands deliver tailored ads to users, helping them target specific consumer segments more effectively.
As brands compete for consumer attention through various campaigns, the value of digital ad space rises, driving up costs. Advertisers are willing to allocate a significant portion of their budget to pay top dollar for premium ad placements to make sure their products reach as many potential buyers as possible. The result for publishers? Higher CPMs and ad revenue.
Duration: The effect on CPMs will be especially strong in the weeks leading up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, typically starting in early November and peaking during the Thanksgiving week.
6 Ways Publishers Can Increase Ad Revenue in Q4
To take advantage of these profitable events and maximize your ad revenue and user engagement, consider the following strategies:
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Raise Floor Prices: Raising your floor prices encourages advertisers to bid higher. When you set higher floor prices, it sets a minimum price that advertisers must meet or exceed to compete for ad placements, driving up the overall bidding competition. An AI-powered pricing tool can automatically adjust your floor prices as market demand grows.
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Temporarily Use High-Impact Ad Formats: Incorporate interstitial ads, video ads, and sticky ads to increase viewability for the 2-4 week peak earnings season. Because they’re designed to capture user attention more effectively, using these formats in peak season can lead to a revenue increase of 50% or more.
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Publish Seasonal Content: Creating and promoting content that aligns with holiday shopping trends and events, like Black Friday, can significantly boost your website's traffic and engagement. More visitors makes your site more attractive to advertisers, who are willing to pay more to reach these engaged users and improve their clickthrough rates. For example, if your site specializes in tech recommendations, you could write an article on 2024 gift ideas for tech enthusiasts and strategically consider ad placement for maximized revenue.
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Add More Premium Advertising Partners: Now is the perfect time to test new advertising partners (SSPs). A Bidder Optimization solution can automatically test partners and match them to the right user GEO, device and ad unit. Introducing additional partners lets you tap into a better range of demand sources, increasing competition for your ad inventory and driving up CPMs.
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Improve Your Core Web Vitals: Enhance your site’s performance by running it through Google’s Lighthouse. This tool evaluates various aspects of your site’s performance like page speed, interactivity, and overall user experience, giving you insights on how to improve these areas. By optimizing your core web vitals, like focusing on faster page load times, you can help ads load more quickly and efficiently.
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Consent Wall For European Traffic: If you have European traffic, a Consent Wall is necessary for GDPR compliance. It builds trust with users and leads to high user consent rates, which can maximize your revenue.
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Check Your Block Lists: Make sure you’re comfortable with the ad categories your monetization solution is blocking to balance revenue and user experience.
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Get A Free Audit: Get in touch with us to get a free audit of your ad setup. Find out how Snigel can maximise your ad revenue in Q4 2024.
Switch to Expert Ad Management
If you follow these tips, we’re confident that you’ll make the most of Q4’s lucrative opportunities. But, we also understand that implementing these strategies takes a lot of time and resources. The good news is that if you’re with Snigel, your Ad Operations specialist will already be applying these strategies and more to your site. If you’re not currently working with Snigel and you're looking to maximise your Q4 ad revenue get in touch with us. Our dedicated adtech specialists can get your site set up quickly and efficiently, ensuring you're fully prepared to capitalize on the holiday season's increased ad spend. Here's what we offer:
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Tailored Strategy: We'll analyze your site's unique traffic patterns and content to create a customized ad optimization plan.
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Cutting-Edge Technology: Our proprietary ad tech stack ensures you're always using the latest innovations in programmatic advertising such as AI price floors and contextual targeting.
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Expert Team: Our experienced Ad Operations specialists will manage your account hands-on, continuously fine-tuning your setup for maximum performance.
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Transparent Reporting: Get real-time insights into your ad performance with our comprehensive analytics dashboard.
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Revenue Optimization: We use advanced machine learning algorithms to maximize your eCPM and fill rates, boosting your overall ad revenue.
Don't miss out on the Q4 revenue surge. Contact Snigel for a free consultation and site health check. Let us show you how we can elevate your ad game and significantly increase your earnings this holiday season and beyond.
Elysée is Snigel's Marketing Executive. She keeps our team up-to-date by researching and writing about the latest AdTech trends and creates our publisher newsletter. With a background in academia, Ely is passionate about making complex industry topics clear and engaging for readers.
