Tips for optimizing your website revenue in Q4

It’s here again, the most festive season of the year for publishers - let’s say it out loud together, Q4. Jokes aside, it is no secret that the end of the year is a glorious time for publishers, where CPM numbers peak and revenue generally reaches the highest levels of all year. Despite the natural revenue boost Q4 brings along, there are always things you can do to ensure a maximized performance and revenue. In this blog post, we will share a few tips and tricks and how to make the most out of Q4. ‍

What makes Q4 so special?

We all know that the last quarter of the year is crucial for retailers, as a large amount of the yearly sales happens during the last three months of the entire year. This has been the case for decades already but in recent years it has become clear that it’s not only retailers who benefit from this end of the season, but website owners, publishers, and bloggers are also living the glory days this time of the year. Why is the end of the year so important for publishers and eCommerce? 

Many festive events take place during the end of the year, events that include celebrations and gifts, that naturally enhance the buying. We have more traditional events such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s, just to name a few. These have been celebrated for hundreds if not thousands of years. With the rapid technological development and the growing presence of social media, websites, and online shops, trends are hitting harder than ever, and people are enhanced to celebrate, and foremost, to spend their money on festivity after festivity. The pressure to take part in every occasion is so much higher than before, and the constant messaging to buy this or that, and the bombardment of new products, exclusive offers, and VIP deals are getting in the heads of consumers. New events that focus on buying things are aggressively in focus online, for example, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Singles Day, to drop a few names. These events also happen to stand for a large part of publishers’ Q4 success, as companies are spending huge amounts of money on advertising, to get their message and deal across the millions of others who are doing the same. This does not only increase the volume of ads being launched but also ramps up the CPM, as companies are willing to pay more than usual for their ads to show. ‍

How to optimize revenue in Q4?

As mentioned above, Q4 with all its festivities brings a natural boost to your website revenue, but you should not entirely rely on revenue just dropping in without having to make an effort. On the contrary, this is the time of the year you should make sure your site is spotless, and working flawlessly, as now you have the chance to cash in big time. No Cyber Monday in the world will boost your revenue if your ad units aren’t working properly and strategically thought through. It goes without saying that you need a well-functioning website, with relevant, seasonal content that drives traffic. Below, we share a few tips on how you can further optimize your website revenue in Q4.

Choose your ad placements wisely

Choosing your ad landscape is a crucial part of your website success, regardless of which quarter of the year you are in. However, around this time of the year you want to (maybe slightly more than normally) guarantee that your ad strategy actually works. There is no one size fits all solution when it comes to ads, you need to experiment with what works for your website and your audience. Don’t overfill your website with ad spots just because demand is high this time of year, you still need well-performing ads with a high-fill rate to succeed, but, now is also not the time to leave your site with any unmonetized ad space, as this means you are missing out on a lot of c.a.s.h. A good tip is also to have a look at which units performed best last season, and really focus on these.

Optimize price floors

Once you have chosen your ad strategy, it does not mean that you can sit back and relax and let your site do the gold mining for you. No no. Website monetization is constant analysis and adjustment. One thing you can play around with quite a lot is optimizing your price floors. A price floor is a fixed CPM rate and is the lowest possible price an ad can be sold for. In Q4, price floors tend to increase, since demand is a lot higher, meaning you can set a higher price floor for your ads than you normally do, and therefore earn more money just by adjusting the price floor.

Focus on mobile

We need to make this very clear, once and for all. Mobile is here to stay. More accurately, it seems like mobile is here to take over. By 2022 (yes that’s in a month and a half) 51% of ad spending will go to mobile. The prediction of what this number will be in just a few years is insane. With that said, if you want to succeed, you need to have a well-functioning mobile site with a monetization strategy in place for mobile.‍

Refresh your best performing content

This is a very ‘cheap trick’ to earn some bucks. All websites have certain content that performs better than the rest. Use this to your advantage, again and again. You should not let well-produced content go to waste, instead refresh the content on these pages and let it drive traffic for you repeatedly. Also, updating old content is a really good way to strengthen up your search engine game. The higher up in the SERP’s you manage to climb, the better.

Try direct deals

If your site has a huge traffic volume, and a sweet spot you could offer directly to advertisers, direct deals are a good way to earn some money by offering that premium ad spot to one partner only. This way you will get all the bucks, as no middlemen are in between claiming their part of the deal.

To sum things up

These last weeks of the year can be the best of the year. Make sure you have a well-working website, your traffic volumes are where you want them to be and a clear strategic plan for your website ads, and you will really get to enjoy this festive season with all its benefits. If you need any help with your website monetization strategy, don’t hesitate to drop a line at sales@kiosked.com and we are happy to help you get that extra uplift to your website revenue on this side of the year.