During Q1, publishers experience a decrease in ad revenue due to several factors, such as advertisers bidding less after focusing on Q4 advertising, a potential drop in website traffic causing lower impression rates, and lower fill rates.

While every publisher does not experience a huge drop in revenue, Q1 is still a great time to make adjustments or major changes that you’ve had on hold. Analyze what’s causing a decrease in revenue (traffic, fill rates, CPMs, impressions, etc), and compare your numbers to previous years to also see if this is a normal trend for your website. There are some other ideas that publishers can do in Q1:

Adjust Floor Prices

Some publishers increase floor prices during Q4 to get the most out of the seasonal bump in revenue. However, that can hurt your ad inventory now that the holiday season is over. Lowering floor prices in Q1 can attract advertising bidders and help boost a lower fill rate.

Optimize Popular Pages

Make a list of your current most popular pages and spend time tweaking and optimizing them. Adjust layouts to increase your viewability rates. Faster page load times will keep visitors happy and on your pages longer. 

Create and Promote Content

If you’re seeing a drop in traffic, creating new content is always a great way to lure in visitors, both old and new. Updating and reviving popular pages brings them to the forefront of your visitors’ attention once again. Engage with your audience by using social media to promote both new and existing content.

Major Roll-outs and Experimentation

Do you have any major layout changes that have been on the back-burner? Are there new ad units you want to try out? Did you want to try out video ads or sticky ads? Q1 is a great time to experiment with, and test, any major changes to your website—lower revenue means less risk to try something new!

Benefit from the Slump!

While the slump in revenue is something no publisher looks forward to, it’s a normal reflection of seasonal advertising shifts. Publishers can make the most of Q1 by optimizing, experimenting, creating content, and making adjustments with the aim to boost traffic and revenue.

NitroPay is here to answer any questions or help you out with trying something new—simply reach out and let us know!