It’s that time of year again when businesses go into a state of chaos and consumers demolish physical and online stores worldwide in their compulsive shopping sprees. That’s right — the holiday season is upon us!
It’s no secret that B2C businesses benefit the most from the holiday consumer craze. After all, holiday spending has been growing steadily for years now. Experts predict it will grow this year too, despite the COVID-19 pandemic’s influence. In the U.S. alone, holiday spending is forecast to reach $207 billion in 2021 — those are some astonishing numbers!
Luckily, consumer-oriented businesses aren’t the only ones who can cash in on this trend. Publishers can also use the festive season to increase their ad revenue. The reason is simple.
Around 80% of holiday shoppers search for products and gift ideas online before purchasing, and advertisers know that. That means they’ll be spending much more on ads at this time of year. There are ways publishers can capitalize on this knowledge to boost their bottom lines and enter 2022 on the right foot.
3 Ways Publishers Can Boost Ad Revenue This Holiday Season
Here are three useful tactics publishers can employ to increase their ad revenue this holiday season:
1. Capitalize on Big Seasonal Spenders
Specific industries are particularly hot during winter holidays as the demand for certain products skyrockets. This seasonality is most evident with B2C businesses, as most of them earn 50% of their annual revenue in Q4. In contrast, B2B marketers see a drop in traffic and sales during this period.
That means B2C businesses will invest a lot in holiday advertising, while B2B will likely reduce their ad spend. Publishers can use this to their advantage when planning their advertising strategy during the holidays. Focusing on consumer-grade products in your ads in November and December is an excellent way to boost your advertising effectiveness and revenue.
The niches that are particularly in demand during the holiday season are:
- Food & Beverages — The Christmas and Thanksgiving season is the time of year when many families gather and make large feasts, so food and drinks will be highly sought-after. Focusing on advertising these types of products is a surefire way to boost ad yield around those events.
- Computer & Electronics — This niche gets particularly popular around Black Friday. This holiday is the prime time for your average Joe to shop for otherwise expensive appliances and gadgets due to the high discounts.
- Retail — When Santa comes to town, everyone and their mother will be looking for all sorts of gifts, so retail products shine the brightest in mid-to-late December.
If you have a website suitable for advertisers in one of these niches, you can turn it into a gold mine during the holiday season. But even if you don’t, there’s still a way to capitalize on this seasonality…
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2. Create Holiday-Themed Content to Attract Advertisers
If you don’t have any content suitable for advertisers during the holiday season, you can always make some. Regardless of your website’s niche, there are bound to be some holiday-related topics you could cover to attract advertisers. Here are a few content ideas most websites can implement:
- Holiday-themed product reviews
- How-to guides on holiday-related themes
- Tips and tricks for the holidays
- Holiday gift ideas (e.g., swag boxes or high-end promotional products)
- Articles on popular holiday destinations
- And more…
Another thing to keep in mind is to tailor this content to the right audience. The people who spend the most during the holiday season are younger and middle-aged folks, so it’s best to adapt your voice to suit this demographic.
One last piece of advice we have is to be proactive, not reactive. That means you should think ahead and create this content on time. The best scenario would be to have it prepared a month or two early. Why? Because seasonal content becomes and stops being relevant in a blink of an eye. Even a single day counts, which is why you should always have everything ready ahead of time. Considering how volatile holiday content is, being the first to the race can make or break its visibility.
3. Identify Opportunities for Direct Deals
The last and likely the most effective tactic perfectly complements the previous one. The holiday season is the best time to engage in direct deal advertising. Getting into direct-sold advertising is challenging, but it brings some of the most lucrative deals publishers can find on the market.
Depending on your site’s content, you may have a harder or easier time finding opportunities for these deals. If your website operates in one of the trending niches during the holiday season, you should have no issues attracting prospects.
For instance, if you have a website that reviews sports gear and clothing, advertisers like Addidas, Reebok, and similar would probably love to strike a custom deal with you. Allowing Reebok to have exclusive rights to advertise on your article titled “Best Sneakers to Buy This Christmas” would be like striking a jackpot for the advertiser.
How can you look for direct deal opportunities? Go through your website’s pages and look for content that could appeal to advertisers from the niches with the biggest seasonalities we mentioned in our first tip. And even if you don’t find any, you can always create some!
Direct-sold advertising works for all types of ads, including video. So even if your website predominantly consists of videos, you’ll still have lots of ad inventory to sell to big brands. Just imagine how profitable having an ad like this Coca-Cola commercial show up on one of your videos would be!
Final Thoughts
The keys to maximizing ad revenue during the holidays lie in capitalizing on seasonal commercial trends, creating holiday-themed and niche-specific content to attract the most lucrative advertising partners, and leveraging the power of direct-sold deals. If you implement these three tips successfully, you’re sure to see your ad revenue go through the roof.
We hope these tips help publishers better navigate the holiday advertising landscape and enter 2022 with a smile on their faces.
Merry Christmas, and happy holidays to you all.
