Given that the highest temperature ever recorded in London was just two weeks ago and we’re still a week away from the start of the Premier League season, it seems strange to already be thinking about the end of the year, however most publishers and advertisers will already have at least one eye on its final three months and their commercial strategy for this period.
But why is Q4 so important and what can publishers do to capitalise?
Most brands and agencies budget quarterly and then annually, meaning they are generally more cautious in their spending at the beginning of quarters and of the year as a whole. As such, there is more demand at the end of the year, meaning the price of advertising space is higher. This creates an upward trend in CPMs over the calendar year with small peaks at the end of each quarter.
Couple this trend with major commercial events like Black Friday and the Christmas market and you start to see why Q4 is so crucial.
To put this all into context, we see average CPMs in November more than 100% higher than in Q1. A sophisticated advertising set-up is crucial to realising this commercial opportunity and we are constantly working to optimise our owned properties and those of our partners in order to maximise CPMs.
An example of this is our advanced auction technology which puts a number of ad vendors into a real- time auction to drive up the price paid for each impression and increase the revenue the publisher takes home. We also run a range of bespoke solutions outside of standard display to maximise the returns we see from our inventory.
The importance of Q4 is no secret, however, and competition is fierce on both sides. Publishers will be desperate to market their sites and make the most of the high demand, so there are a few things we do to make our content as attractive as possible.
- Our editorial team work tirelessly to make their content as engaging as possible through a variety of innovative content strands, providing the news, analysis and opinion fans are looking for when they are looking for it.
- We have a range of Fan Engagement Tools such as MatchChat, a single sign-on commenting platform, SpeechKit, an automated audio-player for written content and StreamTime, a tailored video content widget.
- We’re constantly working on key metrics like viewability to ensure that our inventory is as attractive as possible to advertisers.
- Our commercial team package up and showcase our network to fans to brands and agencies, giving them the opportunity to reach our engaged audience of over 30 million fans, more crucial than ever in Q4.
Put simply, Q4 is the biggest time of year in the advertising industry, the time when website traffic will see the biggest returns. So, if they aren’t already, publishers should be preparing themselves to make the most of it.
To find out more about how Snack Media can help publishers optimise their content and increase their revenue in Q4 and beyond contact neil@snack-media.com.
