Summer is winding down. Fall brings a surge in content trends revolving around back-to-school preparations, last-minute getaways, and various outdoor pursuits. As we inch closer to the autumn season, August offers us a few more weeks of vacation before the curtain falls on summer, and on the horizon…Q4.
Depending on your geographical location, August still firmly resides within the summer months, resulting in trends like summer-themed cuisine, fashion, sales, outdoor activities, and decor. Publishers can improve traffic and revenue by tailoring their content to seasonal interests.
Content Marketing Strategies: Trends in CPM and Traffic
Adapex is working closely with our publishers to address the current industry-wide shifts in CPMs and traffic patterns. Departures from conventional trends in these aspects have posed significant challenges, particularly in terms of traffic loss.
There is uncertainty among publishers and content creators regarding the optimal focus for their content. The phasing out of cookies in browsers like Safari and Firefox, coupled with a notable shift of desktop users to mobile devices, alongside unfavorable economic factors, has contributed to lower-than-expected figures. Though research is showing that alternative identifiers are working.
In most years, August has typically outperformed July, marking the initial ascent towards the peak months of November and December. Each passing week tends to surpass the one before it in a steady progression.
It’s crucial to factor in your target audience when crafting content aligned with current trends. Ensure that your headlines resonate with their interests and needs. Leveraging AI-powered technologies can help.
Late Summer/Early Fall Content Creation
When generating trending content, always keep your target audience in mind and tailor your headlines to cater to their preferences and requirements. Remember, regardless of the trend’s popularity, if it doesn’t align with your audience, its performance will fall short.
While major U.S. holidays are absent in August, there are observances and other seasonal trends, notably back-to-school, seasonal sales, and Fall shopping. A few trending topics include:
- Back-to-school shopping
- Dorm room decoration tips
- Refreshing cocktails
- Transition from summer to fall wardrobes
- Last-minute road trips
- Creative back-to-school recipes
Strategizing for Success: Analyzing Past Performance to Shape Seasonal Content
A good starting point for plotting your content is to look at high-performing content from last year. You can do this in Google Analytics and identify URLs that did well, or not. Then without altering the URL, focus on incorporating fresh, valuable content, enhancing visuals, introducing videos, short-form videos, and updating the publication date.
- From the Sidebar go to Reports > Site Content > All Pages
- Set the date range in the upper right and corner
- Analyze by quarter or the entire year to identify any seasonality trends
- This report will show you which pages receive the most traffic with the following metrics
- Pageviews
- Unique Pageviews
- Average Time on Page
- Entrances
- Bounce Rate
- Percentage of Exits
- Page Value
- Analyze landing pages (the first page a user lands on when they come to your site) to find top pages and how they are converting
- Determine which topics and formats of your existing content perform the best on your website
- Update and refresh valuable content
Prepping for Q4: Boost Revenue in the Peak Spending Season
With Q4 around the corner, it’s a great time to optimize your site to drive revenue during this peak spending period and holiday season. Beyond refining your content strategy, ensuring your technological infrastructure is primed is essential. Leveraging your header bidder wrapper’s capabilities and exploring alternative identity solutions and data monetization can enhance ad revenue and user experience.
Recently, Adapex conducted a comprehensive study involving six identity solutions across 1000+ websites. The research consistently demonstrated that cookieless browsers yielded higher CPMs for users identified through alternative identity solutions.
We remain committed to closely monitoring and evaluating the performance of our identity and data solution, Magnify™. We aim to understand the most effective alternative identifiers and help our publishers navigate building their data refinery. And empower publishers to amplify their revenue all year long.
