To understand why RPM reliably drops by 40-60% in January and July (sometimes more depending on the variables of your traffic!), we first need to understand RPM.

When RPM increases or decreases for any reason, you have to dig into the specifics of both revenue and traffic.

Revenue is the focus in January and July though, because it's revenue that changes industry-wide.

The money you earn from display ads is simply:
​CPM * Impressions / 1000 = Your Ad Revenue

Basically, it's how much advertisers are spending X how many ad impressions you serve.

When RPM drops in January and July, that drop is based on how much advertisers are spending, as well as how many ad impressions you are serving.

Lower revenue (because spend is lower and fewer impressions are served) is being divided by your traffic.

Here's why spend is lower: Advertisers plan how they are going to spend in advance.
They know they'll spend more in late November and early December because CONSUMERS SPEND MORE in late November and early December. When more people are buying, brands advertise more things to sell.

Advertisers also have to plan their budgets based on a fiscal year. Similar to how you might map out a budget for your own business and decide how and where you'll get the most return on your efforts (hiring a virtual assistant, the tasks you delegate, etc), advertisers map out their marketing budget for the year, in advance.

For many their fiscal year starts in January and ends in December.
​For others the fiscal year starts in July and ends in June.

There's always a little bit of wiggle room for adjusting, but overall, budgets are divided up quarterly, and then month by month from there. Holidays and seasons are accounted for, as well as things like new product launches or lines of merchandise.

Since we know January and July both fall at the beginning of the fiscal year, we also know that they are both effectively just 1/12 of what advertisers plan on spending.
​They always spend less at the beginning.

That lower spend is reflected in lower CPMs in early Q1 and early Q3.

Yep. It is both. You'll see lower impressions reflected in a lower fill rate in January and July. Not only is spend lower per 1000 impressions, but advertisers buy fewer impressions overall.

Basically, because there are still 11 more months of things to spend on, spend is more conservative in month 1. That means lower CPMs and fewer impressions.

We know this can feel a little bit frustrating, but even when you have millions of sessions per month, that is just a small fraction of the traffic that advertisers have to spend on, especially when you are accounting for a whole year. Even when you write about popular January things (like fitness or health foods or travel), and brands are looking to spend on readers that are consuming that sort of content, it's not enough to make up for all of the other brands that are holding back.

Remember that advertisers are looking to spend on your READERS.
Keywords and content are just a part of what makes a reader their target demographic.

So now you know WHY RPM is lower, and you know that you can't personally influence how national brands are going to spend. But that doesn't mean you should just throw up your hands. There are always action items.

5. Send out a newsletter (or several!) sharing Top Posts (from the first 2 pages of results) that had a high fill rate last year as well as a higher CPM. Those are articles that attracted readers that advertisers found valuable at this time last year. Use that to your advantage. Need to put this on autopilot? Set up Automailer.

And most of all, be patient. As the month rolls on, budgets increase which means revenue will go up, and so will RPM.