Whether you’re navigating the London Tube or NYC Subway, you have to watch your step, especially during the hectic holiday shopping season. The same goes for managing your programmatic media spend.
CPMs for open exchange display inventory spiked over the last holiday season, with peaks leading up to Cyber Monday and Christmas Day. We forecast a similar trend this year, with even greater year-over-year CPMs.
Prices rise as advertisers compete harder for consumers’ finite attention, but declining ad requests during the holidays only exacerbate the imbalance between supply and demand. Consumers spend less time in front of desktops and laptops as they enjoy the season’s festivities, so targeting those who are accessible costs even more than if supply remained the same.
In light of this gap, we recommend:
- Coordinating with your media buyer to refine bids throughout each day to maximize efficiency (e.g., adjusting bids in minutes rather than hours)
- Monitoring sites where you advertise to validate the authenticity of traffic they receive
- Balancing spend between desktop and mobile and accounting for increased prices across inventory types (display, video, etc.) and buying scenarios (open exchange, private marketplace, etc.)
So keep your footing this season and get on board the right path to a successful year-end and start to 2016!
