Predictions for Christmas holidays

Anyone want to guess how xmas affects Adsense

[darkmage]

Hi All

Many people noticed an impact in the lead up to, during and after the US Thanksgiving holiday period.

Over the years I've seen a Christams decline in all traffic metrics that begins around December 22, bounces back a little about the 28th, then declines until about Jan 4.

With Christams and NY on the weekend, it may alter the impact.

That's on the traffic side, so how does everyone shape up with Adsense over the Xmas period. I can see it will be highly dependent on the site's overall theme.

Anyone want to take a punt? If so, don't forget to state the site category: eg technology, travel, finance etc.

[Sense_able]

My sector is homeowner help site

I had a little dip on 25th and 26th last year and then an increase of around 15% on the following days

[howiejs]

Every industry is different

Sites with "work" traffic will be down

many biz topics will be down

[europeforvisitors]

European leisure travel seems a bit slow (at least on my site), although it's been stronger in AdSense than on the affiliate side. I nearly always see a trough from late November through early December, with a gradual rise toward the end of the month. (Usually there's a big surge in traffic and revenues right after New Year's, but last year the surge began immediately after Christmas.)

[hunderdown]

I'm surprised at how well I'm doing this December compared to last year, pre-smart pricing. Last year, I didn't see big drop-offs except right at Christmas, but I was expecting one this year.

Not so far, knock on wood. I'm actually expecting a decent month, if the rest of it holds up.

[JuniorOptimizer]

So far December has been a great month. Probably overall traffic will go down as people travel around for the holidays, but this month is still looking excellent.

[creepychris]

Education sector: great up until the 20th and then crashes until Jan. 2nd.

[Broadway]

Health related: December traffic is off 15% from just November. I've looked for sources for the problem related to my hosting, having been hijacked, SERPs changes, etc... but can't detect a problem so it seems to be a naturally occurring event. I looked at my Adsense stats from last year and did not find this same dip. My Adsense CPM for December has taken a hard hit from November also.

[yosemite]

Creative hobby-related (often taught in schools, so there's an educational element there too): It has been down starting after the first week of December. It's not too terribly bad, just every day is the lowest side of normal. If it were any worse I'd start to get really depressed.

It was down around Thanksgiving, up after that, and now down again.

[Chad]

I'm seeing traffic down 15% for December but higher CPM is holding revenue up.

I'm just guessing that advertiser keyword bidding is a bit fiercer during the gift-buying season.

[icedowl]

Food related. Everything is up.

Based on traffic history from prior years before adding AdSense, it should continue to climb for the remainder of the month. Then a dip ought to occur after New Year's Day, but will likely have a higher average than prior to November as visitors tend to return throughout the year.

[darkmage]

So far, the traffic is right on track as last year. I see that some other posters are reporting slower traffic, but good Adsense.

In a few days I expect we'll see the "my CPM has dropped" threads. Although most times those threads seem to focus on EPC - remember it is earnings that count.

[taps]

Uhhh, it starts going down -- school holidays have started here in Germany. Traffic is dropping. I hope the CPM will rise a little.

Anyway: Happy Holidays anyone!

[topr8]

last year in the post xmas period i did well for adsense on giftware type pages ... i think this is because a lot of adwords buyers didn't stop their campaigns properly at xmas.

[europeforvisitors]

In a few days I expect we'll see the "my CPM has dropped" threads. Although most times those threads seem to focus on EPC - remember it is earnings that count.

For whatever reason, my CPM and EPC have been up quite a bit in the last week, although traffic and total revenues are down. I'm assuming that it's because this week's visitors to my travel-planning site are mostly people who have trips coming up in the near future, while the armchair or distant-future travelers are baking cookies or drinking eggnog.