2008 Christmas Holiday Adsense Earnings

[StoutFiles]

My impressions always drop dramatically over the holidays...how does everyone else do over the holiday season? Up or down?

I target the 13-30 crowd.

[HuhuFruFru]

the days from december 23rd to january 2nd are always the worst days in the whole year. traffic drop about 60%!

[ken_b]

The holidays themselves have been generally good for me, typically some of my better days.

[dataguy]

I operate a large writers community site which has over 400 categories of topics, so I think it's pretty diverse and doesn't rely on any one niche. I try not to look at the stats over the holidays or I'll feel on edge the whole time.

We actually started losing traffic about 10 days ago so I'm really on edge... down about 35% yesterday from the norm. Usually it's down 35% on Christmas day and starts to go up from there.

[jmccormac]

Typically the few days just before Christmas are among the lowest earning days of the year. It tends to pick up afterwards.

Regards...jmcc

[mixart]

I prepared this year by creating content focused on the Christmas season starting about a month ago. It's helped - with a much higher CTR, however the cost I'm getting per click is quite low, probably due to the saturated christmas advertising market.

I also have a high number of teens on my site who are most active while on vacation so that's always held me through times when advertisers are slowing their campaigns - kinda evens out for me anyway.

[JonSimmonds]

Traffic at similar levels, earnings way down, regular adverts not visible on my sites so I assume advertisers have pressed the stop button for a few days.

[indias next no1]

from yesterday the traffic is down

[honestman]

CTR and earnings way down, but who wants to be the Grinch on xMas eve?

Any Christian (including myself) who spends more than a minute on the Internet during the holidays probably deserves low earnings. Period.

The long-term trend is what is more of concern, but back to getting (more) drunk.

[Green_Grass]

Horrible earnings.. :-( Want to howl in pain.. eeeeeeeah..

Anyways.. Happy Holidays.. Merry X Mas.

Best Wishes.

[alephh]

Tiny decrease in traffic between mid Dec - early/mid Jan.

Major decrease in traffic/CPC dec 23-25.

[jetteroheller]

Compared to monthly average of December until now, December 24th only 17% below average.

Here the 24th December compared with monthly average from December

December 2008: 17% below average
December 2007: 42% below average
December 2006: 25% below average

Sunday and holyday bring a higher CTR and so higher eCPM

[OutdoorWebcams]

The last seven days of the year (Dec 25th - Dec 31st) have always been the best week of the year.

Even after only a few hours of data this seems to hold true this year also.

[HuskyPup]

OutdoorWebcams - In general terms what sector are you in that has its best week at this time of year?

Electronic sale clearance disposal?

[jetteroheller]

OutdoorWebcams - In general terms what sector are you in that has its best week at this time of year?

Read his name: outdoor webcams.

Therefore, when people planning their holiday trips, they need the webcams for real weather information.

[HuskyPup]

Read his name: outdoor webcams.

Hmmm...but this time of year is not the busiest for holidays, maybe a lot of travelling, why just one week at the end of December?

Call me old fashioned but do people actually use those cams? I've just done a search for them and that has to be one of the most boring things I have ever done.

YMMV!

[OutdoorWebcams]

Call me old fashioned but do people actually use those cams? I've just done a search for them and that has to be one of the most boring things I have ever done.

Yes, they do - at least in Euroue.

[signor_john]

I've just done a search for them and that has to be one of the most boring things I have ever done.

To people who are about to depart on trips to places where weather can be iffy, there's nothing boring about outdoor Webcams.

Mind you, I wonder if those Webcam viewers are ready to click on AdSense ads and buy things, unless the ads are for overnight delivery of waterproof boots or tire chains.

[johnnie]

-50% here. Nothing unexpected, since my site targets family people.

[jetteroheller]

but this time of year is not the busiest for holidays

Draw a circle 1000 km around the alps.
All this people like to go skiing in the alps.

The christmas holydays usual until January 7th are a major traveling time.

The start of the summer holidays are distributed over several weeks. But the christmas holidays start all at the same time.

I think his cam views are surrounded with offers from hotels.
Most hotels are after January 7th nearly empty, so to have the hotel complete filled in the christmas holidays is extem important. Maybe he has in this time even a higher EPC

[OutdoorWebcams]

Mind you, I wonder if those Webcam viewers are ready to click on AdSense ads and buy things, unless the ads are for overnight delivery of waterproof boots or tire chains.

It's more like 'have a look before you book': I also offer affiliate hotel bookings - not as prominent as AdSense, but even those earn me decent money.

[jetteroheller]

Great holidays here. My earnings in % of December average

24: 83%
25: 107%

[nickreynolds]

The way I look at it, if I'm on holiday, then anything my site earns is a bonus.
Mixart - even my teens oriented site is busier during the school term than in the holidays !

[HuskyPup]

Draw a circle 1000 km around the alps.

Right, so were referring to a very focussed group of people with a specific activity, not simply general webcams?

Then that I understand:-)

On another note...Xmas Day earnings!

I was not expecting much and I didn't get it...my lowest single earning day since December 25th 2004.

A few interesting comparisons to that specific day:

1. I was not site wide across all domains at that time, only selected sites and pages.

2. Page Impressions were 406% more yesterday.

3. Clicks were almost identical.

4. CTR 77.34% less.

5. eCPM 73.64% less.

6. EPC 16.02% higher.

Ho hum...ok, I know there's nothing much we can read into the above other than saying yesterday's earnings were half of Xmas Day 2007, 2006, 2005...yep, the world's economies are looking a little fragile right now to say the very least!

Did your metrics look similar?

It will be interesting to see if the usual bounce occurs this year however I have a horrible feeling it won't.

[piatkow]

Chrismas Day (UK) - CTR 0%

As most people wouldn't even ship an order until the New Year now I don't expect much traffic until after the weekend.

[ken_b]

Christmas day was the second best day of this (Dec 2008) month for me so far.

Pretty much normal.

[greatstart]

Best day of Dec. 2008, but earnings only 54% from last Dec 25th.

[OnlyToday]

Christmas eve and Christmas day both very bad, entire year down 40% from last. Today is shaping up to be a bust. 2009 may be my last year in this business. I'll just leave the site up while it pays for its own bandwidth but it won't pay for my time, so I will finally find out the real shelf-life of my content. Maybe I'l shuffle it a bit now and then for the gbot.

[signor_john]

My Dec 24-25 impressions were down 19.5 percent from the same two days last year. Average EPC was up about 20 percent, though, so the news wasn't all bad.

This is my slow time of year, so the real test will be what happens in 1Q and 2Q 2009.

[maximillianos]

I pretty much right off the last week of the year for holidays, vacations, family time, travel... People are (thankfully) living their lives offline for the most part.

We can give them one week a year... ;-)