First of all, a very Happy New Year from all of us here at Blockthrough! We hope you enjoyed your holidays.
For web publishers, January typically comes with a sharp decline in CPMs due to seasonal drop in ad spend. While it’s hard to fully counteract the January Slump, we’ve put together a guide on some tactics smart publishers use at this time to mitigate their losses.
In another feature, we asked four senior ad tech industry leaders—Paul Bannister from CafeMedia, Chris Quinn from Kijiji, Andy Atherton from Healthline Media, and Chris Krischnig from Snigel—about what they’re focusing on going into 2021. Their collective response, perhaps unsurprisingly… was identity. It’s a word we all heard a lot in 2020 and will probably continue to hear this year.
Finally, don’t miss our explainer on Google’s Core Web Vitals update. In May this year, Google will update its search algorithm to reward webpages that score well on “Core Web Vitals"—a set of metrics that Google thinks predict good user experience. By understanding, measuring, and improving their Core Web Vital scores before the update, publishers can ensure that they don’t suffer any nasty surprises in the form of search engine penalties.
We hope you enjoy this issue. If you have any feedback about this newsletter, just hit reply and send me your thoughts!