Programmatic Advertising Seasonality: A Comprehensive Guide

Freaked out by your January ad revenue? You’re not alone, and you’re not doing anything wrong. Seasonality is a natural part of the advertising and marketing business, and understanding how budgets ebb and flow throughout the year can help digital publishers like you plan more confidently and avoid unnecessary stress.

Let’s break down what typically happens to ad revenue quarter by quarter.

How the Ad Industry Thinks About the Year

Most businesses divide the year into four quarters:

• Q1: January, February, March
• Q2: April, May, June
• Q3: July, August, September
• Q4: October, November, December

Advertisers plan budgets, launch campaigns, and evaluate performance around these cycles, taking into account the seasonality of market trends. Publishers feel the impact directly in CPMs, fill rates, and overall revenue.

Q1: The inevitable slump

The first quarter is almost always the toughest for publishers due to fewer active campaigns.

After the heavy spending of the holiday season, advertisers pull back to reassess performance, analyze results from Q4, and reset their strategies for the year ahead. Many brands are operating with brand-new annual budgets that haven’t been fully approved or unlocked yet, which leads to cautious spending and lower demand across programmatic advertising marketplaces.

January, in particular, can feel daunting. CPMs often drop, fill rates soften, and revenue declines sharply compared to December highs. But this slowdown is industry-wide and not necessarily a reflection of your site’s performance or your ad strategy.

What publishers can do in Q1:

• Focus on year-over-year comparisons instead of month-over-month drops
• Test new layouts, ad formats, or demand partners while traffic is steady but the stakes aren’t high
• Use the quieter period to clean up site performance, viewability, and UX issues

Think of Q1 as a reset to get you ready for the rest of the year.

Q2: Momentum builds

Things start to improve in Q2. By this point, advertisers have clearer performance benchmarks and begin using more of their budgets to hit mid-year goals. Budgets that were held back in Q1 begin flowing into the market as brands work toward mid-year goals and campaign launches.

Many advertisers are also reallocating leftover funds from previous quarters, which can lead to an increase in spend. CPMs tend to stabilize and gradually rise, and fill rates become more consistent.

June often stands out as a strong month, with higher demand and more consistent campaign activity as teams push to show progress before summer.

What publishers can do in Q2:

• Optimize floors and pricing as demand strengthens
• Prepare your strategy for the second half of the year

Q3: Steady-ish

Q3 can be a mixed bag. Early summer often brings a slight slowdown as users spend more time offline— traveling, vacationing, or simply enjoying the sun. Campaigns may pause or shift, especially in July, leading to softer demand in some verticals.

By late August and September, as the back to school season kicks in, users return to more regular routines, and advertisers come back with renewed urgency. Brands begin launching fall campaigns and ramping up spend in preparation for the critical end-of-year period.

What publishers can do in Q3:

• Avoid overreacting to short-term dips in early summer (remember it’s temporary!)
• Monitor performance closely by vertical and geography
• Optimize your content and build a solid content calendar based on your industry

Q4: Peak season

Q4 is typically always the best quarter. Holiday shopping, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and year-end budget deadlines all converge to drive aggressive ad spending. Advertisers are racing to capture consumer attention, and to spend remaining budgets before the year closes.

For most publishers, this is when CPMs and fill rates hit their highest levels of the year.

What publishers can do in Q4:

We’ve got a whole post covering how to take advantage of this period, but some things you should consider are:

• Using high-impact ad formats
• Using smart targeting to make sure your ads are relevant

Seasonality Varies by Publisher Vertical

It’s worthy noting that while these quarterly patterns apply across the ad industry, seasonality doesn’t look the same for everyone. How it shows up for your business depends a lot on the type of publisher you are.

For instance, Knowledge & Education publishers can usually depend on a predictable academic cycle. Advertiser interest typically accelerates around back-to-school, extending beyond K–12 into higher education as universities and education platforms compete for attention ahead of the new academic year. This late Q2 to Q3 surge is often followed by a quieter period earlier in the year, as budgets reset and long-term planning takes place. For these publishers, a slower Q1 is expected, and nothing to panic about.

For Video-gaming publishers, momentum typically builds around upcoming game releases and major industry moments, like late-summer showcases and events like Gamescom, which reignite audience interest and signal what’s coming next. Advertisers will align their spend with these moments, easing off in early summer before ramping up toward the end of Q3 and going full throttle into Q4. The result is a familiar pattern for gaming sites: steady or rising traffic paired with improving CPMs as anticipation turns into full-scale launch and holiday campaigns.

Examples like these are a good reminder that context matters. Knowing your vertical, and its natural rhythms, can make seasonal ups and downs feel a lot more manageable.

The Takeaway

Once you understand the rhythm of the ad market and your own industry niche, revenue fluctuations become easier to anticipate and plan for. Granted, the impact of AI overviews on publisher traffic introduces noise into month-to-month trends, particularly as referral patterns shift and search behavior evolves. These changes can make short-term dips feel more alarming than they actually are.  

The key is to evaluate performance year over year, not just month to month, and to build strategies that help you weather the slower periods.

So if January makes you nervous, take a breath. Q2 is just around the corner.

Still feel like you need a hand navigating seasonality or refining your ad strategy? Feel free to get in touch with our team. We’re happy to help.