Make a guess about what time of year mobile advertising revenue and mobile use overall grows substantially. Anyone that follows mobile advertising will say Christmas, and they will be right. The holiday season means thousands upon thousands of new smartphones and tablets are being activated, with children and adults alike itching to try out all of the apps that were not available to them before. Often, we see that it is during Christmastime that mobile marketers bring out their big guns, pumping out ad dollars to reach as many of those brand new smartphone owners as possible. More often than not, this is a successful tactic, as the ROI usually ends up being quite impressive.

Here is the question asked by Tapjoy, a mobile advertising and monetization company; what about the other holidays? We know that “the holidays” are the best time to advertise on mobile devices, but which holidays are we talking about in particular? The company recently took the concept of “the holidays” to another level, taking into account Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and the Chinese New Year.

According to our data, the holidays represent a major revenue opportunity for developers, regardless of the day of the week or how well you’re performing leading into the holiday. The developers on our network that participated in our last three holiday currency sale programs saw their revenue increase by as much as 50%, compared to the previous 7-day average.

The three holidays studied panned out like this, in terms of impact on average mobile app revenue;

• Christmas: 54 percent
• Chinese New Year: 44 percent
• Valentine’s Day: 34 percent

In Tapjoy’s study, it seems that although Valentine’s Day showed little impact in revenue, it was quite a successful time of year in other areas. “We tracked the results of a major retail brand that ran Valentine’s Day-focused advertisements on our network on iOS and Android. They saw increases in their click-through rate and conversion rate as Valentine’s Day approached.”

Around February 10^th, just a few days before Valentine’s Day when most shopping for the holiday tends to take place, Android’s conversion rates in their mobile apps saw a peak, more so than did iOS. As proof that it was because of the holiday, the company tells us that conversion rates immediately dropped following the holiday.

It appears that marketers have been paying close attention to the right holiday, but there are others that should receive special attention as well. When people think of consumers buying excessive amounts of product, they think Christmas. In retrospect however, the truth is that people spend a lot of money on multiple holidays. Because of this, people are constantly on their mobile devices looking at items and comparing prices, all the while they are noticing every ad that could give them an idea of what to get.

Written by Michael Levanduski

Michael Levanduski is a news reporter at Performance Marketing Insider. He’s been a writer at one level or another for the past 15+ years. He has three kids and lives in Grand Rapids, MI.

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