The mistake: reading month-over-month and panicking

The mistake: reading month-over-month and panicking

The claim: "RPM dropped 18% from December to January — the network nerfed me."

The asterisk: every network drops in January. Q4 advertiser budgets reset, holiday demand evaporates, and the entire programmatic market exhales. This happens on all of them, every year.

🚩 Hidden variable: budget seasonality. The Dec→Jan cliff and the summer trough are calendar events, not network decisions.

The fix: compare year-over-year, same month, not month-over-month. January 2026 vs January 2025 tells you if your network is improving. December vs January just tells you the calendar still works.

Not saying the drop isn't real — saying blaming the network for the season is rigged.