The Mercury Retrograde is a natural phenomenon that sometimes scares even the biggest skeptics. It’s on everybody’s lips — all these financial problems, broken cars and phones, wrecked meetings… And all the other issues people face due to a small planet traveling backward.
No wonder you may think Mercury is to blame when your CPM or profit goes lower. But is that true?
We at PropellerAds, did some special astrological research to see if it’s safe to run your campaigns during the Mercury Retrograde dates.
Disclaimer: Treat this article humorously, and don’t take our conclusions too seriously: we suppose that astrology is a pseudo-science, after all, so the point of this piece is to have Halloween fun – and show you some real stats, meanwhile.
Mercury Retrograde 2022: Crazy September
In 2022, Mercury has a whopping FOUR retrograde periods — and we have successfully survived three of them so far.
While the trail is still hot, we decided to look at the stats of our publishers for the latest Mercury Retrograde dates: 09 September 2022 — 02 October 2022.
And, to be more helpful and specific, we decided to analyze if some website types are better protected from the Universe’s moods… or not.
News Websites: When Retrograde Becomes Profitable
If you run a news platform, you most likely don’t need to worry about anything but probably some extra monetization. Just check out our top publisher stats.
Mercury Retrograde Stats:
Does it look like some financial disaster was threatening this publisher? Obviously, not.
And you know what? The previous month was even less profitable for this pub: so, Retrograde is not a synonym for the ‘low-performing’, when you have a news website:
Stats before the Mercury Retrograde:
Social Traffic: A Narrow Escape
Social traffic CPMs weren’t bad at all. Well, in fact, they were perfect — just look at one of our top pub’s stats.
Mercury Retrograde Stats:
So, these users, who generated more than 800k impressions, probably suffered from some trouble, but our pub definitely did not.
Yes, the CPM went a bit lower than before the Mercury went retrograde… but does it make much difference compared to the financial disasters astrologers predicted for this period?
And, after all, this pub might have Sun in Libra — it always causes some money mishaps, you know.
Stats before the Mercury Retrograde:
By the way, we have a great case study on Facebook traffic
Sports Websites: Mercury is On Your Side
Was it really Retrograde? It seems this pub knows some anti-Mercury protection.
Maro Chalntoupi, Communications Manager at PropellerAds: The profit is really good… even unrealistic! But yeah, it’s real.
Mercury Retrograde Stats:
What is more, the CPM went much higher for this website as soon as Mercury turned its back to us. Astrologers say Mercury Retrograde is the perfect time for any sports deals — probably, they are right?
Stats before the Mercury Retrograde:
Anime Websites: Mercury Goes Backwards, You Go Forward
Why risk and go out when the planets are not at their places?
Maybe this is what anime sites users thought – and brought a great profit, with a good CPM rate, that hasn’t changed much since August, in fact.
Mercury Retrograde Stats:
Still, the site used to generate more impressions before the beginning of September. Not that the difference is dramatic — but it seems like Mercury took away a portion of users.
Stats before the Mercury Retrograde:
So, what’s the conclusion? It seems like Mercury Retrograde is not a big issue for monetizing websites…
…or probably all this planetary stuff is not the real deal at all?
Maro Chalntoupi: In fact, we were not fully serious — Mercury Retrograde can’t really affect your profit… trust us! To learn what can REALLY make your CPM fluctuate, read this one:
And, as soon as you are ready —
