Estimating Revenue

[gocarshare]

Hi there, I am setting up a car sharing (ride sharing) website that will help share car journey. The website has plans to be truly international but it will focus initially on the UK market where I am based.

My questions is how much revenue can I expect to raise from affilate advertising say we were to have 100,000 unique visitors per month?

I know that this depends on a lot of different factors, I'll try and give you as much information as I can about how it would work.

The advertising would be targeted to relevant products and services, if people were travelling to an event we may have a link for ticketmaster.

Other examples of links would include car rental companies and train ticket agencies.

I will probably use the skimlinks.com service which provides a high quality link without detracting from the look and feel of the site.

Links would be used sparingly so as not to clutter up the website.

Any thought about estimates or resources I could use to help me form the estimate would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot,

Drummond

 

[gocarshare]

Folks, any ideas at all are hugely appreciated.

All the best,

Drummond

 

[Linda Buquet]

I'm sorry Drummond, I couldn't even begin to guess.

 

[gocarshare]

Thanks Linda, not to worry. Do you have any ideas for resources I could try to get an idea for average figures though?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Well average conversion rates are 2%. You need to find average clickthrough rates -
I don't know what that number is.

So then you would take total visitors X clickthrough rate X conversion rate X average commission.
I think that would get you pretty close to a guesstimate.

 

[gocarshare]

Thanks Linda. I had read that typical conversion rates were about 2% and that average commission is approximately $30 per thousand clicks (but obviously varies depending on the industry), I can't however find any information about click through rates, any figures either for specific industries or averages would be much appreciated.

Thanks again,

Drummond

 

[Linda Buquet]

Google gave me this:

The Latest Ad Click Count - eMarketer

Click-through rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Average Banner Click Through Rate? — Tech Crunchies – Internet Statistics and Numbers

 

[gocarshare]

Thanks Linda, your help is very much appreciated.

 

[gocarshare]

Sorry folks, I was just wondering if anyone has seen any other threads with regards to estimating revenue from affiliate advertising; I am really quite keen to find out a bit more information about it. Alternatively, recommendations for other websites that I should be checking out would be greatly appreciated too.

Thanks,

Drummond

 

[yanamk]

There is no way to give an estimate, because too many factors are involved. The only way to find out how much you are going to earn is to start working on the site, do seo, write articles and see which advertisement will do the trick. Affiliate marketing has a lot of trial and error in it.

Not that it is wrong to anticipate, however, you have to earn your first dollar first in order to climb higher Good luck!

 

[gocarshare]

Just out of interest how do companies write business plans and raise finance if there is no way of estimating the revenue?

 

[yanamk]

I don't think companies raise up within a day. It takes time, and during that time while you test your investments, make mistakes, recover and try to make the right decisions, the estimate revenue becomes clearer.

 

[harrysmith]

It all depends on your business expertise, policies and experience. You will never raise until you taste failure. Detailed study of your business growth/failure will help you to take right decisions.

 

[gocarshare]

Thanks guys. I am just trying to put together a business plan; affiliate advertising will be a very significant revenue stream for us so it seems foolish not to have a decent go at estimating it.

Drummond