10-15k monthly uniques, what can I earn from that?

[droople]

I am writing a business plan for my website, it's a vertical search provider.

I need an estimate of how much I will make, for the purposes of my cashflow projections and break even figure.

I plugged some of the current websites, within my niche, into Alexa.com, compete.com and Quantcast.com and saw that they averaged 10-15k uniques per month, as bad as they look, and not so web 2.0 as mine would be.

My question is: With such traffic figures how much could I charge for CPM or am I better off with Google Adsense?

Thank you

[NuBlue]

You won't be retiring any time soon with that traffic on a cost per click basis. If you are in a niche it is much better to approach other companies that target the same niche and sell advertising on a contract basis. e.g

"I get 500 visitors a day looking for your services and I can put you in front of them for £xxx per month"

Click throughs never generate much revenue unless you get serious traffic.

[fisicx]

10-15K per month is nothing. I get about the same on one site and earn about $10/month.

Inn any case, it's not going to be 10-15K per month, it could take you 2-3 years to build up a revenue generating flow.

[Interconnect IT]

Hmmm - some sites have hit a million uniques within a month, and with very little marketing.

But there are so many variables that until you actually try, you just don't know.

[fisicx]

Hmmm - some sites have hit a million uniques within a month, and with very little marketing.

But there are so many variables that until you actually try, you just don't know.

Sometimes a site gets a lucky break ands goes cosmic. There is no rhyme nor reason just luck of the draw.

Some of you may remember this from a few years back: http://www.skizzers.org/andy/lego.html. It went viral in a few days and knocker the server out. And it all began with a single blog post.

Droople could have the same luck but getting people to click on the adverts is a whole different ball game.

[holidays2crete]

I gave up with google adsense years ago and currently do very well with affiliates, its all about matching the right affiliate program to your choosen tareget market and getting the ads, search boxes and banners just right.

I cant retire on my website just yet, but Im within 2/3 years of being able to live off 1 website.

I put a little bit of my knowledge here (http://www.holidays2crete.com/affiliates.html) its aimed at the travel industry but the information is easily put to use on any website.

[AndyBlack]

One of my online stores get around 4,500 uniques per month and generates around £3,000 - £3,700 in sales each month.

As the guys above have said though, sometimes you can get sites that receive WAY more traffic than that and earn very little from it. It depends on your site and how well you can monetize it.

[domokun]

10-15K per month is nothing. I get about the same on one site and earn about $10/month.

Inn any case, it's not going to be 10-15K per month, it could take you 2-3 years to build up a revenue generating flow.

I too have a site that gets thousands of hits per day (especially 'round christmas time) but the traffic is not targetted and therefore monetization value is very low.

Im not saying this is the right way to go, but I think textlinkads.com or textlinkbrokers.com offer a tool whereby you put in your site and it tells you how much advertising space on it will cost.

Might be a better indicator?

[holidays2crete]

also someone mentioned adjug in a previous post where you can buy or sell your advertising space.

i signed up but have yet to use it.

[mattyk50]

Some of you may remember this from a few years back: http://www.skizzers.org/andy/lego.html. It went viral in a few days and knocker the server out. And it all began with a single blog post.

First time ive seen that! made me laugh! :D

[holidays2crete]

First time ive seen that! made me laugh! :D

i dont really get it - but loving the lego :)

[andymayhem]

haha fisicx, I love how R2 is wiring up a turbo button, I havent seen one of them in years, any1 know how they actually worked?

[chrisweb]

I can tend to get $10CPM to $50CPM for my sites. But that's done through using a lot of different advertisers, picking the right niche, and matching ads and affiliate offers to individual pages where necessary. All done without being intrusive to the reader.

If you were selling a product direct you could expect revenue to be even higher.

However a vertical search is very different to what I do so the approach might be very different, and may be more difficult to monetize.

With 15,000 visitors your not going to be making big money however you monetize it unless you get each member paying a subscription (which I imagine is unlikely).

So I suggest get your traffic numbers a lot higher before thinking to hard about monetization.