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Multiplatform Publishing Strategy

How to Estimate Your Competitor’s Online Revenue

Have you ever wondered how your online revenue stacks up against your competitor’s?

Work in the dark no more. Estimating a competitor’s online revenue is easier than you think and requires only four easy-to-find figures:

Have you ever wondered how your online revenue stacks up against your competitor’s?

Work in the dark no more. Estimating a competitor’s online revenue is easier than you think and requires only four easy-to-find figures:

  • Average Monthly Visitors,
  • Page Views Per Visitor,
  • Revenue Per 1000 Impressions, and
  • Percent of Inventory sold.

Average Monthly Visitor counts are often discussed in the media by website publishers and are also available from several Internet marketing research services.

  • Compete is a free service that will reveal a website’s monthly unique visitor count, but only from traffic within the US.
  • Nielsen and other Internet marketing research services can find the figure, but will require payment.

Page Views Per Visitor is also available from Compete and Nielsen, and other similar services.

Revenue Per 1000 Impressions can be estimated by any publisher analyzing a direct competitor. The market’s rate should be relatively uniform, and your figure should be close to your competitor’s. This number should not be confused with the similar Revenue Per 1000 Ad Impressions figure.

Percent of Inventory Sold is the hardest number to estimate, but not impossible. Successful websites sell about 65 to 75 percent of their inventory. Be sure to include advertising inventory when calculating this figure. If a website has three advertisements, and two are above the fold, then the third on the bottom of the page is being seen by fewer people and is not maximizing advertising inventory.

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Now that you have the numbers, apply the math:

How does your monthly revenue compare to the estimate of your competitor’s? Hopefully yours towers over the competition, but if not, we at the Mequoda Group specialize in helping publishers create websites that attract users and make money. Check out our webinar Generating Website Revenue to learn how to make money with your publication in ways you never imagined.

By Don Nicholas

Founder & Executive Publisher

Don Nicholas serves as Executive Publisher for Food Gardening Network and GreenPrints. He is responsible for all creative, technical, and financial aspects of these multiplatform brands. As senior member of the editorial team, he provides structural guidance, sets standards, and coordinates activities with the technology and business teams. Don is an active gardener whose favorite crops include tomatoes, basil, blueberries, and corn. He and his wife Gail live and work in southern Massachusetts surrounded by forests, family farms, cranberry bogs, and nearby beaches. Don is also the Founder of Mequoda Systems, LLC, which operates and supports numerous online communities including I Like Crochet, I Like Knitting, and We Like Sewing.

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