Forecasting Online Traffic and Ad Revenue

[delstra]

Has anyone come across any advice or tools for forecasting online traffic and advertising revenue, for business planning purposes? Does teneric's sample internet business plan have any useful tips?

[peterjhale]

Hi and welcome - what elements do you need to forecast
Is it just a simple visitors x CTR x PPC = revenue ?
Let us know a few more details

[delstra]

That would do for a start I guess. My problem is that I am trying to produce a forecast for a yet to be developed website. Like anyone doing this, I believe or at least hope it will attract huge traffic - but how do I back this up without using finger in the air estimates?

[peterjhale]

yes, that's tricky for all new businesses.
If you know your market and competitors you should be able to do better than finger in the air
eg: PPC bidding on a term, you'll know how many visitors you'll get/ targeting a term on SEO you'll know roughly how many you'll get
etc
Build it up from there

[delstra]

Thanks - it does seem a good place to start