Poll: What is your pre-tax net profit for fiscal year 2003-2004?

[MarkJH]

Originally posted by Martin64
Does it really have to be clarified? I'm sure you, me and even Mr. T knows we're talking in US dollars.

Doesn't mean it shouldn't be clarified. Surely there are a few members who don't generate their income - or at least the majority of it - from the States. Hey, just tying up some loose ends!

Anyway, off now to spend my Turkish Lira down the pub.

[Czar]

Very good point. I have edited the original post to clarify that we're talking about $US, not $AUD, not Euros, not Yen, not Yuan, not Turkish Lira, not Afghanis and not Argentinian Pesos.

Those working in alternative currencies should convert at the approximate exchange rate in place at the end of your last financial year.


I pity the fool who can't convert currency. </ Mr. T >

[coolbuddy]

A poll on internet traffic growth on the same lines will be also pretty intersting.

[Eriky]

Althought it's in euro's, i voted the 5 digits. I'm getting a slightly above average income from my sites and web hosting business. The decreasing value of the dollar is not doing much good for me, so I'm spending more time now on my 'euro'-business which is web hosting in my own country, the Netherlands. I don't see the dollar increasing in the near future, the US is certainly not something I want to rely on for my future income

[coolbuddy]

Eriky!!!smart chap.
I wish I could do the same.But if USA sneezes all net business should be effected even if u r targeting Euro zone.

[Czar]

Originally posted by coolbuddy
I wish I could do the same.

You can. If you're living in the USA, you can take advantage of currency fluctuations as much as anyone. If you were to partner with a European ad rep that pays its publishers in Euros, you would automatically be presented with some freedom in terms of timing your deposits, weighing your national expenditures, etc.

Like Eriky, I've increased resource expentiture in Australian and other non-US markets since the $USD began its value tumble and will likely reverse that balance as the greenback eventually strengthens against the Euro and $AUD, which may start to take place after the next election is decided.

Adopting this strategy simply gives you another opportunity to play the margin game and to subsequently increase your net effective earnings without necessarily increasing your traffic, reach or gross marketing expenditure.

[brian 2468]

Great to see folks are shaking the dollars out of their sites...................

[wsz]

The currency exchange rate makes a huge difference for some of us. This past year has been like running faster just to stay in place.

Compared to a couple of years ago:

I have more and better content, reputation, visitor loyalty, and personal know-how. That results in more dollars from both CPM and CPA.

Unfortunately, those dollars are American, and have become much smaller vs. my local currency. It now takes more US$ to support myself then it did in, say, 2001. If I had my current US$ income plus the old exchange rates, I would be rockin'

This is why I am starting to work more towards non-US content, traffic, sponsors, and currencies, especially since I don't have much confidence in a US$/US- Economy recovery in the next four years or so.

[JP Sauve]

Yes, the exchange rate is making a HUGE difference. I used to get up to $1.55 CDN for every $1.00 US. Now it's more like $1.15. CDN. The 40 cent difference is very substantial, and seems to be getting worse. This is sadly real money that's lost and effecting the bottom line.

Want an example to see the difference? If we pull in $25K US in a month, it used to work out to $39,000 CDN. Now with the lower exchange it's more like $29,000 CDN. That's a $10,000 difference EVERY MONTH.

...that difference is $120,000 CDN missing over the year! To put it in perspective, that's enough cash to pay for a fair sized mortgage for a year, take the family on a big vacation, and come home to buy yourself a BMW... gone.

What really pees in the wound is that if we bust our chops to boost traffic/revenue by say 20% (which is nice growth), we still end up making less than we did a year ago because of exchange rate.

Yeah, the current exchange rate hurts.

[Blubster]

Can't agree more... when I started working as a publisher, $1.00 CPM meant 1.16 Euros CPM. Now $1.00 CPM means 0.75 Euros CPM.

Basically you have to increase revenues by 55% just to avoid the currency changes.

[Eriky]

I'm trying to increase my dollar income as much as I can to compensate for the low dollar too. I decided not to keep my dollars on some dollar account but try to clear my cheques/paypal account as soon as i can everytime. One day, hopefully, the dollar will go up again.. and then I can party

By that time I should have increased my euro income as well. Bad economics are really stimulating businesses to cut in their costs, so it would be very wise for all of us to do that now and profit from it when things go better. For example, I'm dumping one of my servers, I'm streamlining my payments from customers, etc.

[coolbuddy]

whtever way u manage your dollar payments,u will be affected by dollar movements and bursting USA economy in next 4 years because USA has a dominent role in internet economy and major part of the traffic comes from usa only.Its not very easy to build sites for Euro and Japnese ppl because of language barrier and smaller set of audiance compared to USA market.
Right now we all have been just affected by exchange rates and we have to still factor the falling ad rates in next one year.
<TIGHETEN YOUR SEAT BELTS FOR THIS DISNEY RIDE>

[Czar]

coolbuddy, just to assist in your calculations for the coming economic armageddon, please note that the total European web audience is greater than the total North American web audience according to Nua Internet Surveys. In fact, even the Asia/Pacific audience was greater in numbers than North America as far back as 2002. Also, given that Chinese and Indian net populations continue to rise at far greater rates than those of the early adopting nations, this balance is set to tilt even further in coming years.

It's partially for this reason that savvy online marketers are taking strides towards presenting their websites or interactive advertising campaigns to international markets, whether these markets speak the same language as the marketer or not. Witness our new guide to regional and international internet marketing for tips concerning how to enter these markets. Might be worth a look for you in particular, since many of your recent posts suggest that, for some reason, you have no faith in the immediate future of the US economy.

[Eriky]

Originally posted by coolbuddy
..because USA has a dominent role in internet economy and major part of the traffic comes from usa only.Its not very easy to build sites for Euro and Japnese ppl because of language barrier and smaller set of audiance compared to USA market.

I think the role of the USA in this world economy has decreased hugely already, some people just don't realize this yet. You tell us a lot of internet traffic is from the US. Just realize that this might be true on your sites, but are your sites representative to conclude this? I see this a lot on forums. Most people talk for themselves. The EU is becoming a better market, because EU countries start 'blending' into eachother more and more. This has actually been a dream I always had since I was a kid (i'm not kidding!). The EU can be really strong if the countries work together instead of against eachother. That's what I see happening and I like it.

It's good that we have these forums, otherwise I wouldn't think of this stuff as much as I do now.

[coolbuddy]

I think u missed one important point in my early reply that there is huge language barrier to build a site for eurpean ppl.Even if u make one ,in the end u will never be able to compete local sites.
Imagine building a site for french ppl ,the total poplation is 20 million approx. .How many of us know that in france they dont have @ on their keyboard.I was there in france and i had to take local assistance to operate my hotmail account.
Regarding Indian internet traffic ,its miniscule compared to USA traffic and the growth is somewhat similar to usa traffic growth.
local Ebay in india doesnt achieve even 20 million pageviews in India.even www.coolbuddy.com is among top ten sites here and in usa we r not even among top 5000 sites.
Anybody who builds a site specially for india,good luck to him.
I cant say much about other countries ,in India mobile traffic growth is much higher compared to internet grwoth and ppl and kids r surfing less and less every day.The internet traffic growth is slowing to almost 30% per annum not only india but also worldwide.
maybe u want to sound always very optimistic to the rest of the world becuase u a maybe wanting more and more ppl to become webmasters which will be ultimately good for your site.
I bet even even geekvillage growth must be slowing down in last one year.I will be very much intersted in knowing your growth pattern as I believe you have an excellent site and site like yours can be a good barometer for other sites.
So the point is in last one year the major growth is coming from increase in ad rates and once it slows down then there will trouble for everybody.
Anyway its good to have counter views in forums.
that makes them clicking