Explosive growth in recruitment advertising at Craigslist this year will offset most of its losses from the elimination of adult-services revenue, the AIM Group estimates, so the site’s 2011 revenue will dip only 5 percent to $115 million from last year’s total of $121 million.
Even though it voluntarily gave up $41 million in projected revenue from sex-worker ads last year, the company’s recruitment ad revenue grew 48 percent year-over-year in 2011 to $96 million, the AIM Group estimates. Annual profit at Craigslist Inc., owned by Craig Newmark, Jim Buckmaster and EBay, is an estimated $89 million, or a 73.5 percent margin.
In its annual report on “Craigslist and Free Classifieds Worldwide,” the AIM Group looks at the growth of Craigslist and other corporate and independent free-classified sites around the globe, including sites operated by the EBay Classifieds Group, such as Kijiji, Gumtree and Mobile.de; Schibsted Media Group, including Blocket.se, Finn.no and DoneDeal.ie; Naspers / MIH, which operates OLX.com, KalahariAds.com and Slando.com; Quoka.com in Germany and elsewhere, and other classified sites.
The 43-page report, available for $495 through the “Buy reports” link on this site, includes six charts about Craigslist’s revenue, along with city-by-city recruitment, automotive and real estate ad and revenue counts for the 19 cities where Craigslist charges for recruitment ads.
It projects $96 million in recruitment advertising, $13 million in real estate advertising in New York City, and $6 million with its “therapeutic” massage and similar ads. It shows the San Francisco Bay area is the market where Craigslist generates the most revenue, followed by South Florida and New York City.
“This report is filled with practical information and ideas for companies that publish classified ads, online or in print,” said Peter M. Zollman, founding principal of the AIM Group. “The ideas and recommendations it includes are practical, ‘news-you-can-use’ tools for classified publishers.”
The report takes a first-ever detailed look at the charitable activities of Craigslist and its two key executives, Newmark and Buckmaster. It also reviews a number of classified start-ups; reports on the decision by Quoka to terminate its print classified publications; covers the issues of safety and security in classifieds, and outlines “the most brilliant thing we’ve seen in a long time” for generating revenue at free-classified sites.
