This is a sneak peek behind the scenes of my blogging business. I share my income, my pageviews, what’s working for me and what’s not. You can see all of my blog income reports here…
Update 3/16/2017: If you’re looking to increase your blog’s income, the FREE guide to Finding Affiliates that Work for You is a MUST GRAB. It even lists all of the top affiliate programs in every niche, organized by commission and topic. Grab it for FREE here for a limited time.
The future of income reports
I’ve been thinking a lot about income reports and whether or not to continue with them. I’d love to have feedback from you. I can see really strong reasons why I should stop and why I should keep going. I’ve always been a champion for income reports and never really considered stopping, but as the blog and business changed, I had to consider this.
The easiest way to do this is to explain both positions to you.
I want to keep income reports because…
I made a promise to myself that I would post my income reports every month so that other women could see that blogging is a viable career choice. That promise means a lot to me and isn’t something I take lightly. It actually helps me grow, writing these monthly helps me reflect on what went wrong and what went right every month and gives me an opportunity to see where I can improve.
It serves other bloggers- being able to see what’s possible and basically follow along my entire journey from the beginning saves you from making the same mistakes that I did. It’s kind of like having an edge, I follow other bloggers above me and get that same benefit, so it seems wrong to not pay it forward.
I want to ditch income reports because…
I wonder if I’m really helping you at the level I’m at now. I see a trend where I post what I’m working on, like SEO, and then I get tons of emails from brand new boggers also working on SEO. Which actually doesn’t help them much. They’d grow quicker if they focused on Pinterest first. But since I focused on Pinterest a while ago and am no longer talking about it, they’re not seeing me talk about that. I guess what I mean is that I feel like there’s a disconnect between what you read that I’m doing and what a smaller blogger should do.
This isn’t a huge deal because there are tons of larger bloggers that read and benefit from income reports, but statistically, it’s going to be more new bloggers and I worry that I’m doing them a disservice.
I should have included expenses by now, but don’t really want to alter my schedule to make that happen. As soon as Facebook ads come into play, expenses matter a lot. Prior to Facebook ads, and full-time employees, our overhead was ridiculously low.
And even the expenses we had were really mostly to make my life easier, not a necessity. But higher income means higher expenses. Like in the income report below… I made $86,000, but had over $20,000 in expenses mostly from FB ads, Is $66,000 profit still amazing?
Of course, but I worry that it might look misleading. An easy solution would be just to add expenses. But in order to do that, I would have to completely change the way I do things. Currently, I have a budget I follow and as long as my ads are profitable, we scale them up. I don’t actually know my expenses until about a month behind, we’re usually right on budget and have tons of leeway if we’re not, but this seems like a pain for me.
Income reports actually take a lot of time for me to write up, adding expenses makes that longer. We did post our expenses in a prior income report, but it didn’t seem to have any added benefit, which means the extra time doesn’t really have a pay-off.
While this information likely benefits a select few people, it wouldn’t really help most people. Plus, it may frighten off brand new bloggers who think they would need to spend $20,000 a month to blog, not understanding that new blog only needs about $3.95/month to run.
The last issue is that I no longer focus on pageviews at all, I focus on income. Which is actually a hard transition for me to make, but has meant a huge jump in income. But having to list my pageviews in the income report makes me wish I had focused on pageviews more (which is kind of ridiculous… I realize it’s a vanity metric… but there you have it.)
So, after talking your ear off… what do you think? Keep income reports or ditch them? Change them? Why?
Why post an income report?
If you’re wondering why I post an income report, it’s because this journey was only made possible by other bloggers posting their blog income reports and inspiring me to give it a shot on my own. This is kind of my way of “paying it forward”. Plus, I love the fact that I work in the only industry where it’s totally normal to post your income every month.
If you are a blogger or end up being a blogger, I would love to see you post your income report too! You can actually link to them in the comments below.
But first… About me…
I’m a full-time blogger. Less than 2 years ago, I had no idea that was an actual thing. To say the last two years have been a wild ride is the understatement of the year.
By a chance of fate, I opened an email from Ruth Soukup of Living Well, Spending Less talking about making a full-time income from blogging and announcing a course she had created called Elite Blog Academy.
I knew nothing about blogging. I didn’t understand how I would make money. I didn’t know what a niche was, or a target audience. And my computer skills would embarrass an eighth grader.
I didn’t even know how much money “full-time blogging” meant. I was hoping for $2,000/month.
I read that email and knew that I needed to try. Nothing scared me more than not trying and then regretting it, always wondering “what if?”.
I talked to my husband that night and we took money out of our extremely tight budget to enroll in Elite Blog Academy.
I worked my tail off, took the class extremely slowly (it took me 9 months to complete the class) and implemented every single action step. In 10 months, I was making my “full-time” income of over $2,000. In 15 months, I was making more than I’ve ever made in my career.
18 months later, I was making over $20,000 a month blogging. And this month I made $86,000.
Elite Blog Academy literally changed my life.
(Heads up: The ONE downside of Elite Blog Academy, is that it only opens for registration once per year for five days, so unless you have almost perfect timing, the only way to get an offer to enroll is by joining the waiting list here).
I can’t recommend it enough. It changed my life. You can find out more about Elite Blog Academy here.
If there’s one thing that I want to pass on to you, is that I am NOT special. I’m not crazy smart. I don’t have a writing degree and I’m certainly not a grammar expert (although a free app called Grammarly certainly helps).
I just love to write and I love to help people and I’m really good at reducing our spending. So, I walk people through the baby steps that we took to completely transform our finances. I’m able to support my family making far more than I ever could in my previous career.
Want to start your own blog?
If that sounds like something you want to do, I can help you make that a reality with step-by-step instructions (for free!). You can find instructions for how to start your own blog here (even if you aren’t great with computers).
The best part? Blogging is a super cheap (almost free!) hobby that makes you money! Starting your own blog isn’t very expensive! Starting a blog that makes you money while working from home starts at about $3.45/month!
January 2017 Blog Income Report:
This was a solid month for income and was pretty stress-free and easy. Income went up, pageviews went up, I’m back to batch blogging and working ahead of schedule.
Pageviews and Income:
Pageviews: 505,239
Income: $86,438.83
Income Broken Down:
$3,600 Sponsored Posts
$4,744 Ad Networks
$19,300.83 Affiliates
$58,794 My Products (The Pinterest Strategy Guide, The Core Affiliate Strategy, but mostly The 90 Day Budget Boot Camp Workbook)
(further breakdown of my strategy for each category below)
Total: $86,438.83
Step-by-Step Pinterest Strategy Guide
Because I’ve stopped coaching, I released my Pinterest Strategy Guide in PDF form to you. Which means that you can spend a fraction of the price that coaching costs and get my step-by-step Pinterest Strategy Guide direct to your inbox right now.
The Pinterest Strategy Guide will walk you step by step through implementing the Pinterest Strategy that brought me from $18/month to over $20,000/month. You can get it here.
P.S. It’s 5 pages long. It’s not a course and it’s not overwhelming. It’s a super simple detailed checklist of how to dominate Pinterest in only 4 hours of setup and 4 hours a month.
The Core Affiliate Strategy
Like the Pinterest Strategy Guide, the goal of this product is to give you easy-to-follow (and quick) action steps to completely implement the strategy that I use for affiliates. It’s only a few pages and walks you step by step through my entire strategy.
I routinely make more than 10k a month in affiliates and this is a common question that I get. You can see the strategy here.
P.S. This is about 15 pages long, and includes a complete launch example. Like the Pinterest Strategy Guide, it’s not created to be comprehensive or overwhelming. You should be able to complete it in a workday and start being successful with affiliates immediately.
My goals for January were:
Continue Facebook ads- Rocked it! It was a hard month, and Facebook ads are still not my native language, but we’re seeing gains. I took Absolute FB ads, then EBA VIP training, and then a ridiculous amount of a/b testing and time. I wish there was a simple solution, but there’s not. It takes a massive amount of time and you need to stick with it. I’ve been on and off messing with facebook ads for over 6 months now and FINALLY made significant strides.
Book keeping system – On track! This will take a few more weeks but it is almost completed. We created a system that lets full-time employees track their hours worked by project, and all expenses and income get tracked by project. So basically, we can now at a glance tell where our time and money are best spent, helping us make better decisions going forward. It also allows us to track income earned and received each month and bases each monthly budget off last month’s income allowing us to reinvest a portion of our extra profits from the month before in the projects that give us the highest return.
Not gonna lie… this budget blogger is totally geeking out over this system.
What worked this month:
**These are the things I’m currently trying. If you need the full resources of the tools that I’ve used to get me to this point, you can sign up here to get free instant access to the full list of the tools and resources that have worked for me this far. **
Facebook ads- We were able to make them both profitable and scalable. I’m anxious to see what happens during the rest of the year as the “budgeting craze” of January wears off.
12 Week Year- This system is amazing. I’m about 1/3y through my first 12 week year and I’m probably more productive than I’ve ever been. It has me focusing on just 1-3 goals for the entire 12 weeks which is a huge jump from what I’ve always done but is working. I highly recommend it! (If you’re a brand new blogger, I suspect you’ll see more success with the 10 hour time block strategy, but once you have a team and help for your blog… the 12 week year is the way to go.
What didn’t work this month:
Every plan I had for the month – We had a ton of stress from the brewery opening (tell me again why we did this?), my dad (who’s an instrumental part of my life) was diagnosed with lung cancer, and I wound up in the hospital with Afib for three days (it was my first episode so I had no idea I had Afib).
Facebook groups – Having so much personal stress meant that instead of getting work done, I was spending time scrolling anxiously. I have a saying… If you’re flipping between Facebook and email waiting for something exciting to happen…. You have a problem. You could have made something exciting happen if you had just gotten off your phone and got to work.
*That being said- I failed miserably at this all month.
Goals for next month:
Bookkeeping system: Finishing this system is my only goal for the month.
My Income Strategy:
I earn income in three major categories with my blog. I’ll run over my strategy for each of them.
Sponsored Posts
Update: The below is still true, but I’ve stopped focusing on sponsors right now, with the exception of a few brands that I want to build long term partnerships with.
I focus most of my sponsored post efforts on reaching out to brands that I use and love and offering a sponsored post package at a rate that’s a little lower than “industry standard” (which is highly debatable).
That lets me increase the “yes!” emails I get in response and ensures that I can count on making a certain amount every month on sponsored posts while still being really picky about which brands that I’ll work with. I also go through each of my brand networks (places like Tapinfluence and Clever Girls) to see if there are any assignments that would be a good fit for my blog.
Ad Networks
In general, more pageviews equal more ad earnings. I use Adthrive (you can apply with them once you have 100,000 pageviews) and love them. My RPM (The ad revenue that I get per 1,000 pageviews) bounces between $6.40 and $11.00 depending on the season. (update: actually it’s been consistently over $10 since February of last year, which is unheard of! Go Adthrive!)
I increase my pageviews by marketing my blog content through Pinterest. I a/b tested everything on Pinterest for about 6 months until I figured out a system that works for me.
My favorite thing about Pinterest (at least with BoardBooster) is that I spent only 4 hours a month running my Pinterest Strategy. That leaves me tons of time to grow in other areas. You can get a copy of my Pinterest Strategy Guide here which teaches you my system step by step.
Affiliates
I focus on a core group of affiliates that I think almost everyone in my target audience should be using. Since I run a budgeting website, I factor cost into the equation. If something is a great product but is too expensive for my readers, I likely won’t add them to the core affiliates list.
Having the core list lets me easily track special sale dates that my readers shouldn’t miss and lets me focus without getting overwhelmed with the barrage of affiliate “offers” hitting my inbox daily.
Need help finding affiliate programs that will work for your blog? I have a master list here of the best preforming affiliate programs in every niche that you can get for free here.
To me, the key to affiliate marketing is to never ever promote anything that you haven’t used yourself and you don’t love. My philosophy is that if you only promote companies and products that you would tell your best friend about enthusiastically, then you’re doing it right. You can get the step-by-step action steps needed to implement my Core Affiliate Strategy here.
If you want to see my full list of blogging resources that I use, you can find them here.
Need a step by step guide on how to start a blog? You can find one by clicking here (you don’t even need to be great with computers!).
Update 3/16/2017: If you’re looking to increase your blog’s income, the FREE guide to Finding Affiliates that Work for You is a MUST GRAB. It even lists all of the top affiliate programs in every niche, organized by commission and topic. Grab it for FREE here for a limited time.
Sarah says
I totally hear you about income reports. I’ve been on the fence, too, and your reasons for stopping are very valid.
One idea would be to post quarterly updates. This takes the pressure off of doing them monthly but still allows us to see your progress!
My income reports are still low hahhaha so I think they’re more helpful to newbies. My latest one is here: http://www.thefrugalmillionaireblog.com/january-blogging-income-report/
Congratulations on such a great month!!! Do you do all your FB ads yourself or do you have an expert helping out? I’ve been dabbling since January and have had an increase in sales, but I honestly can’t tell if they came from the ad or just from my site. Lots of work to do!!!
Thanks for sharing!! Hope you have a great day 🙂
-Sarah http://www.thefrugalmillionaireblog.com
Christie says
Please don’t stop posting them. As a new blogger, it is one of the main reasons I visit your site on a regular basis.
I do understand that you are not a newbie anymore but please don’t underestimate the value you add for newbies too.
You inspired me to take this journey when I was on the fence and you also inspired me to take Elite Blog Academy.
Your transparency is what makes you different!
Your ability to communicate concise and simple instructions makes you unique!
Overall I hope you choose to keep them (even without expense reports) and I congratulate you on your success. You are an excellent example of what happens when you want it bad enough to make great things happen!
Thanks again for your contributions
Christie
Natasha | Inspiring Single Mothers says
Thanks for sharing all that you’ve shared! I believe you should stop posting income reports. At this point, there are enough for newbies and anyone else to review and gain inspiration. I believe you should have more privacy at this point when it comes to your income. You’ve been open and transparent. I believe you’ve done your part. Kudos and all the best on the new brewery business! Most of all prayers for your Father.
Mike says
You are absolutely crushing it! Awesome job.
Here’s what I would do.
Since you are making so much with your own products + affiliate sales … I would GET RID OF AdThrive altogether.
Yes, easy for me to say, it’s not my $5,000 that would be going away.
However, in the grand scheme of things, it’s only 6% of your revenues.
The benefits would be huge.
First, it would speed up your site immensely. Your site is very slow with all of these ads. It’s probably killing your SEO rankings.
Second, it would declutter your site design – there are like 10 ads on each page and they take up a LOT of page real estate.
So, it would be a MUCH better user experience.
Then, where some of those ads used to be, I would put opt-ins to capture emails.
You’re barely capturing emails on your site! You could double your conversions instantly.
And in the long run, those email subscribers are worth MUCH more than ad revenue.
The Busy Budgeter says
I completely agree… I’ve been thinking about that for a while… and now I have to ask, what’s your blog?
Emily says
My hero on this subject is Jeff Bullas. You and him are on my super-exclusive Twotter list called “Bloggers Who Are Killing It.” I can’t speak for him officially, but it sounds like he would agree with Mike. Anything affecting SEO is a blog-killer. He is a lover of content marketing for organic SEO. Also he gives away a ton of free information!!!
Emily
Emilyvega.com (a month old!)
Debbie Gartner says
Yes, I would totally test this. In all honesty, I’ve had to avoid your blog many times and/or didn’t click on to other pages as it was so slow and slowing my machine and other windows down.
There may be many ways to do this (e.g. a) quit cold turkey for 2-3 months, b) somehow A/B randomize (wouldn’t get to the SEO boost from faster time, 3) Delete from many high producing pages, d) reduce ads.
Please let us know the impact.
Alicia says
I love your reports and hope you’ll keep posting them. You make GREAT points about stopping though so I understand where you’re coming from. I love to read about what’s working. And the fact that you state your income is motivation for me to continue blogging and trying to reach greater goals. I also love that you say how much your spending in FB ads. Although I’m not at the point to spend that much, it’s helping me realize what percentage I should be spending to get the right return. Thanks for all you put out there for us to learn from!
Cheryl @ Uncluttered Simplicity says
I am a new blogger and I still appreciate your income reports. At the same time, I understand the disconnect. Perhaps you should take a break and publish some posts on what it was like during your early days of blogging. New bloggers (like myself) have tons of questions on the “how to’s” of blogging. How to land a sponsored post, how to guest post, how to leverage affiliates…
Keep up the good work! You are truly an inspiration!
Tammy Whitten says
Rosemarie,
I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing your income reports. While I totally support whatever decision you make, they have made a difference for me.
I came to the online business world in 2010. I had started my own therapy practice the year before, and I had this idea in mind that didn’t even have words to describe it then. I wanted to offer tips, videos, classes, books, and more online in order to help more women. People looked at me like I had three heads. No one understood what I was talking about.
I found some coaches who taught me about online businesses. I learned a lot. In fact, it’s making it much easier now to see that a blog isn’t your business and how the entire big picture fits together. But they were teaching people how to do coaching. I didn’t want to do that. I’m already a therapist. I wanted to leverage my abilities to help more people, not do more one-on-one work.
I have spent way too money for the ROI since 2010. Every time I would get motivated and dedicated, my therapy clients would have a crisis, and I wasn’t able to be consistent with my blogging efforts. In 2015, it finally hit me that the online business model I was trying to incorporate was a blogging model, not a coaching model.
But then I saw all kinds of posts everywhere asking if blogging was dead.
I got scared again. I really want this vision I have to work.
That’s when I went to Focused the first year. The second year I met you, and I was blown away. You had far surpassed what I even thought was possible. I was a little curious, and nervous, at first. But since then, I have followed you and your reports. It’s given me courage. It’s given me hope. It’s reignited my fire. I know women are looking for what I want to offer them. No one else is doing this the way I have in my head.
And I know it can work because I’ve read (OK, stalked) your income reports to see what was working and how you did things. I signed up for EBA this year because of the many testimonials from you and the others in your class who not only DID it then, but who are still rocking it now. You are making your business thrive from your niche, not from teaching people about blogging or online business.
Those pieces were crucial for me after years of learning with so little return (I have made about $18/yr on my blog each year- what is it about that number?).
So thank you, thank you for sharing these reports. Thank you for caring about what it means to those who read them and how they may interpret them. Thank you for being passionate about wanting to make sure other women know they have choices. Thank you for your transparency and helpfulness. Thank you for your willingness to just share tips and to root for the success of strangers.
Because of you and these reports, I am determined to have a very different story to share at the end of this year. I am following your cheat sheets to a T.
If you do decide not to share your monthly income reports (and no worries about not sharing the expenses in detail- what you have shared in the past has been sufficient for me), I would love if you could still find a way to share your message with your readers and the women you want to inspire that it IS still possible. That blogging isn’t dead. That there are achievements beyond their wildest dreams that are attainable. That your income hasn’t shrivelled up and disappeared after one or two magical years. What that format looks like may be different than it is now. But I can see how someone with a story similar to mine would welcome some message, even abbreviated or vastly different than your monthly income reports, to help encourage her to go forward.
Thank you again for sharing these throughout the months. I have already been blown away by EBA and the bonuses you offered. Thank you for finding a way to share this, even after being sick and being with your father. My thoughts are with your family.
Tammy
Sareeta Lopez says
Please keep posting your income reports! I read them with interest even though I’m way earlier on in the blogging journey than you are. It’s inspiring to read and I do learn quite a bit about what it may be like later on! Maybe you could link to earlier reports that are more relevant to newer bloggers, to point them in the right direction?
Also, adding expenses is really helpful for me. I actually hate that most bloggers don’t include them, because it is misleading. I have no idea what percentage of the income people are spending on expenses. It’s really eye-opening to see and I feel like it gives people a much better idea of what it’s like to blog and what the expenses are like later on when you make more and start getting more strategic.
The Busy Budgeter says
Thank you so much! No you definitely don’t need to sound like an English professor 🙂 I just took a peek at your blog, too – great job so far!
Margaret @approachingfood says
Keep the reports! Your income reports are part of what inspire me; I think, she did it, I can too! Despite being a relative newbie and having lots of work to do to get my blog to the level I want it to, when I read your reports, I get inspired to work that much harder. Please keep them; they’re excellent motivation, and I love seeing how you grow. Even if I’m not at your level, I’m learning a lot!
Christi Johnson says
I pray you keep the reports. Pat Flynn still publishes his, as does the man who does Entrepreneur on Fire. Personally, I find them inspiring so we know what to push for. I believe the “sky” is the limit, but if people stop publishing their reports, we will have NO clue what the sky actually is.
People with money acceptance issues are sincerely helped by people like yo who are transparent and open.
All of this written, I respect your personal choice in the end.
Thanks for including us.
Great report, Rosemarie!
Debbie Gartner says
These are amazing results, Rosemarie. It’s nice to see how you are continually growing. I hope to one day have some real products, but they will take some time to develop. (currently, I have 2 ebooks), but I am going to try a a B2B item in the future (first a more expensive ebook and then maybe a course).
I hope that you will continue with your income reports as they are helpful. (And, I bet they help contribute to your email list and affiliate/course earnings). Maybe there’s a way to streamline and/or have a section for your top recommendation for the month for new bloggers (or growing bloggers) and/or feature a newbie and link to them/provide your advice for them. Just a thought.
Here’s a link to my latest income report. http://activerain.com/blogsview/5029985/passive-income-report—february-2017
It’s not on my main site (as it wouldn’t really go on there – TheFlooringGirl.com (completely out of place…I think…but let me know, maybe there is a solution…I’m all ears). My blog has been around a while, but I’m still new to affiliate marketing/monetizing. I made my first substantial chunk Dec 2016. Onward and Upward!
Holly says
Please keep the reports coming. Maybe you can add related posts or a call out box for those new bloggers like “START HERE” and point them where to go. 😉 I do think expenses are important for perspective. Maybe you can estimate them or you publish the monthly report a little late after you have the tallies.
I’m sorry to hear about your dad and the life drama.
Your comment about Facebook and email is so true. I fall into that trap as well. Or sometimes I realize I’m zoned out on the computer and that’s when I need a little break.
Tabitha says
I like the suggestion of just posting your income reports quarterly. I find them very informative and encouraging and would hate to see you completely get rid of them.
Jayleen says
It sounds like you’ve had quite the eventful month. I hope some how, some way, you are able to have a much calmer month!
I always enjoy blogger’s income reports and feel the addition of expenses gives the full picture.
My blogs are super small but I posted my first income report last month! http://www.howdothejonesdoit.com/how-i-earned-money-blogging-february-2017/
djune hagerty says
You know, Rosemarie, like many others, you have profoundly affected my life and I am sooo appreciative.
And there are always going to be people who will not listen to those who are experienced. They think they can see more clearly than those who have been there before. How many people have I seen pay hundreds of dollars for a course so they could have step-by-step instructions, who insist on adding things in before they study them!
The income reports are fun to read, but obviously, this is your decision. Thank you for all the help you give!
Djune
Loyda says
Okay I accidentally found you today and I couldn’t even tell you from where cause I have clicked way to many pages! You are refreshing.. I am a fence sitter.. I have been for a very long time. I really appreciate how simple you try to keep things when it comes to explaining the who what and why of blogging. Sometimes reading other blogs is just so overwhelming that I just end up moving on. I do appreciate your openness to sharing your income and understand your feeling that you might be speaking over some of us. But why not mix it up a bit? Go ahead and tell us where you are at (it is then a wanna get there goal for newbies), and a this is what I did (past goal/accomplished), and then a this is what I want to do next ! I’ll be following no matter what!
Lauren Kinghorn says
Hi Rosemarie, a million Thanks for offering bloggers the opportunity to post their Income Reports here. So generous of you! You are 1st on my list of 7 Top Mom Blogger Income Reports featured here: https://laurenkinghorn.com/earn
I added my very first Income report at the end of this post.
The Challenge Book says
Your income reports are so inspiring. This shows that there are so many possibilities on the Internet, we just have to find our own way to get them. Your blog is great, keep it going ?
laura says
I have been for a very long time. I really appreciate how simple you try to keep things when it comes to explaining the who what and why of blogging. Sometimes reading other blogs is just so overwhelming that I just end up moving on. I do appreciate your openness to sharing your income and understand your feeling that you might be speaking over some of us. But why not mix it up a bit? Go ahead and tell us where you are at (it is then a wanna get there goal for newbies), and a this is what I did (past goal/accomplished), and then a this is what I want to do next ! I’ll be following no matter what!