[March 2019] Transparent Income & Traffic Report – $2,866

There are no affiliate links in this income report. ❤️

So it’s been a while!

The last income report I released was about 9 months ago, and a TON of things have happened on the blog since then.

It’s high-time to share some insights and behind-the-scenes stuff.

Here’s what we’ll walk through:

• Income breakdown
• Expenses
• Traffic & Growth
• What worked
• What didn’t

Let’s blog.

March 2019 Monthly Blog Income – $2,883.45

Here’s a snapshot of the past 6 months of revenue.

And all-time income since June 2017!

Note: I’m using a different accounting software now, and the “gross” income figures are actually lowered net of refunds. That’s not a separate line item as an expense, etc.

Here’s a breakdown of where the blog income came from in March:

• Affiliate Income – $644.43
  • Snappa – $54
  • ConvertKit – $26.10
  • Bluehost – $510
  • Rebel Boss Summit – $37.60
  • Amazon – $16.73
• Freelance Income – $489.00
• DYEB Products & Programs – $1,750.02

The Good News:

Affiliate income has been between $400-700 every single month for 6 months now. Not bad considering I’m still only around 15k page views a month lol.

That’s roughly $0.04 per page view (just in aff marketing), which isn’t hot, but affiliate marketing isn’t my primary monetization method either.

More good news: I’m not doing that much freelancing right now, either! Freelancing used to make up 50-70% of my income earlier in DYEB, but I’m happy to report my course & bundle income has steadily grown over the past 6-9 months.

The Bad News:

Yes, it’s growing–but still really slow, and not as fast as I would like ?‍♂️

We’ll talk more about this below.

March Blog Expenses

Well hello, Facebook ads!

The Advertising budget was 100% Facebook ads. More on that below.

And here’s a full breakdown of the “computer – software” expense:

• Libsyn: For the daily podcast I was doing a while back, the 30-sec Blog & Business Tip. (P.S. Want me to keep that going? Drop me a comment below).
• G Suite: DYEB email & Drive storage ❤️
• Namecheap: Sooooo here’s how much of a nerd I am. I keep a Namecheap hosting package (not the cheapest one, either) for random projects and domains I do. No, it doesn’t host DYEB lol. I take comfort knowing I have a separate hosting package for all the little domains I buy up.
• Trint: I’ve been experimenting with podcast transcripts, and using Trint. I’m not super happy with them.
• Drip: email software, but this will be the last month you see them on here! Woot woot!

<3 ActiveCampaign. My new home for email marketing as of this month 😉

Traffic & Growth Breakdown

Aside from email list growth–which I pay for–I honestly haven’t been growing that much.

*drops mic

And while that might sound sad, the reality is this: I’ve had to focus on other things.

I’d absolutely LOVE to do NOTHING but marketing. Pinterest, SEO, collabs, JVs, more speaking engagements, etc, but ever since the inception of Do You Even Blog, I’ve had to monetize.

From month 1.

In order to put food on my family-of-four’s table.

Truth be told, I wish I could’ve spent the entire past 22 months focusing 100% on SEO and collaborations–I might even have a much higher MRR (monthly recurring revenue) than I do today, but that wouldn’t have been possible.

I needed money in months 0-6.

And while this has taught me some valuable sales skills (which I’m grateful for), it has also left me with this destructive mindset of “I need to be selling blogging products every single day and working on this constantly!”

The Good News:

Thanks to a little encouragement from my mastermind group, and a bit of whiskey, I’m slowly coming to grips with reality.

The reality is I’m fine. DYEB is income producing. I’ll create more programs and make existing courses better.

I can focus on growth independent of “having to launch more blogging courses.”

Now it’s time to do that.

What worked this month?

Everything that falls under the “what worked” column also fell under the “what didn’t work” column.

It was a roller coaster kind of month ??

Facebook Ads

Over the past several years, I’ve run FB ads for myself and numerous clients, spending somewhere around $50k total probably.

I’ve created campaigns that got $0.02 a click, and $0.25 conversions.

But why oh why do DYEB’s own campaigns seem so much more difficult?

Since late February, I’ve been running paid reach into my New Blogger Bootcamp funnel.

I’ve tested…

• Conversion vs Lead campaigns (Did you know you can accept and integrate custom form fields from FB lead forms to your ESP? #savvy)
• Audiences. So many audiences.
• Creative, both images & copy
• Placements
• Random other little things

As of today, April 2, 2019, I only have 2 campaigns running, spending about $20/day, and averaging $1.30 per email subscriber.

That’s decent enough for the niche, but March was all over the place, and it’s proven tough to optimize! #digitalmarketing is crazy town.

Platform and domain name migration.

Adios, Blogger U!

I’m currently doing a bit simplifying when it comes to my business structure (and business model). That process is going well, as evidenced by my new products & programs page here 🙂

I’ve also been moving all courses over to Thinkific, away from online course WordPress plugins, which I was disappointed with.

“The Funnel”

My beginner blogger funnel has either been working well, or not working well, and I’m honestly not sure which yet. ?

I’ve set up my funnels to track engagement via “lesson completions,” which are action steps I ask each person to complete over 9 lessons.

By the time bloggers go through the free course, they can have an “engagement score” from 0-10.

• 7 people have scored 7+
• 41 people have scored 3 to 6
• 288 people have scored 0 to 2

I’m not happy with that.

I mean, yes, it’s cold traffic, people who mainly haven’t even set up a website yet, and it’s a free email course.

But still.

Can you imagine me pitching these people a blogging course in the next few months?

Well I did–and I’ve made either $458 or $707 from the 188 bloggers who have gone through the entire funnel (which takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months).

Note: I’ve had a bit of trouble tracking purchases. That’s why it’s either $458 or $707. I’ll hopefully figure that part out.

Summing up March in one word: “Meh.”

Tell me if you can identify with this statement:

“I’m not growing as quickly as I’d like” or “I’m not making as much money as I thought I’d be.”

You too?

I hereby admit to subjecting myself to the whole “type-A,” “driven,” “NO growth would probably satisfy me” mindsets.

And that can be destructive.

At the end of the day, the past several months have been FANTASTIC for Do You Even Blog, and me personally. The site is still gaining ground for SEO and other organic growth channels.

Income is still maintaining, even without big launches. Reader engagement is still great (drop me a comment below??).

However–a change is coming.

The reason March feels “meh” to me is due to a lack of a clear path forward. That has to change.

There are loads of things I could do. Tons of different channels to try, products to create, and different monetization methods to experiment with.

So the plan for April?

• Get back to basics.
• Get back to growth strategies.
• Identify the offer that helps the most people, in the most effective way, and also sustains my business. Identify and plan accordingly.

Boom.