I’ve put together my blog income report for last year as I’m prepping my taxes and I thought it would help to show you how my blog has grown in just under 2 years.
I know people have strong feelings about income reports and some feel they are tacky etc. Personally I love seeing how other bloggers make money as I am nosy!
This post may contain affiliate links, please see my disclosure for more details.
I don’t publish income reports on the blog anymore but I did in the beginning, here they are if you are interested in reading them:
My First Income report (month 2)
June 2017 Income report (Month 3) – This is the month I joined Mediavine (see below)
July 2017 – 70,000 page views in month 4.
As you read it, please bear in mind a few things:
- I’m in Canada. My sponsored blog post opportunities are terrible compared with bloggers in the US although probably better than some other countries. My social media is also not that amazing (I hate Instagram).
- I’m a no name. No one has ever heard of Seaside Sundays in the way they have heard of some of the bigger bloggers out there. I hope this income report shows you that you don’t need to be a BIG name blogger to make a very decent income in a short period of time.
- I started a new job in September which dropped my blogging hours down to something like 1-5 a week. Previously I was working 10-20 hours a week on the blog after quitting my full-time job in Feb. Income did not drop but only because I already had a lot posts published on Fall and holiday topics. I could not have dropped down like that in my first year without huge consequences.
Also a quick housekeeping note – I use the free expense and income tracker that I found via Google in this blog post. My accountant loves it! Definitely the easiest tracker I have found.
Ok, onto the income. All numbers in USD:
Here is the breakdown:
Affiliates: 21,601.35
Sponsored posts: 882.15
Ads: 20,027
My own products: 3178.83
Total for the year in USD: 45,689.33
That’s an average of 3800 a month which I am really pleased with.
Obviously I could really improve my income from sponsored posts and my own products. I don’t promote my own products too much except for below haha). I also sell some very low-cost PDFs which means I need to sell a lot to make serious money.
I do think creating printable PDFs and planners are a great way to create income from a blog, you don’t need much traffic to get sales if you have an affiliate program. One way to really boost product sales would be to open a Shopify store.
As you can see, my income is pretty much equally split between ads and affiliate sales. For ads, I’m with Mediavine and love them. I highly encourage you to work towards the traffic needed to join their network and boost your income if you are looking to make money with your blog. You need 25,000 sessions (not page views) to be accepted.
About The Affiliate Income
Here’s the thing – there is no one affiliate that I could say makes me a lot of money. When I looked at my spreadsheet, it is made up of lots of $20 here and $50 there that adds up over the year. Amazon is probably my most reliable source of income and even that varies from $200-600 a month. Gift guides related to your audience seem to be the best way to make Amazon sales (and why I always talk about them on these emails!).
Another thing to note is that almost all my affiliate sales are from non-blogging products. Whenever I write a blog post, I look for affiliate products that would fit and join the programs that suit. I’m in hundreds of different affiliate programs and probably only make sales in 20% but I don’t like to have a post without at least one link just in case.
I’ve made sales from companies as diverse as Dollar Tree, Wayfair and fabjob.com. I would also estimate that 99% of my page views (and all of my ad income) come from non-blogging related topics.
I will say that I like working with the big companies and networks such as Shareasale or Awin because I know I will get paid. I made a few affiliate sales this year that I did not get paid for even after reaching out to the blogger so I stopped promoting the products.
I’ve also had a few questionable calculations where I got paid less than the sales sheet shows. When you rely upon your income, you want to make sure you get paid for your hard work!
I could go on forever about affiliate marketing as it’s a huge passion of mine and I see opportunities everywhere I go. If you are interested in learning more about how I promote my affiliates, I have an ebook that is geared towards new bloggers who do not yet make a good income with affiliate marketing.