As I mentioned in my last post, I am not a big fan of most ‘Make Money Online’ blogs. For the most part, they function like pyramid schemes where those at the top get really rich, those in the middle will make a little money, and those at the bottom waste their time recycling the stuff the top blogs are stating a day or two later. The “tips” are all the same and just get rehashed over and over again.
With that said, there is a lot of crossover between the ‘Make Money Online’ and ‘Affiliate Marketing’ niches, and there are some good ideas that come out of the MMO niche, such as blog income reports. In the past I’ve never chosen to publicly disclose my internet income for a variety of reasons, but I’ve learned that there are a lot of people that will take everything you say for granted if you don’t.
In other words, no matter how good your advice is, people want visual proof and they want to see numbers, so that is what I think I will start doing going forward. It is also a great way to prove to yourself that you are making progress and that all these extra hours are paying off.
May Affiliate Marketing Income Report
I’m not sure what format I will ultimately end up going with, so for now I’ll just provide some figures broken down by affiliate program.
- E-Junkie – $1269.21
- Clickbank – $176.09
- Commission Junction – $1.69
- Amazon Associates – $21.87
- eBay Partner Network – $89.08
- Google AdSense – $89.97
- Other Affiliates – $395.55
- Direct Blog Advertisements – $270.00
Gross Income: $2,313.46
Advertising Costs/Banners Purchased: $85.00
Total Net Income: $2,228.46
In the few months prior to this, the income has been fairly consistent with these figures, but this is my best month so far online. All those 50 hour work weeks online have really been paying off, and often the work you do now will payoff over time, not right away. This income is mostly generate off niche sites and blog posts that are 3 months or older. I expect the work I’ve done over the past two months to really grow that figure over the coming months.
Expectations for June’s Online Income
I expect next months income to continue to rise based upon the first week this month and the fact that I’ve been hard at work on new stuff. Between the last week in May and the first week of June I have already launched 16 new sites (BANS or small blog niche sites mostly), and they are essentially completed with the exception of a few minor details on each. I expect it will take 2-3 weeks before these new sites start bringing in traffic/revenue.
This means I can spend the rest of the month working on blogging, cranking out a few more new sites, and trying out new affiliate programs. Hopefully those 16 seeds I have planted (or most of them) will start to generate income in June and the eBay income in particular will start to go up considerably. I also plan to spend some time working on improving the Amazon income, as that is a GREAT way to make money with affiliate marketing and I haven’t fully taken advantage of that.
Have any questions? Let me know in the comments below!
Note: For those wandering, the reason I am doing so many at a time is because I’ve found that because the sites are so easy and take so little time to setup, I can actually weed out the not good ones from the good ones (kind of like domain tasting). The ones that produce will get renewed and the ones that aren’t producing won’t when they come up for renewal.
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Hi Kyle,
I am very impressed that you can keep up with this blog while building so many online properties. It looks like you are doing great.
I have a couple of questions for you.
1. What is E-Junkie and how do you use them to make money?
2. For your BANS sites, have you been focusing on small niches or medium to larger size ones? I keep doing fairly well with BANS, but I really cannot predict which stores will be successful and which will not. It is frustrating.
@ Fred – Thanks! It is a LOT of work (40-60 hours a week on top of my full time day job), but it is already showing benefits, which is a great feeling and it helps keep me motivated.
E-Junkie is another company that is basically the same as Clickbank or CJ, except they specialize in digital products. I will be writing a review to introduce the company here soon. I’ve talked in the past about why I feel digital products are the best things to promote, mainly because of the high referral percentages (some as high as 75%), which is why I really have focused on E-Junkie as my primary affiliate company (for now).
I do like to diversify, however, so now that it is going well, I’m hoping to start some campaigns focusing on more Clickbank and CJ products (Clickbank and AA in particular).
As far as BANS sites, I have a few large niche sites that don’t do incredibly great, but when they do make sales, they are large ones. I use PPC advertising to get traffic to these usually. I would say most of my sites are focused on extremely small product niches. I’m still looking for that one niche that has little competition but high payouts. Most small niches aren’t competitive for a reason.
But my mindset is every site helps, so as long as it pays for the renewal of itself each year, the site was a success!
Great Going Kyle. It is good to see that your hard work is paying off. And i will be waiting for your post on E-Junkie.
Kyle, that’s fantastic news! Congratulations, you’ve made the top of my “People I’m most jealous of” list.
I’m going to lock myself in my room for two weeks to get serious about promoting products.
@ Madhur – Working on the E-Junkie post as we speak
@ Mark – Please don’t be jealous of me. I’ve been working 90+ hour weeks (40 at my day job, 50+ online) so it is a lot of work.
This post was only written to draw peoples attention to the possibilities with some commitment and also so that people will hopefully know I’m not just blowing smoke and I actually practice everything that I preach!
I love reading these kinds of posts, especially when I actually believe the poster. As a frequent visitor of your site, I know your info is always legit.
Keep up the good work!
@ Mike – Thanks! Yeah, I was thinking about adding screenshots but I didn’t want to go to far over-the-top.
Did you know comments are locked on your blog? I tried to comment a few times but it requires someone to register with your site I believe. Just FYI! (or maybe it is intentional?)
I am very impressed this blog you can keep up with this blog while building so many online properties. Keep up with the good work. Thank you for giving this useful information.
@ George – Thank you! There is no secret. It is an insane amount of work (50-60 hours a week). Luckily, my wife sees the paychecks so she is more than happy to cook, put the kids to bed, etc., which frees me up to work on further my online prescence.
Hey Kyle, how’s it going. I haven’t tried BANS yet but I have had some success with the EPN using their widgets. The downside to their widgets is that it uses javascript to show the auction items and the auction titles don’t show in the HTML source code of your website, which isn’t SEO friendly. It seems that BANS use PHP or something like it because the eBay auction item’s titles and descriptions show in the HTML source code.