Thursday, November 01, 2007
I Guess Christmas Is Here Then (Inc October Update)
There's been a definite leap in sales in the last four days across my toy and gift sites, so I think it looks like Christmas is here. No real difference in overall traffic, but clickthroughs and conversion rates are both higher - probably between two and three times higher than the previous week.
I really got the sense that Christmas was here when I went to Bentalls last weekend. There was only a token nod to Halloween with a few scary displays, but there was no mistaking that their focus was all about Christmas.
Last year my Toy site lost its decent SERPs just before the Christmas rush, but this year I have a better site, a better domain and I'm hoping to have a very good festive period. I kind of tied my flag to the Toys R Us mast in terms of datafeed and don't want to make any drastic changes now, but it's a shame because their commission is kind of low compared to others - although it has to be said the conversion rate seems good, for me at least.
October generally was a bit flat compared to last couple of months. The changes to MSN's rankings gave me a bigger hit than I first thought and Adsense was down about $600. I also had a mini-disappointment when I saw my Amazon stats today. The overall number was ok, but I had exactly one order short of moving up am additional tier for the month, which is annoying. Actually the order numbers were in excess of the tier, but because not all of them had been despatched I lost out on an extra 0.5% for the month.
That said, October was decent enough and I'm now looking forward to an excellent Christmas period.
I really got the sense that Christmas was here when I went to Bentalls last weekend. There was only a token nod to Halloween with a few scary displays, but there was no mistaking that their focus was all about Christmas.
Last year my Toy site lost its decent SERPs just before the Christmas rush, but this year I have a better site, a better domain and I'm hoping to have a very good festive period. I kind of tied my flag to the Toys R Us mast in terms of datafeed and don't want to make any drastic changes now, but it's a shame because their commission is kind of low compared to others - although it has to be said the conversion rate seems good, for me at least.
October generally was a bit flat compared to last couple of months. The changes to MSN's rankings gave me a bigger hit than I first thought and Adsense was down about $600. I also had a mini-disappointment when I saw my Amazon stats today. The overall number was ok, but I had exactly one order short of moving up am additional tier for the month, which is annoying. Actually the order numbers were in excess of the tier, but because not all of them had been despatched I lost out on an extra 0.5% for the month.
That said, October was decent enough and I'm now looking forward to an excellent Christmas period.
Labels: adsense, christmas, earnings, msn, toys, update
Friday, June 01, 2007
May Update: Earnings
Google Adsense money was good last month, but about the same as the month before and I'm really looking to see some growth there. But hey ho, it's still the same as I earned pre-tax in my first job and I had to goto call centre everyday and speak to idiots for that.
Affiliate marketing from my sites was maybe a little below average - nothing to get excited about last month. Where networks/merchants show you what people order, it's always interesting in a voyeuristic kind of way. Someone on one of my sites must have seen Casino Royale and realised they actually quite liked James Bond, because an order came through for the complete Bond DVD boxset (all the EON productions), AND they ordered Never Say Never Again (which I have a certain fondness for too) AND they ordered the original Casino Royale with David Niven and Woody Allen, which has a great soundtrack and that's probably the best thing you can about that. It's kind of fasincating to know what makes someone think "right, I'll buy EVERY single Bond film possible".
Affiliate marketing from PPC was disappointing. I was worried at the start of the money how it was going. It recovered enough to mean I at least finished the month in profit - spent £340 on Adwords and made £420 in sales - but there were two periods of over 10 days with hundreds of clicks and no sales, which just doesn't feel right to me. I was intending to switch merchant at this point (it would be pretty seamless from site's point of view) but have decided to stick with it for another month and see how it goes because as was pointed out in the comments section, it may have been the previous month that was out of character and maybe this month was more typical. A third month to compare with should be useful to help tell.
Affiliate marketing from my sites was maybe a little below average - nothing to get excited about last month. Where networks/merchants show you what people order, it's always interesting in a voyeuristic kind of way. Someone on one of my sites must have seen Casino Royale and realised they actually quite liked James Bond, because an order came through for the complete Bond DVD boxset (all the EON productions), AND they ordered Never Say Never Again (which I have a certain fondness for too) AND they ordered the original Casino Royale with David Niven and Woody Allen, which has a great soundtrack and that's probably the best thing you can about that. It's kind of fasincating to know what makes someone think "right, I'll buy EVERY single Bond film possible".
Affiliate marketing from PPC was disappointing. I was worried at the start of the money how it was going. It recovered enough to mean I at least finished the month in profit - spent £340 on Adwords and made £420 in sales - but there were two periods of over 10 days with hundreds of clicks and no sales, which just doesn't feel right to me. I was intending to switch merchant at this point (it would be pretty seamless from site's point of view) but have decided to stick with it for another month and see how it goes because as was pointed out in the comments section, it may have been the previous month that was out of character and maybe this month was more typical. A third month to compare with should be useful to help tell.
Labels: earnings
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
April Update: Earnings
Well, it's the start of a new month so it must be time for a quick recap on how this particular online marketer did in the previous month.
Adsense earnings were a little down on the month previous but remain really rather good. They've been roughly at around the same level for quite some time which is satisfactory but I'd live to move this forward. It still pains me when I see the Channel list and notice that sites that did make plenty now hardly feature. Resurrecting once successful sites remains on my to-do list.
Affiliate income through natural traffic was a little disappointing last month. The month started well - with Expedia on TD being a good performer - but then sales stagnated towards the end of the month.
For some reason email notifications of sales from OneNetwork have stopped (for me, at least) so I thought I was having a dismal month on there but after logging in, saw that actually it was a very good month for software sales.
Affiliate income through PPC was very pleasing as I mentioned in a post the other day. I finished the whole month with an ad spend for the campaign concerned of £310 and a commission total of £581. After many PPC failures, I'm certainly happy with those numbers.
Adsense earnings were a little down on the month previous but remain really rather good. They've been roughly at around the same level for quite some time which is satisfactory but I'd live to move this forward. It still pains me when I see the Channel list and notice that sites that did make plenty now hardly feature. Resurrecting once successful sites remains on my to-do list.
Affiliate income through natural traffic was a little disappointing last month. The month started well - with Expedia on TD being a good performer - but then sales stagnated towards the end of the month.
For some reason email notifications of sales from OneNetwork have stopped (for me, at least) so I thought I was having a dismal month on there but after logging in, saw that actually it was a very good month for software sales.
Affiliate income through PPC was very pleasing as I mentioned in a post the other day. I finished the whole month with an ad spend for the campaign concerned of £310 and a commission total of £581. After many PPC failures, I'm certainly happy with those numbers.
Labels: earnings
Monday, April 02, 2007
March Earnings Update
Adsense in March can be summed up in three words. Best. Month. Ever. Not by a huge amount, but definitely a new high.
So that's great and I am happy, except well over half was from one site and I really want to see my Adsense earnings diversify further because I hate to be reliant on one site.
Affiliate sales were healthy across all networks, and probably also close to being best I've had.
Amazon Associate performance was sluggish in March, with a slight fillip towards the end when someone bought 11 copies of the same book - I can only imagine it was a teacher or professor.
Another welcome boost this month was that some direct advertisers I have on a site decided to renew and in fact lengthen their advertising with my site, which is a little vote of confidence in the site concerned.
So, really an excellent month on all fronts and with the recent decision to work from home which saw my outgoings plummet, things are really motoring.
Will April bring me down to earth with a bump? Or see even greater success?
I'm looking forward to finding out!
So that's great and I am happy, except well over half was from one site and I really want to see my Adsense earnings diversify further because I hate to be reliant on one site.
Affiliate sales were healthy across all networks, and probably also close to being best I've had.
Amazon Associate performance was sluggish in March, with a slight fillip towards the end when someone bought 11 copies of the same book - I can only imagine it was a teacher or professor.
Another welcome boost this month was that some direct advertisers I have on a site decided to renew and in fact lengthen their advertising with my site, which is a little vote of confidence in the site concerned.
So, really an excellent month on all fronts and with the recent decision to work from home which saw my outgoings plummet, things are really motoring.
Will April bring me down to earth with a bump? Or see even greater success?
I'm looking forward to finding out!
Labels: adsense, affiliate marketing, earnings
Thursday, March 01, 2007
February Earnings Update!!
Just a little update on online earnings in January for anyone interested in that kind of thing.
I was pleased to see Adsense income actually increase upon what I earned in January by 1.5%, despite it being a shorter month, thanks mostly to a nice rise in Referrals. So it was a pleasing month but there was a slight downside when I compared to Feb 06 and realised it was down by quite a bit but February 06 was a monster month for Adsense for me so maybe not a useful comparison.
Amazon income was up massively, mostly thanks to some PPC work I did in January, but when costs taken into account, I think it roughly broken even. Was fun though and I learnt some stuff but have put that on hold for a bit and plan to revisit.
Other affiliate income was mostly steady. Most suprising and welcome affiliate earning was a £70 commission from the mobile network Three on Buy.at. I did a mobile phone site a while ago but there was no real angle to it and the finishe dproduct didnt inspire me to try and promote it so I just left it. This sale came from that site so it was nice and unexpected. I think they may be charging customers (like me!) too much to afford £70 commissions though!
I was pleased to see Adsense income actually increase upon what I earned in January by 1.5%, despite it being a shorter month, thanks mostly to a nice rise in Referrals. So it was a pleasing month but there was a slight downside when I compared to Feb 06 and realised it was down by quite a bit but February 06 was a monster month for Adsense for me so maybe not a useful comparison.
Amazon income was up massively, mostly thanks to some PPC work I did in January, but when costs taken into account, I think it roughly broken even. Was fun though and I learnt some stuff but have put that on hold for a bit and plan to revisit.
Other affiliate income was mostly steady. Most suprising and welcome affiliate earning was a £70 commission from the mobile network Three on Buy.at. I did a mobile phone site a while ago but there was no real angle to it and the finishe dproduct didnt inspire me to try and promote it so I just left it. This sale came from that site so it was nice and unexpected. I think they may be charging customers (like me!) too much to afford £70 commissions though!
Labels: earnings
Thursday, February 01, 2007
January Earnings Update
I'll just concentrate on Adsense for this earnings update, as that remains my biggest earner by quite some way.
In this type of update post, I debate with myself whether to just state the actual numbers but I think you reach a certain point when you're doing kind of well when it seems a bit inappropriate to say how much exactly you've made. Although there's another stage where your earnings are so phenomenal you just have to tell the world - but I'm not quite there yet!
Anyways, so here's a percentage break down of how I did in January compared to the previous month, and the same month a year ago.
I find doing this update really useful because it reminds me that actually I was doing better with Adsense for Content a year ago, but because Referral units took up the slack and pushed my earnings forward, I lost sight of other sites which have had an earnings decrease.
When you make quite a few sites, its easy to lose interest in older sites which once earned OK money. So my task for February is to spend sometime everyday revisiting some of the sites that are earning less than they were to see if they can be dusted down and made useful again.
In this type of update post, I debate with myself whether to just state the actual numbers but I think you reach a certain point when you're doing kind of well when it seems a bit inappropriate to say how much exactly you've made. Although there's another stage where your earnings are so phenomenal you just have to tell the world - but I'm not quite there yet!
Anyways, so here's a percentage break down of how I did in January compared to the previous month, and the same month a year ago.
| Compared to Last Month | Compared to 12 Months Ago | |
| Adsense for Content | +47.87% | -10.98% |
| Adsense for Search | +98.12% | +268.50% |
| Adsense for Referrals | +1.37% | +89.66% |
| Totals | +20.38% | +21.72% |
When you make quite a few sites, its easy to lose interest in older sites which once earned OK money. So my task for February is to spend sometime everyday revisiting some of the sites that are earning less than they were to see if they can be dusted down and made useful again.
Labels: adsense, earnings, google
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