I decided it's time for me to drop any further hotel affiliate marketing programs, due to they are way too competitive.I have been in hotel affiliate marketing programs already by more than one year - and haven't made more than some twenty bucks. Either I'm not smart enough, either it's too competitive. I would say like this - it's mashup of both. By…
Welcome to the 17th online income report. Today I will write about my online earnings and spendings in month of May 2015. I have been doing those report since January 2014 (Back then I earned enormous $8.37) and they help me track my online success or failures. I hope they can inspire you as well.
Speaking of previous month (May) earnings - in short last month has been the lowest since September 2014 (Although I was very pleased with my results in September, that was my second month of using Affiliate marketing and I was proud to report $287.25 in revenue).
There are a few reasons I find why my earnings felt sharply last month. In total my blog earned $433.59 what is a -41% decrease if compared to previous month (April) earnings.
As usual I like to compare how my online earnings stand to minimum and average wages in different countries. Turns our my earnings in May would equal to about a minimum wage in Latvia and would give me a pretty solid average salary in Georgia.
My daily earnings in month of May: $13.99
Blog traffic in May 2015
May was the record breaker and did set up a new personal record resulting in 20,843 unique users. What we can learn from that? Well, in this case nothing much. A lot of traffic not necessary means a lot of income. So for example in December 2014 I made 5 times more in online revenue with traffic just 13,000. I believe it's all about quality of traffic, seasonality and lit bit of luck.
Blog Traffic Report May 2015 Source: Google Analytics
Now I have already starting to figure out how to break 1,000 users per day milestone. But I believe it should take some more time (some 4-6 months at least)
Income streams
For the past months I have reported that I have 3 streams (Amazon Associates, Google Adsense and Amazon CPM) but in fact I have another stream, a very passive income stream - Booking.com
So lets divide my 4 income streams into a two subgroups - Affiliate Marketing and Display ads:
Affiliate Marketing
- Amazon Associates - $412.95
- Booking.com - $0.00
Display Ads
- Google Adsense - $16.67
- Amazon CPM - $3.97
Total: $433.59
Although Booking.com affiliates made me a flat 0, there is a reason I included this channel in my report. The thing is - Booking.com is the first affiliate marketing program I familiarized myself. It's about 3 years since I have been using it on different digital activities. About a year ago I was very eager on promoting hotels via Booking.com platform, but then I found that hotel affiliate industry is way too competitive and I decided to stop my activities on it and concentrate my forces on other channels.
As summer season is approaching I noticed a few bookings made via my blog (I'm writing both hotel reviews where I have stayed and I'm listing best of kind hotels in cities I have visited) and for now there is a pretty fat commission waiting for me in June, July and August. I decided to continue using Booking.com affiliate marketing system just as a passive income stream. I will add more hotel reviews this summer, and lets see then at the end of this summer the results.
Speaking of a drop in Amazon Associates I believe the reason is the same - it's summer season and sales are down. Month of May reported me the lowest CTR rates so far staying a low as % 1.85. I believe this trend will continue till the end of summer, but I hope for first good results already in this August. In August it will be one year I have been using Amazon Associates and last August was a pretty good in commissions (low, but good).
And let's not forget about expenses:
Expenses:
- Linode VPS - $40.00
- Linode VPS 2 - $10.00
- Linode Backup Services - $10.00
Total: $60.00
I'm spending some $60.00 per month just to power my blog... well not only, I have a few development services on these servers as well. The good thing I'm spending my hard earned money in the backup services.
GROSS TOTAL: $373.59
Right, what's next? What about a comparison how much I earned a year ago?
May 2015 vs May 2014
A year ago I made the 5th online income report. And back then I earned a very modest $6.01. Technically speaking if compared this May with previous May, I have earned 72 times more. That's an AWESOME growth, right?
Forecast/Goal for June
Right, although I like to make my forecasts very humble and I have already stated that I believe this summer season I won't crack a $1,000 milestone I will set up a goal for this month to reach $600. Anything bellow will be a bad result. That means just one, this month I will focus more on my affiliate marketing channels.
Hope you did find useful this online income report, please, share your thoughts in the comments section.
