This first income report is for one niche website I launched in February 2014. It does not cover all of my online enterprises.
It does NOT include revenue/expenses from this site (FAT Stacks Blog).
I launched the niche site for which this income report covers in February 2014. You can learn more about my strategy and methods here.
Because I launched FAT Stacks nearly 9 months after I launched my niche site, this income report includes revenue and expenses from February through September 2014.
Affiliate Disclaimer: Assume all links in this report are affiliate links. The affiliate links are to software products and services I use extensively. I like them and recommend them. I could not succeed without them.
Here it goes…
February 2014 (Niche Site Launched):
Revenue:
- Display Ads: $281.88
Expenses:
- Domain (with Bluehost): $21.95
- Eleven40 WordPress Theme: $99.95
- Elf Links: $97
- Animoto Pro: $300 (annual subscription)
- Best of the Web: $149.95
- LeadPages: $67
- AWeber: $19
- Bluehost: $5.95
- Shutterstock: $200
- Facebook Ads: $527.03
Total Expenses: $1,487.83
Feb Net Loss: -$1,205.95
March 2014
Revenue:
- Display Ad Revenue (Adsense & Media.net): $33,733.35
Expenses:
- LeadPages: $67
- AWeber: $19
- Bluehost: $5.95
- Shutterstock Images: $200
- Amazon S3 Server: $$357
- Facebook Ads: $9,871.09
- Outbrain Ads: $259.95
Total Expenses: $10,424.57
March Profit: $23,308.78
April 2014
Revenue:
- Display Ad Revenue (Adsense & Media.net): $42,733.53
Expenses:
- LeadPages: $67
- AWeber: $19
- Bluehost: $5.95
- Shutterstock Images: $200
- Amazon S3 Server: $$840.03
- Facebook Ads: $17,000.86
- Outbrain Ads: $1,043.82
Total Expenses: $19,175.84
April Profit: $23,557.69
May 2014
Revenue:
- Display Ad Revenue (Adsense & Media.net): $57,987.54
Expenses:
- LeadPages: $67
- AWeber: $19
- Bluehost: $5.95
- Shutterstock Images: $200
- Amazon S3 Server: $$1,392.87
- Facebook Ads: $22,850.41
- Outbrain Ads: $2,191.78
Total Expenses: $26,727.01
May Profit: $31,260.53
June 2014
Revenue:
- Display Ad Revenue (Adsense & Media.net): $49,226.42
Expenses:
- LeadPages: $67
- AWeber: $29
- Bluehost: $5.95
- iStock Images: $450
- Amazon S3 Server: $1,737.73
- Facebook Ads: $29,277.58
- Outbrain Ads: $2,209.25
- LongerDays (outsourcing services): $1,300
Total Expenses: $35,076.51
June Profit: $14,149.91
July 2014
Revenue:
- Display Ad Revenue (Adsense & Media.net): $55,648.58
Expenses:
- LeadPages: $67
- AWeber: $69
- WebSynthesis Hosting: $147.00 (hit 500,000 monthly page views and needed a more robust web host).
- iStock Images: $450
- Amazon S3 Server: $$1,983.53
- Facebook Ads: $31,856.79
- Outbrain Ads: $2,237.47
- LongerDays (outsourcing services): $2,340
Total Expenses: $39,150.79
July Profit: $16,497.79
August 2014
Revenue:
- Display Ad Revenue (Adsense & Media.net): $62,481.29
Expenses:
- LeadPages: $67
- AWeber: $69
- WebSynthesis Hosting: $147.00
- iStock: $450
- Amazon S3 Server: $$1,626.83 (Despite more page views in August, I cut down my Amazon S3 cost by using Lazy Load plugin and migrating to Amazon Cloudfront).
- Facebook Ads: $31,223.68
- Outbrain Ads: $6,105.05
- LongerDays (outsourcing services): $2,600
Total Expenses: $42,288.56
August Profit: $20,192.73
September 2014
Revenue:
- Display Ad Revenue (Adsense & Media.net): $108,308.70
Expenses:
- LeadPages: $67
- AWeber: $149
- WebSynthesis Hosting (review): $147.00
- Amazon S3 Server: $1,412.59
- Facebook Ads: $35,065.80
- Outbrain Ads: $23,501.61
- LongerDays (outsourcing services): $2,600
Total Expenses: $62,943
September Profit: $45,365.70 + $5,670.84 = $51,036.54
FYI: I earned an additional $5,670.84 from another niche site (it’s a different type of site – learn more about it here).
Additional Revenue Sources During the First 8 Months:
- GumGum Ads: $3,474.46
- Affiliate Commissions (mostly Amazon): $1,395.52
Total Additional Revenue: $4,869.99
FYI: I love GumGum in-image ads (because they earn a lot of incremental revenue), but they’re working on getting their ads SSL certificate compliant. As soon as they’re ready for SSL certificates, I’ll be adding their ads back on my site.
Additional One-Off Expenses During the First 8 Months:
- IT Consulting (migrating to Amazon Cloudfront): $1,400
- Fantasktic – Website Migration from Bluehost to WebSynthesis: $99
- WP Curve Support: $69
- SSL Certificate: $175 (went with DigiCert, which is great, but you can get an SSL cert for less at GoDaddy).
- Disqus Ad Buy: $650
- Content.ad Ad Buy: $100
- Taboola Ad Buy: $5,860.78
- Bing Ads: $6,600
Total additional Expenses: $14,953.78
TOTAL REVENUE (1 Niche Site) Feb. through Sept. 2014 : $415,446.30
TOTAL EXPENSES (1 Niche Site) Feb. through Sept. 2014: $252,052.90
NET PROFIT (First 8 Months for 1 Niche Site): $163,043.40
Other Stats:
- Total page views (just this one niche site) from February 2014 through September 2014: 3,876,083
- Total organic search traffic: 286,613
- Total email subscribers: 9,560
Room for Improvement:
- Affiliate commission revenue. This will be a big focus for the remainder of 2014 and throughout 2015.
Additional Comments:
While outsourcing to LongerDays is a significant additional expense, doing so has cut the amount of time I need to work on this niche site by at least 60%. It’s enabled me to launch FAT Stacks. I’ve also been able to scale up my niche site with their help.
Display ad revenue includes YouTube ad revenue (which isn’t much at this time, but it’s growing every month).
Why don’t I reveal the URL of my niche site?
I’ve spent a great deal of time considering this issue before launching FAT Stacks Blog. I decided not to reveal my niche site. My decision is largely based on the advice of the folks at Adsense who suggested it could result in problems such as click-bombing. Since the niche site that is the subject of these income reports contributes quite a bit to my livelihood, I decided not to risk revealing the URL. If it earned $2K to $5K per month and I ran it as a case study in support of FAT Stacks, I may have decided otherwise.
Again, please keep in mind this is an income report for 8 months for 1 niche site. Revenue is not included from other niche sites, including Fat Stacks Blog.
My Guides
1. FAT Stacks Authority Niche Advanced Guide
This guide explains in step-by-step detail how I launched a niche site and within 8 months hit 1.1 million monthly visitors generating $40,000+ net profit per month. Click here to learn more.
2. FAT Stacks “High-Value” Passive Income Niche Guide
This blogging concept has earned me thousands every month for many months like clockwork. Each month my income goes up. It’s a simple, yet brilliant blogging concept. Click here to learn more.
Jon runs the place around here. He pontificates about launching and growing online publishing businesses, aka blogs that make a few bucks. His pride and joy is the email newsletter he publishes.
In all seriousness, Jon is the founder and owner of a digital media company that publishes a variety of web properties visited and beloved by millions of readers monthly. Fatstacks is where he shares a glimpse into his digital publishing business.
Hi Jon, nice to see you live in Canada too. How could your income jump to $33,000 in display ads in your second month ? I must be missing something ?
Welcome Ken. Born and raised in British Columbia. The key to rapid revenue increases is paid traffic. I agree, it sounds ludicrous, but paid traffic is the way to go if you can do it in the short term. In the long run, organic traffic is better… but it takes a long time. Thanks for stopping by.
Hi Jon: Love your content. Then I ran into this page and I have to say, that second month blows my mind. I mean it’s making me ignore the rest of the months. It looks from the numbers like a big Facebook arbitrage campaign. I never would have thought you could be that profitable with display ads right after the launch. I assume there is a learning curve – do you teach the system so that it can be scaled at a safe pace?
Hi Jon,
I sure enjoy reading your Fat Stacks blog! I love the name and the show in honor of it!! It’s interesting to see your income reports, as I’m new to affiliate marketing, and it inspires me to keep learning and not give up 🙂
I just launched my first website a few days ago (still in the process of getting indexed) and I have Amazon affiliate links on it. I’m interested in Elf Links, but Amazon says you’re not allowed to cloak, hide, spoof or otherwise obscure the URL of your site containing Special Links. So I’m scared to use anything that hides my links, as my Amazon account could get banned.
clearly, from your income and expenses report, i see your money is centered around facebook traffic.. seem you are pretty good with getting 0.01cpc form fb which converts well..
Hey Jon,
It looks like the second program for Passive Income Niche Guide is gone? Hmmm…
Also, since Sept. of ’15, Facebook has been reducing/dismantling organic reach with Fan Pages that aren’t getting bumped up/boosted. Has your program found a workaround for that?
I only ask because I am just getting started, and I want to make sure I’m not fighting tomorrow’s battle with yesterday’s strategy.
Thanks man, and I love your blog. “Science, bitch!”
Sean
Over the last 3 weeks I’ve put renewed effort into my FB page for my B2C site and results are good. I’m boosting posts and that’s working pretty well. Reach varies. It’s not as easy as it used to be, that’s for sure. But there are FB pages that still have excellent reach and generate excellent free traffic volumes. It does depend on the niche quite a bit.
what about the Passive Income Niche Guide? the links are dead. do you still offer that? thanks
Hey David,
I do still offer Niche Sniper. You can get it at https://fatstacksblog.com/niche-sniper/. Thanks for asking.
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This is really inspiriting for me to keep imoroving