The bad news is April’s net income hasn’t really grown for my 2 niche sites since March 2016. The good news is it didn’t go down.
Overall I’m happy with this income report because on one of the two niche sites I profile, I lost the Nessie arrows on my AdSense ads at the beginning of April. I thought it might be a bloodbath but it wasn’t too bad. Yes, AdSense revenue dropped, but I moved Media.net units into better spots and they performed well. I also continued with ads from The Blogger Network which kicked in an extra $3,439 in revenue.
Important:
Please note this income report pertains ONLY to 2 niche sites of mine. One site is a large B2C website serving a broad audience. The other site is a focused B2B niche site (not Fat Stacks). This income report does NOT include net income/revenue from Fat Stacks (which continues to grow due to the popularity of my authority website course (now called Niche Tycoon)
This income report also does not include my local offline marketing clients or any other niche sites (I’ve expanded my niche site portfolio in recent months).
Here are the numbers.
April 2016 Income Report:
Niche Site #1 (Large B2C Magazine Style Website):
Revenue:
Display Ad Revenue: $28,082 (Media.net revenue alone was $12,440, Ezoic revenue was $6,097, The Blogger Network revenue was $3,439 plus plus a few other revenue sources. See screenshots below).
Affiliate Commission Revenue: $2,817 (ouch… a bit of a drop in April).
Total revenue for site 1: $31,099
I explain how I generate this revenue from these types of sites (B2C) in my guide here.
Niche Site #2 (Targeted Niche Site):
Affiliate commission revenue: $9,756 (this is total affiliate revenue for site #2).
I have a screenshot of the quarterly affiliate check below. For income reports I just divide the most recent quarterly checks by 3 and then I earn a few hundred dollars from some other affiliate programs.
I explain the Niche Site #2 (B2B) this model here.
TOTAL REVENUE BOTH SITES: $40,855
Expenses
Expenses apply to both niche sites. I’m now prorating expenses in relation to all other sites I own/publish which has grown in 2016 so the expenses attributable to the 2 niche sites profiled here is reported as less.
- Instapage: $25
- AWeber: $144
- WPEngine: $250 (moved all sites to WPEngine which I explain why in detail here).
- Dropbox: $6
- Outsourcing: $3,500
- Stock Photos: $366
- Amazon S3 Server: $1,039
- Facebook Ads: $6,122
- OptinMonster: $15
- PushCrew Push Notifications: $12
Total Expenses in April 2016 (both sites): $11,479
Net Profit for Both Niche Sites: $29,376
What are my plans for growth?
1. Slow and Steady
I’m at the stage with my niche sites that I’m growing them more organically than anything else. I have a solid revenue baseline for all my niche sites (including my law sites). The only exception is the site I bought in December 2015 which is floundering largely due to not dedicating enough time to it… but I will.
Instead of rushing growth, I’m taking it slow and steady which is very enjoyable. I’m focusing on content; I’ve been much more hands on in producing content in April and will plan to be more hands on for the foreseeable future taking my content advice to delegate and not abdicate.
I realize I’m in a very fortunate position to have 2 sites with fantastic revenue baselines along with a couple decently earning law sites (I do some performance-based marketing for lawyers… I haven’t covered this on Fat Stacks) plus 4 other sites that are poised to do well.
2. Email revenue growth
One area where I have very good revenue potential with my B2C sites is email marketing. I’m now working with email newsletter advertisers which has substantially increased email revenue which is a great incentive for building up the B2C email newsletter. I’ve been averaging 75 to 110 new subscribers per day. Like slow and steady organic growth, this revenue source will also grow in a slow and steady manner.
Screenshot Proof
Here’s a few screenshots of my larger revenue sources just so you know I’m not making this stuff up 🙂 .
Ezoic
Try Ezoic here.
Media.net
Try Media.net here.
The Blogger Network
Affiliate Check (Revenue for Niche Site #2 – B2B model)
Jon Dykstra is a six figure niche site creator with 10+ years of experience. His willingness to openly share his wins and losses in the email newsletter he publishes has made him a go-to source of guidance and motivation for many. His popular “Niche site profits” course has helped thousands follow his footsteps in creating simple niche sites that earn big.
I just don’t get it from so long I had to ask this up to you, how can you get 4 figures from Adsense/Ezoic or Media.net.. What’s the traffic? Over 5 million? And what’s the website? Plus how? I’ve a tech website based on Android. Do you have any 5 figures money making lessons??
Thank you.
You rock, Jon. I am assuming that with these kind of figures you must be showing too much amount of ads on your site. Don’t you think that it will hurt user experience in long run and your sites might lose their credibility?
I show a lot of ads, but I have long content too. I”m sure the ads annoy some people but I have a decent return visit rate and I’ve only had a couple of complaints out of millions of visitors. Ads pay the bills, but the ads don’t make the content impossible to read/view.
Hi Jon
Great post
Just curious to know hoe many ads do you have the blogger network and do you give them good placements?
Thanks
Hey James,
I’m currently using 4 TBN ads. 2 in the footer and 2 in the sidebar. Pretty weak placements yet they earn really well; that’s the beauty of TBN.
I am so much amazed looking at your Adsense Revenue, just wanted to know how many ad units are you using and is it safe to combine other ad networks with Adsense and what is the maximum number of Adsense units allowed in mobile view. I know they are too many questions but I still can’t take you are making such a huge amount from Adsense. Hopefully me too would make this one day. Good Luck.
Hey Prerna,
Grab my free report at https://fatstacksblog.com/free-report for more details about the ad units and placement.
Hi Jon,
Last week Google put a message on my Adsense homepage asking me to try out Page-level ads. According to Google, Page-level ads don’t count towards the 3 ads per page limit. The thing is they put a “Beta” sign next to Page-level ads so I am wondering if it’s something worth trying for and if you put them on your niche sites yet? If you do, how does it go?
Hey Jessica,
Yes, Page-level ads are definitely worth trying. I use the mobile anchor in Ezoic.
Congratulations Jon! Awesome stats. Could you explain this further please: I’m now working with email newsletter advertisers which has substantially increased email revenue…
How do you go about this and do you have examples? Thanks!
Hey Heidi,
I’m using Powerinbox for email ads. They’re native ads for email newsletters.
Hi Jon,
Hugely impressive earnings!
I’m curious about a couple of things regarding your niche site, so I would appreciate if you could answer a couple of questions.
1. Roughly how many visitors do you get to your b2b site a day for such impressive affiliate earnings?
2. How long did it take you to build up your traffic and when did you see your first sales come in?
2. When do you find you usually make a sale? Is it when users first visit your site, once they have opted into your newsletter via a freebie like an ebook that contains affiliate links (I’m assuming this is what you do), or mostly through email marketing?
Thanks
Hey Nick,
1. 100 or so unique visitors per day.
2. 1 to 2 years. It’s stable now and has been for years.
3. Via email newsletter primarily.
It seems like your return on ad spend has gone through the roof! Am I reading this right? You spent just around $6K on advertising and made back over $40,000. I thought I read somewhere on a previous income report that you were getting around 55% ROAS?
Hey Mike,
I wish that was my return on paid. I’d spend $1 million per month. A lot of my traffic is organic contributing to overall revenue.
So do you think Ad Arbitrage is not a viable business model now?
I think it’s viable but I wouldn’t just do ad arb. I’d build a site that will attract organic / social traffic too. Ad arb is up and down. You can earn enormous profits quickly, but you can have bad days too.
Hi Jon, I look forward to purchasing your “Done-For-You Niche Blog”, I hope there’s a chance to pay for it in fized monthly installments 🙂
Thanks!
Alex
Hey Alex,
I look forward to rolling out done-for-you-niche sites. They’re going to be great. I’m not sure on final pricing yet since we’re doing prototypes to assess exactly how much will be involved in rolling them out. If you’re on my email newsletter, you’ll get notice of when the service is launched.
Hi Jon
A cool post idea would be looking at a site you see for sale like on flippa where the traffic stats and url are public and explaining how you would improve the ROI on it using your knowledge of ad placement and other areas. I have bought your products and have thought how to apply to acquired sites to save time having to get a site established since new sites might not always rank or work like predicted.
Hey Brian,
Good idea. I think an even better approach would be to actually buy the site and do a case study. I’ll keep that in mind. The problem is I’m pretty swamped running my sites as it is so adding more would be pretty tough.
Hi Jon, just to check does Adsense have any restrictions on media.net ads? Did they send you any warning emails when you use media.net?
Hey John,
I’ve never had any issue using both AdSense and Media.net and I’ve used both for years on the same site.