Hello! This is Kristen, stepping out of the kitchen for another food blog income report. When I first started these blog income reports back in March 2012, TEM earned a whopping $15.37. I say that jokingly now, but I remember thinking it was the best thing since bourbon sours. I mean, for $15.37 I could buy myself a bourbon sour at a swanky lounge AND give the server a good tip. I was stoked.
Since then TEM has grown into an almost full-time job, with more than full-time hours. Along the way I've learned a thing or two about how to make money from blogging, and I'd like to be able to share that knowledge with you. I firmly believe that, by working together and sharing what we learn, we all become more successful at food blogging. As the saying goes, a rising tide raises all boats. ⛵
This month I want to share with you the success I've had using OptinMonster. (affiliate link) OptinMonster is the popup you see when you first arrive at TEM asking you if you'd like to join the newsletter list. I was leery about installing a popup on TEM because I generally find them annoying. But … it's been wildly successful in increasing the amount of newsletter subscribers I have. I'm going to tell you more about this after at the end of the post.
First, let's have a look at the numbers …
Income
- Gourmet Ads – $277.93
- Conversant – $222.68
- Sovrn – $246.44
- SRAX – $7.56
- Sponsored Posts/ Photography/ Recipe Licensing – $300
- Switch Ads – $24.19
- Gamut – $16.17
- Triplelift – $1.28
- Affiliate Sales- $103.49
Total Income: $1,200.34
Expenses
- Media Temple – $45.83 – My web hosting company – they are AWESOME!
- MailChimp – $50 – The company I use to send my newsletter updates
- OptinMonster $21 – Popup plugin and sign up forms
- BoardBooster – $5 – Pinterest scheduler
- Vaultpress – $5 – Backs up all TEMs files
Total Expenses: $126.83
TOTAL PROFIT: $1,073.51
Note: The income reported here is in USD. Although I am Canadian the majority of the income I earn through TEM is in American dollars.
RPM stands for Revenue Per Mille. It represents the amount of money your blog makes per one thousand (mille) pageviews. To calculate your blog's RPM, you can use this simple formula:
Total Profit ÷ Total Pageviews x 1000 = RPM
If your blog had 10,000 pageviews and earned $100 then your RPM would be $10.
$100 ÷ 10,000 x 1000 = 10 RPM
What's working
Last month, I gave the answer: OptinMonster. I'm going to stick with that one again this month.
OptinMonster is a plugin that lets me create popups and email sign up forms. Right now I have OptinMonster installed in two spots on TEM. One is a simple email sign up form in the sidebar for my Food Blogging Tips newsletter list. If you'd like to sign up for this list, I'll send you valuable food blogging tips, about once a month.
The other place I have OptinMonster on TEM is as a popup when you first visit the site. I offer a free e-Cookbook in exchange for signing up for the newsletter. Not a bad deal, right? 🙂
Since signing up with OptinMonster in July, TEMs email newsletter list has grown by nearly 1000 new subscribers per month. In August, I had 964 new subscribers join the mailing list. I don't have a large newsletter list (yet), and that represents and enormous increase.
Prior to installing the OptinMonster popup, I was getting roughly 100 new subscribers each month. Based on the number of new subscribers added in August (the first full month of using OptinMonster) I saw an 864% increase in the number of new subscribers. Wowzah!!
Question: Can I increase the traffic to my food blog by growing my newsletter list?
Answer: Yes!
The traffic The Endless Meal receives directly from the newsletter has increased 123% since installing OptinMonster. Now imagine if that traffic continues to grow by the same percentage every month. We're talking about the opportunity for substantial growth.
Below you can see the Acquisition Charts from June and August. I've left out July since I installed the popup part way through the month so that the results wouldn't be accurate. Note the 123% increase in email traffic!
June 2015
August 2015
I'm going to wrap up this month's food blog income report on this note. If you're not yet offering your readers the chance to subscribe to email notifications when you post a new recipe, I highly encourage you to start. I use MailChimp to deliver the emails I send. I think MailChimp is an excellent option as it 100% free until you get over 2000 subscribers. Another popular choice, but one I haven't personally tried, is Aweber. There are other companies out there, but these are the two biggest ones.
Once you get your email delivery service set up make sure to check out OptinMonster to help you build your email list. If you want to try it out to see if it works for you, they have a basic plan for just $9/ month or $49/ year. Based on the success I've had with them I think it's a steal.
Thank you for joining me on another month of this Food Blog Income Report Journey. If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you. Don't be shy about saying hi in the comments section below.
Kristen Stevens
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Kristen is the person working behind the scenes at The Endless Meal. She takes all the pics, creates all the recipes and eats all the leftovers. 
I love all of this awesome advice! I will definitely need to look into the subscription pop up box!
You totally should … I was so blown away by how successful it has been!
Really great information, Kristen, especially concerning your use of the newsletter popup. I have a subscribe popup on my site but I currently don’t have any opt-in bonus like your e-book. I think this is key so I guess I’ll be working on that! Love these updates!
I think the eCookbook really helps. Everyone likes free stuff! The recipes are all taken from TEM and I created the book using Pages, although I know there are a number of programs that work for creating ebooks. 🙂
OMG, this is SO helpful, Kristen! I am totally struggling with ads- the placement, the companies to use – all of it! I have never heard of OptinMonster for newsletter signups, but I am most definitely going to check them out! Thanks for sharing the knowledge! Cheers, girlfriend!
I’m so happy you found it helpful!
Have you bought the How to Monetize Your Food Blog? I bought it about a year ago and found it really helpful.
I’ll constantly tinkering with my ads to try and find just the right mix. I’ll talk about that some more in next month’s report!
I love reading posts like this, as not only are they motivation for myself, but I love seeing how well other people are doing!
I am actually going to be starting a monthly income report myself, as since going full-time a year or so ago, things have developed really quickly and I want to share how to do that with other bloggers 🙂
That’s fantastic … I can’t wait to read your reports!
Such a helpful post, thanks for sharing! Love all the details you provided! I also use Optin Monster and it works very well on my blog!
I’m so happy to hear that OptinMonster is working well for you too. It’s so awesome, isn’t it?!
What a helpful post Kristen! Thank you for all of the helpful tips! I will have to give OptinMonster a try!
Thank you so much, Kelley!
Thanks for posting this! it’s always fun to see how other blogs are coming along. I think you should look into joining The Blogger Network. They handle your ads, have absolutely AMAZING customer service, and you could easily make almost twice the amount you currently make with Gourmet Ads. I joined them a few months back and my jaw dropped at how much my earnings increased from when I was using BlogHer 🙂
Hi Christine, Thank you for letting me know about The Blogger Network. I’m definitely checking that out! I actually applied to Ad Thrive (which I think is similar) but ended up getting turned down because my US traffic was 58.5% and they wanted a minimum of 60%. It was so close! Trying to optimize ads does take a lot of time and it would be really nice to pass that job onto a professional. Thank you for the suggestion!
Kristen, great information. This is especially helpful for me as I’m just getting started with my food blog and this is an area I need to work on.
I’m so happy you find it helpful. I know there is so much to think about, especially when you’re first starting out, and I’m happy to hear I can help out!
Brilliant info Kristen. I’ve been struggling with the decision on installing a subscriber pop-up. Like you I’m not keen from a user experience point of veiw, but I’d reaaaally like to build up my list. 🙂
You’ve given me the push I need to make it happen! I’ll check out your OptinMonster link!
Thanks, Nicky! I totally understand the struggle. I thought for months about it before I decided to install the popup and now wish I hadn’t waited for so long. I’m excited for you to start growing your mailing list like crazy, too!