Hey, blogging pals! This blog income report is the once a month when I share with you some of the behind the scenes details about what goes into running a blog.
For those of you who have a blog, I have some insights into OptinMonster, the new platform I'm using to collect email addresses for my newsletter list. (Spoiler alert: I'm pretty darn happy with the results.)
For those of you who are curious about blogging, read on. I share what the blog makes, what the expenses are, and some screenshots of the traffic the blog gets. This is your chance to snoop around! If you find yourself more curious after having a look around, make sure to check out my course #OhMyBlog. I created it to help new bloggers quickly and easily set up a successful blog.
But first, let's get to the numbers …
INCOME
- Adthrive – $2,592.00
- Chicory – $48.45
- Viglink – $88.89
- Sponsored posts – $1000
- Image rights- $75
- Affiliate – $ 63.05
Total Income: $3,867.39
EXPENSES
- SiteGround – $90 – My new and much loved hosting company
- MailChimp – $75 – The company I use to send my newsletter updates.
- Tailwind – $10 – Pinterest scheduler – LOVE them!
- Vaultpress – $5 – Backs up all TEMs files.
- Teachable – $29
- Adobe Premiere Pro – $19.99 – What I use for video editing.
- CrashPlan – $5.99
- CloudFlare – $20
- OptinMonster – $16.58 *NEW*
- Support staff – $691.88
Total Expenses: $963.44
TOTAL PROFIT: $2,903.95
Note: The income reported here is in USD. Although I am Canadian the majority of the income I earn through TEM, and my expenses, are in American dollars.
RPM is a handy formula to calculate how much money your blog is earning. The acronym stands for Revenue Per Mille, or revenue per thousand pageviews.
Total Profit ÷ Total Pageviews x 1000 = RPM
Using this formula we can calculate The Endless Meal’s RPMs:
$2,903.75 ÷ 271,328 x 1000 = $10.70
TRAFFIC OVERVIEW
Top 10 Traffic sources
Build your email list like a pro
Warning: this is a big love fest for OptinMonster.
Your email list is the most valuable tool you have. When someone gives you their email address, they are opening their door to you. When someone joins your list, you are also joining THEIR list of people they let into their online lives.
Your email list is the one way that you can connect with your readers that cannot be taken away from you. Facebook and Instagram can shut down (unlikely, I know) or change their algorithms and suddenly all the hard work you put into building your following disappears. Your email list belongs to you. It cannot be deleted or taken away from you. Think of it as very special cargo.
Building your email list takes time. When new bloggers ask me what they should be doing, I always answer, “Start your email list!”
Last month, my hosting company (Siteground – LOVE them!) emailed me about a promotional offer they were having with OptinMonster. I've been testing out different tools to capture email addresses, and this one had all the features I wanted.
In April, the forms that I created collected 1,214 emails. That's just over 40 emails a day! Considering that the average daily signup rate before OptinMonster was 13, that's a massive increase.
One of the features I really like is that they link with Google Analytics and you can track the optins' performance from there. (You can also track analytics from your OptinMonster dashboard.)
The biggest reason I signed up with OptinMonster is the mad control you get over your optin forms. Honestly, I've barely cracked the surface of what these forms can do. You're able to create an unlimited amount of forms to optimize every page you have.
Some of my favorite OptinMonster features are:
Page Level Targeting: the ability to create specific optins for specific pages. This is ideal for your highest traffic pages.
Mobile Optin Forms: This is what sold me. You can create mobile specific forms and choose whether or not your regular forms show on mobile devices. Mobile optins are more intrusive (they tend to take up the entire screen since the screen is so small) so I have mine set to appear after someone has been on the page for 15 seconds.
Unlimited A/B testing: They make it very easy to test different optin features. You can duplicate an optin then change one feature to test. I'm currently testing the mobile optin to find the optimal number of seconds to wait before it pops up.
Smart Subscriber Recognition: This technology recognizes when someone has signed up to your list so they're not shown the optin again. Few things are more frustrating than being a subscriber and constantly being asked to subscribe!
Awesome Support: I've had to reach out a few times to tweak the look of an optin. Each time the support request was answered quickly with the information I needed. A good support team can make your life so much easier.
Can you tell I'm big time crushing over OptinMonster?
Kristen Stevens
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Hi, I’m Kristen! 
Hey Kristen, so happy to hear you’re enjoying using OptinMonster! Thanks for sharing those great results. Have you checked out the guides on our blog? I’ve linked to the one on page level targeting in the website field. 🙂 We’ve also got a recent post on using OptinMonster to reduce your bounce rate. Let me know if it’s ok to share the link here. 🙂
I’d love to read about reducing the bounce rate! Definitely, link it up. 🙂
Thanks, here you go: http://optinmonster.com/4-ways-to-reduce-your-bounce-rate-with-optinmonster/
I *LOVE* these. I’ve been reading them for years and have always learned so much! I really need to check out OptInMonster. I started with a popup free Whole30 ebook giveaway months ago and my email list went absolutely berzerk, but I’d love to be able to track it better. And I loooove how you can track yours in GA. So cool!
Awww thank you!! It’s amazing how a giveaway or free cookbook can encourage people to sign up, isn’t it? BTW: I signed up for your Whole30 book and it’s awesome!
Hi, Thanks so much for sharing your income and process. There are no expenses listed relating to preparation of the recipes, like ingredients or equipment. How do you factor those types of expenditures into your planning?
That’s a really good observation! I’ve started to track my food expenses this year, but haven’t yet added them to the report. Ultimately we do eat everything I make … even the recipes that don’t make it onto the blog. On average, my blog food expenses are around $400 a month.
As far as equipment goes, I’m so well stocked that it is very rare I need to buy anything. I had a supper club for years and bought all the toys and gadgets I needed for cooking then. If I need to purchase a bigger ticket item, you’ll find that in the report. 🙂