Side Income Report for May 2019: How I Earned $11,609 This Month

•Updated Aug 22, 2023
Side Income Report for May 2019: How I Earned $11,609 This Month

While most side income reports are from bloggers and podcasters who started 5+ years ago, here’s one for my blog that just launched 5 months ago.

Let’s dive into my first side income report.

1. Side Income in May 2019: $11,609

For me, May was a month to test new passive revenue streams outside of my coaching and consulting services – I launched my first digital product, added Google AdSense to my site, and joined 29 new affiliate programs, increasing the total from 20 to 49.

  • Affiliate Revenue: $2,906
    1. Thinkific: $988
    2. PodBean: $873
    3. Bluehost: $450
    4. Transistor: $181 (recurring)
    5. Buzzsprout: $127 (recurring)
    6. HostGator: $100
    7. GetResponse: $80
    8. Siteground: $50
    9. Inmotion Hosting: $50
    10. Constant Contact: $7
  • Product Sales: $353
  • AdSense: $150
  • 1:1 Coaching and SEO Consulting for 6 B2B Clients: $8,100

Expenses in May 2019: $1,371

  • Web development: $375
  • Content writers: $320
  • New equipment for online course: $272
  • GDPR cookie consent plugin: $49
  • Extended widget options plugin: $29
  • Indeed job posting: $26

Net Profit: $10,238 (88% Gross Profit Margin)

Now, onto some key takeaways, traffic stats, a May recap, and plans for June.

May Takeaways:

1. Affiliate Programs

The biggest thing I learned this month is that making $2,906 this month in affiliate revenue didn’t feel like much of anything. Sales add up over time – $50 here, $20 there – over the course of a month it doesn’t feel like much until you add it all up.

I’m happy to see a diversified mix of affiliate programs so that I’m not overly reliant on one program or a single blog post.

I was helped by a crazy $957.60 commission from one Thinkific sale. Someone (my hero) paid for a $399/month annual plan ($4,788 payment) and I received 20%.

I’m also seeing strong performance in the podcasting space, with PodBean and BuzzSprout leading the way. I’m currently generating about 18-20 trials/day for podcast platforms.

In web hosting I made $650, which is up from $300 in April. This is led by Bluehost, but after joining other affiliate hosting programs like HostGator, I’m seeing some potentially stronger conversion rates from other companies.

Also, affiliate program dashboards are all over the place and pretty difficult to track. Programs are either in networks like Shareasale, Impact, CJ, or in their own self-hosted platforms.

Out of the 49 affiliate programs I’m in, I have to bookmark 34 different URLs to individually track results:

Keeping Track of Affiliate Programs

If you’re a developer (or know one) and could create a platform to pull affiliate programs into one dashboard via APIs, take my money please haha. 🙂

I also increased my percentage of passive income by 22% this month:

  • In April, revenue was 92% coaching/consulting and 8% affiliate revenue.
  • In May, revenue was 70% coaching/consulting and 30% passive income (affiliate sales, digital product, and ads).

This proves to me that you can start to generate some solid passive income by month 5 (or sooner).

2. Product Sales

I launched my first digital product Backlink Blueprint 1.0 to help new bloggers scale their SEO and link building process. I sold 9 copies in May (not as much as I was hoping for), but only promoted via one email.

3. AdSense

Finally, I added Google AdSense in early May and it started bringing in about $5-7/day. I don’t love how it adds a few banners into my blog posts, but I’ll keep it for now to monitor results and switch to a better ad network once I’m over 75-100,000 visitors/month.

4. Coaching and consulting

I currently work with 8 consulting clients and 2 bloggers that I coach. My SEO and content marketing consulting revenue actually decreased by 50% this month because of time constraints with a full-time job. I just hired an awesome freelancer to help build this back up in June.

2. Organic Traffic for May 2019: 31,126 Users (+111%)

My organic traffic increased 111% month-over-month, growing from 14,740 users in April to 31,126 in May. My blog is now over 90% organic traffic.

Adam Enfroy Organic Traffic May 2019

Monthly traffic has grown 2,614% since January.

3. Email Subscribers for May 2019: +685 (+112%)

I use ConvertKit for my email marketing and added +685 new email subscribers in May, compared to +322 in April and +211 in March. This increased primarily because of the overall traffic increase and a few CRO tweaks with OptinMonster.

Adam Enfroy Email Subscribers May 2019

Tasks Completed in May:

  • Updates to Current Content:
    • Added 2,000+ words to Web Hosting article
    • Added 1,500+ words to Podcast hosting article
    • Added 1,000+ words to Online Course Platforms article
    • Added 1,500+ words to Email Marketing Services article
  • Link Building:
    • 238 new backlinks
    • 11 new referring domains with DR over 70
  • Keyword Rankings:
    • Moved to page 1 for online course platforms
    • Got to #13 for how to make money online
    • Moved from page 3 to page 1 for affiliate programs (#7)
    • Got featured snippet (#1) for podcast platforms and moved up to #7 for podcast hosting
    • I received 13 new featured snippets for my best web hosting post
    • Moved to page 1 for best email marketing platforms

Plans for June:

  • Hire employee to help manage consulting business (in progress)
  • Build out full step-by-step online course based on my 7-day email series (plan to launch in July; in progress)
  • Create new affiliate marketing digital product with directory of programs, signup links, and how to negotiate higher commissions (in progress)
  • Publish 6 new blog posts and 5 guest posts
  • Improve page load time by replacing Google fonts and improving site speed by 5 points from 88 to 93

That’s it for my (very first) side income report for May 2019.

The purpose of these new side income reports will be to showcase that you can make a sizable side income from a brand new blog and showcase your side income within 5 months, not 1-2 years.

If you want to see some of my top performing affiliate articles, you can check them out here:

Thank you so much for reading – I’m very grateful you found your way here. Please feel free to reach out to me anytime.

Last Updated on August 22, 2023 by Adam Enfroy

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Adam Enfroy

Adam Enfroy

Adam Enfroy is a full-time blogger, YouTuber, and affiliate marketing expert. Join AdamEnfroy.com to learn how to start an online business at startup speed. Before starting this blog, Adam managed digital marketing teams for large SaaS startups and reviews the best software to run your online business. He has been featured in over 100 publications, including Forbes, Business Insider, and Entrepreneur.

Editorial Process:

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