Google Adsense Earnings

What better way to start than with a post about everyone's favorite topic. Money! I'll add that to my fav topic stats and mix them into a long personal post.

I have been using Adsense since March 2007 when I added it to a few of the sites I owned and others I built for clients but the clients either don't exist anymore or didn't want to maintain the sites.

Here is a monthly breakdown of earnings per month from Jan 08 - Dec 08. This includes search, content and feeds.

That massive jump was October where WTFcostumes earnt itself a right to exist and guaranteed it will stay for 2009. I was going to let it die to free up time for other sites.

I have gone further and broken down how the earnings are divided. Let's look at the comparison of Ads for content vs Ads for search.

That's 9.8% of my revenue earnt by people searching a site and clicking ads at the top of the results. I had no idea people would actually click these ads but it seems they do. I increased my earnings by 10% by doing nothing. If you use the blogs built in search functionality you might consider going around it.

The Google Search is perfect for blogs as it also indexes comments and combines the 3 blogs I have on Bannerblog (banners, news and jobs) into a single search stream. Sadly since installing Disqus I think the comments are no longer SE friendly :(

Adsense for Feeds I only added in the last 2 months of 2008 and the amount was so small it didn't even show up on the chart. In actual fact I've found the revenue earnt by these to be so small it seems useless.

One interesting way to look at my Adsense revenue is to compare revenue generated from sites I own and have created from scratch (bannerblog, wtfcostumes, theslipperytruffle) and others I have built for clients in the past that they no longer want to maintain. These range from stuff created in 2000 to 2005.

When a client says "I don't want to pay for the hosting" or "that promotion is over just let the site die" it pains me. We at Soap need an archive of our work and some sites are still generating a lot of traffic. One site we did in 2004 that still receives over 50,000 visits a month. So let's compare the earnings from the two types of sites

49% of the revenue is from such sites. Crazy. I know of one site we did that we added a referal link onto it. So every time someone bought the product we could track the earning and also get a 5% commission. The client at the time said that was fine. Out of the 20 or so retailers we linked to we could only put a referral link onto 1 of them. The rest didn't have a system in place. We still tracked outgoing links though.

That single link (to a retailer I have bought off as they suck) has generated over $10,000 of direct sales. This is over many years but this is one of 20+ links and at a retailer that doesn't have the best prices or even a very good site.

It was only recently the client asked us to "kill the site" & "take it down as we have a myspace page" instead.

"You're making a mistake because of X & Y" I said. This site isn't huge but SEO wise and revenue generating it's doing OK. Also your audience is so wide that a Myspace page will alienate half of them. Still they persisted and we obliged.

Clients who treat websites like "digital plastic bags" are wasting their money. Even if you want a site to be "killed" there are better ways to handle it than just letting a URL and hosting expire. Oh you can't afford $25 a month on a site that's generating direct ROI?

Anyway I digress as I don't want to complain, I want to talk $$$ and stats.

In addition to Adsense I also monetized Bannerblog buy bringing on a sponsor. Rather than mess up the site with Adsense (which aren't pretty) and also would not have worked as well as the content on the site (banner ad for dog food) isn't usually relevant to the audience (marketing and digital professionals) unless those have pets but this isn't the point.

Take a look at many of the marketing blogs you visit. Some have sacrificed ease of reading and athetics to earn a little bit of cash. Some require you to scroll past a bunch of ads to read the actual article. Very annoying on mobile browsing.

Eyeblaster came on as a sponsor (great fit for the audience) and it meant I have one invoice and guaranteed income for the year. No need to worry month by month. EB got a great deal I feel as the CPM and CPC costs are tiny and that's no taking in account the brand exposure to a very targeted niche audience. But again beside the point I'm trying to get to here.

Here's a break down of Adsense revenue vs sponsorship revenue vs my salary.

13% of my salary was earnt by blogging and adsense for 07/08 financial year. Which for those not in Australia is July 1 2007 to June 30 2008.

Not bad you might say but if you consider the number of raw hours I put into blogging you're looking at sweat shop salary.

Full Disclosure: My actual income from Soap is not 100% salary. There were payments from previous years earnings/dividends that I had deferred but this isn't added to the chart above. There's no perfect science to this :)

Another interesting way to look at it is my earnings (salary + blogging) and the % of that I donated to charities. I donated over 2x as much in 07/08 than I did in 06/07 and that was 4x as much as I did in 05/06. The chart showing how much I have donated to charity over the years is below. I can't find accurate data from previous years (different tax accountant) and the ATO is shut. I'm hoping I can ask for my entire ATO history to be sent to me. This seems like a reasonable request?

This looks impressive but then if you compare last years to my earnings below it comes to 4%. Well 4.2% if you want to nit pick.

I'm not sure if 4% is high or low. I'm assuming it's higher than most people. I did have a mortgage at this time however no baby, pet, drug or alcohol problem to feed.

This 4% was bolstered by my 25% donation of Bannerblog revenue.

Here's the breakdown of blogging and adsense earnings to charity payments.

It ended up being 25.7% so that extra .7% is pure good karma!

So to wrap this post up I would like to set a challenge to all bloggers who also pull down a normal salary.

And that is "Donate 25% of your external earnings to charity"

Most bloggers I know personally also have full time jobs that earn them good money. So why not donate whatever you earn from the side projects to a worthy cause? Most of these friends don't actually earn tht much from their blogs so 25% of $10 isn't much but it's the principle.

If you earn your living from blogging alone then this challenge isn't for you as I don't expect anyone to donate 25% of their full income to charity. That's nuts!

And for those that say most bloggers don't earn anything check this recent poll on Problogger. That's per month. So while some earn hardly anything others (a smaller percentage) are rolling it.

What better way to start than with a post about everyone's favorite topic. Money! I'll add that to my fav topic stats and mix them into a long personal post. I have been using Adsense since March 2007 when I added it to a few of the sites I owned and others I built for clients but the clients either don't exist anymore or didn't want to maintain the sites. Here is a monthly breakdown of earnings per month from Jan 08 - Dec 08. This includes search, content and feeds. That massive jump was October where WTFcostumes earnt itself a right to exist and guaranteed it will stay for 2009. I was going to let it die to free up time for other sites. I have gone further and broken down how the earnings are divided. Let's look at the comparison of Ads for content vs Ads for search. That's 9.8% of my revenue earnt by people searching a site and clicking ads at the top of the results. I had no idea people would actually click these ads but it seems they do. I increased my earnings by 10% by doing nothing. If you use the blogs built in search functionality you might consider going around it. The Google Search is perfect for blogs as it also indexes comments and combines the 3 blogs I have on Bannerblog (banners, news and jobs) into a single search stream. Sadly since installing Disqus I think the comments are no longer SE friendly :( Adsense for Feeds I only added in the last 2 months of 2008 and the amount was so small it didn't even show up on the chart. In actual fact I've found the revenue earnt by these to be so small it seems useless. One interesting way to look at my Adsense revenue is to compare revenue generated from sites I own and have created from scratch (bannerblog, wtfcostumes, theslipperytruffle) and others I have built for clients in the past that they no longer want to maintain. These range from stuff created in 2000 to 2005. When a client says "I don't want to pay for the hosting" or "that promotion is over just let the site die" it pains me. We at Soap need an archive of our work and some sites are still generating a lot of traffic. One site we did in 2004 that still receives over 50,000 visits a month. So let's compare the earnings from the two types of sites 49% of the revenue is from such sites. Crazy. I know of one site we did that we added a referal link onto it. So every time someone bought the product we could track the earning and also get a 5% commission. The client at the time said that was fine. Out of the 20 or so retailers we linked to we could only put a referral link onto 1 of them. The rest didn't have a system in place. We still tracked outgoing links though. That single link (to a retailer I have bought off as they suck) has generated over $10,000 of direct sales. This is over many years but this is one of 20+ links and at a retailer that doesn't have the best prices or even a very good site. It was only recently the client asked us to "kill the site" & "take it down as we have a myspace page" instead. "You're making a mistake because of X & Y" I said. This site isn't huge but SEO wise and revenue generating it's doing OK. Also your audience is so wide that a Myspace page will alienate half of them. Still they persisted and we obliged. Clients who treat websites like "digital plastic bags" are wasting their money. Even if you want a site to be "killed" there are better ways to handle it than just letting a URL and hosting expire. Oh you can't afford $25 a month on a site that's generating direct ROI? Anyway I digress as I don't want to complain, I want to talk $$$ and stats. In addition to Adsense I also monetized Bannerblog buy bringing on a sponsor. Rather than mess up the site with Adsense (which aren't pretty) and also would not have worked as well as the content on the site (banner ad for dog food) isn't usually relevant to the audience (marketing and digital professionals) unless those have pets but this isn't the point. Take a look at many of the marketing blogs you visit. Some have sacrificed ease of reading and athetics to earn a little bit of cash. Some require you to scroll past a bunch of ads to read the actual article. Very annoying on mobile browsing. Eyeblaster came on as a sponsor (great fit for the audience) and it meant I have one invoice and guaranteed income for the year. No need to worry month by month. EB got a great deal I feel as the CPM and CPC costs are tiny and that's no taking in account the brand exposure to a very targeted niche audience. But again beside the point I'm trying to get to here. Here's a break down of Adsense revenue vs sponsorship revenue vs my salary. 13% of my salary was earnt by blogging and adsense for 07/08 financial year. Which for those not in Australia is July 1 2007 to June 30 2008. Not bad you might say but if you consider the number of raw hours I put into blogging you're looking at sweat shop salary. Full Disclosure: My actual income from Soap is not 100% salary. There were payments from previous years earnings/dividends that I had deferred but this isn't added to the chart above. There's no perfect science to this :) Another interesting way to look at it is my earnings (salary + blogging) and the % of that I donated to charities. I donated over 2x as much in 07/08 than I did in 06/07 and that was 4x as much as I did in 05/06. The chart showing how much I have donated to charity over the years is below. I can't find accurate data from previous years (different tax accountant) and the ATO is shut. I'm hoping I can ask for my entire ATO history to be sent to me. This seems like a reasonable request? This looks impressive but then if you compare last years to my earnings below it comes to 4%. Well 4.2% if you want to nit pick. I'm not sure if 4% is high or low. I'm assuming it's higher than most people. I did have a mortgage at this time however no baby, pet, drug or alcohol problem to feed. This 4% was bolstered by my 25% donation of Bannerblog revenue. Here's the breakdown of blogging and adsense earnings to charity payments. It ended up being 25.7% so that extra .7% is pure good karma! So to wrap this post up I would like to set a challenge to all bloggers who also pull down a normal salary. And that is "Donate 25% of your external earnings to charity" Most bloggers I know personally also have full time jobs that earn them good money. So why not donate whatever you earn from the side projects to a worthy cause? Most of these friends don't actually earn tht much from their blogs so 25% of $10 isn't much but it's the principle. If you earn your living from blogging alone then this challenge isn't for you as I don't expect anyone to donate 25% of their full income to charity. That's nuts! And for those that say most bloggers don't earn anything check this recent poll on Problogger. That's per month. So while some earn hardly anything others (a smaller percentage) are rolling it.