I just wanted to post a quick screenshot from my Clickbank account because for the first time I’ve made affiliate sales back-to-back. Usually I make one sale and then it’s like a ghost town for 2 or 3 months and then I get another. However I was delighted when I logged in today to find that I had made sales two days running

Clickbank Affiliate Sales Two Days Running

I know it seems so silly to get excited over such small amounts and people who earn regular money from Clickbank might smile and say “aww, bless”, but it’s very motivating for me to see money like this in my account. If I can turn it in to a regular thing…I’ll be on top of the world!

But there is still a downside to all of this, even though I’ve made over 10 sales in Clickbank now over the last 18 months, I still haven’t reached their stupid CDR requirements and am waiting for just one person to buy something and pay with MasterCard. Literally everyone buys with PayPal now.

I made some sales again in Amazon, including some pretty bizarre stuff like a Sheepette Synthetic Lambskin cover – I have no idea what it is but someone bought it through my affiliate link!

Traffic: 1,375 Unique Visitors

Active Subscribers: 1058

PayPal Earnings: $768.45 (after PayPal fees)

AdSense: $12.04 – Bit better than last month, still shockingly bad though!

Clickbank: $0.00 – Here we go, wasteland of no sales!

Amazon: $2.51 – After 8 months! Works out to about 60 cents a month, lol!

I actually did two mailshots in June, one was for an affiliate PLR product and brought in a few sales (although the commission doesn’t get paid for another month) and one was for the World Cup PLR articles. I hope to do a few more mails in July to boost my income – I know everyone says it, but the money really is in the list. I’m currently using ImnicaMail which is one of the best mail list options in terms of features, price and deliverability.

AdSense did a bit better this month, although I’m still very confused as to how some of the sites are getting several clicks each day but still have zero income.

Moving forward in July I’ve got three areas to focus on:

• Amazon sites
• Adsense sites
• PLR Articles sites

If I can increase the earnings on all three, I’ll be very happy

However, the biggest news of the month is that after 8 months of trying FINALLY I have made some affiliate sales in Amazon. I’ll discuss more on that in a minute but for now here are the results of May:

Traffic: 1,395 Unique Visitors

Active Subscribers: 998

PayPal Earnings: $696.94 (after PayPal fees)

AdSense: $6.85 – Traffic down due to the Google May Day update

Clickbank: $0.00 – Here we go, wasteland of no sales!

Amazon: $4.96 – After 8 months! Works out to about 60 cents a month, lol!

I can’t have any complaints about lower earnings in May, I didn’t put much work in because I was busy with other things and didn’t have the motivation (this is very bad!) to write articles. However, despite lower traffic from Google, I still managed to pull in $700, which is not a bad return considering I barely put more than a few hours of work in May!

I’m also thrilled that I have finally made some sales in Amazon, it’s very bizarre though because for 8 months I sent loads of traffic and then suddenly in the space of just 4 days I got 9 sales – there was no increase in traffic to my sites, nor was there an increase in clickthroughs, it’s all a bit of a mystery why I suddenly made some sales here.

Still no new sales in Clickbank, but I don’t have time to work on that at the moment, just have to cross my fingers and hope!

But I think Google must have changed the rules a bit because despite my AdSense account reporting dozens of clicks and CTR’s of 5-10% on most of the sites, the amount I’ve earned from all those clicks is precisely zilch. Nothing.

This is unusual because out of all the sites in my account only one of them is now earning money from AdSense, and it’s not even designed to! It does get plenty of traffic though.

Over 50 clicks and no AdSense earnings

I’m guessing that my sites are under some kind of filter which means that they don’t earn any money for the clicks they generate. Maybe Google thinks they are not high quality sites, maybe the CTR is too high, I’m not sure. There is also the issue of Smart Pricing in AdSense, but even if this applies to my account, I should be earning something for those clicks.

Does anyone else have the same experience? Lots of traffic, plenty of clicks but still earning nothing in AdSense?

This month both companies have released their May 2010 coupons which gives you some great discounts on your registrations for .com’s, .net’s and .org’s. These coupons are only valid for May 2010.

Namecheap coupon May 2010: MOTHERSLOVE – .com registration for $8.81
Name.com coupon May 2010: MAYHEM ($8.15 COM, NET, WS & ME)
Name.com renewal coupon May 2010: COMWHATMAY ($8.20 .COM and .NET renewals)

Unfortunately there are no renewal coupon codes for Namecheap although I have read somewhere that if you are a power user with Namecheap and have more than 50 domains with them they’ll send you a special renewal coupon code that only you can use.

I think that inbetween the emails the sales were not that strong, even though traffic and search engine traffic remained high.

Traffic: 1,550 Unique Visitors

Active Subscribers: 962

PayPal Earnings: $866.737 (after PayPal fees)

AdSense: $10.62 – the Pound is still very weak

Clickbank: $44.37 – good to get another sale again.

Amazon: $0 – yeah…

My per day earnings were higher than last month, but because there is one less day in April, the PayPal earnings was $10 less. The main AdSense earner is still the PLR articles site, but I have set up two new sites to try and balance things out.

I made another sale through Clickbank but I’m very annoyed that I still haven’t reached the Client Distribution Requirement (CDR), even though I now have made 7 sales. I still need to make one more sale with someone using a credit card before my funds will be released – which is about $300.

The Amazon sites are getting a lot of traffic each day, between 5 and 15 unique visitors per day, but it’s still not converting.

I have three aims for May:

• Continue creating new articles each week and emailing to customers
• Redesigning Amazon sites to convert better
• Continue growing AdSense sites

Let’s hope I can improve on my performance this month!

One of the services I’ve been using for the past 8 months is StableHost. I found a 50% discount coupon and got annual hosting on a European server for around $21 – a bargain when you consider other larger companies charge $60 or more for the same service.

Of course, I don’t put my money sites on these cheaper hosts, but they are excellent for feeder sites to my money sites. For example, I have a PLR guide website on StableHost that points to my PLR Articles Site which is on HostGator. It doesn’t matter too much if the PLR guide site goes down for a hour or so.

Anyway, StableHost are having a bit of a bumper deal right now where you can get unlimited domain hosting for just $11 per year AND you are locked in to that price for a lifetime.

Just visit their site, www.stablehost.com and when you are on the checkout page, enter the following coupon for a massive 75% discount:

AREWECRAZY

This coupon is only available on the US servers and expires after the first 500 coupons, so you need to get in quick.

So far StableHost have lived up to their name for me and I’m happy to recommend their services.

Last night, in a bit of a bombshell announcement, Mike informed everyone that the Butterfly Software was now Open Source and anyone could download it for free. I mean, wow!

I’ve been using this software since it came out and watched it evolve over time and frankly you must go over to the website and download it – obviously this being Mike Filsaime you will be asked for you name and email address first, which leads me on to another point.

Mike isn’t being entirely altruistic by giving this software away for free. With so many new competitors on the market and the $1997 price tag, I’m guessing that there weren’t too many sales. What he is doing is vastly expanding his list by giving some world class software away for free and of course there is a small upsell on the confirmation page.

I think Mike is going to take a lot of heat for this, especially if the true open source community get wind of it. Basically he’s offering you the chance to become a contributor to the software for a mere $200. I can’t imagine who would pay that money, but you never know. Asking for a payment to be part of a community goes against the whole Open Source ethos, so as I put in the title, Butterfly Marketing software goes Open Source…sort of.

This month I have got Namecheap coupon codes and Name.com coupon codes – these are only valid for April 2010 as they change them monthly and also only valid for new registrations. So here we go:

Namecheap coupon April 2010: APRILFUN – .com registration for $8.81
Name.com coupon April 2010: ALLABOUTU ($8.25 .ME coupon, still waiting for a .COM coupon)

Unfortunately there are no renewal coupon codes for Namecheap or Name.com although I have read somewhere that if you are a power user with Namecheap and have more than 50 domains with them they’ll send you a special renewal coupon code that only you can use.

Updated: 11th April

Virtually all my money sites have lost PageRank, with plrarticleshop.com going from a PR4 to PR2, however it still holds the same rankings and is getting more traffic than ever before – proof, perhaps, that the PageRank shown in the toolbar matters so little nowadays.

My feeder sites all have a PageRank now, either increasing from PR0 or 1 to PR1 or 2.

So how did you fare in the April 2010 PageRank update? (Not that it makes much difference but us Webmasters / Internet Marketers do like the validation of the little green bar!).