The nicest surprise of all were 3 new sales in Clickbank, but I’m still annoyed that I haven’t reached the client distribution requirements! I still need one more person to use a MasterCard in order for my money to be released – really, does no one use MasterCard any more?

Traffic: 1,386 Unique Visitors

Active Subscribers: 1,076

PayPal Earnings: $1162 (after PayPal fees)

AdSense: $13.62 – At least it’s an improvement on June!

Clickbank: $183.46 – It doesn’t rain, but it pours!

Amazon: $6

All in all, a very pleasing month, I think it’s been my best month so far in terms of earnings since 2006.

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

• PLR niche sites
• Adsense sites
• PLR Articles sites

If I can increase my PayPal earnings and AdSense earnings for August, I will be pleased.

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!

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!

Still, as one online colleague put it, at least you’ve got an online income, so even though this month wasn’t quite as good as February, it’s still not too bad considering the number of hours I commit to it.

Traffic: 1,577 Unique Visitors

Active Subscribers: 924

PayPal Earnings: $876.77 (after PayPal fees)

AdSense: $13.60 – the Pound is still very weak, but doubled up from last month

Clickbank: $0 – got to make sure I get a sale next month.

Amazon: $0 – OK, bummer. Still nothing. What to do?!

All in all, I didn’t quite get to last months income, but this was mostly due to the delay in writing new articles and emailing my customers. If I had sent another email I’m sure I could have added another $150+ to the bottom line.

I also placed some AdSense banners on various sites that I own in an attempt to increase the AdSense income. This has started working and I hope that April brings even more money!

Clickbank, no sales this month, but I’m not going to get worried unless there are no sales next month. The CDR (client distribution requirement) is a real pain, they need 5 different credit card numbers from MasterCard and Visa, but I find that many people pay with PayPal which doesn’t count towards this distribution requirement. Even though I’ve made about 7 sales, I still need another 3 sales before they’ll even think about paying me!

Amazon. Oh Amazon. What do you have to do to earn a commission with these guys?! My niche stores have had hundreds of visitors, I’ve sent loads of referrals to the Amazon website and still nothing. Zip. I’m starting to think I might sack this as a potential income stream. I put less effort in to Clickbank yet make more money from it (if they ever pay me).

So, targets for April:

– Email customers at least 3 times with new article sets
– Increase AdSense income to $25
– Get another clickbank sale
– Continue building niche stores and get one Amazon sale

Traffic: 1,441 Unique Visitors

Active Subscribers: 813

PayPal Earnings: $1126.35 (after PayPal fees)

AdSense: $6.91 – Down about a dollar, but the Pound is very weak!

Clickbank: $44.37 – Thank goodness! Came from a link on plrarticleshop.com

Amazon: $0 – Lots more traffic, I think March might be the one to crack the first Amazon dollar

(Bear in mind that there was only 28 days in February!)

I definitely think we can see the affect of the SEO work I’ve been putting in, that coupled with creating unique PLR articles and sending them out to my list every Sunday has really pushed up my earnings – to around $40 per day. This cash is virtually autopilot, except for the SEO work I do, but most days I don’t really touch it. Oh and a few dollars came from advertising space that I sold on some sites.

I’ve looked at my known expenses for the next 12 months and it looks like I will be spending $100 – $150 per month renewing domains and hosting accounts, something which I need to budget for when withdrawing money.

I know I keep harping on about the Amazon commissions and I know I still haven’t cracked this little cookie yet, but I’m not about to give up just yet, I’ve started on my 30 week Amazon challenge and I intend to see it through to the end. I’ve now got four niche Amazon websites, each is getting a bit of traffic and I saw 84 ‘clicks’ according to Amazon. I think by the end of March, when I’ll have eight Amazon websites, we should see a sale, but I’m not going to give up until I’ve done all thirty. If still no sales I’ll put them up for sale on Flippa.com and call this a learning experience.

Looking Ahead

For March I will be concentrating on trying to build Amazon niche sites and looking to get at least one more sale in Clickbank.

Traffic: 1,505 Unique Visitors

Subscribers: 804

PayPal Earnings: $894.71

AdSense: $7.98 – Up about a dollar on last month

Clickbank: $0 – Third consecutive month without any affiliate commission and I’ve now got the dreaded penalty which deducts $1 per week till you make another sale.

Amazon: $0 – Still nothing here, but I have a plan which I’ll talk about in my next blog post.

Most of the SEO work is paying off with an increase in traffic and earnings from my PLR articles website. Also, I did three email campaigns in January telling my customers about new articles and updates on the website. I’ve also been investing in exclusive articles written specifically for my site which I can sell at a premium and this has helped quite a lot.

Another reason is I’m promoting a couple of products that pay commission instantly via PayPal and that has added about $150 to my bottom line.

I’m still very keen on the Amazon commission, despite still not managing to generate a single sale, I think the website is setup wrong and it’s not sending buyers but price comparison browsers. I’ve got a plan on how to change all this which I’ll talk about in another blog post.

Traffic: 1,114 Unique visitors

Subscribers: 578

PayPal Earnings: $624.10

AdSense: $6 – wow! AdSense is well down!

Clickbank: $0 – How is it possible to have two consecutive zero months on Clickbank!

Amazon: $0 – despite sending around 150 clicks, earnings are still zero

I think my earnings and traffic are down this month mostly due to the Christmas holidays and the fact that December is usually a slow month anyway.

As with last month I have been investing money in domains and hosting accounts as well as outsourcing some SEO to boost my rankings which have started dipping a bit. Expenses came to $361.97 – more than half my income, ouch!

I meant to try and concentrate on my Amazon earnings, but it seems it’s a whole lot harder than putting up a website and sending a few clicks! I’ll have to think about the strategy for this in the coming month.