Back At 5 Figures: I Earned $10,640,56 in August

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I'm happy to report I've finally hit a 5 figure month in 2018. This past month I earned $10,640.56. It's probably more than that but I'm only counting programs I can easily pull the data and tend be consistent for me every month. lol

How Did I Earn It?

First I apply the spirit of what the training teaches and what I've laid out in my cheat sheet. So feel free to review that since there are no magical secrets.

In terms of the actual money, I take a multiple streams of income approach to my blog Work At Home No Scams. I don't just promote one company and I don't just focus on sales based affiliate programs. I cover every possible way for me to earn. This way every visitor that comes to my site will make me money regardless if they buy something or not. I don't like leaving money on the table. For a few years I was doing that by primarily promoting sales based affiliate offers. But I realized that not everyone is willing to invest in themselves.

I have to account for people who don't have money or don't want to spend money to make money. So I added other ways to monetize my site that didn't require a sale. So let's see how that breaks down in numbers.

Display Ads: $2666.53


Display ads are basically banner ads that are served on your site automatically once you've added code on your site. You don't have to deal with finding advertisers or getting their payments. An ad network like Google Adsense or my new personal favorite MediaVine will do all that work for you. Once the display ads are installed on your site the ad networks handles everything else and pays you most of the revenue collected from the advertisers. All you need to do is keep writing great content and following the training here at WA. But you shouldn't even consider display ads until you're getting some good consistent traffic.

I resisted using display ads the last couple of years because I find ads annoying and adsense wasn't really paying as much as they did back in the day. But I realized I deal with ads on sites that provide good content all the time. I had to convince myself it doesn't matter what you don't or do like Eddy. If you're seeing ads on websites, it's probably not as annoying as you think and the site owners are making money.

I was right. This month has been the biggest month for me in terms of display ad revenue. Shout out to Nathaniel for putting me on to a better ad network.

CPA (Cost per Action) Offers: $4163


This is when an affiliate network or company will pay you for a lead. A lead is basically when someone fills out a form on a website for more information or to join a site. Some networks will require that your lead actual confirm their email address by clicking on a link that the company will send via email. This is referred to as a double opt in (DOI) lead. Most companies will pay a lot more for this rather than a single opt in (SOI) lead where your lead doesn't have to confirm their email address.

The pay for leads will vary greatly depending on the industry and affiliate offer. I tend to promote things that pay $2 -$7 per lead. But companies can pay up to $100 or more for leads. It just all depends on your niche and industry. When you join an affiliate network you can ask your affiliate managers for what type of CPA offers they have in your niche and their pay.

CPA offers has been my bread and butter for years. It's a lot easier to get someone to join something for free or just fill in their information than it is to convince them to whip out their credit card and buy something. So I love CPA offers. When other affiliates turn their nose about earning a few bucks per lead, I eat it up. Because I know I can make it up on volume and better conversions. It accounts for more of my income.

You can find CPA offers by Googling "CPA networks". Just keep in mind that you don't need to change anything you're doing in terms of adding cpa links to your pages. The same way you would add an sales based affiliate link like an amazon link in your content, you would do the same thing for a CPA offer. It's just another affiliate link and the only difference is you get paid if someone becomes a lead rather than needing them to buy something. So don't over think it. You don't need any special training. Just do what you've been doing but now add CPA type of offers to your mix.


Sales Based Offers: $3811.03



This is pretty much what most WA members are focused on. You have to convince your visitors to buy something in order for you to earn a commission. I admit I'm very weak with this type of affiliate marketing. For me it tends to convert lower than the other methods I mentioned above. But regardless I don't do too shabby with it. I love programs like WA which offer both CPA, sales based and recurring commissions. It's like a buffet of affiliate income in one program. lol

But promoting and converting sales based offers aren't my strength. I'm always inspired when I see other WA members income reports and the sales they make promoting things like WA. I used to get "jeally" but now I've learned to be happy with my lane and strengths.

My "Rocky" Comeback

So all this sounds pretty amazing and it is. But I've experienced this type of success before and at higher income amounts back in the days. But it all went away because I deviated from what WA taught. As a result of chasing after shiny new objects, Google pimp smacked my site with a penalty. That led to a massive drop in traffic and my income nearly wiped out. You can see the bloodbath below.


That decline in traffic totally changed my life and that of my family. It was a very dark time. It made me re-evaluate this business and things in my life. I had given up. Then one faithful day Kyle and Carson reached out to me. They wondered why I had stopped. I told them what happened. And they were like dude, you're fine. You can come back. And they literally helped me get back on track. I started to write content again and apply what they taught in the training. And as you can see over time my traffic and income came back. That's what WA can do for you.

It was a long process but I knew from experience that this did work. I just had to trust in the process, be patient and consistent on my end. And thank goodness I did, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this. I'd still be crying in a corner in the fetal position listening to "Depress Mode". Lol I'm still not making the high 5 figures I made back in my heyday. But this is a good "start" for me. lol

Your Takeaway

I could have just made this blog post a typical income report. I read them and I find them very inspiring. But I wanted to give you a little more by sharing some of the monetization tactics I use and why. My hope is that you'll have a few aha moments and consider other ways to monetize your site. We all work very hard to provide quality content to our users and you should be compensated fully for it. But a lot of times we're leaving money on the table because we're not aware of other ways to monetize. Or worst still we block our income potential because of our own perceptions and assumptions. Don't do it. Test things out for yourself and let the numbers tell you what you should or shouldn't do.

I also wanted to share my failure with you because too often people are afraid to fail. They don't realize it's part of the process and you can fail forward. My failure was a great lesson from a personal and business standpoint.

There were things about my personality as a father and husband that needed to be improved. But they took a back seat because I felt I was being such a great provider and that's all that mattered. When you stripped of most of your earning power you're left with nothing but the man in the mirror. I was forced to deal with him and make changes. This led to me being a better husband and father because I focused my energy there instead of my business because that was pretty much wiped out. I needed to go through that and I'm happy I did.

I was reminded that money wasn't everything. My family was! I learned to be happy being "broke". I stop fixating on when I was balling and learned to be happy where I was. I may have not been rich financially but I was rich with family and friends. That's more important than anything. When I finally made that realization, that;s when things started to inch back. I was inspired again and things fell into place for me.

From a business standpoint, I learned to stop chasing shiny new things and quick fixes. I went back to the basics of what WA teaches here. It was slow going but it worked. I don't chase after fads or secret loopholes anymore. I stay in my lane and focus on things I know I can control and work long term which is writing useful content.

Well I think I've yapped enough. You should get the picture at this point. There are no secrets to share. It's all just hard work, patience, consistency and following the training. Hopefully you're inspired. If so, feel free to chime in below.

Thanks for reading.

Eddy with a y aka NOT EDDIE! lol

P.S. This is my 50th post and I hit 5 figures this past month. There is a lot of 5 going on here. lol

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Recent Comments

836

Wow, thanks for this post. We all want that instant money, but in reality we have to work hard for our money. I have to remind myself that this will pay off in the long run. I just have to keep working and providing useful content.
Articles like yours helps me stay focused. Thank you for sharing!

Dan

You're welcome Dan. I hear ya. Like everyone else I assumed because this whole thing is web based, it would be fast money. And I feel for a lot of booby traps that promised that BS. But after getting burned a few times, you quickly learn that's not the case.

It all takes time, patience, hard work and consistency. And along the way you may fail but you just dust yourself off and try again. At least you're never alone during the process because of the WA community.

The WA community is amazing! I am very thankful for finding WA, I never could have accomplished what I have so far without everyone.

I agree Daniel!

Really eye opening post, Eddy. I'm gonna come back to this for sure and probably read it a few times. I love the way you described not wanting to leave money on the table. You're very efficiently doing everything you can to get paid on every action happening on your real estate and I like that. I'm right there with you on the ads. I've always resisted. But you make great points that I've been thinking about myself. I'm definitely going to look into the CPA revenue as well. Great post, brother!

Hey Eric. I'm looking forward to seeing you in Vegas and discussing this more. I'm glad this opened your eyes as well. I know a lot of affiliates who won't consider some of these monetization strategies because of their own personal preferences or things they hear. And I feel like it's like shooting yourself in the foot.

We all work very hard to create great content for our users. And it drives me crazy to know that we aren't compensated everytime a user visits our site because we don't use all of our monetization options. So that's why I wanted to share this break down. Because I felt it would give fellow affiliates a different perspective.

We shouldn't feel guilty about trying to maximize as much income as you can make from your digital real estate when you're providing value. Because the reality is most users that visit your blogs won't turn into sales. But they can turn into a lead and definitely an impression for ads. So why not leverage all your assets.

I hope to hear how other affiliates apply this and report back what happens for them.

Agreed!

Eddy you are a rare gem. Too often than not people want to share their successes and not their failures. It's not an easy thing to do. By sharing this story I hope others, like myself, realise that it's alright to fail as long as we learn and grow from it. Thank you for your honesty.

Thanks Donna. I agree with ya. It's important for people to understand many of the success stories you hear come from many failures. Its okay to fail. It's not okay to give up though. You just adjust and find something that does work for you. I'm going to share other stories in the future. Clearly its very helpful for people to hear the struggle.

You know I love your blogs and have learnt so much from you and this one is no exception. Thank you for your candour and sharing the good with the bad.

I really need to look into advertising on site and also the CPA offers. My site is only young and I have no traffic at this stage so I'm guessing it's too early for either of those yet.

I was planning on waiting till I had traffic to approach Mediavine rather than going with Adsense because like you I really dislike those annoying pop-up ads that look spammy ... but obviously I don't want to leave money on the table and this thing does need to eventually pay it's way lol. I read Mediavine looks less spammy that's why I was going to go with them. Your thoughts on either?

I am also guessing education in both these areas comes along in the Bootcamp training at some point so once again I will be patient.

That was one heavy duty slap by Google, I felt sick just looking at your stats let alone living through it.

Thanks again, your a champ, and one day I hope to be as successful.

Hey Heidi,

Thanks so much. I'm really happy you like my blogs. I don't write often here unless I feel I can provide some real value.

CPA offers you can start right away. Display ads should be something you look into later when you have significant traffic. Mediavine won't even consider you until you have a certain amount of traffic. So you have time to build up to an add display network like that.

I like them because they work directly with Google on the best ad practices. So they won't use ad types that Google finds intrusive. I've been using them since Jan and I haven't had many complaints at all about the ads because of the way they implement them. And the good thing is they'll even set them up for you. So they're definitely someone to consider in the future.

But for now focus on CPA and sales based offers. There isn't much training needed. The same way you add sales based affiliate links is how you would apply CPA offers.

In terms of feeling sick about my stats, imagine how I felt. I thought my whole world was over. But it all worked out.

Amazing achievements Eddy!

By the way, if you would have posted this tomorrow, it would have been the 5th, just to keep that serial 5 and iterations thereof going.

Congrats once again and many sincere thanks for all the info you shared with with.

May God continue to bestow his grace and abundance upon you and your family.

Blessings!

Dang it, I should have held off. lol Thanks.

Hi Eddy
Thank you so much of this honest post. You have a wonderful skill of outlining key points and show different angles.
I definitely have some aha-moments as first, especially with maybe still trying to put ads on my site and keep going and try different ways.
Thanks again and i hope your success will become greater,
kind regards,
Tina

Hey Tina,
You're very welcome.
I'm happy you did have some ah ha moments.

Thank you eddy for the reality check , I know I needed it and for now on I will always back track on this advice to keep in check and as for the different subjects we could get involved with instead of one that is advice that I will for sure use, Eddy your a good person and I am beginning to appreciate WA community and its training more and more.

You're welcome Belinda. I knew someone would need to hear this and it would resonate with them. And it sounds like you were that person. So I'm happy I wrote this. WA is a wonderful place because of the leadership of Kyle and Carson and other members that want to help each other. So I'm happy you're starting to see that.

Cool beans!

Thanks for the inspiration! I've gone off track heaps of times which is why I failed at blogging over the last few years. Sometimes all it takes is one bad decision for things to go pear shaped.

This is why it's important to get back on the horse and stay on track with what we learn inside WA.

As for CPA, I'll have to give that a try when blog takes off. Looks profitable :)

It's okay, Neil. I think we've all been there. It's just about dusting yourself up and going at it again.

CPA is something you can implement right away on your blog. Display ads is something you should wait to apply when you have more traffic.

Hi Eddy - what a fantastic post thank you
- it's stories like yours that make me realise that being with WA is the right think for me and all others I'm sure
- being fairly new at this I appreciate the tip re CPA it sounds like a great way to increase revenues - I will be using it
Steve

You're very welcome Steve. I'm happy some of those tips really had you thinking. CPA offers are often missed by new and even experienced affiliates. Everyone just focuses on sales based offers not realizing there are many ways to earn with your blog.

AMAZING! This is truly inspiring to me. Actually said "Get out of here", as I read your figures out loud. Then immediately went to your profile to see how long you've been with WA. I was most def going to follow you, but I already am.

Congrats to you!!

I'm hoping you'll be doing some of your own training in the future.

Here's to your many successes,
Laura

LOL, well I'm happy you had that reaction. I have to think about doing training. I'm more of wait until I have something really good to share WA blogger than trainer. lol

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