November 2015 Traffic and Income Report

This couple makes five figures per MONTH blogging, and they spell out exactly how they do it in their blog income reports! Such helpful information for people looking to make money online! Click over to the post for details! | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com
May 2015 Income Report | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

It’s income report day again! Every month Donnie crunches the numbers and we share exactly how much we’ve made from this little blog of ours and how we’ve made it.

Our hope is that by being transparent about how we make money online, we will help others who want to pursue similar ventures to see that it really is possible! We feel like we’re living our dream by getting to work on the blog together from home, while spending tons of time with our two boys, and if we can help others take some steps closer to this goal as well, we consider that a huge success!

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Here’s Donnie with the numbers…

Income

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

Total Income: $23,663

Expenses

  • Gumroad Transaction Fees – $644
  • Framework Affiliate Payouts – $597
  • Assistant – $345
  • ConvertKit – $319 –> We We Switched from MailChimp to ConvertKit
  • PayPal Transaction Fees – $134
  • Training – $97
  • Stripe Transaction Fees – $95
  • Instapage – $69
  • Synthesis Hosting – $67
  • Adobe Creative Cloud – $53
  • Meet Edgar – $49
  • Intercom.io – $49
  • Wistia – $25
  • SendOwl – $24
  • CloudFlare – $20
  • Zapier – $15
  • Co-Working Space – $15
  • Crashplan – $14
  • Media Temple – $10
  • Board Booster – $10
  • Backupify – $3
  • Fizzle.co – $0 (usually $35)
Total Expenses: $2,654

November 2015 Net Profit: $21,009

November Happenings

Donnie

Black Friday discount, or no?

November is an interesting time for anyone that sells anything. Each year it seems like Black Friday and Cyber Monday take on additional craziness. Personally, I never partake in the insanity of running out to various stores in the middle of the night to get a good deal. I will admit that I do some internet shopping during those few days and I’m not afraid to take advantage of good deal if I find one.

Because Abby and I sell a few different books and courses, every year we have to decide if we’ll participate in Black Friday/Cyber Monday and offer some type of discount.

I like to go against the grain, so part of me wants to just completely ignore the crazy sales. There’s a really interesting episode of the SeanWes Podcast where he talks about this issue. Sean explains that while Black Friday sales (or any sales for the matter) certainly increase profit in the short-term, they are bad for your business in the long-term. He argues that the sales dilutes your brand and says, “your course is worth the least amount of money you are willing to charge for it.”

Sean offers a premium-priced hand-lettering course and has never offered a discount. He’s firm on this. Over time his audience has come expect this and they understand that the best price for anything is when it first comes out. His early adopters and early purchasers are are rewarded. Prices only go up and never come down. He also argues that it’s an insult and disservice to people who bought a product on launch day to then make it available for a fraction of the price at a later date.

Part of me agrees with his argument. If I sense that someone is going to soon offer a discount on a product, I’ll wait. I’m not afraid to wait until I can find the best possible deal. I think that’s human nature.

The other part of me thinks that offering some type of discount is a nice thing for our customers. We received more than a dozen emails leading up to Black Friday asking what type of deals or discounts we had planned. People come to expect it and prospective customers are ready and willing to buy during that four day stretch.

After going back and forth a bit, we decided to offer a substantial discount on just one of our products. We offered The Paperless Home for 50% off during the four day stretch. The main reason is that The Paperless Home has been out for a while (April 2015) and sales had started to slip. It’s also one of our lesser known and more niche products. If you’re looking to go paperless, this is the product, but not a lot of Abby’s regular readers know about it.

Besides writing a short update post that went live on Black Friday, Abby sent out two emails related to the discount: one on Thanksgiving night at midnight and another Sunday night in preparation for Cyber Monday.

November 2015 Traffic & Income Report | JustaGirlandHerBlog

Black Friday and Cyber Monday certainly stand out on the chart above. Even offering the course at 50%, we saw a significant increase in revenue during the four day sale period. Look back, Abby and I were pleased with the results and feel good about the decision to offer some type of sale but not offer everything we have for sale.

The 2016 Intentional Life Planner Launch

The 2016 Intentional Life Planner | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

May 2015 Income Report | JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com

Over the past year I have been getting SO many requests for a printable planner. I’ve made tons of planning printables before, but honestly, venturing out into an entire yearly planner felt somewhat intimidating to me! When I was doing my own planning, though, I kept finding that other planners that I had tried were missing components that I wanted, so between the number of reader requests I was getting and my own selfish need for a really functional, beautiful planner, I decided to go for it and make one of my own, and The 2016 Intentional Life Planner was born!

I always get SO nervous when launching a new product… will people like it? Will they care? Will it live up to the expectations that they had been hoping for? Well, I was so incredibly overwhelmed and honored that within the first three weeks after launching the planner, over 500 of you answered that question with a resounding YES!!! I was totally blown away by your support of this project and absolutely cannot wait to see how everyone absolutely crushes their goals this year!

November 2015 Traffic & Income Report | JustaGirlandHerBlog

90 Day Business Plans

Donnie

If you remember, a few months back I talked about how Abby and I were working on our 2016 business plan. It’s amazing how much of what I planned has changed already… we haven’t even started 2016 yet! A few weeks ago I learned about the idea of 90 day plans and it made so much sense to me.

The problem with a detailed plan that looks a year ahead is that so much can change. Planning something in detail 10 months from now just seems a little silly. On the other hand, 90 days has a sense of urgency and now-ness. 90 days is a long enough time-frame to actually accomplish something big, but it’s a short enough time-frame to make a detailed plan and have a sense of urgency about it.

Moving forward, Abby and I will likely create a very general and quick “one page” yearly plan but then get into the details with an ambitious 90 day plan. We even have a kid-less weekend coming up so we can do nothing but work on our 90 day plan! Thank you, grandparents!

 

Email Subscriber Statistics

  • 2,086 Net New Subscribers in ConvertKit
  • 43,912 Total Subscribers

RPM

RPM is a metric to track revenue per thousand pageviews. This is a measure of the overall effectiveness of a blog and is a handy benchmark for comparing blogs even if they have vastly different traffic numbers. I first learned about this metric from Bjork of Pinch of Yum.

November 2015 RPM: $61.46

So to recap…

Gross Income: $23,663
Net Income: $21,009

Click here to see a running tally of all past income reports.


Abby

Thank  you all so much for continuing to follow along with our blogging journey! This year has been an absolute blast, and I cannot wait to see what 2016 has in store for Just a Girl and Her Blog! We certainly could not do this whole blogging thing without all of your support, and we are so thankful for your encouraging words and positive comments day in and day out. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being so awesome! Have a wonderful holiday, friends!

You can see our other income reports here:

12 Comments

  1. Emily, our house now a home says:

    Your income report always blows me away! I have actually used what you earn when I explain to people what blogging is and how you can make money from it. I am no where close to this but it does let non blogging people understand you can make money doing this. I have learned so much from you two on taking your future in your own hands and just creating, going for it, and making things happen. I am in the planning stages for some things that I plan to roll out next year. I know I would not have taken these chances and thought bigger, outside of the blogging box if I had not seen what you have done. Seeing others doing it makes me feel that it is possible for me too. Thank you soooooo much!

    1. justagirlabby says:

      Aw, thank you so much for your sweet words, Emily! That truly means so much! If you would have tried to explain to me three years ago how people make money from blogging, I would have found it hard to believe, too, lol! I’m so excited to see what you do with your business in the upcoming year! Have a wonderful day!

      ~Abby =)

  2. You guys are such an inspiration to me! My blog is still a baby and not making much money, but I am going to keep working on it! I have an idea for a product, but haven’t put in the time to create it yet. After seeing your totals, I think it might be time.. Thank you for the information and happy holidays!

    1. justagirlabby says:

      You can do it! We truly never thought that this would end up being a full time job for both of us, but it is definitely possible! I’m excited to see how your blog grows in the coming year! Have a great day, Ashley!

      ~Abby =)

  3. Sarah Lemp says:

    I love reading your reports! It’s so inspiring!!!

    1. justagirlabby says:

      Thank you so much, Sarah! I’m so glad they’re helpful! Have a wonderful day!

      ~Abby =)

  4. Lovely Decor (@lb_lovelydecor) says:

    These posts always inspire me to see that I can and will take on the full time blogging & making money doing something I love 🙂

    Thank you for always being an inspiration and keep up the amazing work you 2 do 🙂 One day I will come back and say I am right there with you guys enjoying my life, family, friends all while doing what I love.

    Lauren Baxter | Lovely Decor
    xx

  5. Thanks so much for all your insight! I would love to know more about the 90 day business plan and how you go about implementing it and planning for the quarter. Thanks a bunch!

  6. Christina @ Embracing Simplec says:

    Congrats on yet another amazing month, you two! 🙂 Seeing your success is so inspiring to me and helps me to dream big with the future of my own blog. I LOVE the idea of 90 Day Business Plans. I have actually found myself creating 30 day micro business plans and since I started doing that, I’ve really accomplished a lot more the past few months than I had in the 10 months prior since starting my blog last January. There’s something about that sense of urgency that really kicks my butt into gear to make things happen. I’m glad to see there’s some validity to running a business that way, and I’m happy to hear I’m now the only one who hasn’t planned out all of 2016 yet too. Cheers to an awesome 2016 for everyone!!

  7. Sarah@TheOrthodoxMama says:

    I always eagerly await these posts! Congrats on another great month. I really appreciated Donnie’s advice about running sales, as well. That makes total sense! I want to make sure that I give a correct valuation of any product that I make!

  8. Shontelle says:

    Thanks for always posting these reports Abby! Your blog and your tips on how to create your own blog have given me the courage to create my own blog. My goal is to one day be able to make blogging my full time job so I can one day work from home. I am terrified that I will not succeed at it but all of your step by step guides help me think that maybe I can really do it. Thank you!!!

  9. Suzi Whitfords says:

    Thank you Abby and Donnie for posting!

    I am so excited to showcase this to my readers and let them know how small, medium and large bloggers make money.

    This is very motivational!

Comments are closed.