This is simply my transparency page. I do this blog for fun. I really enjoy finding deals and sharing them (here is how you can find the deals yourself). This is not a blog to get rich and currently, the money that comes in from this blog does not cover my expenses. I do post links on Reddit and feel that I should be transparent with what I get out of the blog.
I get genuine excitement when someone visits multiple pages and clicks on a link. I get even more excited when someone actually purchases something through a link on this site. It is the “thrill of the sale,” not the income that makes me do this blog. Plus I love a good deal.
As you probably know that when you click an affiliated link to Amazon the affiliate gets a “24-hour cookie” valid for the first Amazon purchase made, even if it is not your advertised product. The two other “natural” deal blogs I have found do not mark their deals expired, this leads to people clicking on the link and them getting the “cookie” and potential commission on other products even though a deal has been expired.
I try to mark my deals as expired when I discover that they are expired. Since this is not my fulltime job, there is sometimes a lag, but most days I am able to check it multiple times a day. If you find a deal that is expired, please leave a comment that it is expired and I will remove it ASAP. When I started the website I initially had just the grey on the main page to indicate that a deal was expired and a small tag at the top of the page. I decided that it was not apparent enough when a deal was dead so I added the bold text. This has cut down on the number of clicks I have to Amazon, but I think that it increases the site’s credibility and honesty.
When I say that I am a very small blog, I mean it. I currently get 0-10 (normally 2-4) users that are not bots a day. I have no paid ads on the website.
On 4/21 Amazon reduced its commission rates. Most of my items are under the grocery category and the commission rate for that category has decreased by 80%. This really highlights that I do this blog for fun. At the current commission rates, I do not think that I will break even on the blog.
- August 30 to September 5
- Items ordered: 16
- Blog Income: $4.43
- Blog Expenses: greater than $4.52 if you count advertising expenses, but this covers the ~$2 fixed expenses
- A bounce-back week from the terrible one last week. I did spend more time with the blog.
- August 23 to August 29
- Items ordered: 9
- Blog Income: $0.72
- Blog Expenses: greater than $0.72.
- This was a disappointing week. I also just moved and devoted very little time to the blog.
- August 16 to August 22
- Items ordered: 16
- Blog Income: $4.52
- Blog Expenses: greater than $4.52 if you count advertising expenses, but this covers fixed expenses
- August 9 to August 15
- Items ordered: 26
- Blog Income: $10.40
- Blog Expenses: ~$7.01 including fixed and advertising expenses
- This was a huge week for the blog. I wish this was the normal, but I have a feeling that there will be a few catch-up weeks after this.
- August 2 to August 8
- Items ordered: 9
- Blog Income: $3.37
- Blog Expenses: greater than $3.37 if you count advertising expenses, but this covers fixed expenses
- I was able to find a couple of deals this week and had orders 6/7 days. In April I would have called this a “huge week.’
- July 26 to August 1
- Items ordered: 9
- Blog Income: $2.80
- Blog Expenses: greater than $2.80
- This was not a great week, with orders 4/7 days. To be fair, I was on vacation most of this week and not updating deals regularly.
- July 19 to July 25
- Items ordered: 17
- Blog Income: $10.71
- Blog Expenses: $6.47, ~$2 in fixed expenses and $4.47 in advertising
- This week I had orders 6/7 days. I also had an 8-day ordering streak from the previous week. This was the first 7-day ordering streak that I have had. I am getting a little more traction on some google searches which is helping a little bit with volume.
- July 12 to July 18
- Items ordered: 32 (this inflated due to an Amazon Fresh order)
- Blog Income: $7.14
- Blog Expenses: $6.80, ~$2 in fixed expenses and $4.80 in advertising
- Most of the income came from an order the previous week. The start of the week was pretty bad with a single item ordered during the first four days. The last three days ended strong with $0.60+ commission “sold” each day (that commission will count as being earned next week since it counts on the day the item ships, not sold).
- July 5 to July 11
- Items ordered: 15
- Blog Income: $8.08
- Blog Expenses: $6.02, ~$2 in fixed expenses and $4.02 in advertising
- This was my first positive week ever. The numbers are slightly misleading since the purchases were down, but I received commission on a couple of high dollar items. Next week will also be high since not all of the items shopped. I have discovered that cheap organic coffee is my “best seller” to date (granted it is normally $0.02-$0.04 commission per bag, but that does influence my posts).
- June 28 to July 4
- Items ordered: 7
- Blog Income: $2.39
- Blog Expenses: Greater than $2.39
- This was a bad week. I thought that I had some good deals, but traffic was down and sales were down. This was probably my slowest week in the past month with items ordered.
- June 21 to June 27
- Items ordered: 8
- Blog Income: $3.79
- Blog Expenses: Greater than $3.79.
- I am going to start including an “items ordered” count for even more transparency. Reddit continues to be my the avenue that most of my traffic comes from. I had a hard time finding deals this week.
- June 14 to June 20
- Blog Income: $4.04
- Blog Expenses: Greater than $4.04 if you include advertising. I do not think that advertising is increasing quality traffic to the blog and once the promo credit from Google expires. I will stop.
- The week started very slowly with three days without any orders. Friday was my largest day so far with the blog and just about all of my commissions came from Friday orders.
- June 7 to June 13
- Blog Income: $2.27
- Blog Expenses: Greater than $2.27
- The week started off strong, but only one item ordered the last four days of the week. That will impact the “income” for the following week since income occurs when the items actually ship and after COVID-19 there is typically a delay. A nice surprise is that about 1/3 of the income was from 5 orders from one of my “static” pages.
- May 31 to June 6
- Blog Income: $0.99. A disappointing week when compared to the last two. Only 3 items ordered, most of the income came from the previous week’s orders.
- Blog Expenses: Greater than $0.99
- May 24 to May 30
- Blog Income: $4.88. I am very pleased with this number, a few visitors found the website via Google. There were several days where I had a hard time finding deals, but 5/30 there were a lot of them. Earnings tend to be delayed from purchases since “earnings” occur when a product is shipped.
- Blog Expenses: ~$2.00 in fixed costs and $5.54 in ads. The ads number is misleading since Google offered me $100 of adds if I spent $25. Once I go through the $125 of ads, I think that I will stop them. I did switch my keywords and am getting a little better results.
- May 17 to May 23
- Blog Income: $3.43. There were purchases 6 days. There were also a couple of days with over 10 visitors. I might have made slightly over $0.25/hour if you don’t count expenses!!!!
- Blog Expenses: Greater than $3.43, but very close to breaking even.
- May 10 to May 16
- Blog Income: $0.97
- Blog Expenses: Greater than $0.97
- May 3 to May 9
- Blog Income: $1.57
- Blog Expenses: Greater than $1.57
- April 26 to May 2
- Blog Income: $1.44, I am happy with this given that it is the new commission system
- Blog Expenses: Greater than $1.44
- April 19 to April 25
- Blog Income: $0.52, earnings would have been comparable to other weeks if old commission system.
- Blog Expenses: Greater than $0.52
- April 12 to April 18
- Blog Income: $1.48
- Blog Expenses: Greater than $1.48
- April 5 to April 11
- Blog Income: $3.71, a HUGE week for the blog, probably made less than $0.25/hour, but I am having a blast.
- Blog Expenses: Greater than $3.71, but approaching the break-even point
- March 29 to April 4
- Blog Income: $0.65
- Blog Expenses: Greater than $0.65
- March 22 to March 28
- Blog Income: *revised to $0.00 since items returned
- Blog Expenses: greater than $0.00
The blog has been around for longer, but I just decided to start doing it now. No previous week was greater than $1.