I’ve been writing MyBlogEarnings reports for around 6 months now, and I’ve found they are a good way for me to evaluate past performance, to set targets for the coming month and to share blogging tips. I’ve been tring to keep my Guide To Making Money Online With Blogging up to date if you are looking for more tips.

At the end of July, despite the fall in CPMs I was in quite a strong position as my traffic was actually increasing rather than decreasing. Although the actual number of posts from myself dropped in August as I took a holiday, thanks again to the efforts of the team the site traffic remained strong and hit record levels, even if my CPMs continued to fall. I also managed to close a number of direct advertising deals that have provided me some very interesting further insights into Google Adsense Smart Pricing.

Earnings Report For August 2007

Note: Figures for last month are in brackets.

• Google Adsense: $4,120 ($4,280)
• Direct Ad Sales: $ 2,245 ($235)
• Text-Link-Ads: $1,583 ($1,386)
• Intellitxt: $1,135 ($1,034)
• Tribal Fusion: $740 ($715)
  
• Linkworth: $168 ($168)
• ReviewMe: $150 ($130)
• CashCrate: $150 ($0)
• Feedburner FAN: $101 ($159)
• Chitika: $2 ($14)
• Blogads: $1($6)

Grand Total: $10,394 ($8,126)

I’m so happy I’ve set a new record for earnings and traffic, passing 500k impressions for the first time, particularly during the difficult summer months. The success has really energised me, and I’ve already set in motion some plans to try and continue this growth.

Successes For The Month

Direct Ad Sales

I believe that direct ad sales are the future of this site and the only option open to me to increase my CPMs as I think I’ve taken Google Adsense, Tribal Fusion and Intellitxt as far as I can. The numbers would have been even better if one campaign that I was negotiating had closed quicker, but it will almost certainly start this month.

I’m also hoping that the Speed Up My PC campaign I’ve been running gets renewed this month as it’s been doing quite well. I’ve also started a relationship with a UK ad agency where I’ve agreed a 12 month deal for various items for some of their sites, and there’s a strong possibility that they will book more campaigns on my site.

Adsense

The steady AdSense earnings last month hide a significant success. To run the Speed Up My PC campaign I had to remove 2 of my AdSense ad units, more than halving the total number of available impressions. Despite this, the CPM of my pages hasn’t fallen by much thanks to Adsense Smart Pricing. In fact, the CPM of my only remaining unit has increased to make up most of the shortfall. I think that even if the Speed Up My PC campaign isn’t renewed I’m not going to put the Adsense units back in, and I’ll probably run some other banners there.

Guest Authors

I’m really happy with how the guest authors scheme is working. Not only are the guys bringing in valuable traffic, but I’m glad that their earnings are continuing to increase. My star is Dennis, who is having amazing success on the site and I’ve just transferred nearly $300 to his bank account, and he’s hopefully going to exceed that in September. Not bad for a few posts a week, and he’s making more than many bloggers. Hopefully he can treat himself to a Wii this week!

I’m still looking for a few more team members. If you’re interested in joining a fun team and making some cash by writing a few posts a week, then click here to read more.

Traffic Growth

After predicting a traffic drop over the summer, I’ve been stunned by the additional traffic, mainly thanks to Dennis’ FIFA posts. Although these posts have low CPMs, they are still bringing in valuable new readers.

Disappointments For The Month

CPMs

Again poor CPMs and fill rates from intellitxt, Tribal Fusion and Feedburner limited my earnings from these schemes. Tribal Fusion in particular failed to take advantage of my additional traffic, with CPMs falling yet again. One of my targets this month is to find a direct advertiser to replace them.

In terms of FAN I don’t think I had any banners running on my site. I did however have a lot of feed ads running, which only managed to generate $100 in income. So, I’ve decided that I won’t be accepting any more FAN feed adverts as the payoff is too low to justify annoying my loyal readers.

Weak Dollar

Mid month the exchange rate dropped below $2 and I really started to get my hopes up, but it’s back over the $2 threshold again. I guess for the short to mid term I think I’m going to accept that I’m going to get very few pounds for my dollars.

Plans For Next Month

This month my focus is on getting back into the routine of posting regularly and to further grow my traffic by:

• Developing a new custom theme: I kicked this off yesterday after being inspired by recent relaunches like gHacks and Problogger. I’m hoping that my new theme will not only increase the usage of my site, but it will further increase the revenue earning potential of my site. I also intend to release the theme and I’m hoping that it will prove as popular as TypoXP Reloaded. I’ve finished my initial sketches and my designer is hoping to have something for me to look at in a few days
• Restart the popular ‘Pimp My Blog’ series
• Start a new series of blog posts that I’ve been planning for a few months, which I think will be very popular
• Close Direct Ad Deals

I hope that the amount of information I have shared here will encourage you to do the same (An alternative way is to tag your post ‘MyBlogEarnings‘ so that your details can be found easily on Technorati), or provide you with food for thought. The more info we share with each other, the more we will all hopefully make.

If you are looking for some quick tips on generating more income from your site then check out my Guide To Making Money Online With Blogging.