November 2011 is when I shared my first income statement publicly and it has been more than a year now and so I thought I will share my income statement once again and see how the progress has been so far and share some very important aspect to understanding online money making game in 2012. How the equation is changing and what to expect in future?
In the Month of December 2011 my total income online was $6853.82. The breakup of my income is as follows.
Comparing the above data with October 2010 numbers there are some key differences.
Understanding the Advertising Business Model
You may have already read in public forums that AdSense does not work any more. From the above chart you may draw the conclusion that AdSense is working for me and yes it is working for me in 2011, you need to understand how to make it work.
So let us look at some numbers.
In October 2010 AdSense was 37% of my total online income. In December 2011 it is 22% of my total income. Though I am not allowed to share specific figures as per AdSense TOS but based on gross numbers, you can see there is an overall decline in AdSense income where as the traffic to my sites is at all time high. (See here). This means AdSense is either paying less or I am not sending as much impressions to AdSense as I was sending previously.
The reality is, as AdSense revenue is not increasing in accordance with traffic, I am sending fewer impressions to AdSense.
Coming back to public forums, there are webmasters who do not see growth in revenue despite growth in traffic and then they post such comments like AdSense does not work anymore or death of AdSense but now you know the REAL reason for such comments. I do agree that those comments are true but not the complete truth.
You can combine AdSense with other Ad networks to make AdSense work for you. Combine AdSense and CPM Advertising from the above chart and you will see a growth in revenue pretty much inline with my traffic growth.
If you rely too much only on one Ad network like AdSense, you will not see much growth in revenue. Look for other methods to monetize your sites as you grow your site.
Things that worked well for me in 2011
Content Links
Webmaster’s should always experiment and my experiment of moving from Kontera to Vibrant Media increased my content links income from 2% to 5% of my total income.
Affiliates / Products
I had my doubts when writing my eBook for Indian audience but this was yet another experiment that has worked really well for me in 2011. My Technical Analysis eBook has contributed lot to my affiliates and products part of my total income.
Freelancing
December was yet another month where I had lot of consultation work coming my way and so it becomes considerable chunk of my total income for yet another month in 2011.
Things to Focus on in 2012
- Partnerships are one thing where I had very little focus in 2011 and the highest priority in 2012 will be to focus more on partnerships.
- Product and Affiliate incomes are growing faster than my expectations and this will be yet another area of focus for me in 2012.
- I have not added much to my direct advertising sales in last one year and thus it remains roughly the same. Thanks to my long-term advertisers but this also means I need to focus more on getting more direct advertisers.
Final Thoughts
In 2012 I will be focusing less on freelancing, consulting and more on partnerships where I can form teams / companies to make more and more money online for my team and me. If you want me to be part of your online venture, do let me know here.