How I Reached $72K/Year From Ads, Ebooks And Affiliate Marketing

Katie Emery

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Published: December 11th, 2022

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Katie Emery

Founder, Katie Goes Platinum

$6K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Katie Goes Platinum

katiegoesplatinum.com

from Los Angeles, CA

started July 2018

$6,000

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Discover what tools recommends to grow your business!

Discover what books Katie recommends to grow your business!

You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of W... Jen Sincero

Want more updates on Katie Goes Platinum? Check out these stories:

1. How I Started A $6K/Month Blog To Help Women Transitioning From Dyed Hair To Natural Gray Hair (2020) ➜

2. How I Refocused On SEO And Increased My Ad Revenue [$72K/Year] (2022) ➜

This is a follow up story for Katie Goes Platinum. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published about 4 years ago, check it out here.

Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.

Hi, my name is Katie Emery and I’m the founder of Katie Goes Platinum, a website completely devoted to the topic of gray hair.

My flagship product is an eBook I launched in mid-2022 entitled “Every Which Way to Gray: Everything You Need to Know About Transitioning To Naturally Silver Hair.” This book is directed towards my core audience (women in their 30s through 80s who are interested in going gray from dyed hair), and it helps them figure out exactly which method of going gray will work best for them.

These days, I average about $5800/month in gross income from ads, my eBooks, and affiliate marketing - which is much more than the $500 a month I’d originally hoped for when I first started blogging back in 2018!

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Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?

My blogging income has stayed fairly steady since my last update. In that update, I mentioned how I’d been hoping to almost double my income and that has NOT happened.

By offering better lead magnets and using attractive opt-in forms, my subscriber base grew exponentially

My site is still heavily reliant on ad revenue, so the worldwide economic downturn hurt my income (since ad spending and, therefore, RPMs declined) but I took steps in 2021 and early in 2022 to help diversify my income so I could fortify myself against such downturns. I think that’s why my income stayed steady instead of taking a nosedive.

Here are the two most important things I did to diversify my income:

#1. I finally created my product (the eBook mentioned above) starting in April 2022. It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be, and once I wrote that one I felt more confident about making more (in the future)!

Below are the stats from my Shopify store:

#2. I concentrated on increasing the income I make via my email newsletter. The first step in doing that was to grow my subscriber base. I did that by creating better lead magnets and by investing in both Convertbox and Leadpages to create attractive opt-in forms:

By offering better (post-specific) lead magnets and using attractive opt-in forms, my subscriber base grew exponentially, even though I still ruthlessly cull cold subscribers every quarter:

I also started emailing my list more often. I now send one forever series email every week that directs my readers to one specific blog post - thereby increasing pageviews (and ad income). And I send a chatty & informative email every Saturday that includes links to my favorite products, thereby increasing affiliate revenue.

Even though I eventually want to move away from relying heavily on ad income, for the time being, I can’t turn my nose up at it.

And (let’s be honest), I’m grateful for it!

One way that I’ve increased my ad income is by increasing page views. I hired a VA to do Google Web Stories for me starting on September 1 and I’ve been very happy with the results.

My traffic usually starts super strong on January 1st and then takes a nosedive during the holiday season (which stinks, as Q4 is when you get the highest RPMs).
But this quarter, thanks to Google Web Stories, my traffic has stayed steady OR shot up, as you can see from the screenshot below:

The increased traffic brought increased ad revenue, which was awesome! But with Google Web Stories, it’s impossible to predict which stories will be a hit and which won’t be.

So even though I had amazing traffic and ad income in October, both have gone down the first two weeks of November.

What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?

My biggest challenge in the past year has been increasing my income.

As stated above, I’ve been doing a lot to diversify my income, but actually, growing the income is taking a little longer than I’d like. For example, my eBooks sell fairly steadily and get great reviews, but I don’t know how to market them properly to increase sales.

To help with that, I signed up for Monica Froese’s Empowered Business Lab and even though I’m only about ¼ of the way through the course I’ve already learned more about marketing than I imagined possible! So I just need to finish that course and do the hard work.

I also struggle with time management. I LOVE working on my blog but there is SO much to do and I haven’t found a reliable VA yet who can help me with the things that drive me crazy (like email). So I do it all myself (except the Google Web Stories) and some days, I feel a bit burned out.

Compounding the issue is that I still have a full-time job, so I can only work on my blog before work or after work. But I also want to spend time with my young adult sons and my husband (and friends) - it’s very hard to fit it all in.

I’ve tried everything - Trello boards, planners, minimizing time spent on social media, etc.

But I’ve finally decided I just have to resign myself to the fact that there will ALWAYS be something that needs to get done on my blog, so I just need to prioritize tasks with the highest ROI and not worry so much about the rest.

What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?

The biggest obstacle I overcame this year (finally!) was imposter syndrome.

My blog took off very quickly after I launched it back in 2018 - and I didn’t even really know what I was doing back then!

Because my blog took off so quickly, and I had to scramble to learn so much in so little time, it made me feel a bit insecure (like an imposter). So in the first few years of blogging, I took a ton of blogging courses and constantly looked to other bloggers for answers and validation.

But this year it finally hit me why my blog had found success - and I had to take some credit for it: I had good instincts, and I understood my audience (it didn’t hurt that I picked a niche topic with which I had personal experience).

And all those blogging courses jumpstarted my understanding of blogging and what it entails, so it wasn’t a bad thing to rely so heavily on them.

Now, after 4 years of doing this, instead of constantly looking to other bloggers (and their courses) for knowledge and validation, I finally feel confident in trusting my instincts and doing things my way.

What’s in the plans for the upcoming year and the next 5 years?

I’m not great about making future plans and setting goals (I know, I know!) but I can tell you that for the next year I’m going to invest a lot more time creating video content for YouTube.

I started my YouTube channel around the same time that I started my blog, but I barely posted any videos for the past year due to a bout of “stage fright.”

However, I recently attended FinCon 2022 in Orlando and one of the overarching messages was that the whole point of creating content is to serve your audience; to give them what they need (instead of what you need). So if they want a video, I’m going to give it to them!

I used to be a photographer and even though I’m an extrovert, I’m more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it. But I’ve been inspired by watching my friend Ilana’s amazing videos on YouTube and seeing how clearly and confidently she presents her content to her subscribers.

Ilana gave me some pep talks and some advice that helped, so I put out a new video a couple of weeks ago and it reached 3,000 views quickly, which boosted my confidence.

Now to your question about what I’ll be doing in 5 years. I have no idea. I need to set some goals!

My only goals have nothing to do with blogging - I either want to travel the world OR buy two donkeys and bedeck them with flower crowns, LOL. I haven’t figured out anything beyond that.

What’s the best thing you read in the last year?

I discovered this past year that I prefer to listen to business books or podcasts rather than to read them, as I retain the information better that way.

To that end, the two business podcasts that inspired me the most this past year are The Blogging Millionaire and The Think Media podcasts.

The Blogging Millionaire podcast is fantastic because Brandon Gaille gives actionable tips to help you increase traffic and serve your readers. I take notes during his podcast and then make sure to implement his tips - and it has helped!

I only recently discovered the Think Media podcast and I can already tell that it’s going to help me get back on track on YouTube.

I love a podcast (or book) that lays out the information to help you succeed in a clear, succinct way without relying heavily on business jargon. It’s wonderful.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?

One of the biggest things that I would tell people to do is to join Facebook groups that support people in their niche. I have received super valuable tips in some of those groups and made some helpful connections!

And be open to new ideas. For example, I did NOT want to learn tripwires and funnels as I found them confusing and overwhelming. But once I learned how tripwires and funnels can direct people to my product (while at the same time building a strong relationship with them), it was a game-changer!

So try to face your fears and just keep moving forward and learning new things. And don’t be afraid to let go of the things that are no longer working for you.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

No, I’m not looking to hire anyone else at this point. I already have a wonderful VA for Google Web Stories.

I would eventually love to hire someone else to help me in my day-to-day blogging operations. But right now, I don’t have enough time to train someone on the things I need help with - believe me, I’ve tried!