Olive & Ivy

Clean beauty, fashion and travel

How I Made $60k Blogging Last Year

Living, Small Business

This post may contain affiliate links and/or PR samples.

Hi friends! I finished up my taxes spreadsheet for 2016 today and decided I’d share some details on my blogging income for last year. Money is a taboo subject for some, but I have no problem talking about it. This is not meant to be braggy in any way (especially considering how many bloggers make far more than I do)- I find other blogger’s income reports extremely informative and insightful, so I figured I’d do one of my own!

A few things to note:

  • okay, so I didn’t make exactly $60k. I figured $59583.25 was a bit of a mouthful, so I rounded up ;)
  • this is my income before expenses and before taxes have been taken out
  • these totals are all in Canadian dollars

Alright, onto the good stuff.

Income: $59583.25

Sponsored posts: $52,045.58

This chunk of income includes sponsored blog posts and sponsored social media posts. I do receive some offers directly from brands themselves, but for the most part, I work with brands through networks. I’m not going to break down my sponsored posts income into individual networks, because that would take ages for me to figure out and doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. So, alternatively, I’ve listed a bunch of the networks I work with or have worked with in the past below.

Ads: $2,250.36

  • Padsquad: $1507.41
    • I use Padsquad for my mobile ads. It’s not the prettiest setup, but I haven’t really had the time (or minimum amount of pageviews for most of the big advertising networks) to explore other options.
  • Google AdSense: $742.95
    • I use AdSense for desktop ads (ads shown when you’re viewing my site from your computer). Considering I made over double with Padsquad than I did with AdSense, I’m sure there is a better option. I also probably don’t have my ads set up in the best way for optimal revenue, but I try to keep my reader’s experience in mind and avoid anything too invasive.

Affiliate links: $5,287.31

  • Bluehost (web hosting): $3209.40
    • A link to Bluehost’s hosting services is included on the How To Start a Blog On WordPress page on my design site. I also offer this as a recommendation to my design clients who are starting from scratch on WordPress.
  • rewardStyle: $1147.07
    • For the most part, all of my beauty and fashion related posts contain rewardStyle links. I like their interface a lot and find it easy to use.
  • Shareasale: $366.31
    • I use Shareasale to link to some of my favorite WordPress themes on the How To Start a Blog On WordPress page on my design site. I will be using it this year to link to a few green beauty stores that are also on Shareasale.
  • SheIn: $338.40
    • I have done a couple SheIn haul/try-on posts with products that I purchased myself and I included links to each piece purchased within the posts.
  • Siteground (web hosting): $200
    • A link to Siteground’s hosting services is included on the How To Start a Blog On WordPress page on my design site. I also offer this as a recommendation to my design clients who are starting from scratch on WordPress.
Expenses

I’m not going to list all of my expenses, because they are intertwined with some expenses from my design business and are not all necessarily specifically for blogging. Instead, I wanted to share some worthy investments I made for my blog over the last year.

Design goods:

  • Creativemarket
    • This is where I buy pretty much all of my fonts from these days. You can get great prices on bundles of gorgeous fonts! Be careful though, the font addiction is real.
  • Etsy
    • I buy clipart on Etsy every now and then.
  • Restored 316
    • I love the Restored 316 WordPress themes. I am using the Dazzling theme on my site right now and I love it. Yes, I am a designer and can create themes on my own, but what’s the point if I’m in love with a pre-existing theme? ;)

Photography equipment:

  • Diva Ring Light Super Nova 18″
    • I LOVE this thing. It’s amazing for selfies (don’t judge, I have to take pictures of my makeup, haha) and doubles well as extra light for product photography. This was one of the very best things I bought for my blog last year.
  • Nikon D5500
    • I finally upgraded my DSLR camera this year after using my Nikon D3200 for the past few years. I absolutely love my new camera and am so glad I upgraded! Check out my photography equipment post for more info on what I use to take my pictures.
  • ShopBop
    • I find a lot of my photography props in the “Home” section of the ShopBop site. They have a lot of cute stuff!

Social media scheduling:

  • Confident Collaborations
    • I’ve worked with Chantal for the past year for my social media scheduling and she is absolutely AMAZING. Always so friendly, so helpful, so accommodating and just overall does a really great job. I can’t recommend her enough- she is worth every penny! Let her know I sent you if you inquire about her services.
  • Tailwind
    • I am not using this currently, but will be subscribing again in the next month or two. It’s a Pinterest scheduling tool and works really well if you put the time in to load some pins. If you use my link to sign up, you can get free one month trial to see if you like it!
  • Buffer
    • This is my favorite way to schedule Facebook and Twitter posts (though they do support other social media platforms as well). I love the clean interface and how easy it is to use. I used to pay monthly for this, but started paying annually partway through this year to save some money on a service I know I am going to continue to subscribe to.

Web hosting:

  • Bluehost
    • I was on Bluehost for years without an issue. As my site has grown, I started having more issues and experiencing some downtime, so I ended up switching to Siteground. I still think Bluehost is a perfectly fine option for new sites.
  • Siteground
    • Siteground has been amazing. Their customer service is top notch and they’ve been so helpful. They even migrated my site from Bluehost to their own servers for free!
Other ways to make money online:
  • ALWAYS use eBates when online shopping. All you do is click through to a store from their site before shopping and you earn cash back (and they offer cash back for pretty much every big store)! If you are likely to forget to click through their site before shopping (like I always do, haha), then install their browser extension and it’ll pop up anytime you visit a big store, so you never forget to get your cash back!
  • Earn free gift cards with Swagbucks. They release codes for Swagbucks a few times a day, and all you have to do is enter them on their site and rack up the Swagbucks. When you reach a certain amount, you can redeem for gift cards. I’ve earned several Amazon, Starbucks and Indigo gift cards over the years!
Goals for 2017
  • I want to focus on more evergreen content for 2017, and I think my life changes that are leading me back to more of a lifestyle blog will definitely help with that. Most of my posts last year were beauty reviews, and at the rate new beauty products are released, it’s not only super hard (aka impossible) to keep up with reviewing everything, but it’s also almost pointless pageview-wise if you are not one of the first few people to review it.
  • Focus on affiliate marketing. The money is obviously there to be made, so I just need to figure out ways to organically incorporate it into my posts.
  • Up my social media game. Working with Chantal from Confident Collaborations has definitely helped that, but I need to put in some effort myself to really get my engagement to where I want it to be.

Well, I think that’s about it. I hope that this was helpful and offered some insight into what’s going on behind the scenes. If you have any questions, please shoot me an email or leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to answer! Also- do you want to see more of this kind of “how to blog” stuff? Let me know!

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Comments

  2. valerie hansen says

    Wow thanks for sharing. I knew about most of these , but not all. I’ve been on the verge of quitting, because I have been blogging 2.5 years and not making much at all. It’s so hard with a full time job and I cant afford to hire a lot of stuff out. It’s like a vicious circle.

    That’s amazing you made this much …do you do blog consulting at all?

    Thank you!’

    Valerie

    Reply

    • Chelsea says

      Totally understand how hard it is with a full time job! While I don’t work for anyone other than myself anymore, I do run my design business with a full time workload as well, so I know how time consuming it can all be. Just keep at it and do your best (as long as you are still enjoying it)!

      I’ve never done blog consulting before, I’m not even totally sure what it entails, haha!

      Reply

  6. Jackie says

    Wow, that’s incredible!! I’m working to build my blog as a business and I am no where NEAR that yet. It can be discouraging at times, but it’s great to hear it is possible to make a real full-time income.

    I think I need to join more networks or something? I have such a hard time finding these opportunities on my own.

    You are goals!!

    Jackie
    Something About That

    Reply

    • Chelsea says

      Hahaha, thanks girl. It’s definitely possible and you are miles ahead of other people with your content and photography (and dedication), so keep it up! xo

      Reply

    • Chelsea says

      Agreed, I love reading about other bloggers’ income! I always find it super motivating and it’s interesting to see where people make the most money. I love Swagbucks! It takes a while to earn gift cards but it takes a whole ten seconds a couple times a day to collect your Swagbucks and eventually you get free stuff, so why not? If you do sign up, I recommend googling sb codez and signing up for their mailing list. They email you every time a new Swagbucks code goes up so you don’t have to keep checking their social media accounts :)

      Reply

  18. Venus Folsom says

    Congratulations!! And thank you for sharing your information! Did you have a certain number of subscribers before you contacted your sponsors to get on board with them?

    Reply

  20. Julie Barrett says

    This was a super helpful post! Please do more! Also, could you expand on the sponsored blog post section which is where you make the majority of your income? Not necessarily to break it down into figures but to explain how a new blogger would go about acquiring sponsors, what sponsored posts entail, how to make legal agreements with sponsors, how to know if you are making a good deal, how to say no professionally to a not so good deal, etc. And are sponsored posts different from product reviews or are they the same thing?

    Thanks so much! Love your site!

    Reply

    • Chelsea says

      I can definitely do a post on that! Product reviews can be sponsored, yes, but in beauty blogging especially, they usually aren’t (you just receive the product for free to review).

      Thanks for the request! I’ll let you know when the post goes up! xo

      Reply

  22. Nancy says

    OMG I am so freaking proud of you. I had no idea one could make that much on blogging. Taking all your tips down, now that I can work in the USA!

    Question:
    How often do you login to your affiliate networks (like Clever Girls, Social Stars, etc)? I noticed that I haven’t logged into Clever for a while and there were tons of campaigns available to me. I naively assumed they’d e-mail me with campaigns. Lol. So, do you check once a day, or do you check once a week sort of thing?

    Reply

    • Chelsea says

      Haha aw, thank you. Yeah, I rarely get Clever Girls emails either. I’m actually really bad about logging into the networks to check for new campaigns, but definitely need to get in there more frequently so I don’t miss out on anything that’s a good fit!

      Reply

  27. Lindsey Elyse says

    Thanks for sharing, Chelsea! I love to read the monthly income reports from other bloggers like Melyssa Griffin as well. It’s good to see that you can survive by working on a website (which will eventually be my end goal.) I’d love to know some tips + tricks for affiliate marketing! I’m with Rakuten + CJ Affiliates but haven’t managed to make a single dollar LOL.

    Reply

  28. Chantal says

    Amazing job girl, you rocked it this year! It was so sweet of you to mention me in your post! I have loved helping you with your social media over the past year and I look forward to working with you to help achieve your goals in 2017!

    Reply

  29. Zoê says

    Thanks for your honesty and tips, this is amazing! I really tried with sponsored posts last year but I’m just not quite seeing results yet and this year I have to prioritize other life stuff but I am so impressed by you and hopefully I can still see some progress this year!

    Reply

  31. Rachelle says

    Thanks for this breakdown! I’ve been blogging for years but I’d like to get more serious about strategizing since I want to be able to work from home when my husband and I have children. :)

    Reply

  32. Leo Tat says

    Insightful post for me. I am researching on how my wife could make some money blogging as a hobby so how you made money on your blog is useful. I’ve seen a few monthly reports from other bloggers and Bluehost seems to pay well for them too.

    Reply

    • Chelsea says

      Bluehost has a great affiliate program! Definitely worth looking into once you get a blog up and running for your wife.

      Reply

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