I won’t lie, I’ve been giddy to write this revenue report even as I was writing last month’s revenue report. Since I’m normally writing these reports after the first week of the month, Kaitlin and I generally have a good gauge of how the new month is going.

And let me tell you, October started with a bang and never let up. Miss Bizi Bee pulled of the trifecta in October, setting records for traffic, Etsy revenue, and Amazon affiliate earnings.

The quick stats:

Traffic: 11,156 unique visitors; +23.1% m/m

Gross Revenue: $7,068.81; +15.2% m/m

Net Revenue: $4,771.91; +76.7% m/m

The Sexy Charts:

As you can see, it was a fantastic month on all fronts. There’s a lot to cover in this report so let’s dive right in!

Miss Bizi Bee Traffic Breakdown

Blog traffic was up a solid 23% in October. Granted, we had an extra day over September, but it definitely didn’t account for the 23% jump. So what did then?

The short answer: Continued strong organic traffic growth and solid growth from social traffic.

Organic Traffic

Organic traffic was an absolute beast during October. With more than 46% month-over-month growth, it’s by far the largest traffic driver to Miss Bizi Bee. This big bump was largely driven by a handful of popular Halloween themed blog posts.

For this reason, I don’t expect organic traffic to perform as well in the months ahead. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a decline in overall traffic for a few months. October was so amazing it’s going to take some time before Kaitlin’s able to top it.

Social Traffic

If you recall, social traffic actually dropped 11% in September. But it bounced back significantly in October. We don’t know for sure, but this was probably fueled by the Halloween season. But Kaitlin has also had a bit more time to pin pictures she hadn’t previously gotten to.

In fact, I drilled down into Kaitlin’s social traffic and found that just over 35% of it was driven by Halloween themed pins. That means we’ll likely see a contraction in social traffic next month unless Kaitlin produces some pretty popular Thanksgiving and Christmas related posts.

Hmmm… on second thought, I wouldn’t be against that!

Direct & Referral Traffic

I generally discount direct and referral traffic. But I do want to touch on direct traffic a bit this month. Direct traffic grew 13% in September. But if you look closely, you’ll notice that even though there were more direct visits in October than there were in September, it accounted for a smaller percentage of the total. That’s simply because organic traffic continues to grow so much.

But another cool thing is direct traffic was higher in October than it ever has been. It’s nice to see this trend. To me, it shows that there’s some sort of “brand” affiliation here since people are either directly typing in MissBiziBee.Com into their browsers or coming from a previous bookmark.

Here’s a look at direct traffic since the beginning:

Miss Bizi Bee Revenue Breakdown

And now for the part you’ve all been waiting for! 🙂

From October 1st I was a bit worried Kaitlin was going to burn herself out. October started with an avalanche of Etsy orders to the tune of $774 in just the first day. That was a record in itself!

But orders kept coming in at a pretty amazing clip and Kaitlin clocked a monthly record of $7,068 in gross revenue.  For those keeping track at home, that’s nearly $1,000 better than her previous revenue record in September.

Here’s how the revenue sources broke down for September: Etsy (94.61%), Amazon affiliate links (5.32%), digital revenue (a tiny 0.07%):

Etsy Revenue

Etsy continues to be the big revenue driver for Miss Bizi Bee. Even though (spoiler alert) Amazon affiliate revenue set a new record, the growth from Etsy didn’t allow Amazon to put a dent in it. I still believe that Etsy will eventually let other revenue channels pull more weight. How long until that happens I’m not really sure.

Amazon Affiliate Revenue

After barely setting a new record last month ($253), Amazon affiliate earnings had a huge month with nearly $376 in commission. I personally think this is amazing!

Although a lot of this revenue was driven by Halloween, most of the blog posts that are driving Amazon clickthroughs are coming from posts Kaitlin published many months ago. In short, they continue to generate revenue every month even though they’ve long been written and published.

Good work if you can get it!

I can’t wait to see this channel continue to grow. But since it is largely dependent on traffic growth, it may be awhile before Kaitlin posts a new record here.

Miss Bizi Bee Expenses Breakdown

Kaitlin spent a ton of money in September, taking advantage of bulk pricing on a bunch of materials she uses to fulfill Etsy orders. In fact, it was these bulk purchases that prevented Kaitlin from hitting her $4,000 net, pre-tax revenue goal in September.

But as planned, Kaitlin didn’t need to spend nearly as much in October. Total expenses came in at just $2,296 compared to $3,435 in September. As a result, Kaitlin’s expenses as a percentage of her revenue dropped to just 32.5% which is near her all-time low of 30.68% as seen in the chart below:

There shouldn’t be a need to do any bulk purchasing for the foreseeable future, so I’d expect the expense:revenue ratio to plateau in the 30-35% zone for now.

Goals and Challenges

October was an incredibly special month. If you’re a regular admirer of my amazing reports, you know that we’ve been shooting for Kaitlin to net over $4,000 in pre-tax revenue as our short-term goal.

I’m ecstatic to report that Kaitlin was able to achieve this lofty mark in October with $4,771.91 in net, pre-tax revenue. Wow!

So what’s next?

While I don’t expect Kaitlin to hit the $4,000 net revenue market every month now that she’s hit it once, I do think it’s just a matter of time before it’s commonplace. So the next focus is on building Amazon affiliate revenue to $1,000 per month.

I initially laid that out as a medium-term goal, and it definitely still is. This may not happen for another 6-12 months, but I have no doubt that it will eventually happen. As long as Kaitlin continues to consistently blog about amazing crafting ideas the blog traffic will continue to grow and so too should her Amazon revenue.

This isn’t to say there won’t be some down months, I’m sure there will be. But the long-term trend should be up and to the right.

 

As always, thanks for reading. Travis, signing off.