My story of sucess.

Just my experience

[joebob]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone here at WW. I have not posted very much but have definitly read many many threads.
When I first came to WW many threads caught my attention especially the ones about people leaving their jobs because of their websites earnings. I was very skeptical about people posting that they were earning ten thousand a month and up. (The UPS or FEDEX club)
I started running adsense on one of my sites this past January and earned over $800 in 3 weeks and I was estatic. Then Feb. came and smart pricing kicked in. But I still did ok for the month over 2k after reading many of the suggestions about ad placement and coloring. March was similar. Then in April I cut a new advertising deal for my site and was getting 20k views a day. My adsense earnings for April was over 5k.
I was becoming a believer of those posts I had read earlier. While the $5,000 from Google was still pending I got the dreaded Adsense account suspended email. They said it was for invalid clicks. I assume that it was because of the large increase in my traffic/earnings. Ofcourse, I emailed them about it and only got canned responses. This is where I almost packed it in and gave up. But I didn't. I ran Kanoodle for a while but it was not very productive. But I still kept at it. I am not currently running any type of text advertising rather I have found that the pay per action/lead generation was better suited for my sites. Now my revenue is over 40k per month. I do spend alot in advertising about 15k but, 25k profit a month is plenty for me and my family to live on. I am now about to leave my job where I make 70k a year to run my sites full time. I can tell you it is very scary to leave a garaunteed paycheck. But to spend time with my family and watch my little girl grow up is priceless.

The whole gist of this post is to say thanks to those who posted before so as to catch my attention and motivate me to continue and believe that it CAN be done. Also to encourage others to keep at it no matter what happens even being cut by Google as many have does not mean the end.

Thanks,
Joe

[bbunlock]

great story and I hope it just keeps on getting better for you

[xiaoxin]

omg, you earn so much,

my site traffic is only half of yours, but my earning is only 1/50 of yours.

:)

but i will try and improve.

[internetguy]

Inspirational story... thanks for sharing.

[ebuilder]

Just curious Joe Bob.

"Then in April I cut a new advertising deal for my site and was getting 20k views a day."

Did you pay $12 or $24 for the 20k visitors?

Back in April Mr. Bob wrote:

"I had a similar experience when I started with adsense. Be Warned smart pricing will come in about 2 - 3 weeks and your epc will drop like a lead ballon. My first week i averaged 30 clicks per day and an epc of .80 that was back in January. Yesterday I had 6,000 clicks and an epc of .07 Today I have had 1,500 clicks so far and epc is .04 My dreams have been shattered. If I was only getting that .80 per click now. I would be in the ups club after two days."

And you wonder why advertisers need protection from smart pricing. This is a prime example people.

[ann]

Congratulations joebob, keep up the good work and maybe I will see you on the French Rivera in a few years:)

[jahfingers]

ebuilder, if you read further in the same thread you quoted you'll read this by "Mr. Bob"

That $420 was for one day yesterday. I know it will not last. I aheived this by paying a rather large forum site to place an ad to my site on theirs.

So where do you get $12 or $24 dollars, and what are you implying?

Congrats on your success joebob, what pay per action/lead generation program(s) are you using?

[kartiksh]

Great. Congratulations!

But please diversify source of income from your website. This is to ensure you will never get bad patch of income from website if suddenly something might go wrong to one of your revenue source.

Keep it up.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Do you make anything from the website in your profile Joe?

[granty]

Ah, nothing gives me more pleasure than reading these success stories - the tiniest things please me though, yesterday both my sites rose back up the Google ranks after nosediving last week, Im earning $16 a day now!

[eljefe3]

Good job joebob! Once away from the day to day grind of the office and being able to spend more time with your family, you'll never regret not getting a regular paycheck even if income sometimes is a bit inconsistent.

Also I agree wtih how you handle your user profile website and that is to not necessarily show something you don't want others to see whether they be from Mountain View, or anywhere else :)

[oddsod]

Yes, but if hyperkik could find them a few PhDs from Mountain View might just be able to do it too ;)

Well done, joebob!

[Jenstar]

A reminder, please no posting of publisher's site specifics, or how to find said publisher's site. Thanks :)

[FromRocky]

Note that the income/revenue has nothing to do with AdSense.

I am not currently running any type of text advertising rather I have found that the pay per action/lead generation was better suited for my sites. Now my revenue is over 40k per month. I do spend alot in advertising about 15k but, 25k profit a month is plenty for me and my family to live on.

This post should be posted in Advertising Sales and Affiliate Programs [webmasterworld.com] forum rather than AdSense forum. Is this just a mistake or an intention?

[edited by: FromRocky at 3:21 pm (utc) on Nov. 8, 2005]

[guru5571]

Very inspiring post joebob. You have truely arrived.

Note to self... Dump adsense...start flogging ebooks.

[Wonderstuff]

Congratulations are due on another count. You have identified a niche - something that few others are doing. You have become the best in that niche, without resorting to pages and pages of boring, needless content.

You deserve every cent JoeBob.

[burnsal]

I'll pipe up and say well done, I admire anyone who has the courage to drop out of the rat race and make their own destiny.

Good luck, I hope you have more fun to come.

[gabby]

Joebob, great post, congratulations on your success. Could you give us an idea what percentage of your stated income figures is coming from e books? What other channels are you using to monetize your sites?

[janethuggard]

"This post should be posted in Advertising Sales and Affiliate Programs forum rather than AdSense forum. Is this just a mistake or an intention?"

No, it belongs here. He is poster child for what NOT to do, in order to succeed with Adsense.

Bob, good job with salvaging the train wreck. We like to hear this stuff. You make is a mistake, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try harder.

[DXL]

I can easily live off of 25k a year, so 25k a month would be a dream come true. Actually if I could net 3k a month off of my sites, I could retire and just maintain them, but right now I'm at about $500.

[david_uk]

I was becoming a believer of those posts I had read earlier. While the $5,000 from Google was still pending I got the dreaded Adsense account suspended email. They said it was for invalid clicks. I assume that it was because of the large increase in my traffic/earnings. Of course, I emailed them about it and only got canned responses. This is where I almost packed it in and gave up.

Did anyone miss this? OK. it's inspirational in that the OP makes enough money from his sites to give up work, but not via adsense because his account has been disabled for invalid clicks.

[Freeboi]

Congrats, Bob! It just goes to show that receiving the dreaded email from Google Adsense is not the end of the world for a website owner. When a door closes, another one will surely open.