I bet that youโve heard and even noticed a core update that Google rolled out starting on December 3, 2020 ๐คฃ Many niche webmasters are trying to guess what was…
November โ December 2020 Income Report: Back Friday ๐ค, Changes In My Team ๐ฌ, Website Updates๐
Happy New Year ๐ Hope youโve had a good beginning of the year despite all the craziness happening around ๐
I am kicking off the new year with a new income report โ the last one for 2020.
November-December is usually the most lucrative period of the year thanks to Black Friday and the holiday time when everybody and their dog intensively shops to buy presents and to hunt down deals ๐ช๐๐
How did you do during this period? On my side, it went pretty well, though Iโd hoped it would be better ๐ฉ
Thatโs saidโฆ
Welcome to my sixth bi-monthly income report of 2020!
I am now doing bi-monthly income reports because it saves me time โณ and reduces the amount of identical content in my blog ๐ค
Rather than creating yet another boring IR, I better spend time on writing other posts that are hopefully more interesting than money reports ๐ค๐ป
So read my income report #63-64 to find out what happened in November-December 2020.
Back Friday ๐ค
During this Black Friday, I decided to test new sales channels: email and social media.
Both were a flop since I started warming them up too late ๐คฆโโ๏ธ
On the plus side, the Black Friday pages I created on my sites got ranked quite well!
I learned from the mistakes in the previous year and prepared the pages waaay in advance, like 6 months in advance ๐คฏ They brought only about $100 in affiliate salesโฆ but itโs about 100 times more compared to the previous year ๐๐
So, my advice to you about Black Friday โ start preparing early! Like, right now ๐
What hindered a bit my BF income was that Ezoic, the ad platform I monetize my sites with, was down on one of my sites during Nov 25 โ Nov 30 ๐ญ๐ญ๐ญ It cost me about $100 ๐
Also, one of the non-Amazon affiliate programs I had big hopes for suddenly went offline ๐ฎ Their affiliate links did not work for 45 days ๐ฑ from the beginning of November till the middle of December. I definitely missed some of the sales, not sure how much though.
Changes In My Team ๐ฌ
Somewhen in October, right in the midst of preparing for Black Friday, my VA announced that she no long wanted to work for me and thus, she gave me her two-week notice ๐ฆ๐ง๐คฏ๐ฉ
Losing a key person during one of the busiest periods would not be just badโฆ it would be catastrophic ๐ซ
โNo, no, no noโฆ you cannot quit now! Noooo!โ ๐
I begged her to stay at least till December. She was very kind to agree to stay till the end of the year ๐๐
Deep down, I was hoping that by December, sheโd change her mind.. But alas, it did not happen and I started looking for a new VA in the end of December.
I ended up hiring two people instead of one ๐
I figured that itโs better if people would specialize in different types of work. So now, I have one VA handling post formatting and the other one who takes care of everything else ๐
Started Email Reviews ๐ง
In November, thinking of how else I can improve my websites, I realized that I had not looked at the most extensive niche website course among all courses I have: Authority Hacker Pro!
It has tons of useful informationโฆ
And I thought that while I am through the modules, I may also want to give my email subscribers a glimpse on whatโs inside and how well it works.
Here are the results so far:
๐ In November, I tried out one module about email marketing and wrote an email about it in December.
๐ In December, I tried out a module about affiliate marketing and sent an update to my subscribers just a few days ago.
๐ Now, I am trying the module about acquiring backlinks and I plan to release an email somewhen in February.
If you want to read these emails as well, sign up for my newsletter ๐๐๐
Website updates ๐
To refresh your memory about what the website nicknames mean, read here.
Unicorn ๐ฆ Website
Right before Black Friday, my Unicorn ๐ฆ Website made an important achievement: it got approved for the Amazon UK Affiliate program ๐
I applied three times to Amazon UK! Three times!!! ๐ฑ
The reason why I got rejected was that, well, the site was not compliant ๐ฌ
I did not verify carefully this important aspect during the due diligence process when I was buying it and it came biting me in the ass ๐๐
The Amazon UK Affiliate program itself was not such a big deal ๐คทโโ๏ธ
What was much more important was the fact that because of that, I was risking to get my whole Amazon account banned.
As I said earlier, getting approved to Amazon Affiliate programs of other countries is a good test to see if your website(s) where you already run Amazon is still compliant.
So, after being rejected twice, I finally fixed everything needed aaandโฆ I got approved ๐๐๐ Right before Black Friday ๐
I plan to write a post about that โ stay tuned! Donโt miss any of my posts by subscribing to my newsletter:
Mother ๐ Website
It was a very good period for this website ๐ค
In December, Google released a massive core update that affected many websites. My Mother ๐ Website got affected too but in a positive way โ read all about it in this post.
Also, it finally, finally, FINALLY recovered from the Pinterest penalty that it got hit by in May ๐๐๐บ๐ฏโโ๏ธ

LivingOfCloud (this blog)
I was quite active in this blog and shared many pieces of my experience.
This is what I posted here:
๐ How Google Core Update In December 2020 Affected My Sites? Hereโs My Analysis
๐ 9 Tips About How To Increase Amazon Affiliate Earnings By Increasing The Conversion Rate: Tip #4 Is My Favorite ๐ค
๐ Cloudways Hosting Review: Read About My Experience
๐ December 2020 News Roundup๐ฐ: Whatโs New In SEO & Affiliate Marketing
Other websites
Whatโs included in this part are the sites that are currently either on hold, at the very beginning of the growth, or the ones that I did not work on during this period.
It makes no sense to write about them every month so I wonโt! ๐
Personal life ๐ฉ๐ป
In November, our neighborhood got dressed for the holidays. We went on a local tour to see how our neighbours decorated their houses.
Here is a couple of most impressive decors:


In December, we travelled! ๐ฆ๐ง๐คฏ๐
But not too far ๐ We went to Montreal downtown, which is just 20 min away from our home by public transportation ๐
I got soooo burned out during the Black Friday preparations that I desperately needed a change of scenery. Since we couldnโt travel for real due to the pandemic, we went on a one-night staycation to a hotel in the downtown.
In the hotel, we got a nice room with a view over the city. We also properly enjoyed the pool and hot bathtub that were still open, though, with some restrictions ๐
It was a great getaway and I managed to recharge my batteries a bit ๐
Hereโs a photo of a morning view from the bed that I saw when I woke up ๐คฉ

Now, back to business!
Revenueโ
The revenue in November-December was the best in the second half of 2020. However, it still did not beat the revenue in April and May when the first wave of pandemic hit the world.
The ad rates were the highest of the year but they still did not compensate for the slashed Amazon affiliate rates ๐ญ
Numbers
Letโs look at the income numbers in the details.
๐ต All numbers are in USD ๐ต
Website | Amount |
---|---|
Unicorn | $5,953.35 |
Mother Elephant | $2,505.03 |
Baby Elephant | $3,284.19 |
Baby Elephant 2 | $47.01 |
LivingOffCloud | $647.13 |
Other websites | $4.65 |
Total | $12,441.36 |
My top three income sources (in the revenue order):
- Ezoic, which is great for display ads ๐ค (read my review)
- Amazon Affiliate (still ๐คทโโ๏ธ)
- Other ad platforms and affiliates (this is mostly for ๐ฆ Website)
Income proof
Now that I have reached a certain level of income, I feel like I should also post a proof of it.I am myself having a hard time believing these numbers!
Hereโs the proof from Ezoic:

Hereโs the stats chart from Amazon; I used a new Consolidated Summary report showing the earnings from all the amazon stores in a chosen currency (USD):

Expensesโ
In November-December, the expenses were on par compared to the expenses during the previous period.
I sold my ๐ Website in October and cancelled some of the tools it was using. However, at the same time, I stacked up on new tools during Black Friday and paid for job announcements on onlinejobs.com and ProBlogger.
I pay for many services on an annual basis. However in my income reports, I spread these expenses on a per monthly basis as if I were paying for them every month. It should give a better understanding of my expenses each month.
๐ต All numbers are in USD ๐ต
Expenses minus content
Expense | Amount |
---|---|
Tailwind (a tool for Pinterest) | $59.92 |
Mailshake (cold outreach mailer) | $33.17 |
GSuite (paid Gmail) | $11.87 |
ActiveCampaign | $7.65 |
GeneratePress (a WP theme) | $5.00 |
AAWP | $17.92 |
Ad Inserter Pro | $0.00 |
Perfmatters (a WP plugin for site speed) | $3.21 |
SerpRobot (a SERP tracking tool) | $19.96 |
Other tools | $253.38 |
Hosting | $253.91 |
Domains | $14.74 |
Virtual Assistant (outsourced formatting etc) | $404.03 |
Graphic design | $262.50 |
Link building | $0.00 |
Courses | $0.00 |
Misc | $718.72 |
Total | $2,065.96 |
The hosting expense is high โthanksโ to my ๐ฆ Website that has a dedicated hosting on CloudWays. Read my review of CloudWays here.
Tailwind (an app for Pinterest and Instagram) has been crucial to growing my revenue. If you wonder how I do Pinterest marketing, go ahead and read my post about it.
I use MailShake for cold email outreach. When you are building white-hat links in an efficient way, itโs a must to use a tool for that (and GSuite to avoid your emails going directly into spam ๐ฑ).
On the WordPress setup side, I use a premium WP theme GeneratePress since itโs fast and highly configurable.
I also use a few premium WP plugins:
- AAWP to insert Amazon Affiliate links and create comparison tables; read my review
- Ad Inserter Pro to insert ads into pages
- Perfmatters for the website speed
My virtual assistant (VA) is my right hand. My business would simply die if I didnโt have one! All my VA hires came from onlinejobs.com.
Iโve also got a graphic designer, from onlinejobs.com as well. The graphic designer creates Pinterest images and makes video content.
Content
Given the nature of our business, content is an investment in the business. I decided to track it separately since itโs an important part of future success.
Here, I will give you a breakdown for (almost) each website. Each content expense includes content editing and management.
Website | Amount |
---|---|
Unicorn | $669.53 |
Mother Elephant | $1,095.32 |
Baby Elephant | $0.00 |
Baby Elephant 2 | $0.00 |
Other Websites | $115.95 |
Total | $1,880.80 |
For content, I have in-house writers who I found myself on various platforms including ProBlogger and Upwork.
Also, once in a while, I use the services of a writing agency called ContentPit. If you want to try them out, I have a promo code for you: LOCPROMO10 ๐๐๐ The code will give you a 10% word bonus for the same price for new customers ๐ค
Totals ๐ต
Here are my totals for November-December 2020.
๐ต All numbers are in USD ๐ต
Total revenue $12,441.36 minus general expenses $2,065.96 minus content expenses $1,880.80 makes a net profit of $8,494.60. This number should be divided by two since itโs for both November and December.
Here is a chart with my revenue vs expenses history for the last 14 months. I used the 14-month timeline instead of the 12-month one to show you how these months performed compared to to the last year (click on the image to enlarge):
My financial goal of 2020 has been achieved ๐
In my 2019 review, I set the revenue goal for 2020 at $40,000. If you take a look where I am now, at the end of the year, you can see that I exceeded that number by $24,853.81 ๐คฏ๐

๐ต All numbers are in USD ๐ต
Yes, partially, itโs happened thanks to the incredibly good April. But even if I subtract the $6,000 I made in April, my progress would still look good ๐๐ค
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Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. I will receive a small fee if you choose to buy after clicking on any of these links. Thank you if you do! ๐ค