May 2025 Income Report

Hi friends,

In this email:

• $4,044 May income report, plus
• $3,075 from a brand new faceless YouTube channel in 30 days.

May Income Report

I’ll get the regular income report out of the way before we dive into my very interesting case study.

It’s pretty much the same as last month:

• YT Channel 1 – $1242.70 (Adsense)
• YT Channel 2 – $425.98 (Adsense) + $153 (Gumroad)
• YT Channel 3 – $180.55
• Niche Site – $2042.46

May Total: $4,044.69

2025 So Far…

• January: $2,283.66
• February: $3,189.12
• March: $4,311.43
• April: $4,140.18
• May: $4,044.69

And the brand new faceless channel…

I told you last month that I was going to release a new YT channel.

• The channel has just 7 videos on it.
• They average about 40 minutes each.
• They solve a problem for a very niche avatar.
• All faceless with AI voice (elevenlabs)
• I flogged a low-ticket digital product throughout the video. (It started at $4.50, ended at $25 – realized it was way underpriced half way through).

And the fish took the bait.

This is the May 2025 summary from my Payhip dashboard:

And the May 2025 YouTube dashboard:

Interestingly, I had a lot of repeat viewers. The videos were so long that people watched them in multiple separate sessions. I only really had 33,592 “unique viewers”.

It’s not as good as it sounds…

If I included this new channel’s revenue for the month, I’d have made a touch over $7,000 for May.

But I don’t feel like it’s legitimate to do that.

Because this income was a flash in the pan.

It wasn’t recurring, and it won’t recur.

So the idea of screaming from the rooftops (Twitter?):

“I made $3,000 in 30 days on a BRAND NEW FACELESS YOUTUBE CHANNEL that STILL has less than 1,000 subscribers!”

…while that’s technically true, it just doesn’t feel right.

The truth is, I rode a trend…

I saw a trend coming. Something like this:

• Astrology: Mercury is Turning Retrograde in May … I’ll do a deep dive in Mercury Retrograde and sell an ebook off the back of it.
• Swim University: People are preparing their pools for summer … I’ll make an ebook on how to prep your pool.
• OpenAI is Releasing a New Model: I’ll do a deep dive video and mini-course “masterclass” on what people need to know etc.

Each of these trends are a flash in the pan. Once the trend passes, the channel fizzles out until the next ‘flash’.

And true to form … the channel is getting approximately zero traffic right now.

So, think of this as a one-off case study with a product launch, not recurring revenue. (I need to find a more evergreen niche!)

This is my 2nd success using the “YouTube Tutorial to Low-Ticket Digital Product” model.

Check them out side by side:

* The high rate of return viewers for attempt 2 makes it look weaker than it really was – in reality, Attempt 2 was an outstanding success. If I just took unique viewers, the RPM would be $91.55 at 7.8 sales per 1,000 viewers.

What I’d improve…

• Higher ticket: Free lead magnet > email sequence > $299 course (will sacrificing the low-ticket sale for a potential high-ticket sale down the line increase the average RPM?)
• Cart Upsells: Driving higher AOV through order bumps and one-click upsells

In other words, there’s potentially a lot more profit to be had here.

In the future, I hope to look back at $40 RPMs as child’s play compared to what’s truly possible.

What’s next…

I’ve spent 6 weeks working on a $299 course that I will sell off the back of tutorials on a new channel – let’s call it Attempt #3. I’m guessing I’ll still need another 6 weeks until it’s ready to launch.

In the future…

At some point, I’m going to have to double down on one of these niches and turn it into something real.

Hope your projects are doing well,
Chris.

P.S. I’ll be cleaning the list in a few days. If you receive an email titled “Goodbye”, it’s because your ESP isn’t telling ConvertKit that you’re opening my emails. Make sure you open that “Goodbye” email and click the link to stay opted-in.