How Much Does Doctors of Running Make? Report #2: Joining Adthrive and Our Big Growth
By Social Media Wizard Bach Pham
In 2021 we decided as we were growing that transparency would be important to the work we do. This is the second report in our series and a huge jump from our first. Today we not only go through how much we made in the second half of 2021, but also the steps we took to grow throughout the year as well. We also discuss joining our new ad manager Adthrive and the process of applying for it.
Doctors of Running Financial Summary - Quick LookJuly Revenue: $97.21
August Revenue: $101.05
September Revenue: $209.55
October Revenue: $927.61
November Revenue: $1,219.52
December Revenue: $2,676.29
Total for July - December 2021: $5,231.23
Total for January - June 2021: $476.93
Total for 2021: $5,708.16
WEBSITE AD REVENUE | JOINING ADTHRIVE
One of the biggest things that happened at Doctors of Running in 2021 was tremendous growth in readership. This growth allowed us to leave Google Adsense, which we had been having tremendous problems with, to join Adthrive. Similar to Adsense, Adthrive is an ad manager. The big difference between Adsense and Adthrive is that they are much more selective about who is able to participate with the company and as a result a much more efficient, higher paying ad manager. A minimum of 100,000 monthly page views is required before joining Adthrive.
One of the biggest things that happened at Doctors of Running in 2021 was tremendous growth in readership. This growth allowed us to leave Google Adsense, which we had been having tremendous problems with, to join Adthrive. Similar to Adsense, Adthrive is an ad manager. The big difference between Adsense and Adthrive is that they are much more selective about who is able to participate with the company and as a result a much more efficient, higher paying ad manager. A minimum of 100,000 monthly page views is required before joining Adthrive.
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| December Review for DOR. Adthrive works on a 45 day payment system, so this was our revenue back in October, but paid out in December. |
We were able to start surpassing that peak consistently starting in late August (more on growing Doctors of Running in 2021 below). After submitting the application and working with the Adthrive team to get started, we left Adsense and started our relationship in Adthrive mid-September 2021. We will do a full review of our Adthrive experience later after we get a full year of experience with the company, but what we can say is that the onboarding experience is excellent and the one-on-one time they provide and their accessibility is above and beyond.
Adthrive works on a 45 day payment schedule, so in November we received our first earnings...
Adthrive works on a 45 day payment schedule, so in November we received our first earnings...
November Adthrive: $1,027.20...which has been a crazy change for us. Prior to Adthrive we made less than $1200 over the history of Doctors of Running combined. Adthrive has really opened the door to receiving our first substantial revenue to help grow the site and begin paying contributors for their work. (More on how we divide earnings among the team later).
December Adthrive: $1,635.67
It is important to note for anyone trying to do what we do that our revenue is extremely fragile. Unlike a food blog which may benefit from creating the "right" recipe that many readers can find year-round, a shoe review has a very short lifespan in the grand scheme of things. There is very little room for breaks, which is why we have greatly appreciated being able to grow our team. The reality is that there are a number of things that can easily thwart the ship: injuries, our full-time work, family, and of course the impact of things like the pandemic. It's a credit to the team's resiliency that allowed us to get so much success this year. I am always so, so impressed by the work ethic of our group, which helps make things enjoyable too and I think it translates into the work we do.
AFFILIATE REPORT
Our second form of income comes from our affiliate partnership with Running Warehouse. This has seen a tremendous jump as our site has grown. We began our partnership with Running Warehouse at the beginning of 2021. Our first quarterly pay earned a total of $77.83, which while far less than our recent earnings was frankly then tremendously more than the income we were earning due to Adsense woes. After our first two quarters with Running Warehouse, we took some time to evaluate the website and made a few big changes going into the second half of the year. First, we stepped up our editing process to help make articles tighter. We are constantly working to improve our format within the confines of the website we have currently and working to make sure readers get the best experience possible. We believe that a good experience on the site makes all the difference to the enjoyment of website and whether a reader decides to come back. If you look at articles throughout the course of the year, you'll see a lot of subtle changes that went into making the best design we could produce.
October (Q3) RW Affiliate Funds: $728.83The second adjustment was simply better integrating Running Warehouse links. We created a specific "Shop" section - prior, it was just a one-liner at the end - to help readers see the section more clearly.
December (Q4) RW Affiliate Funds: $821.63
I want to be clear that it is not our mission to sell shoes. We hope to give readers information to help make informed choices and hopefully learn a few lessons along the way that may help their running long term. That is why we ended up with developing a clear shopping section with a note if it is an affiliate link rather jumping in and embedding links throughout the article. Rather than "sell" footwear, we set up our shopping section so that if you are interested in purchasing the shoe reviewed and would also like to support Doctors of Running in the process, we provided a space to do so. We're so thankful to have had followers ask in the past if we had some kind of donate or Patreon space. We often say that using a link to purchase a product that you are interested in is the best way to support us, because we both get something out of the process this way - a shoe or piece of gear for you that we may have inspired, and a little bit of funds back to us. As a bonus it also helps support Running Warehouse whom we are so appreciative of and hope to do a lot of fun things with in 2022.
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| July-Dec 2021 for DOR |
We started receiving our first YouTube ad revenue back in February of 2021 after we passed 1000 followers - the minimum to start earning on YouTube. One of the biggest challenges in 2021 was figuring out how to grow our video program. We have the podcast, which was the original reason we first started using YouTube, but throughout the year we worked to evolve our video work and tried a variety of ideas from Q&As and reviews to expanding things we did in the pod to tackle more subject areas. Our YouTube has grown to over 3700 followers today (we started with sub-900 at the beginning of 2021).
July YouTube Revenue: $97.21During the second half of the year we worked on expanding our podcast and review content. To weave in video with our regular written work became an interesting challenge for our team, but we were excited to have over 100 videos produced in 2021.
August YouTube Revenue: $101.05
September YouTube Revenue: $209.55
October YouTube Revenue: $198.68
November YouTube Revenue: $192.68
December YouTube Revenue: $218.99
Our general growth for the channel has been steady all year. We never had a "wow" moment, but we've had newcomers to the channel almost daily which is amazing to see. Our peak in both views and subscribers was December during our Best of Series along with the Adidas Takumi Sen 8 review which has been really well-received.
**Note: For those wondering, it has never been our team's intention to make Doctors of Running a full-time venture. We love our jobs, our doctors love working with patients, and we are passionate about the value we bring to lives in our daily work. We, however, also love our Doctors of Running community and hope to keep the team going for a very long time because we love running, geeking out about shoes, and learning about the inner-workings of the industry.
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| Peanut does not currently get a portion of the profits BUT MAYBE SHOULD |
HOW WE DIVIDE EARNINGS | GIVING
Prior to Adthrive, we basically had little to no earnings, so a lot of our funds were just divvied among the core team and towards funding our work in general. With the addition of the Adthrive funds though, we decided to create a system for distribution going into 2022.
Doctors of Running Budget BreakdownOur budget is divided into four areas. The first is our new DOR Giving, a 10% fund that goes toward charity. We officially started giving this January with a donation of $221.87 to Megan's Wings*, chosen by our Chief Editor/Founder Matt Klein. We aim to continue providing 10%, or a minimum of $100 (whichever is more) monthly to charity, rotating charities monthly to help raise awareness of different groups. This is perhaps the one thing we are most excited about moving forward, being able to hopefully make meaningful contributions to organizations and people doing incredible work for their communities. As we grow, this fund only grows stronger which makes us excited.
DOR Giving: 10%
Savings: 5%
Core Team (4): 18% per person
New Contributors: 13%
Our next portion is savings. We decided to put some funds towards a variety of expenses from taxes to equipment that may help improve the quality of work at Doctors of Running day-in and day-out.
Finally, our major portion gets divided among the team. Currently our core team of Chief Editor Matt Klein, Senior Contributors David Salas and Nathan Brown, and myself - Bach Pham, social media manager - each receive 18% of the funds. The remaining team of new contributors receives a division of 13% of the remaining funds. This decision was based on time investment. Our core team runs the day-to-day activities of Doctors of Running, from reviews to managing partner relationships to editing and podcasting to responding to various emails and messages we receive. A typical week may involve 10-15 hours of work for our core team. This varies weekly depending on whose reviews are coming up and which projects we have going on. Our contributing team helps supplement the work with additional review support and occasional participation in social media or our podcast.
*On Megan's Wings: Megan's Wings is a California-based nonprofit that seeks to help families who have children with cancer pay bills. Whether it is funds to help pay for treatment or funds to pay for gas back and forth between appointments or even just some support to throw a birthday party, these are the kinds of things they help with. The foundation was started by the Savage family as a tribute to their daughter Megan who passed after a long battle with ALL Leukemia. The foundation works in the South California area and holds an annual 5k race to raise funds. If you are in the area, come and try beating our Chief Editor Matt Klein's course record! Donate to Megan's Wings here if you'd like to support their work.
REFLECTING ON DOR'S 2021 GROWTH
From my perspective as the team's social media manager, 2021 was really about doing two things: working to develop an identity and helping Doctors of Running take a big leap forward knowing the skillset that was already here. I spent a lot of time on the team's social media to help foster an environment that better represented who the team is and what they do well. The reality is a most runners out there are not going to visit Doctors of Running and read every ounce of our website. It was my goal to help push some of the great information the team puts together weekly and make it widely available. Even if a person never visits the website itself, if they follow Doctors of Running in some capacity, at least they can walk away with some knowledge in pieces over time. Starting segments like Science Friday and Running Shoe 101 helped create a space to help talk about shoes with a wide audience and elevate how we talk about running.
Within the site, we also worked on expanding what we do, particularly in regards to stability with our guide. This was perhaps the most important work we created in 2021, offering the most comprehensive view on stability we could provide based on our work on reviews, knowledge working as physical therapists and evaluation of running research. We hope to develop a few more guides that have been wanting to deliver for the past year and a half in the coming months and are excited to share those soon. This week we also released our Beginner's Guide to Running Shoes, a hopefully comprehensive guide for new runners looking to get their first major running shoe!
Overall I'm just so thrilled to have been a part of the team's success as we worked together, grew together, and built a family over the course of this year. There is a lot of meaningful work ahead that we hope to achieve and I couldn't think of a better group of folks to do it with.
Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, reach us at doctorsofrunning@gmail.com
SUPPORT DOR
Interested in helping Doctors of Running directly? We have a new option through our Anchor podcast to be a monthly subscriber! Visit the link and click "support" to learn more.
Check out Gear We Love! (As noted, the following links are affiliate links that help support Doctors of Running. Thanks so much!)
New Balance Rebel v2: One of the most fun trainers of 2021 so far
Asics Metaspeed Sky: Chief Editor Matt Klein can't stop racing in it, even on trails (not advised)
Adidas Takumi Sen 8: A new spin on super shoes, aimed at shorter distances.
Feetures Socks: Massively grippy socks that will make you feel more one with the shoe
Ultraspire Fitted Race Belt: The best way to carry your phone and goods on the run. No bounce and various sizes for waist
Skratch Recovery, Coffee Flavor: Mental and physical boost post run. Coffee flavor is excellent and goes great straight into a fresh brewed cup
Trigger Point Foam Roller: Help get those knots out post-run and feel better for tomorrow
Theragun Massager: This small version is great on the go for working tired legs
Ciele Hat: Our team's favorite running hat of choice!
RECENTLY AT DOCTORS OF RUNNING
Asics Nimbus Lite 3 - Redialed upper and midsole highlight this stable neutral update
Hoka Kawana - A New, Modestly Stacked "Crossover" from Hoka for 2021
Asics Nimbus 24 - Flytefoam Blast+ helps reshape the Nimbus line into the future
Hoka Carbon X3 - A new ProflyX midsole and knit upper highlights this long distance racer's update
Hoka Mach Supersonic - A limited release Mach with Profly+ midsole
Brooks Hyperion Elite 2 - We dig back in time to take a look at Brook's current racing shoe.
Find all Shoe Reviews at Doctors of Running here.
Thanks for reading!
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Please feel free to reach out, comment and ask questions!
Contact us at doctorsofrunning@gmail.com
NEXT: The Beginner's Guide to Running Shoes
Contact us at doctorsofrunning@gmail.com
NEXT: The Beginner's Guide to Running Shoes