Good, Cheap and Fast

Google's December 2020 Core Algorithm Update drove Good, Cheap and Fast's organic traffic to new highs last week, then it fell to zero. It's a cautionary tale about risk, i.e. the prospect of failure despite doing things the right way: https://www.goodcheapandfast.com/2020

The combination of Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, and now, Cyber Monday has pushed my charitable daily deal sub-Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/blackfridaytoday/) to over 2,000 subscribers. I estimate that the Amazon Smile posts within it have generated $500 for charity, year to date.

My charitable sub-Reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/blackfridaytoday/, just hit 500 subscribers on Sunday, but an influx of visitors looking for Amazon Prime Day deals has doubled my readership in two days. My best guess is that this has resulted in $200 in charitable Amazon Smile donations.

Back in January, I started a charitable Reddit community called "Black Friday Today." (It features a daily roundup of deals via Amazon Smile.) The sub-Reddit crossed 500 subscribers last night. It has been a slow process, but by participating in related communities, the membership increased by 25% in the last two weeks: https://www.reddit.com/r/blackfridaytoday/

I woke up to discover that Good, Cheap and Fast was featured alongside Wirecutter, YourStack and /r/BuyItForLife in MakeUseOf's guide to trustworthy product review websites. Sweet! - https://www.makeuseof.com/sites-online-shopper-for-trusted-recommendations/

I finally designed a "real" logo for Good, Cheap and Fast after two years of using a plain text placeholder. The design is a Venn Diagram consisting of three colored circles and a gold star that marks the supposedly unobtainable combination of good and cheap and fast (i.e. the project management triangle).

https://www.goodcheapandfast.com

Amazon cut its affiliate commission rates on April 21st. It was a bitter pill to swallow (especially in light of the company's record sales), but because of backlogged or unshipped orders, it didn't manifest as a sharp drop in earnings. In fact, I'm only now able to quantify the true impact on my business: a 41% drop in earnings per click. Unfortunately, this rate cut has dramatically pressured independent publishers like me (while leaving unscathed the large publishers who have directly negotiated their rates).

This week, I started a charitable sub-Reddit called "Black Friday Today." All of the outbound links point to AmazonSmile and all of the products featured are selling at a steep discount relative to normal prices. It took 5 days to get 100 subscribers, which was a pleasant surprise: https://www.reddit.com/r/blackfridaytoday/

As 2019 draws to a close, I was curious if this was a milestone that Good, Cheap and Fast would reach, but as of today, the site drove more than $100K in Amazon sales. My share of those sales is pretty small as an affiliate marketer, but it's still promising to see a young site drive six figures of commercial value in its first year.

Happy New Year, everyone, and best of luck in 2020! -John

Good, Cheap and Fast just recorded its 100,000th visitor of 2019. It's an interesting milestone because the site might not post a year-over-year traffic gain, even though it only existed for two months in 2018. (A lucky streak of good press drove more than 100,000 visitors in the first month of the site's existence, then traffic crashed to zero.) It's been a slog, but I'm proud of it.