2022 In Review & What’s To Come In 2023 + Case Study Update

Let me start this off by thanking all of our visitors, regular readers, subscribers, and the amazing customers we’ve gotten to know over the last year.

2017 has been amazing for us here at Brand Builders, and the only thing we’re more excited about than the growth we’ve experienced over the last 12 months is what we have coming in 2018.

One of the biggest driving forces behind our business is our customers, and the success that they are seeing through working with us.

Here’s just a small example of some of the amazing growth we’ve been able to provide for a large percentage of our customers:

We’re not happy where we’re currently at, though.

We’re constantly growing, adapting to changes in the industry, tweaking our systems, and upgrading our services to ensure that they are even more attractive to our current and future clients.

Milestones

2017 was a great year for our business, and here are some of the most important milestones:

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    Over $1,100,000 in revenue (in comparison to $460,000 in 2016).
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    Over 400 new clients.
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    Retention rate over 80%.
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    Traffic increased over 3x (in comparison to 2016).
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    We've built an all-star team that handles all aspects of the business (support, project management, content writing & editing, development, design, SEO).
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    Launched a new service (pre-made websites) with great success.​​​​
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    Locked down a couple of strong strategic partnerships.
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    Any much more ;).

Here's a screenshot from GA:

Most Popular Content In 2017

Our live case study was by far the most visited content piece on the site. However, almost all of our content received a solid amount of traction. These 5 articles stood out in 2017:

What's To Come In 2018?

While 2017 was a record year on all fronts, we have plans to make this year even better. Better for us, our clients, our subscribers, and our visitors.

It's not going to be easy to top the last year, but I'm confident we can do it, and here's how:

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    Improve our D4Y services by optimizing packages and deliverables.
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    Add new services to the mix - We'll splinter our D4Y services into stand-alone services such as link building and content creation in order to reach more customers/different market segment.
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    Launch an FBA sourcing service - We beta tested this in 2017 with great success.
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    Add more TOFU and MOFU content on our blog.
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    Recruit more high-profile affiliates & form new strategic partnerships.
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    And a lot more (can't share, sorry :P).

What's Happening With The $100k Case Study?

Well, we failed.

But, it was closer that you might think.

The original idea was to build a website, rank it and flip it for $100k within a year.

To do that, the site needed to average $3-4k revenue in Oct, Nov and Dec '17. We were on pace to hit our target, but I completely forgot to calculate in the seasonality factor (blunder), and we failed.

So, here are the final numbers for our case study site in 2017:

  • Sessions: 78,465
  • Pageviews: 124,763
  • Revenue: $7,415
  • DA/DR: 29/47

If I were to sell the site right now, I'd get between $80k - $85k for it. 

I definitely won't be doing that, though. 

I'm working on adding a ton of new (and awesome!) content and will continue to develop the affiliate side of the site until I'm 99% confident that I can play with the big boys (e-commerce brands). Then, I'll start up a new brand, and use this site to funnel traffic to my product pages (hopefully private labeled products, but we'll see...).

We Promised 5 Premium Packages, And We'll Keep Our Promise.

One man's loss is another man's gain :).

I'll go through our e-mail list later this week and randomly pick 5 subscribers & award them with 5 Premium Custom Affiliate Sites.

The winners will be notified via e-mail, and I'll publish a blog post with all the winners. Who knows, we might even turn those 5 sites into a solid case study :P.

We have a lot in store for 2018, and hope that you’re just as excited about the year to come as we are going into it.

20 thoughts on “2022 In Review & What’s To Come In 2023 + Case Study Update”

  1. Ummm……pick me! I actually found you guys through a person who bought a website from you who hired me to do an audit and help with some strategic SEO implementation. To say I was impressed was an understatement. The code, the writing, the SEO was all top notch. I would be honored to win a package — I already have the niche and domain picked out – just sayin’! Hope 2018 rocks for you all!

  2. HAHA! Woohoo! Thanks Andrew — I will be using you either way…already have the site planned out – just need you guys to build it out! Hoping March I can make it happen…..well unless I win of course. Looking forward to working with you guys.

  3. Really excited. Just I am waiting to get the next email. Hope I will be the owner. I’ve huge plan about a niche site. So keep me all in your prayers. 🙂

  4. I picked up one of your sites late last year and am excited with the work that you all did and what I am able to do with it as well. A couple of things that I’m excited about that you mentioned is the link building D4Y. I’m having a lot of fun with my own efforts, but look forward to your professionalism and expertise as an additional resource. When do you anticipate to have that new service? Oh, and I can’t wait to see who the winners are for the premium sites (I hope I win, I hope win…)! Exciting news and look forward to 2018!

  5. Hi Andrew! Even if you haven’t achieved your goal with the case study site, I see it’s growing rapidly, especially the links to it. I’m still wondering how you manage to attact all these links. Would be awesme if you share some tactics in your future posts!

  6. Hi Anton, we’re currently working on scaling the link building via resource placements (skyscraper type of posts, tools, etc) and guest posts. I’ll share more details about those strategies in the coming months.

  7. $1.1Mil…That’s freaking awesome!! Excited to see how you increase that in 2018. Would you consider offering a site audit service? i.e you analyze existing affiliate sites and provide actionable steps to increase their earnings.

  8. Hi Dami, thanks for stopping by.

    Yeah, crazy numbers indeed, but I’m sure we’ll top them this year ;).

    Site audit – hm, sounds interesting. If there’s enough demand I’ll definitely consider it.

    Thanks for the idea.

  9. Thanks for the reply Andrew! Eager to see the new services you offer.

    P.S: for those like me wondering why Andrew wants food content on blog. TOFU means Top of funnel, MOFU means Middle of funnel

  10. Hey Andrew,
    This was a real solid case study. Could you maybe explain how this niche has seasonality? Or are specific sub-niches..

    Oh and I can’t remember the last time I was checking my inbox 100 times a day.. feeling lucky I guess.

    Keep up the good work!

  11. Hi Daniyal,

    most of the purchases/search volume happens between March and October. Fall/winter is when the search volume (especially purchase-intent related phrases) drastically decreases. You can check that out via Google Trends.

    I did my best to mitigate that by adding a different sub-niche (focuses on items that people buy as a New Year’s resolution, lose weight type of thing), and that seems to be working well so far.

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