Since 2022, I have published annual State of Play articles detailing Frequent Miler’s performance in blog readers, podcast listeners, revenue, and more. Now, once again, here’s your chance to peek behind the curtain…
It’s not about statistics for me
Before I get to the part where I show statistics measuring the evolution of the Frequent Miler activity, I want to explain that I don’t actually use these statistics to drive the activity. Instead, my goal is to be a proud Frequent Miler. And I am! But there are always things we can do to improve the blog, the podcast, our YouTube channel, our newsletters, our Facebook group, etc. As long as we keep putting out great content, let’s keep improving and keep having fun while doing it. , I consider Frequent Miler to be a success. Growing revenue is good, and growing our audience is good, but neither defines success in my book.
Preview
This year’s revenue was just as strong as last year’s. For me this is great news because we did very well last year. This is one of the many reasons why I enjoy owning a private company rather than being part of a publicly traded company. If Frequent Miler were a public company, the lack of year-over-year revenue growth would be considered a big problem. But it’s ridiculous! We love the work (it’s hard to even call it “work”!) and the company earns enough to pay good salaries to the entire team. and to save money so that we can continue to operate at full capacity if revenue ever drops precipitously.
Compared to last year, blog pageviews decreased slightly, but blog advertising revenue actually increased slightly. The Boarding Area team, who host our blog and manage our blog advertising, have clearly done a great job optimizing ad delivery!
In addition to the blog, we publish podcast episodes and YouTube videos. Our audience on these two media has grown considerably from year to year. This is likely because we’ve created more content for these platforms than ever before.
The team
I consider everyone on the team to be equally part of what “Frequent Miler” is. I love this team. We’re all committed to making Frequent Miler great and having a lot of fun. This is my #1 measure of success. There is nothing better in life than working towards a common goal with a team where everyone performs at the highest level and loves and respects everyone. We have this!
In 2024, Nick, Tim and I worked full-time while Carrie worked part-time and Stephen worked quarter-time. In 2025, I am very happy to announce that Carrie and Stephen will double their time with Frequent Miler! Carrie will be full-time and Stephen will be part-time. Carrie and Stephen are doing a wonderful job so I can’t wait for them to spend even more time making Frequent Miler great.
Audience statistics
We do not advertise to try to increase our audience. Instead, we just continue to post informative and (hopefully) entertaining content. This year, the blog’s readership decreased slightly, but our podcast and video audience increased significantly…
Blog page views
From 2015 to 2021, our blog readership fluctuated between 7 and 8 million page views per year. That was great, but in 2023 we saw almost double that figure with over 15.5 million page views. In 2024, our page views declined slightly and in the 12 months from December 1, 2023 to November 30, 2024, we had 15 million page views. It’s still awesome, but slightly less awesome than last year.
Podcast
As you can see above, the audience for our Frequent Miler on the Air podcast has continued to grow rapidly. The chart is limited to downloads in the US, as in 2021 and 2022 there have been a suspiciously high number of downloads from overseas – it appears bots were downloading the podcast for some reason. Regardless, the US market represents over 90% of our actual audience.
The big growth we’ve seen this year is partly due to acquiring new listeners, but I’ll bet the majority of that growth is because we’re posting a lot more often. In addition to the weekly Frequent Miler on the Air episode, we also released standalone “Coffee Break” and “Map Discussion” episodes; and we started releasing our Ask Us Anything live streams as podcasts after the fact.
YouTube
Our YouTube audience continued to grow strongly. As with our podcast audience, our growth in 2024 is likely largely due to the fact that we’re publishing a lot more videos. We started a new “How to” seriesand also releases new podcast episodes (Coffee Talk, Card Talk, Ask Us Anything) as videos.
Finance
Revenues were virtually unchanged between 2023 and 2024. But that’s a good thing because 2023 was our best revenue year ever. The vast majority of Frequent Miler’s revenue (around 80%) comes from our credit card affiliate links. It’s remarkable that our earnings have continued to be so high despite the fact that we only display the links that offer the best welcome bonuses, even though this often means that our affiliate links are not displayed at all.
Our second largest source of revenue comes from advertising on our blog. In 2024, advertising revenue represented approximately 16% of our total revenue. It’s cool that ad revenue increased slightly compared to 2023, despite fewer page views this year.
THANKS!
We couldn’t do what we do without you. Thank you for reading, listening and watching. Thank you for recommending Frequent Miler to your family and friends. Thank you for your comments, emails and Facebook group messages. Without you, we could not have reached this level of success. We appreciate your continued commitment and thank you for being part of our journey!
Previous articles on “the state of play”:
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