Insights Gained from a Year of Podcasting, YouTube, and Experiments (My 2025 Progress Update) - Side Hustle Nation

      Side Hustle Nation aims to enhance your personal profitability. We regularly collaborate with companies that align with this goal. If you register or purchase through one of our partner links, we might receive compensation—at no additional cost to you. Learn more. What strategies are effective, what isn’t, and what are the future directions for Side Hustle Nation?

      I’m unveiling the insights from my 2025 annual progress report, recapping a year filled with podcasting, YouTube ventures, business hurdles, and personal development.

      Catch Episode 714 of the Side Hustle Show to find out:

      - What strategies are effective (and which aren’t) in podcast and YouTube monetization

      - How AI is optimizing content production

      - Key takeaways from a year focused on health trials and personal reading

      Don’t wait—start hiring now with a $75 sponsored job credit to enhance your job posting!

      Quo (previously known as OpenPhone) — Try it free!

      Shopify — Sign up for a trial at $1 per month!

      The Podcast: Over 700 Episodes and Counting

      The Side Hustle Show surpassed 700 episodes this year and maintained a steady release of six episodes monthly.

      Download statistics: The show garners around 225,000 downloads each month, translating to an approximate audience size of 100,000 unique devices.

      In a year when income from website affiliate partnerships and display ads significantly declined, ad sales through YAP Media (Young and Profiting) helped mitigate losses by fully selling out available inventory.

      Production Evolutions and AI Integration

      I still use Riverside to conduct remote interviews, then refine transcripts by marking sections for the editor.

      Equipment upgrade: A few months back, I transitioned from the Heil PR40 (which powered the show for the last 400 episodes) to a Shure SM7DB microphone, known for better noise reduction and room reverb elimination.

      I established a custom Claude project for suggestions in editing. By feeding in various before-and-after transcripts, I taught the AI how to edit Side Hustle Show episodes. The prompt seeks out lengthy, redundant, or off-topic sections that take too long to reach the answer.

      The major time-saver came for my show notes writer, who can now use Claude to derive a solid summary of each episode, then simply edit and format it, adding images and links rather than starting from scratch.

      YouTube: The Future of Podcasting?

      Taking advice from Whitney Bonds and Chad Carson (who both perform better on YouTube than I do with interview content), I began recording distinct intros for the video version of the podcast, creating a more energetic, YouTube-style intro tailored for that platform.

      In 2026, I plan to start selling sponsorships for both audio and video placements. YouTube is launching a dynamic ad insertion feature, akin to what’s available on Megaphone for the audio side.

      A noteworthy observation: Over the summer, when I mentioned the show, 4 out of 5 people turned to YouTube instead of a podcast app to find it. This was surprising and may indicate future trends in podcasting.

      I continue to invest in audience growth, mainly through AudienceLift and PodRoll. After exploring about a dozen different podcast promotion avenues and spending around $30,000, those two have shown the best cost-effectiveness.

      Paid Traffic Experiment: A Harsh Reality Check

      With organic traffic steadily declining, I wanted to assess if paid traffic could help bridge the gap. Specifically, I trialed paid search traffic arbitrage—driving Google Ads traffic to content pages featuring affiliate offers and aiming to earn more than I spent.

      This was similar to how my first online business functioned years ago, so the concept wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. However, the ecosystem has become significantly more intricate. Despite running small Google Ads tests for years, I lacked reliable revenue attribution. It felt profitable, but I couldn’t confirm it.

      This year, I resolved to change that.

      I registered for AnyTrack to establish clearer attribution—and the findings were unsettling. The data indicated that the Google Ads campaigns I had implemented for years were most likely unprofitable, possibly even severely.

      I refined landing pages, tested bidding strategies, and collaborated with paid traffic experts, but I never achieved consistent positive results. So, I’ll consider this a significant and costly miss.

      Email List Growth (and the First Decline)

      Another outcome from diminishing website traffic was slower email list growth—and ultimately, an occurrence I had never faced before: the list actually began to shrink.

      While unsubscribes have been a normal part of the process, historically, new sign-ups easily surpassed them. However, in the latter half of the year, that trend reversed. This prompted me into experimentation mode.

      Here’s a few methods I tested:

      Creator Network (Kit):

      This is a “you might also like” recommendation during newsletter sign