Tammilee Tips

Just before the 2008 recession and 3 days before her wedding, Tammilee Tillison walked into her VP’s office only to learn that she was being let go. “I had 13 years of executive management and a master’s in business,” she recalls. “But once the recession hit, I couldn’t find another job and the unemployment office told me to be a fish processor on a boat in Alaska – not exactly the perfect fit for a vegetarian.” The transition from working 60+ hours a week to nothing was difficult for Tammilee, and exacerbated by friends and family always asking about her job status. “Rather than answering questions all the time, I started just writing on blogger and sending the link to my family,” she says. And Tammilee Tips was born.

Tammilee began writing about her newfound hobbies of cooking and DIY home improvement. “I shared how I taught myself to bake bread because it was cheaper than buying it. How I tore apart the bathroom trying to DIY re-do it,” she recalls. “My husband told me that I need to keep typing so I’d stop tearing the house apart.” Within a few months, Tammilee garnered an audience beyond her family members. “I remember the day that 25 people were viewing the site on Google Analytics - I had a panic attack,” she says. Soon enough in 2011, TLC reached out to her to be featured in the first season of extreme couponing, “that immediately grew my audience and this became more of a hobby.”

With the site’s readership exploding, Tammilee began exploring ways to start making money from her site. “I was focused on affiliate links and then came across display advertising,” she says. “I started with Google AdSense and then eventually transitioned over to Google Certified Publishing Partner, AdThrive to have them manage my ads business. I remember the day I was approved for Google Adsense and reached the first $100 payout. I was so in awe that my blog was earning money. It truly made me realize that my posts had value.”

Since then, the site’s growth has been nothing short of incredible. “I make exponentially more money now than I did in my corporate job,” Tammilee highlights. “75-80% of our revenue is from ads and every month when the money gets deposited I’m still like ‘wow, I’m really doing this!’ It’s been life changing.”

Tammilee Tips has delighted over 3 million visitors in the last year alone and it’s gone beyond anything Tammilee could’ve imagined. “I still pinch myself because I never would have thought this could become what it is today,” she says. “My goal is to provide free content to readers that help them live their best life. From an easy recipe to real travel tips that help them maximize their vacation time. I want to be a resource that helps people live each day to the fullest.”

Tammilee has been so thrilled with her earnings from ads, she once traveled to a conference just to tell her AdThrive account manager how much they’ve changed her life.

Tammilee also stresses how important it is for people to have free ad-supported access to her content, “there’s no way I could have paid to learn how to cook or travel when I lost my job,” Tammilee says. “So to be able to provide people with that information so they don’t have to stress is really an amazing feeling.”