Thursday, October 1, 2009

SurveyScout

A recent market research revealed that every third internet user tries or tried to make money online. 97% failed miserably and actually LOST money. Why? Because they either got scammed or joined one of the various MLM companies promising to make them rich. They spent money advertising and as most people have no idea how to advertise online, they never got a downline and had to quit.

So if you actually want to make money online, you need a way that does not require any marketing knowledge. A great way for everyone is taking online surveys and getting paid for it.

There are many, many survey sites online that promise to make you rich. But again... 98% are SCAM. They charge a onetime membership fee promising you that they will send several surveys averaging $5 -$75 but in reality it may take many months before you can even earn $20. If at all....

However there is one online survey site that actually is no scam. It has been online since 2003 and has 10000s of members: Survey Scout. Survey Scout has been consistently ranked from 1 - 3 on the internet's most credible review sites.

In case you have no idea why companies should pay you for taking surveys, I should give you some background info: Most big companies have huge market research budget which often goes waste on telemarketers who end up annoying unsuspecting customers. So these companies decided to use the marketing budget smartly by paying the survey taker directly instead of paying for a data collector.

Especially if you have been scammed before you might be very skeptical. May be you searched the internet and came across several websites stating that Surveyscout is a scam. I did some research and found out that ALL of these statements have been made by competitors to harm the reputation of Surveyscout. If you have a second look you will notice that ALL of these websites point to other get paid to take survey sites. I also urge you to think once again: would Surveyscout have been in business for over 5 years if they were are scam? NO! In addition they use Clickbank as their payment processor which only works with ethical businesses. Another thing you should keep in mind: Surveyscout offer 8 weeks money back guarantee. So if you are not satisfied all you need to do is send one e-mail and your membership fee will be refunded.

SurveyScout gives you access to their permanently updated database now touching more than 250 top market research companies. They do not only offer access to some of the best market companies but also categorize them by the types of compensation or rewards offered. you will also find out if a particular company only accepts Us members or is international, BEFORE joining the particular company.

In addition SurveyScout offers various other options to make money online. Taking online surveys is just one of the many sections. Other options are focus groups, mystery shopper jobs, phone surveys and opportunity to sample new products.

Friday, September 25, 2009

BidVertiser

BidVertiser allows web publishers to place text ads on their website, letting online advertisers bid against each other on the advertising space. The BidVertiser system will always display the highest bidders, assuring the maximum revenue possible at any given time, while paying the web publisher on a pay per click basis. BidVertiser is also a pay per click advertising network for Advertisers, where online advertisers can advertise on sites of their choice and pay only when a customer clicks-through to their site.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Clickbooth

Discussing the term ‘marketing’ is now no longer a traditional trading activities done in manual ways. People now recognize the phrase online marketing, and the Clickbooth has breakthrough the world in it’s own different way.

So what is it so different about Clickbooth ? Well, the point is that Clickbooth growns it self in affiliation-based network, thus called the Clickbooth affiliate network. It refers to the sharing revenue between advertisers and publishers. The compensation here is based on performance from sales, clicks, registrations or a combination of such.

We probably will doubt the business process of Clickbooth affiliate network, but the Clickbooth has managed the CPA as the most logical choice yet having the minimal risks, where an advertiser not paying for any marketing unless an acquisition is received. As for the publisher, they can use Clickbooth Publisher Referral campaigns and receive 2% gross referral credit for life plus an additional 10$ bonus for every affiliate referred.

The Clickbooth has committed it self to bring online marketing to the next level, thus Clickbooth has been working with the industry’s top networks, with both full-service performance networks and traditional banner networks. In order to support it, Clickbooth affiliate network has over 20.000 active affiliates including the top affiliates in each traffic channel. For more service satisfaction, a team of passionate and dedicated online marketing experts provide assistance concerning to this Clickbooth affiliate network, all day, every day.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

LinkShare

LinkShare Corporation is the leading provider of technology solutions to track, manage, and analyze the performance of sales, marketing, and business development initiatives. Combining patented technology, the reach and distribution of a robust network, and expert account management services, LinkShare empowers clients with the ability to collaborate with partners online and develop cost-efficient pay-for-performance campaigns. LinkShare facilitates these partnerships across multiple channels, providing the platform, tools, and reporting to help clients acquire new customers, increase revenues, drive results, and measure success. LinkShare clients are Fortune 500 and prominent companies doing business online, and include Apple, J.C. Penney, 1-800-Flowers.com, American Express, Avon Products and Dell Computer Corporation. LinkShare was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in New York City, with offices in London, Boston, Tampa, and Chicago.

LinkShare Corporation is the wholly owned U.S. division of Rakuten, Inc.,the number one portal in Japan for shopping, on-line finance and travel, and the seventh largest Internet company in the world. Rakuten is a public company (JASDAQ: 4755).

Been named the number one fastest growing technology company in the NY area 2 years in a row in the Deloitte and Touche Fast 50 program.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Kontera

Kontera is a pay per click advertising company that uses Contextual advertising. This method creates a much different look than other pay per click advertisers like AdWords, but the method of making money through this pay per click program is the same.

What is Contextual Advertising?
Contextual advertising is a way to incorporate pay per click advertising into the text of any given website or Web page. Anyone with a blog or website who signs up with Kontera places a code on the page, much like using Google advertising. The ads are then placed automatically by Kontera without any more effort on the part of the blogger or webmaster.

Like Google Advertising, Kontera pay per click advertising is placed based on the keywords on the page. Unlike Google advertising, Kontera doesn't place ads in one area on the page. Instead, it links the ads directly to the keywords. The keywords that have pay per click ads attached are noticeable by blue highlighting and underlining of the word.

Pay Per Click Advertising
The key to making money through pay per click advertising is having keywords that will translate into interest from readers. Since the webmaster or blogger is not in control of which words are chosen by Kontera for pay per click advertising, the best strategy is to simply use a variety of keywords that relate to the topic of the page or site. This attracts more ads that will be of interest to readers who have come to the page to read about the topic.

The blue highlighting on the keywords may interest readers to find out more about that keyword. When an interested reader passes his cursor over the blue highlighted word, the ad pops up. And, if the reader is interested in the ad and clicks on it, the Kontera account holder makes money.

The Benefits of Kontera
Anyone who places Kontera pay per click advertising on their site will have another stream of income from their page. Kontera can be used on the same page as Google Advertising and other ads, and it doesn't take up any extra space on the page the way most ads do.

Blogger makes it easy to use Kontera on its blogs, with a Kontera widget that requires only a few clicks to implement the ads on a blog. HubPages also uses Kontera on its pages. HubPages writers add their Kontera publisher number to their HubPages account and can then choose which hubs include the pay per clicks ads.

To use Kontera on these sites requires that the writer sign up for a Kontera account and be assigned a publisher number. Some publishers, such as HubPages, take a percentage of the Kontera revenue.


Tuesday, September 1, 2009

AdBrite

AdBrite, dubbed “the Internet’s ad marketplace,” has allowed advertisers to target keywords and choose specific sites to advertise on since inception. The network changed from a simple marketplace to a much more powerful one when AdBrite 2.0 was launched in November of 2006.

This latest version of the site gives advertisers a number of ways to setup a highly targeted ad campaign. Adbrite determines demographic data for visitors to network publishers via a cookie and reverse IP lookup. They grab U.S. census data based on the zip code of the visitor, which gives them data on ethnicity and income level. Adbrite also looks at Comscore data for each site that user visits, which gives them reasonably good age and gender data. Once a user visits enough sites, Adbrite has a very good idea of the age, gender, ethnicity and income level of that particular user. Advertisers can then choose to target their ads to certain users.

In addition to text and banner ads Adbrite offers a few other interesting ad formats. Interstitial ads are full page ads that take over an entire page when a visitor first comes to a website. Another ad format is the Inline ad, which pops up over page content when a highlighted keyword is rolled over.

InVideo is AdBrite’s intriguing video ad format. This embeddable video player (similar to YouTube), allows video publishers to insert their logo (as a watermark) and AdBrite ads into any video. Anyone who takes the content and embeds it on their own site will show the same video, with the same ads and watermark. All click backs on the video go to the original site.

Lastly, in March of 2007 AdBrite launched BritePic. They describe BritePic as “the IMG tag on steroids.” By changing the embed code, web publishers can add a caption, watermark, zoom, share, resize and an advertisement, if they choose to.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Casale Media

Casale Media is an online advertising network specializing in serving banner ads across their network of over 4,000 websites. Their software will handle ad delivery, targeting, campaign management, and “Second-by-Second Reporting and Optimization” for their clients.

Casale Media aims to make sure their clients’ online marketing and advertising goals are met. Clients can target their campaigns to viewers in many combinations of over two hundred nations all over the world, select states, provinces, regions and cities and even their zip, postal and area codes in the U.S. and Canada. Campaigns can also be targeted by channel, time of day and day of week, language, bandwidth, OS, web browser, frequency, creative performance, and retargeting.

Casale Media offers advertisers maximum quality control over campaigns through the option of excluding non-complimentary sites from campaigns and standard above the fold and early impression placements.

Friday, August 28, 2009

ReviewMe

ReviewMe is a PayPerPost-like service that pays bloggers to write about advertisers’ products. The company is backed by TechCrunch-sponsor Text-Link-Ads, which was recently acquired.

ReviewMe has a somewhat different model that PayPerPost. Where advertisers on PayPerPost set a single fee that is paid to all bloggers regardless of their size, ReviewMe uses an algorithm based on Alexa, Technorati and other statistics to determine the importance of a blog and charges a different fee for each blog based on the calculation. Blogger payments range from $30 - $1,000 per post.

Also, Bloggers must disclose that the review is a paid advertisement. They can do this in anyway they choose, i.e. “The following is a paid review:” “Paid Advertisement:” etc. This is another improvement over PayPerPost, which is heavily criticized because it does not require disclosure.

Finally, advertisers can purchase posts, but they cannot require that a post is positive. The blogger can choose to write their honest opinion without fear of not being paid. The only requirement is that the review must be a minimum of 200 words.

A company spokesperson said “We are planning on burying PayPerPost.” While we do not endorse this business model, we do note that ReviewMe has removed the most egregious aspects of the PayPerPost business model: no disclosure requirement, and a requirement to write a positive post.

ReviewMe is eating their own dog food by giving away $25,000 today to pay bloggers to write about the service.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

YouSayToo

YouSayToo is an ad revenue sharing website designed for bloggers. YouSayToo is designed for bloggers because after setting up a profile, bloggers can post all their blogs on YouSayToo in an attempt to increase their readership. YouSayToo allows bloggers to put all of their blogs and content in a single location. In order to add a blog on YouSayToo, bloggers must provide their RSS feed URL which allows YouSayToo to display a blog’s most recently updated content. YouSayToo is essentially a no-risk way to increase a blogger's readership. YouSayToo does require bloggers to provide a dofollow link to YouSayToo on each blog added on the website. At the same time YouSayToo will provide a backlink to the blogger's blogs so the links are mutually exchanged. YouSayToo is extremely useful for people blogging for money in that YouSayToo gives half of the ad revenue generated to the blogger’s YouSayToo page. YouSayToo uses Amazon and Google Adsense ads which are the most trusted advertising services. By the same token it is hard to believe the success of actually receiving money from YouSayToo.

If you are interested in how to make money blogging, you say to seems like a very feasible option. I am not exactly sure how YouSayToo is able to transfer ad revenue generated from the site to its users considering the minimum cashout for services such as AdSense are very high (at $100USD). YouSayToo has some serious potential for the future in that like I said it does not take much work on the part of the blogger to use YouSayTo. As of now, YouSayToo is relatively new and for a blogging community is still not generating very much traffic. In fact, despite the many users who have become a part of YouSayTo, the website has a google pagerank of 4 which is good, but still weak for a community blog…particularly one that is purported to be a money-making strategy. While I have made money blogging, money is not my purpose for blogging. Sure I would love to make money blogging, but writing is more of my passion. In other words I write because it is a hobby, not because it is a job. Of course if it was true that YouSayToo paid its members a massive amount of revenue, what blogger would possibly refuse? However, it does not yet seem that way and the features on YouSayToo are still limited. There are a few cool things such as sending buzz to the YouSayToo community and increasing readership through visitors of YouSayToo; however, like I mentioned before, YouSayToo still does not have a very big community yet.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Neobux

Neobux, like all PTC (Paid To Click) sites gives you one cent for you to look at the ad. But since some people don’t actually look at the ad and just stop it from loading when the see the timer at thirty seconds Neobux outsmarts them and creates a box that doesn’t show the time and only starts when the ad loads. So you are forced to see the ad.

But it’s a pretty good PTC site because the the ad count is never below five ads so that’s five ads a day so it’s five cents a day. Also the cash out is only two dollars so two dollars divided by around five cents a day equals forty days.

The bright side is the pay out is instant so you get the money now instead of two months or four months or even a year like those other PTC sites. So over all NeoBux is a very sufficient and up to date PTC site.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Axill

Axill is an Internet media company that aims to innovate in web advertising space. Therefore, they provide advanced and targeted solutions for all advertisers and publishers.


In this website, you can learn about the possibilities this company offers to their customers, who their clients are, and how they aim to increase their revenues and save their money. Moreover, they offer access to profiles, performance metrics and demographic statistics.


In this way, they strengthen the partnership between advertisers and publishers. So, if you want to increase your revenues and your web presence, just visit this site.

Oxado

Oxado is another PPC program like Google Adsense & Bidvertiser. Oxado offers textual and images ads based on the content on your website. They promise to be paying the highest CTR among all PPC programs available today in the market. Oxado was started in 2005 by Jacques Caron and Laurent Poupet.

To start making money from Oxado, one need to create an account on Oxado and submit their blog/site here and the rest of things are handled by Oxado team. Publishers will not find problems in getting relevant ads for their website as they have more than 60,000 advertisers in their network.

Oxado has big collections of ad formats that publishers can use on their blog/websites. Some of widely used ad formats are 468 x 60, 300 x 250, 250 x 250, 336 x 280, 180 x 600, 160 x600, 120 x 600. With this, they have some really big ad formats 180 x 1200, 160 x 1200, 180 x 1800, 160 x 1800, 180 x 2400, 160 x 2400 that publishers can use on their websites to earn more money with Oxado.

They are offering the animated advertisements and thus will attract more visitors and clicks to your websites.

Payment System

Oxado is based in France and they send the payments in Euro. Payments to the publishers are sent via Check, paypal and moneybookers.com. They send the payments for the past month within next 30 days to its publishers. Their minimum payout is 100 Euros.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

YesAdvertising

YesAdvertising Ltd is a division of e-commerce solutions YesUp. YesUp Inc. was founded in 1999 and incorporated in 2001 under the name of YesUp e-Solutions, Inc. headquarters in the city of Toronto, Canada. YesUp to offer e-commerce solutions to its customers the high quality of design, programming, technical expertise and marketing innovation.

YesAdvertising Provide Advertiser and Publisher , you can promote your website here and increase traffic into your blog as well to make money online with YesAdvertiser. YesAdvertiser is similar concept with Google Adsense.

Beside you are available to make money online, herewith the others benefit when you became Publisher :

- Accept and pay traffic from all around countries
- Guaranteed satisfaction CPM payout rate
- 5 Level of referral
- 24/7 Live stats and earning reports
- Bi-weekly payment via check or paypal
- Advance default ad management (Geo-target capable)
- Nor volume contracts letter
- High quality and innovative ads
- Advertising control
- Dedicated account manager
- Self-serve account management
- No setup fees as well
- Free support services

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The AdNetwork

Introducing, The AdNetwork, a not so famous affiliate site as compared to Google Affiliates yet this site earns you money easily.

Not much it is, only GBP 5 per month but consider these statements;

  • do you have so much traffic in your blog ?
  • I do not wish to pollute my site
  • blogging is only for hobby not business

If you do, then do affiliate your blog at theadnetwork.co.uk. BTW, here, with GBP 5, definitely we can get something say a good shirt etc.

Its pretty simple, you just have to sign up for an account, submit your blog, and give some time for the provider to review – they will say up to 2 days or more but it merely within few hour.

Afterward, you will be given instruction to install 3 banner on one of your posting. Do it and you are done! – you are now eligible to receive GBP 5 per month and sign up bonus of GBP 10 (one time only). As fact, It gives you GBP 15 right!

Remember:

  • Make sure your blog is clean. Don’t put porn or any offensive content. Consider to remove other ads while your site is reviewed; at least put less ad.
  • Your blog must be minimum 1 month of age and 10 postings at the least.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Linkworth

Linkworth is an advertising network with multiple opportunities available for bloggers and webmasters to monetize their site. They have sponsored post, text link ad, and banner ad options available.

To recieve sponsored post or text link ad opportunities you must sign up for these options after you register an account. Then you wait for opportunities to come to you. They have 2 options on how much of the commission you want to get per transaction, 50/50 or a 70/30 split. The advantage with the 50/50 split is even though you only get half instead of 70% of the money, you should get a lot more opportunities. This is because Linkworth gives these accounts priority. Try the 70/30 and if you haven't received opportunities for a couple weeks, I recommend switching it to the 50/50.

Linkworth also has an affiliate program for referring publishers. If someone you refer earns 100 dollars you get a 50 dollar bonus. Linkworth does payments by check, paypal, or direct deposit. They do require U.S citizens to fill out a tax form online before they are paid.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Text Link Ads

One of the hottest income streams in the blogging world is Text Link Ads ( affilliate link). Basically, it is exactly the way it sounds – you get paid for having text link ads on your site.

How does it work?

Simply go to the Text Link Ads website, and sign up to be a publisher. It can take a few days to get your approval (or rejection!) so be patient. You’re approved based on your site, its content, and traffic. Once you receive your approval, you get to configure your ads to your liking. You can choose how many ads you’d like to display, and whether they’ll appear on a single page on your site, or on the entire site. Be careful when you’re choosing! These decisions will affect how much each link is worth. For example, if you decide to have 10 ads instead of 4, each ad will be worth less. You may have more potential overall, but less income per link.

Once you’ve made these decisions, you can customize the colors to match your site. Remember, you want your ads to blend in, not stick out. That merely creates an eyesore. After that, simply select your site’s blogging platform, and follow the instructions. If you’re a Wordpress user, there’s a simply to install plugin available. A word of warning to Movable Type users – the script included is not reliable, and may cause problems. On my last remaining Movable Type blog, I have to add the links manually. On my Wordpress blogs, the process is completely automatic. You can, of course, request that you personally approve each link. I don’t worry too much about is, as I check my site daily, so if something funny pops up I’ll notice it quickly.

That’s pretty much it. Once your script is installed, your site is listed on the Text Link Ads website. You’ll get an email each time a link is sold, and your money can be deposited into your PayPal account. Whatever the link is sold for you split 50 / 50 with Text Link Ads.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Chitika

Chitika, Inc. is one of the largest search-targeted advertising networks. The company serves over 2 billion ads per month across more than 34,000 websites. The company was co-founded in 2003 by Chief Executive Officer Venkat Kolluri and Chief Technology Officer Alden DoRosario, both former Terra Lycos data mining engineers. The name Chitika means "in a snap" in the South Indian language of Telugu.

Publishers: Chitika offers search-targeted advertising solutions. Web publishers can make money from their search engine traffic using our smart, personalized targeting ad solution that provides premium content called: Chitika | Premium. These ad units can be used on websites with Google AdSense or as an AdSense alternative.

Advertisers: Chitika offers search marketing, with a pay per click program specifically designed to target users in the Chitika content rich network based on their ‘intent driven’ search activity.

Chitika commands more traffic than the fifth-largest search engine, ask.com; gaining towards Microsoft Sponsored Search. Chitika has been noted as an early adapter with their use of images displayed next to textual ads.

Chitika | Premium

These ad units are smart, personalized targeting ad solutions that provides premium content. Chitika | Premium ad units are Pay per click (CPC) and designed to be their highest performing ad unit Cost per impression (eCPM) available to date.

Chitika | Premium display targeted to the search query from a major search engine that brought the visitor to the page within the Chitika network of publishers. This is how the ads monetize the "second click".

Chitika | Premium ad units are 100% compatible with Google AdSense. According to Chitika the Chitika | Premium ad units do not conflict with the Google AdSense terms of use because the ad units are not contextual and the ad units do not look like Google AdSense ads.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Amazon Associates

Launched in 1996, the Amazon Associates affiliate program is the granddaddy of all e-commerce affiliate programs. There are many reasons why Amazon is an enduring e-commerce entity. Undoubtedly, the strength and longevity of its affiliate program is one of them. Like Amazon itself, Amazon Associates has evolved over the years and currently offers a number of different opportunities for affiliates to profit from.

What is Amazon Associates?
The Amazon Associates program allows affiliates to build links to Amazon content and merchandise with an embedded affiliate tracking code. When a user actually buys something from Amazon, the affiliate gets a percentage ranging from 4 percent all the way up to 10 percent (depending on a variety of options I'll discuss). Affiliate links can be built via Amazon Associates online tools or via Amazon's E-commerce Service (formerly known as Amazon Web Services) which provides a more direct data feed for Amazon content for Web site integration.

Getting Started
Getting started with Amazon Associates takes less than 5 minutes. Visit the signup page and fill out the required fields (name, address, payment info, Web site address, etc.) and you'll get instant "temporary" approval for your Associates account. After granting you temporary approval, Amazon staff supposedly reviews your site to see if it meets their eligibility requirements (basically any site that doesn't infringe on copyright, trademark or is offensive) and then they'll email you to confirm that you've been officially accepted into the program.

Amazon currently offers two different payment schemes that you can choose from: Classic and Performance. Though, in reality, Classic is hardly a choice that makes sense. The Classic payment schedule pays a flat 4 percent on items purchased after a visitor clicked through from an Amazon Associates placed link.

The Performance plan starts at 5 percent and ramps up based on the shipped volume of products. If your affiliate links generate between 1 and 20 units shipped you'll get the starting rate of 5 percent. On the other end, if your affiliate links generate shipments of over 10,000 units you'll get 7.5 percent. On top of the base rate (indexed to products shipped), Amazon's Performance program also tacks on bonuses of 2.5 percent for certain "Direct Link Items" and a 1 percent for "Easy Links."

Needless to say, I strongly recommend that users choose the Performance plan if they want to maximize their affiliate earning potential. It is usually the default option anyway, but it's important to make sure.

Amazon also offers three different methods for getting paid for your efforts helping them sell stuff, though, again, the choice is really quite clear. You can have a check mailed to you, get an Amazon gift certificate or have your earnings directly deposited to your account. The check option involves an $8 dollar handling fee, so I'd recommend avoiding that. The Gift Certificate option offers no additional incentive because it locks you into keeping your money with Amazon. So, if you've entered the affiliate game to earn money, direct deposit is definitely the way to go.

Creating Affiliate Links (Go Direct)
The real "magic" in generating revenue with Amazon Associates is all about choosing the right type of link, for the right product(s) and putting it in the right context.

Amazon currently offers 5 different types of links through its web based interface ("Build Links"):

  • Product Links which link to specific Amazon items;
  • Text Links which allow you to directly link to any Amazon page;
  • Recommended Product Links that automatically shows relevant products;
  • Banner Links which don't link to any product directly and are mostly Amazon promos; and
  • Search Box which provides Amazon.com search capability.

If your goal is to maximize your affiliate earning potential you're going to want to choose the link types that offer the highest potential reward which means you should create links that first offer you a shot at the 2.5 percent direct link bonus (which would provide you with a combined referral rate of 7.5 percent to start).

Direct links (as the name implies) are ones that directly link to a specific Amazon product detail. Beyond just the plum of getting the 2.5 percent bonus, having context/content relevant direct links is also likely to increase the click-through from your site to Amazon, since relevance is always a key factor to generating any type of click conversion.

Amazon direct links can be simply created via one of three principal methods: the Product Links option (in the "Build Links" menu on Amazon Associates), using Add to Cart buttons or creating product links via Amazon Web Services.

The "Product Links" option is perhaps the easiest method to execute as the web interface allows you to browse for your desired product as well as automatically creating the HTML code that you'll need to place in your site. The Product Links option also includes a "Buy from Amazon.com" button that will automatically add the item to a user's cart. There is also an "Add to Cart" direct product link that you can use (you'll have to manually insert your Associates ID as well as the product identifier into the code) without getting the product detail/picture from Amazon, in case you want to embed that function directly into your site in a different way. (Say, for example, you've got a review of product X and you want to enable users to "add to cart" from inside the review.)

Amazon E-Commerce Service (ECS)
The other way to create affiliate links to Amazon is via their E-Commerce Service, XML based web services offering.

When Amazon Web Services was first offered, it was probably a bit too complex for the average associate to execute. That's no longer the case with a number of freely available scripts that will allow you to enjoy the benefits of web services without the development overhead. With ECS you can directly integrate a feed of whatever available data you want from Amazon into your site, which makes the buying experience more seamless to your users (and thereby more likely that they'll click through and/or add to cart to make a purchase). One such freely available ECS script is MrRat's Amazon Products Feed script, which will allow you to implement the data feed with a relatively straight forward Perl script.

For those who want a quick php solution, Jaaps' Amazon Scripts provides a few options as well.

Reporting and Optimization
Amazon Associates also provides a robust reporting mechanism to help affiliates track their link performance. The main Associates interface provides reports that will gauge clickthroughs, conversions, orders, shipments, as well as affiliate revenue earned. Beyond what exists on Amazon.com itself, Alexa (which is also an amazon.com company) offers a number of services to help affiliates optimize their Amazon Associates performance. In my opinion the most basic and most critical is the site report function will which will crawl your site and ensure that all the Amazon affiliate links are actually working.

Again, as a typical e-commerce best practice, it's always a good idea to actively track how your links are doing and if something isn't working right then adjust it. If something is working exceptionally well, than duplicate it in other spots to increase your success.

One drawback of Amazon's reporting scheme, however, is that it fails to notify you of any cancelled or returned orders.

Final Thoughts
The key (as with any e-commerce offering) is always about context and relevance. Users will tend to click on a button/item if it is relevant to what they need or want. If you can identify those products and place links to them in the context of where the user is likely to make a "relevant" connection, you'll be more likely to generate a click-through and possibly a referral commission. In order to maximize your Amazon Associates revenue potential, it makes sense to make sure that you're signed up for the Performance plan and that you make use of high value links that will yield greater revenue if clicked. It's hard enough to get users to click on links as it is. If a user actually clicks on one, you might as well make sure that it was worth the effort.

With a bit of hard work and solid contextually relevant links the Amazon Associates can be a rewarding affiliate venture.

Friday, August 7, 2009

WordLinx

WordLinx is a pay-per-click advertising system. Advertisers pay members $0.01 USD and upwards per click to visit their website. They can bid more per click if they want their advert to appear at the top of the list. WordLinx charges advertisers a small commission to cover admin and running costs.

Members earn $0.01 USD and upwards per click by visiting sites by clicking on text link adverts. The more adverts that are clicked, and sites visited, the more money will be earned. You can use your earnings to buy clicks for yourself (with no commission), or have the money paid out to you.

Members are only shown adverts when an advertiser has paid for a campaign. That way there will always be money to pay members. Many other programs pay their members without balancing it against their their income, hoping more people will invest. Such programs usually collapse in a few months and take everyone's money with them. Always check you are dealing with a responsible company that pays realistic rates. If the maths don't add up, you won't get paid. It's as simple as that.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

ClixSense

ClixSense is another get paid to view advertisements website. As more and more ad money is being redirected to online outlets these websites are becoming increasingly popular. You may already have seen sites where elaborate prize pools or games are set up to entertain you while you view the ads.

ClixSense compensates you between $.01 - $5.00 for spending 30 sec of your time on their sponsors' websites. By no means is this a get rich quick method, you'll be lucky to earn a couple bucks below minimum wage per hr for your efforts.

The company encourages you to supplement this income through several methods. You can upgrade your membership to premium which results in more ads being sent your way. And you can recruit additional members for which you earn .10¢ and 5$ per each premium membership upgrade.

As far as payments are concerned ClixSense is legit and payout once every month. The only drawback is that they charge 3$ for mail delivery of your check. Currently the minimum payout level is set at $10.00. If you plan to work with this program regularly you should raise your payout threshold so that you minimize paying the 3 dollar fee.

Paid to read emails programs are quite popular nowadays because they're free to join and pay out a little change here and there, but in reality they're not free. You're spending your time, your valuable time which could be spent much more productively, literally in exchange for pennies. I believe, as should you, that your time is much more valuable than that.

SurveyClub

SurveyClub is a free paid survey company open for U.S. residents. Membership in SurveyClub is free. When you join SurveyClub they invite you to read their paid surveys intro. It is a good guide with valuable information.


SurveyClub also invites you to read their "25 top surveys special report", which provides you with free information about 25 top paid surveys. As a SurveyClub member you will receive 2-4 paid surveys a month, they will send you surveys from their partners and their own surveys.


Accepts panelists from U.S. only.


Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Hits4pay

Hits4Pay is a popular program that uses advertisers' dollars to pay their members for reading emails. There are many of these get-paid-to-read programs and they all offer similar opportunities with almost the same incentives. But can you really make money with Hits4Pay or is just another online scam?

The way that companies like Hits4Pay work is by connecting advertisers with a guaranteed audience. They do this by paying their members for every email that they read and for each ad that they click on.

The actual payout to Hits4Pay members per email is tiny, usually between .02 and .05 cents. There are some discrepancies but most people say that they receive around 2 to 3 emails per day. As you can see the income rate is incredibly low, at less than a dollar a week.

This is why the majority of people focus on the referral side of the pay-to-read email business. For instance, Hits4pay offers you .01¢ for each email one of your recruits reads. Depending on how well you're able to recruit, this strategy can improve your income potential.

The difficulty with recruitment is that new members have to remain active email readers. As soon as they stop reading you no longer earn commissions. In my experience there's been a fairly high turnover rate, which forces you to constantly replenish your recruits.

I've spoken with many folks involved with Hits4pay and I've gotten some mixed feedback. Some people have found this opportunity to be fulfilling while others have told me that it's a waste of time. It all comes down to recruiting, if you can't do it then there's no point reading emails at three cents a piece.

Spedia

Spedia is used to make money while surfing the internet with an ad bar located on the bottom of the screen. By changing URL's every 30 seconds, you earn 1 point, or that's what is supposed to happen. Spedia also lets you make points by joining sponsor websites, reading e-mails, and playing games. For every hour of surfing, or 60 points, you get $0.49. Active members who gain a certain amount of ad bar points within a certain time limit for a certain amount of days in a month (which is 2 hours a day for 14 days in a month), receive a special rate of $0.70 an hour. A check is sent to you after your account reaches $30.00. This may seem like a dream come true, but words can be quite deceiving.

Spedia is practically a scam in disguise. I have been a Spedia user for over a year, using the Spedia ad bar quite frequently. Yet, I have never been rewarded with a $30.00 check.

COMPLAINTS

Spedia ad bar - This is supposedly the main way to earn points, yet it does not function properly. Many times I attempt start the Spedia ad bar, it crashes, sometimes forcing my computer to restart without authorization. This can be a great problem when there are unsaved files open, which are obviously now lost. If Spedia does manage to start up, my computer slows down a considerable amount. My current open browser window is automatically redirected to one of Spedia's sponsors. The default browser home page is also changed to a Spedia sponsor site. Though that option can be changed, it is very difficult to navigate through the menu. At this point, the Spedia ad bar does one of two possible things:
1. The screen freezes or the ad bar stops responding.
2. The bar works "properly," meaning annoying but operating.

There are three lights located on the Spedia ad bar.
Green: You are supposedly making money right now.
Yellow: Your browser is the selected window, but you haven't changed the URL recently. (The Spedia server may also be down, which happens quite often.) Yellow means you are not making money.
Red The browser window is not open (not making money). (Red also appears if you have been idle for a while.)

After hours and hours of green light at a time, I check my account to see how many points I have earned. To my surprise and dismay, the account summary read that I only earned 5 points today! After a few experiments, I figured out that the Spedia ad bar only generates points at an increment of 5 points. 5 points seemed the limit for earning each day using the Spedia ad bar. So after this incident, I used the Spedia ad bar for ten minutes to earn the daily 5 points thinking that my main source of points would be playing the games on their site.

Spedia games - These games are probably the worst games I have ever played, even worse than a 4-bit version of 2-D tic-tac-toe. That says a lot about Spedia games. Getting to the game section of Spedia.com is a hard task itself. If you know anything about Spedia.com, the first thing that comes to mind is the LONG loading times. After signing in, you must trek to the games section. That itself may take you 15 minutes. Note: The cookie used to identify your user name and password is deleted after 30 minutes. This leaves me 15 minutes to load a game and beat it and earn enough points in the game to earn Spedia points. Lucky me, I have a cable modem to help me in the game loading process, but I have no control over the game speed. Many Spedia games are too simple and respond to commands when it is already too late. For example, there is a game called "Hidden Colors" that resembles the classic board game "Mastermind." The point of "Hidden Colors" is to guess the hidden color combination only having ten or so attempts. Using the clues properly, you can't lose, but when playing, you must set aside five minutes to let the game respond to your commands, leaving you with about 10 minutes to think. This time may be more than enough to beat the game before the sign in cookie is deleted. Yet when your score is being processed, the window never loads and you are never awarded the Spedia points.
I have inquired about this issue (about six months ago) and many others, but the only response I ever got from Spedia involved this issue (which took a month). They said that they are having technical difficulties, but the games will operate properly soon, making a warning unneeded. up to this date, the games have never awarded me any points.

E-mails - The e-mails were the only source of points for me now. Rarely ever being sent, e-mails are supposed to credit your Spedia account with 5-10 points, though I only get credited for half the points that I am supposed to receive . (At least it works! It actually works!)

General - By now, you have probably been convinced not to join or continue using Spedia. So now I will only address my main concern under this category. One day, I turned on the Spedia ad bar, my web browser was directed toward a Maxim magazine advertisement page! Adult content on Spedia? I couldn't believe it. I went to my e-mail account to write another letter to Spedia regarding this advertisement in hopes of they will respond and take action. As I was about to compose a letter, I saw that I had received a letter from Spedia. Upon opening it, I realized it contained even more adult content. That was the last straw. I quickly deleted all Spedia software from my computer and scanned and rescanned it for any remaining components.

Global Test Market

Global Test Market is a fairly established online market research panel. They have participants from nearly 200 countries contributing opinions in return for cash rewards. Over the years they have maintained a solid reputation and have an impressive, 5 million plus, membership.

Similar to other survey companies Global Test Market will send survey invitations to your email box. This is why it's important to use a valid email address when you register with them. Upon completion of a survey you'll be rewarded with market points which can later be redeemed for cash.

At the current exchange rate 1,000 points will earn you fifty US dollars which is also the minimum cash out level. The good thing about Global Test Market is that they reward loyalty and the more surveys you complete the more points per survey you will get.

The company pays out by checks in US dollars, this can be a slight inconvenience for non US residents, but nothing too serious. After reaching the appropriate level and requesting payment it can take up to two months to receive your check.

So far I haven't received any complaints regarding non-payment issues from Global Test Market members. The only downside is that it can take several months to reach the fifty dollar minimum cash out point. So I would recommend using this company in conjunction with another income stream.

The surveys from Global Test Market have been fairly entertaining as they tend to include movie previews and new trial products along with the standard questionnaires. They also have a referral program that will let you earn bonus points for referring new members.