Tag: affiliate

Linkshare Pay out for 2013

Posted onAuthorTruXterLeave a comment

So, you have stumbled into Linkshare aka Rakuten as an alternative advertisement affiliate to Google Adsense.
You see that Linkshare has a large selection of well known companies to advertise with. and it now makes your website look official, and it shows that you have high quality advertisers. Such as walmart, HP, Microsoft, Starbucks. Big name companies. Great feeling right?
Now you want to know what the income looks like. You want to know .. Does Linkshare pay ?
I have to say from my experience.
No.
I have rand their advertisements for two years. and not a single penny.
The issue is, you only make money when people click the link on your site and buy something from the site they clicked to. You basically send good traffic to these sites, for nothing.

Linkshare-payout2013
Linkshare-payout2012

Of course I dropped a few advertisers and took on a few new ones who left Google’s whatever service that was similar to linkshare and they all migrated to linkshare. and dropped a few advertisers that just would not work very well with my content.

Fact is, you will not make money with linkshare unless you go against the code of ethics and start making fake posts and hyping the content you link.

Google Adsense Goes Social

Posted onAuthorTech News

Google adsense will be rolling out new features. They will be adding a +1 for adsense for content Here is a letter from the adsense team.

Hello,

In the next month, we’ll introduce the +1 button and personal recommendations to display ads. The +1 button will begin to appear on AdSense for Content and AdSense for Mobile Content display ad formats — image, animated gif, and Flash. +1s will be one additional signal to help determine an ad’s relevance and we’ll continue to show the ads that will generate the most revenue for you.

We previously launched the +1 button on Google search and for publisher sites to make it easier for people to share and discover content across the web. Soon, your users will be able to endorse specific ads and make the ads more likely to appear to their social connections. We believe that these recommendations could help your readers notice ads on your site more, leading to higher returns for you over time.

If you prefer not to show the +1 buttons on display ads on your pages, you can opt out in your account. For more information please visit the Inside AdSense blog.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense team

Will this be in the ads? will this be in the menu area? are they incorporating the affiliate network to the adsense? (I kind of hope so) . If not will they be adding the +1 button to the affiliate network so we the site owners have an easier selection of ads?
Will the adsense team knock penalties to content owners who +1 their own products?
Not much to tell from that one email but are great things to consider.
Great idea to a point then it falls short when you realize how people can be.
I hope it goes well.

Something Is Wrong With My Adsense

Posted onAuthorTruXter

These Adsense Results do not add up.

Does that not look funny to you?
The average estimate is Every one in every 200 will click. For me it seems it’s one in every 360 users will click an ad.
Out of 93 user who did searches, only 9 of them actually clicked with in the search. I mean really??? how can 93 people do searches and 84 of those people doing the searches say to themselves “oh, my finger is tired, I have clicked to many times, I don’t care what the results gave me, I’m going to bed now” ?????
It seems that not one single person found an interesting advertisement in my feeds. Of 298 readers who’s feed reader could see an ad, none said ” oh heck, that’s what I am looking for”. None.

I have a suspicious feeling that my adsense account is broke. Look at the pay our ratio of the searches. That’s chicken feed actually a Chicken would starve on that.

Do people not know that the Google search on websites are customized to pull better results for related content to the website they are currently on? Do people not know that Google protects their users and will not allow a bad link in their advertising system? A tech site with a Google search on it will have better results for tech related searches than regular Google and Bing put together. Why? because the site owner set their custom search for specific searches.

See Google does not respond to your questions. Google does not have an actual contact. The best you get is a forum full of other people guessing. Typically they  all have the belief that a few people have a more holy guess. usually I ask why my pay is the way it is, 3 days go by and I finally get a response’ you are looking at it wrong” and that becomes the belief amongst everyone. Really how I lookin at it wrong, what part of that, is saying I am getting checks like crazy for some stuff I don’t notice? Haven’t been paid since 2008.

affiliate results

What have I done wrong? If you tilt your head to the left do you see it different than I?

Conduit Toolbar Follow up

Posted onAuthorTech Review Man9 Comments

Well . I am done with them.

They stopped me at $49.41 (pay out is $50)

Gave me a story of how they now, only pay per install. Because that is how you show good quality… um no dude. quality is continued usage. you make money off the searches through Google using your toolbar, Share the wealth guy. A couple months ago they killed my other toolbar, the one I was migrating to. The truxter toolbar is no longer supported. They have stopped that one because not enough people downloaded it. Um.. wait.. so you stop the downloads because not enough people download it… You know what.. I am done with you guys all the way.

I know for a fact that ten people are in direct usage of the tool bar I snapped together through your a.d.d. farm.

I couldn’t find the spot to drop my account. You deal with it. There are so many curse words I want to fling right now. but I am not doing that.
So here, it is yours, do what you want.

For those who want to know what a 4 year old account on conduit looks like when you are not a spammer, scammer, or a person with malicious intent, here is what the pay out and respect looks like after 4 years of showing people a safe virus free version of their Garbage looks like. A guy that does not put up buttons on a page about some free software and leave a “download now” button for the tool bar right above the other free software on that page tricking people into installing the toolbar by accident instead. No. I left my toolbar with full explanation on pages about that toolbar, in banners. Not some bundled garbage with with weather bug and cool web search crap. The stuff that gives a toolbar bad names.. And this is the Thank you I get.

They have asked me to email them. Why? what’s there to achieve from an email? An excuse pre-planned or concocted from a mass of group thinkers. Screw that. I’m done.

Here all, have fun with the below..

Conduit Stats after 4 years

Latest Email from Daniel at Conduit.

Hi,

This is Daniel from Conduit. I noticed you have followed up on your post in Truxtertech and I understand you are still unclear about how the toolbar revenue model works. First of all please let me assure you we do not deal with fraud or scams. Everything we do is perfectly legal and according to industry standards. Our purpose is to provide a free and safe environment for publishers to create toolbars which will then engage their users and increase traffic to their site.

The PPI program acts as an incentive for publishers to promote a useful and appealing toolbar. According to the program you will receive payment per each installation of the toolbar. This way we hope to encourage web publishers to get as many of their users to install the toolbar. The rate per each install is based on the performance of the toolbar. So a toolbar which has good components and generates usage by their users would get additional revenue. The purpose is not to only generate installs (which you mentioned as very simple), it’s also to engage your users with a successful toolbar. If I look at your example then; installing the toolbar on every computer you work on will generate you revenue, but it will lower your PPI rate so the revenue you will generate per toolbar might be very low. On the other hand, if many people install the toolbar and use if often, the revenue you will generate per toolbar will be much higher.

I hope this clarifies your concerns. As I mentioned in my previous email, I will be happy to work with you to get the most out of your toolbar. Please let me know.

Thanks,

Daniel

This is his response to my post Conduit Toolbar Review – Affiliate

Wow. Hmm. I hope it didn’t take a whole crew to put that together and it’s okay to say that just one person wrote that email.

Seems I have to make my own toolbar so I can focus on my adsense account search. I spent so much time working on theirs.

and yes I know exactly how many computers I personally installed that stupid toolbar on.

Thanks conduit. Well the time wasted is equivalent to playing solitaire for  4 years. Hope you made plenty of money.

My son sent one out to a bunch of kids who installed his for a week then they all got tired of the game and uninstalled it. He made $75 in a week. I have been making users who keep the thing for years and they have not paid me yet. Oddly enough, I see these computers I work on, they still have the toolbar. but conduit shows that I only have 5 active users. hmm.

I repair computers, and any and every time I see one with some B/S toolbar on it, I install mine to assure that person will not have a virus. I know exactly how many installs I have made, and I know exactly how many users of my toolbar are out there (unless a few people downloaded themselves).

So if you are wondering if Conduit affiliate sucks, or if Conduit pays. I myself can’t answer that question for you. It is for you to decide.

***update**

I found on the conduit website people complaining about the conduit pay out. here. I don’t count on them leaving anything like this up much longer “we archived it”

I don’t agree with all or even most of the statements being made about payout being a scam. I surely do not agree with the clowns saying ” you are getting a website enhancement for free”. That’s just stupid. Who likes to see a button on a website that says ” click here to install” ? Who likes to see a big banner asking you to install a toolbar? That is not an enhancement. You are not being done a favor because you link people to software that has a search in it that leads to a greater income to Conduit. You are doing conduit a favor.

The least we can ask for is that conduit breaks us off a bit of the income we bring them by distributing their software. They don’t advertise in google because it would cost them money. So if they want to advertise their software on my site, then they darn sure better pay me. You want that space? rent it buddy. I want by default at least $50 a month for keeping your stupid link up. and for the people  that stay using my version of that toolbar, Conduit should pay me atleast 10% of the income that toolbar creats, for my efforts at trying to make a good toolbar that will not get uninstalled at any time. And that toolbar will continually get used for searches and what ever embedded items they draw revenue from.

They are not a group that just makes software for the fun of it.

So if you are wondering if Conduit toolbar actually pays, That decision is up to you

My two cents.

Conduit Toolbar Review – Affiliate

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Conduit Toolbar Review

I have had my iworkwithpeople toolbar out there for a few years. For about 4 years now. There never really was all that much movement in my account for usage, for the first two years nothing really happened. Over the past year and a half I have been seeing lots of activity. I started seeing an actual bit of revenue. So I have been pushing people to notice the toolbar and requesting people install it so I can generate more income. In dong that I added so many useful tools for the toolbar’s theme. There is a cashout balance that must be achieved. You must achieve $50 before you can cash out. I have been sitting at 49.41 for twenty six days now. Not one penny in revenue from searches. Nothing. Not a drop.

I’m starting to suspect foul play. Considering it is such an old toolbar that is tested and true and useful for work associated uses, (games and job search) and many many other add ons and now right when it is finally almost able to cash in, it stop creating income?

Update. 8/4/10
I received an email, I have not yet had a chance to respond (because I keep seeing it while at work.)

Daniel &&&&&
to me

show details Aug 3 (1 day ago)

Hello,

My name is Daniel and I am an account manager to Conduit. We have noticed your post on Truxetertech regarding your rewards and I wanted to clarify some facts and offer my assistance to generate more revenue from your toolbar.

Beginning July , we have made a change to our billing system. The purpose of the change was to offer an easier and more convenient way for our publishers to generate revenue. The new system is based on payment per install so for each install of the toolbar you will generate revenue. The revenue is based on the usage and geo location of your users so the more users use the toolbar, the rate per install will increase. This means that in order to continue generating revenue from the toolbar, you need to get more users to install it by adding banners and promotions to your site, emails, forum posts and social networks. You have an excellent toolbar and an interesting site so I would imagine there are many users who would be interested in your toolbar.

We do want you to earn money since then we earn money. I will be happy to assist you in driving more revenue as well as users to your toolbar and to your site. Please let me know if you are interested.

Thanks,

Daniel

Daniel &&&&&&

Account Manager

Conduit Your Site

p +(removed phone number) |

m +(removed phone number) |

f +(removed phone number)

Connect with the Conduit community

Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin | Flickr | YouTube

From: Victor Vlad
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 9:33 AM
To: Daniel &&&&&&
Subject: FW: sensitive review about Conduit

Please approach him – he was moved to PPI from old Rewards… try to make him happy.

CT1223389

From: Hai &&&&&
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 11:18 PM
To: Gil &&&&&; Shiri &&&&&; Amir &&&&&; Yochai &&&&&
Subject: RE: sensitive review about Conduit

Am should be involved as well.

From: Gil &&&&&
Sent: Sunday, August 01, 2010 11:45 PM
To: Shiri &&&&&
Cc: Hai &&&&&
Subject: FW: sensitive review about Conduit

You may want to consider posting a comment there.

Thanks

Gil

http://truxtertech.com/2010/07/conduit-toolbar-review-affiliate/

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG – www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.851 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3044 – Release Date: 08/01/10 23:35:00

I am not sure what that means. It sounds as if there is incentive to get users, but not to keep them. Easy part is getting them especially if you have something good and someone tells a friend “hey look at this” but keeping them is another.
I wonder if I can just install it on every computer I work on and not care if they uninstall it .

Really I need to email this guy and let him know I am not mad. just in the dark a bit here.

To be totally fair everyone. Their toolbars are the only one I know that is out there that you can trust. Even through the days of the bad toolbars, Conduit is safe and always has been. That is the number 1 reason why I use them.

And The Follow Up

AdSense Ain’t a Linear Game

Posted onAuthorTruXter1 Comment

Bullet  Points to focus.

Good ol’ Zipf

You can’t predict.

Things change

Traffic has limits

Ad inventory has limits

Self-competition

High velocity means lousy control

Taken from here

Help in understanding why your income from adsense sucks

Really that was a great post about 5-6 years ago when he wrote it. but now you can’t say “Adsense” because, well no one uses adsense any-longer. There is no money in it, google has shut down the income as if they monopolize the internet. So the site designers go elsewhere.

But you can use his tips on other advertising companies, like adbrite

Here is someone who sees what I see

Adsense is tanking

See I see these people talking about $500-$5000 a day in traffic. I think that is nuts. I don’t see that kind of money, that stuff is way way way deep in my adsense crushed dreams.  One guy responds about bidvertiser, really, I never saw a dime from bidvertiser.

Comparing to affiliate companies to Adsense

Yeah, big money

Look at that pay out.

Comparing Two Affiliate Programs To Adsense.

Posted onAuthorTruXter2 Comments

WidgetBucks – I gave the company a go to see what they can do for my income. I have to say. Not much. After two months of having them on my site, it showed no traffic, no clicks. Nothing. So I left it alone for a month or so longer. I increased the rate of my content, increased the value of my content. Waited the whole month and did not log in to watch my income there flat-line. after that month had passed I tried to log in, and it refused my email address and my password. Now i don’t want to make the assumption that they finally made a profit from me and banned my account or something, because the ads surely continued to update.

But after that I had to do a search in my self  constructed toolbar and found some scary results for the word “scam” So to be fair I had to do an alternative search in hopes of positive results. Seems there are plenty of results for both, so I am indecisive enough to say, I will not bother signing up again.

Crazy enough, I never got an email telling me I was banned or kicked out.

Google Adsense – for two years straight I made really amazing fantastic money. Adsense was the place for the little guy to go and make money doing online the things he loves doing. Exactly what I do. I was making a really good average. Never once would I game the system because the money was to good. I did them a favor by getting their ads out to the targeted public, and they did me great for making good ads that were relevant to the content I was writing about. Their contextual content is most reliable, and so correct in targetting markets related to site content.

They decide they are going to take over some buggy company that no virus scanner liked (no names sorry, check your history lol) and post some claim about the value of a click, and suddenly on I am seeing 1 cent for every ten dollars I used to see. I am seeing 1 person crawl my page in their tools area, while in my administration area of my website hosting service I am seeing over 200 people. They remind me of another advertising company that was sold a couple years ago, to some obscure brand, just before they got sued for  gaming their customers.

So i used google to see what that is all about . Here are the pros and here are the cons.  Probably not smart that I used google to do that search, maybe I should have used bing.

I think these final days of Google being top, has gone to their heads, they forgot the little guy. I have since removed myself from their services. It seems a tad bit fishy to me.

AdBrite– These people are everything  that adsense used to be. These people are everything that we used to wish Google was. They have page view counts identical to what my webhost shows. I love these guys and I do recommend you use them. They have a fair pay rate and they do what you need them to do.

Of all the companies I have tried through the past 16 years of internet content, adBrite is the number one choice for me today. Down side is it is a manual content set up, it’s not going to magically scan your page and know what ads to display, you have to select the topics. So a ranting website may change topics so often that the ads might not work well. One topic and it’s easy and aces.

but hey if you know something that compares or have an opinion on the subject that I or other readers of this site need to know, let us know, post it to us in the reply section down lower. it’s free and you do not have to create an account. I welcome comments and a difference of opinion.
Example of an Ad (ok it’s a real ad):


Affiliate program gets lawsuite

Posted onAuthorTruXter

I was signed with an affiliate program for years, and never made more than $7. Two weeks ago I got a notice in my email saying they sold the company. They went on saying that all current bills will be paid by the end of what ever month, not sure I just started to ignore the junk I would get from them.

now this is what I suspected all along.

RE: Important Legal Notice Regarding Commission Junction’s Affiliate Network

If you joined or were a member of the affiliate marketing networks operated by ValueClick, Inc., Commission Junction, Inc. and/or Be Free (collectively, “Defendants”), between April 20, 2003 and the present, you may be a class member in Settlement Recovery Center et al. v. ValueClick, Inc. et al., No. 2:07-cv-02638-FMC-CTx, a lawsuit which is pending in the Central District of California. The Settlement Notice informs you of the Court’s certification of a class for settlement purposes; the nature of the claims alleged; your right to participate in, or exclude yourself from, the class; a proposed settlement; and how you can claim an award of advertising credits under the settlement or object to the settlement.

The proposed settlement will resolve claims that Defendants failed to adequately monitor Commission Junction’s Network for the use by third parties of software that does not comply with Commission Junction’s (“CJ”) Publisher Code of Conduct and that is intended to steal or divert commissions from publishers on CJ’s network (“Non-compliant Software”), failed to adequately monitor or prevent third parties from engaging in the theft or “hijacking” of commissions from Advertisers and Publishers on CJ’s Network, and failed to make sufficient disclosures regarding the existence of Non-compliant Software and commission theft, resulting in losses to both advertisers and publishers on the CJ Network.

The proposed settlement will provide a monetary recovery to eligible class members. For class members that currently maintain an account on the CJ Network will receive payment through payments or credits deposited or applied to their CJ accounts; eligible class members that no longer have accounts on the Commission Junction Network will receive a check for an equal amount.

If you are a member of the class, your legal rights are affected by whether you act or do not act. You should review the Settlement Notice as soon as possible as there are several important deadlines that you must meet to take certain actions in connection with this proposed settlement. In particular, the deadline for filing an objection or excluding yourself from the proposed settlement is September 30, 2008. For further information, please refer to the Settlement Notice.

They used to tell me that I just had a crappy second rate website.

The email notice ended with

For a copy of the Settlement Notice, click on the link, or visit the case website at www.CJSettlement.com

If you would prefer not to receive further messages from this sender, please Click Here and confirm your request.

Google retires AdSense referral system

Posted onAuthorTruXter2 Comments

I have used AdSense for a long while now. I have yet for one person to join the AdSense program through a referral link on my site. At least not reported. Then again, none of the affiliate programs I have ever signed to have let me know that anyone used my link. I do know that when i am looking fro a new advertiser for my site, I do check into the “hey try us” links. Can we trust DoubleClick yet?

But as the title stated, here is the email I received today:

Hello,

Thank you for participating in the AdSense Referrals program. We’re writing to let you know that we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate your patience during this transition and here are some alternative options to consider:

* Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For further details, please visit this site. *AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense for content ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the referral ad units with standard AFC ad units.

If you currently use referral ads, either to promote Google products or offerings from AdWords advertisers, AdSense Referrals code will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August. We encourage you to take the following steps before the product is retired:

* Remove the referral code from your site(s): Please take a moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your ad space. * Run and save all referrals reports on your desktop: Create and save all reports related to the referrals program on your desktop, so you continue to have access to your valuable campaign information

Why is this happening? We’re constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most effective in the long term. For this reason, we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program. If you have any additional questions, please visit our Help Center.

Sincerely.

The Google AdSense Team

Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about the retirement of an AdSense feature.

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Looks like that side money will not be coming, even if it never came anyway.