This post is part of “August - Make Money Online Month”
You’ve read hundreds of lists and recommendations made by bloggers about joining so and so affiliate program and how successful it has been for them. Of course the results are not consistent for everybody, so don’t be surprised if no one signs up under you.
Below are some affiliate programs that seemed like a good idea at the time to join, and which I won’t be promoting anymore. This doesn’t mean they won’t work for you, this just means they haven’t worked for me and I’ll tell you why.
1. ReviewMe - ReviewMe launched their affiliate program in February. Since that time I have sent them an average of 316 visitors a month. Only two of those have materialized into referrals, $25 per referral. That’s because they only pay you when an advertiser signs up and not a blogger. The chances of getting an advertiser to sign up are far less than getting a blogger to sign up. Since ReviewMe has more bloggers than advertisers, they didn’t make an affiliate program for signing up bloggers.
2. PayPerPost - PayPerPost pays you for both advertiser and bloggers sign ups. They pay $15.00 per blogger sign up. I put up their banner here on my blog 4 weeks ago and so far I have had 16 sign ups, that’s pretty good. Sadly they are all in “pending” status.
The part that annoys me about this affiliate program is that the blogger has to sign up, get their blog approved {which is an ordeal in itself}, write their first sponsored post, get that approved, wait till they get paid after 30 days and only then will I get my money! That’s too many steps, and too long to wait. I know it’s too early to tell if the status of any of my sign ups will change. If they ever do in the near future I’ll think about putting their banner back up again.
Since they have implemented geo-targeting for advertisers, international bloggers basically have little to nothing to write from their marketplace. There are opps in the system, but frankly $5/$10 just doesn’t cut it anymore. I charge $150 for a direct review now.
3. Clickbank - I signed up to take a look at what the deal was about. I never went back after a few days. Clickbank to me is like luring in those first time unsuspecting customers to sign up for a department store credit card.
4. Text-Link-Ads - Seems simple enough right, tell publishers and/or advertisers to sign up for TLA and get paid $25.00. A publisher needs to get approved and install the code on their blog/site. A advertiser needs to make a purchase. I have one sign up so far for the past year. I’ve promoted them to the hilt, heck my blog was even number 1 on Google for sometime for text link ad coupon {not anymore}. So yeah, I won’t be promoting them anymore.
Special Mention: Agloco - Get paid to surf and refer your friends to do the same, you must be kidding me! Just for the record I NEVER signed up with Agloco and never promoted them on my blog.
Read more about affiliate marketing.
Have you used any of the above programs? Have you been successful with them? Let us know by commenting.
Subscribe to my full RSS feed.
About the author
Hyder has been blogging for the past two years on this blog. He started Weborithm, his web company, in 2007 and along with designing blogs and websites also releases various web related products.
Blogging Tips on August 24th, 2007
1
how many reviews have you sold at 150$?
Ali on August 24th, 2007
2
Via sponsored reviews I’ve had a few. Not any via PPP Direct, as I’ve just updated that price. It used to be $40 before as an introductory price. The price is for direct review offers. I usually write over 400+ words for these opps along with images, screenshots even signing up for services if I need to, for the review to be as in depth as possible.
If I see an opp. in sponsored reviews or the payperpost marketplace with a minimum of $30 - $50 for 100 - 200 words and it is something that I like, plus I know that my readers will like, I will blog about it.
James Wilcox on August 24th, 2007
3
ReviewMe wouldn’t accept my blogs because of traffic levels, although I don’t know how they judge that seeing as I have a PR 3 on one blog and an alexa ranking of under 2 million on another…I don’t know what their criteria is. I was however, able to join their affiliate program and have had zero success with that.
I also signed up for sponsored reviews…nada on that one too.
With Agloco I got my friend to sign up, but he doesn’t use the toolbar at all…so there goes that plan.
Text link ads has been less than stellar. I don’t know if it’s because of my traffic, my content, or the lack of advertisers willing to have links on my blogs…who knows!
That being said, Adsense is also a poor performer.
My general feeling is that during the summer for whatever reason, people just don’t click ads…either they are outside too much or they just aren’t web surfing. We’ll see how it goes in the winter.
soufulow on August 24th, 2007
4
You’re right. Wasting time on useless affiliate program is deadly sins - knowing what not to do is equally important with what to do.
I once stucked on a Forex education program that pay HUGE commissions per sale. The commissions seems sweet but was never turn into real money as the merchant hardly convert any traffics into customers.
mercutiom on August 24th, 2007
5
Most of my adds are through the commission junction system. With their services I’m able to select companies whose ads match that of my site. My one complaint is that many of the ads are moving .gif images, which do draw the eye, but are really annoying.
I’m curious, what affiliate programs or ad servers would you suggest?
swollenpickles on August 27th, 2007
6
PayPerPost has the most disappointing affiliate program. I can’t believe that of the 30+ referrals I currently have, not one has passed the “pending” status. Something has to be wrong with that surely?
Ali on August 27th, 2007
7
Wow! I’m glad I removed them after only after having signed up 15. It sucks to see all that money in your dashboard, money that you will probably never get.
Either something they have a broken affiliate system, or people just sign up for the heck of it have a look inside the marketplace and change their mind. For which, I don’t blame them.
Blogging Tips on August 29th, 2007
8
yeah ive noticed a few sponsored posts/reviews on here. I was just curious how many reviews you’ve gotten directly for 150$