The Easiest Way To Make Extra Money
When evaluating online money making programs there are several aspects that are extremely important. These include the amount of time necessary to invest in the operation of the program for an adequate return, the inital and ongoing cost to operate the program, the average earnings of participants in the program, and the potential income of the program. Note that for our rating system, income potential is evaluated based on what seems possible if a participant were willing to put forth more effort than "average". Noted late 19th century author William M. Winans reminds us, "Not doing more than the average is what keeps the average down."
The ideal opportunity to make easy extra cash online would require a small investment of time or effort, no initial or ongoing costs, a decent average earnings for participants, and an income potential that scales on a compounding basis given a greater than average effort.
Ad Revenue Sharing Program
What is ad revenue sharing? Ad revenue sharing is an emerging marketing method where viewers actively choose to view advertisements. Advertisers realize that most of us ignore advertising on most media, including television, radio, and the internet. They also know that "interuption" marketing (commercials, junk mail, spam, and telemarketers) is anoying and ill-thought of by their "markets" (us). In the new ad revenue sharing model, advertising networks share the revenue they receive for a campaign with participants who willing choose to view the advertisements.
Why is this a good deal for the advertisers? Because most programs offer category filtering so the participants can choose only those advertisements that might be of interest to them - that means the company's advertising dollar is more effective because the participant is interested in their niche. And some programs ask the participants to rate the advertisement which helps the ad agency develop better ads.
But what's in it for me??! You get paid simply for viewing (and possibly rating) the ads. You choose when and where and what category of products or services you want to view. Sounds great right? That's how you'll find most ad revenue sharing programs promoted, "get paid to read email", "make money viewing ads", etc. But there's more to it than that. Let's cut away the hype and fluff for a no bull look at how these programs really operate.
To begin with, yes, you are paid for each ad (email, whatever) that you view. The two important things here are: 1) you're not paid very much for each one; and 2) there's usually a limit on how many you can view per day. So how could you possibly make a decent amount of extra cash with a program like this? The answer? By inviting other people to do the same thing and receiving payment for not only the ads you view, but the ads they view as well. This isn't MLM (multi-level marketing) or an affiliate program - you're not selling or buying anything. You are simply offering the opportunity to other people.
So how much money is it possible to make with an ad revenue sharing program? That depends on three things: 1) how much the program pays for each ad you personally view; 2) how many tiers (levels) of people who participate under you the program pays on each ad they view; and 3) how much effort you want to invest offering the opportunity to others. The following are programs we participate in and have earned sufficient extra money from to feel confident in recommending.
The Bar
What we like most about the bar is that it pays on 7 levels. Say you signed up today, and tomorrow you told 5 of your friends on Facebook or MySpace about it and they signed up, and the next day each of your 5 friends shared the opportunity with 5 friends and they signed up... in just 8 days there would be 78,125 people in the 7 tiers of your group. If all of them viewed 10 ads per day every day for a month (what, maybe 10 minutes a day?), this program would pay you $87,889.50.
Of course, let's be realistic. We won't say it's not possible to have 78,125 people sign up in 8 days - but it's not very probable. In real life, you share this opportunity with 5 friends and at least 2 won't be interested, one will forget, and 1 will be too busy. For every 10 people that sign up maybe 6 will remember to spend the 10 minutes a day viewing ads and maybe 3 will actively share the opportunity.
We still think this is a good program and a viable source of extra cash online. Because the program is still in beta, a lot of people haven't signed up yet. That is a definite advantage.