Getting More Shillings from Your Shilling

Much of my affiliate work of late has been centered around trying to make the most of the traffic I've got, as opposed to cranking out new content, and I've been trying out various programs, kicking the tires of this program, trying that new program, etc. In no particular order, I thought I'd share some of the results here from some of the newer programs I've been trying, for the folks interested in such things:

• Text Link Ads continues to treat me very well, and I'd highly recommend them for anyone with a blog who's looking to make some extra bucks. They pay promptly at the first of the month and have an active base of advertisers looking to buy text links on blogs like yours. They pocket a large chunk of what the advertiser pays, so you're likely better off selling text links on your site directly if you can from a pure dollars and cents perspective, but they provide access to your site to a much wider range of potential advertisers.


• AuctionAds is a new program that's very similar to Google Adsense, except it features eBay auctions. What's nice is that you can target the ads using keywords that fit your site, so it's more niche-friendly than some programs, and since it pulls from eBay listings it almost always can find something relevant to display, unlike similar programs such as Chitika. It's also not a PPC program, so you can potentially make more if you refer someone to an eBay listing and they're the winning bidder, since you get a percentage cut of the final purchase price. If someone drops $500 on a poker table, you're obviously a lot better off getting a percentage of that action instead of getting paid something like .20 per click, like you do with Adsense.


• Sponsored Reviews is a new paid review site, much like ReviewMe, but with a twist. In their system, you set your review price, then you browse through all of the potential reviews that advertisers have listed. If you find one you'd like to review, you subit an application and your price. If accepted, you write the review and get paid. I just signed up so no trip report on payment promptness, etc., but on the surface I prefer the way it works to ReviewMe, as I'd rather see all the opportunities instead of sitting around, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for an advertiser to send me an offer.
  


• Agloco swears that its rolling out its viewbar thingamabob, that'll pay users for surfing the Web, but that's been their claim for a few months now. Honestly, who knows if this thing will really make anyone money in the end, either people using the viewbar to get paid for surfing or affiliates who have referred lots of people. I have no clue, but hey, you've got little to lose from signing up and encouraging others to do so. If anyone makes money from this thing, it'll be people who get in on the ground floor and have lots of referrals under them.