Im considering opening a PTR site - and wanted to know what you look for when you elect to join a program.

Post your thoughts here.

Well my thoughts are another program doesnt need to be opened but that is just my opinion. There are already 20 million sites out there and the good ones are struggling to make it due to the scam ones.

But if you must open on plan on having a good business plan, spending time several hours a day doing redemptions ads, promoting, answering questions.

Low payout is what I would join if I was joinging anything with good referral fees and substantial ad pricing.

Dont depend on members to bring in your money, nor expect they support the program. make sure you have money set aside before opening to payout members when they are ready to redeem.

Go in with a good business sense and money to run the site advertisers set up in advance and you might succeed.

Thanks for the advice - and yes, there are 20 million programs out there, just as when you go to the mall there are about 20 million fast food joints, shoe stores, and lets not neglect to mention the jewelry stores. Whats one more?

Low payout is a good answer, but what do you consider a low payout? With some of these sites going for $25 to $300 and calling that a 'low payout' what do you consider to be low enough as a point of interest when joining?

Site must contain (in my view):

- Nice, colorfull looks, maybe something with nature or a nice theme like HillbillyHangout
- $10 payout
- Referral-levels: 20 15 10 5 3 1 1
- Nice wm, so better be nice when your po
- Loads of Contests (click, referral, bannerdesign)
- Forum (with polls for every change, first ask the members what they like, then change)
- Me (as your best member )

good luck...

...Rick

Sounds like you've got a laundry list? What about payment processors, advertising types, and length of time it should take to make payout? And gold memberships - what should they include?

I'm not very experienced about that type of things, but I think:
- payment processes: e-Gold, Paypal and maybe Check
- Payout within 48 would be ok I think
- Gold memberships, give them a nice name, something about the theme...





Or something like that

...Rick

Looks good rick - sounds like you've been at this for some time;

Anyone have other suggestions?

no suggetions are better then mine

...Rick

I'll believe that when you become my best member

add MoneyBookers & bank transfer to the payment options


never rely on members to advertise your site! you've got to do it on your own!

Well, the way I look at it, I certainly wouldnt count on someone who shops in my store to advertise for me, either.

Certainly word of mouth helps, but if thats what you're relying upon to drive your business, you'll never make it a year.

Whats the word on points? Does it make you a PTR pariah if you use points to convert to cash later?

Curious - do you own any sites yourself?

I co-own Butterfly Ads

Low payout to me is $10 or $15 at the most and it would depend on how fast the earnings were to join one over that. I do belong to a couple over that amount.

I dont mind points as long as someone can opt in for them same as searches. I think they should be interests that one can opt into. Points can be nice to exchange for advertising or that you can convert to cash at the end of each week or month. Depends on which way you want to go with them. Overdoing points can be real bad though as well.

Good examples of sites run. Hillbilly Hangout, Disco Dollars, Butterfly Cash, TLC Email, Earn With Emails, Nickels by Emails. They all use points but in different ways. TLC points are cheat links. Anyways my opionion doesnt mean much

On payout I prefer within 48 hours and paypal is my preferred choice but many like money bookers and egold. You could consider checks but they are so hard to cash I would consider Post Office Money Orders over checks for US members they are easy to cash.

So - this is what I have so far -

-$10 - $15 max for payout with paypal, egold, and moneybooks being preferred

- Points are ok as long as they can be converted to cash monthly.

- Don't think for a moment that members are going to advertise your site

- I must be crazy to open a PTR

- No one will be a better member than Rick.

What else do you feel is important?

I never said you were crazy to open another site. And if you are quoting what I said about Dont think for a moment that members are going to advertise that is not what I said. I said dont depend on your members to bring money in or buy advertising. Which is a totally different phrase then whether a member will advertise you site.

Meaning dont go in with no money and expect your members are going to be the ones buying your ads. Find outside advertisers. Nothing worse then a PO who blames their failure on the members. Or worse yet bullies them because they arent buying ads or whines about it.

Communication is an important part of a program. Be willing to always answer questions even the stupidest ones in a professional manner. Answer in a timely fashion.

I did comment another site wasnt needed anymore then the town I live in needs another store or fast food restaurant. Espcially when the ptr industry is failing on a whole as it is...

Trust me - anyone who wants to open any business is simply plain out of their gourd.

And what I meant was pretty much what you said, perhaps in a more glib manner.

I do appreciate your help.

Regarding upgraded memberships... I only tend to consider them if there's recurring advertising involved, ie. monthly or weekly. Usually to make them point ads seem to be the most sustainable way to allow for that, or to make the upgrade last for a limited time instead of lifetime membership.

Most people seem to love or hate points. I love 'em. As long as members could opt out of them, and if the points don't become overwhelming, then I think it's ok.

I like how Hillbilly Hangout and Halloween Mail allow you to redeem points for upgrades with monthly ads. That's actually a major reason while I joined both of them.

And... I enjoy how sites such as Hillbilly Hangout, Laiste's Links, 77 mail and Ozark Belle allow members to use their points in point auctions, for advertising, referrals, cash prizes, etc. Point raffles are fun too

Points are also great because they usually allow for cheap advertising options for paid-to-promote links such as ShareAdSpace.

I love points, really I do lol

But I'm actually not fond of points that convert to cash because the conversion is usually too low, and even if it isn't too low then I'd still like to know the value of what I'm clicking while I'm clicking it... not to find out a month later only to be disappointed.

If I could choose how many of my points I could convert to cash, and how many I could save for other redemptions, then that would be ideal for me - but I'm not sure how that would work out from a webmaster's point of view.

I wouldn't open or run a PTR if you gave it to me, and people have offered to do just that. It's far too time consuming and I have better things to do with my life than be online 24/7.

Cheri

Interesting - there seems to be alot of negativity towards opening a new program - do you think the market is saturated, there's too much fraud, or as one person put it, the get paid to read email industry is failing?

thoughts
1. don't

you will probably make more money from a personal website with affiliates on it than opening a ptr site. Unless you plan to run off with your members money. being a WM is extremely tough

No market is ever saturated, but the the cost of entry may be prohibitively high.

And if the cost of entry isn't prohibitively high, the achievable market share for each individual operating in that market may be too low to sustain their business long-term, even if they can aquire new customers.

The cost of entry into the PTR market isn't prohibitively high. Which means you're facing the other problem - you're going to have trouble achieving a sustainable market share without a well-thought out marketing strategy and advertising campaign in place before you launch.

Note: marketing strategy includes market positioning, name branding, customer service and support strategy, financial planning, competition strategy and so on.

Advertising campaign is the launch phase where you use your marketing strategy to convince people that your particular program is worth joining.

It isn't impossible. But it takes more than paying a script fee and buying some ads in other programs if you want to get of the ground as more than another also-ran non-performer.

Which leads me to believe that for the amount of work you need to do in order to gain any significant results, you would be wiser to invest your time and effort elsewhere for the time being, until the current unsustainable craze burns itself out at least.

Your opinion may differ of course - I'd be interested in seeing your strategy notes once you have them. See the document from the owner of HoboClicks for an example of a well-done and well thought out planning document - you can find it over in General.

Excellent reply, Sein - I'll check that out. And trust me, I have a little more than a script and a few subscribers

ClarkBarton if you want sound business advice see if Sein will spend some time talking to you. There is a man who has a real head on his shoulders for business and solid advice.

Sein is one of my idols Teasing you Sein but you always have sound business advice and are fun to converse with and brainstorm with.

Excellent to hear - thanks again.

Another interesting question - what makes people gravitate to a program and then stick with it - AYS and Aprils Gold come to mind - when the payout time is so long - I mean, at what point would you consider to be the breaking point with a PTR?

My opinion and it is just that, sites you mentioned is greed. They pay higher on their emails. They send out tons of email. They all have had low priced ads in the past and some still do. I am not sure why folks are willing to wait and wait and wait for payout except they figure they will get paid. Some folks have more patience then other programs.

I have left the last of these programs the other day as I will be no part of lack of communication with the members when emailed, long waits for payout, even belittlement and threats. This is not the way a program should be run ... ugh!

Breaking point? For ? I guess everyone has a choice on why they want to join one of any program. I think other sites with good memberbases are because of good customer service and word of mouth that they pay.

You should have a opt in "Random Payout Me" thing at signup. Make lots of random payouts. Members love them. Make your members happy, they'll make your advertisers happy with the results and you happy with the ad sales.

Random payouts seem to be popular - anything else comes to mind as a popular feature? What do you all think of contest links?

Depends on how many some programs seem to use them waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to much and I get sick of them. I suppose it is cause clicking on something I might win (which I never do lol) is a waste of my time. From what I have seen they dont get good results as well.

This post shows you have a wry sense of humour.

This is a plus, as members seem to gravitate to those PO's with a wry sense of humour.

(Funny, though, nobody ELSE in this thread seems to notice that the particular post of yours that I have quoted showed a tongue-in-cheek side of you).

Thats what I've gathered - Im learning to becareful with my forum posts because people sometimes take what I say much too literally.

But yeah, in general, I like to have fun - life's too short to take seriously, besides you never get out alive

Im a non-winner myself, so I can certainly understand - what about referral contests? worth it or no?

Priestess!

But yeah - planning things out in some detail will give you an immense leg up; and you're going to need it when you're competing for attention with those ridiculous 10-cent to all 20,000 members for $3.99 - people see the link values and forget to check the ad prices.

One of the tricks of the trade for fast growth seems to be to get ahold of one of the big promoters and enlist their help in growing your member base - but currently they're clustering around the high-value no-payout sites and as a consequence of that the unsustainable hoover up most of the people who have some spare time to add another proggie - makes it tough for even well-planned sustainables to get anywhere, I'm afraid.

Still, being inspired to write a proper business plan is a very good idea

I think the problem with starting a new PTR is that there are so many programs already out there, and so much competition. For a new program to really make it, it has to be somehow different and more innovative in comparison to all the other programs out there. A good sense of humor definitely helps

And I think referral contests are good for boosting the membership count. I like them when they have several rankings instead of just the normal 1st, 2nd, & 3rd prizes. It makes it much more open to the members who aren't heavy promoters to still participate and win if there are, for example, 1st through 10th place prizes.

So...whaddya think - cheatlinks.com? FlashinthepanPTR.com?

Well, what do I know, both SkamPTR and Unsustainablemails took off like a bat out of heck as far as growing a member base is concerned.

But you might have trouble getting advertisers with names like that, ey?

But referral contests are a good launch strategy - that means you're tapping into the whole viral marketing scene where you're piggybacking your commercial message on something people pass around on their own; in this case trying to win the prizes. And it is a good idea to extend the prize list beyond the standard top 3 - for example, banner impression prizes and other small rewards can be extended down the list almost indefinitely without tapping into your profit potential too much given the CPM rates for banners that are prevalent today.

Don't make the prize list too big though, that means it loses the urgency for people if it's a top-100 contest or something You want to strike a balance between motivating the promoters and the general public, and making the winner list so long people don't get a thrill from the thought of being on it. Also, consider making it a slightly odd number like a top-7, top-9, top-14 or something - makes it stand out from the usual top ten lists and it's just non-standard enough that people's subconcious is more likely to flag the contest for attention by the conscious mind.

I'd want to see your strategy document and business plan before I commit to giving more advice here though

I like referral contests although I still have not one won one of those but have come close...

Hate to burst your bubble there, but my site did NOT take off like a bat out of heck when it came to membership growth. Why not, because unlikes such sites as unsustainablemails I didnt have a Ref % for those who like building large downlines.

I like referral contests as well, because they're not so random. But it really takes a program that I can get behind in order to spend my money to promote them.

Whats the deal with referral percentages? How do you decide at what to set them, and is it a big factor when electing to join a program?