This is not a slight at the majority of site owners as being a participant in several programs and receiving a nice outside additional small income is quite pleasant, but......
I think people and especially newbies need to realize something and simply do their math. Take RichMails for example. Nice sign on bonus of $100 bucks, as well as $25 per referral thru 3 levels. Now that sounds nice when first looking it over. Many will never read the terms or faq as well. In fact in reviewing their site and membership exceeds over 113,000 according to them, I would venture to say only a handfull ever read the terms when joining and few have done the math.
As an example I have in MANY referrals in this program by simply adding it rotator sites listing my paid email programs on various traffic and exchange sites, other email programs, and normal advertising methods. Their pay per email was above average, so I promoted heavily despite reading the terms etc in hopes of receiving lots of emails, and my referrals as well. I am hesitant to state exact numbers of referrals as in total honesty I just might be deleted or something and simply being cautious no less no more. But leave it to say the number of referrals is VERY high and respectable. IF paid $25 per referral it would amount to thousands.
I am the very fool I caution others not to be. After 4 months I have a total of a little less than $8.00 in paid emails, and even utilizing their paid clicks portion. A whopping figure!!
Now using math, that averages less than $2.00 per month. You see, you just don't get many paid emails. No points emails for free advertising or anything either.
What about payouts and that nice $25 per referral? Well newbies that is the catch, vbg
. The payout is $350.00 and you can only get the money for your referrals after they have reached their payout and did so. So all the referrals have to reach $350 as well before you get a dime for them and your efforts.
Putting all this is perspective lets subract the $100 bonus, so that means you have to earn reading their paid emails the sum of $250. At the current rate of their paid emails sent to members or at least my average and I click them ALL it would take me 10.5 years to reach the payout figure. Now assuming my downline reads all of theirs it will take them that long as well. So if I am around for the next 10+ years and read every email, and a few months later the referrals trinkle down as well, I would get paid for my referrals and make my $350 as well. Say this amounted to $2350.00 total, now thats for close to 11 years or roughly $17.00 a month, but you don't get a penny for close to 11 years in the interim.
Will this company be in business in 11 years? Time will tell I guess,
This site offers no other opps at this time other than a few paid emails, and at the most so far perhaps 6 click thrus on that page.
So despite the flashing banners, and the great bonus, and great pay for referrals, you ain't gonna make a penny at the current rate of paid emails they send out till somewhere around 2014.
Funny thing is according to their site they have over 113,000 members. So they can take a paid add from someone purchasing and promise that many views for a good buck, and not have to send out a huge volume of independent emails.
If they even offered a point system where members could use points to get even free advertising it would help. You can't even use your sign on bonus and earnings to purchase advertising from them because of payout structure. This program has the bull by the horns and knows it
So all in all by the numbers I guess it was smart on their part to offer the great bonus, offer the great referral pay etc, knowing full well they would be in business several years before every paying out a dime other than normal operating cost. Not a bad concept if one thinks about it.
A new site owner using the same method could offer a $500 dollar sign on bonus and $100 per referral and simply raise the payout limit to some unreasonable figure, run a good business with MANY members for a few years and fade off into the sunset. I am not implying that RichMails will do this, only offering an opinion on how simply it could be done.
Oh, don't expect a response from them about anything either. Its totally automated, even the advertiser purchases. Their support function is totally nonexistent in my humble opinion. I have written them on various issues close to 20 times without the first response. They simply will not respond, none, nada. Some of my downline whom I correspond with emailed them as well, sort of a test if you will. That was month ago and not one of them has ever received a response period!!
If one of their administrators would like to challenge this I would love the challenge personally. You will not respond period!! I think that may well be intentional. You think??
There is another program hawking a $50 sign on bonus as well, and $15 per referral that has just recently launched paying very good prices per email. Trouble is there aren't many and their payout is $200, but there again, you don't get a dime for your referrals till your referrals cash out.
The reasoning or logic used for not paying out on referrals till they cashout is to avoid cheating, fake referrals etc, and I suppose that happens. But there is another aspect as well. This program for example offers gold membership for reasonable fee, and does produce results on getting you asigned referrals. They do this very well. I can't complain there. But...when one of your downline upgrades to gold or executive package, why can't you be paid for that referral at that point in time?????They have paid, their identity confirmed thru paypal or credit card, so they can't be cheating the system in reality. In fact it would be insane to pay $35 each under fake handles or friends cards etc to receive a $25 dollar referral. Do the math, vbg. But I guess that would be to fair to the membership, and them making a good buck is what it's all about. That is capitolism and the American way.
Another thing is that it is so easy to hide the downline from you. Many don't even notify you when you get a referral. RICHMAILS certainly doesn't. In fact they refuse to or provide even usernames etc. Why is this????I knew I was getting referrals there because I set up one of my advertising inducements to have them email me when joined and several did and provided their user names etc, and in fact we correspond at times. The referrals numbers showed up on my members area there, so they were being added, but I was not receiving email confirmations etc. In my opinion a good paid program would provide a method to contact downline on site, but with strong rules on spamming etc or loose membership and earnings. Its that simple and not hard to enforce.
Why is it that programs don't want to inform you of referrals, and allow any form of contact with them? I think the answers are obvious myself. The fact competition is strong with other programs might be one although I don't think that reason is legitimate. Then there is the spamming issue etc, but with the threat of being deleted and losing all earns should serve as a pretty good method of control I would think.
In fact it appears to me it would be very simple for programs who don't notify on referrals to hold members in limbo when they sign up from your link or any link. Then develope a gold program and when someone pays up and becomes a gold member, simply transfer a number of those in limbo to your account and presto, gold or executive membership works. Looks pretty simple to me. I would hope site operators don't do this, but whats to stop one from doing it if so desired.
Why can't sites with gold membership etc offer independent downlines of paid gold members who upgrade or join as gold member? Their identity is known thru payment method so obviously its not a cheater, so why can't you be paid immediately for the referral without him having to reach some arbitrary figure and cash in??Even if your a gold member and one of your downline upgrades to gold, you should get the referral payment immediately credited to your account as opposed to waiting for the referral to again cash out.
To my knowledge RichMails for example has no gold membership or executive package. Why is this? It might be sound logic. If a member is a paid member then paid referrals aren't cheaters and traceable and confirmable so to speak, so this reduces the large payout required and cashout concept due to cheating scenario. Perhaps they simply want to avoid the logic coming back to haunt them or slap them in the face so to speak. And paid members expect something more in return on their investment as well. With their setup the RIO is virtually nonexistent unless your willing to invest all your time, promotion, etc etc for close to 11 years for little in return.
Personally if I were a site owner, I would consider opening site for gold members only, where they joined for a minimal fee to become gold member, and use verifiable credit card. This would avoid cheaters etc, and then if the site owner had it in his heart he could pay for referrals almost instantly as cheating would be avoided. But alas, I am not totally up to date on the economics or operating cost either, but somehow I don't think many with these outstanding type offers to attract membership would go for that. They couldn't initially unless considerable capitol on hand to begin with. But this would be the only fair thing to the members.
In reality there is no big money in paid emails. You have to belong to programs will small payouts, where you earn from referrals many levels deep on percentage basis, and you must have many referrals in your downline. MANY! The site must also produce a significant number of emails for the members to read.
Perhaps this should go in the Newbie area so I am going to copy and paste it there as well.
AGAIN, I want to point out that there are many fine programs out there, and honest when joining and do pay. But there are those that offer inducements that in reality are virtually unattainable, and most newbies don't even read the fine print.
Any program which will not notify you when you get new referrals, or simply refuses to respond back to you even if in an automated fashion after a reasonable length of time should be avoided IMHO.
I could almost make a sound bet that no one here on this forum has ever received a dime in payouts from this program. Or anyone for that matter. I would certainly like to know if any did and just how the heck they done it.