I may be a noob, but I have an affiliates story to share. In fact, this is what inspired me to get into the business.
My late partner was the affiliates manager for Online-Sweepstakes.com, a sweeps site that he said gets 19 million hits a month. The webmaster/site owner is from many accounts a zoned out dope user, who basically ignores the site for weeks or months at a time, while his moderators run the site and his members clamor for attention.
They charge $30 a year for "premium" membership, giving paying members access to higher quality sweepstakes that are available for free at other sites. They have a very busy forum, and the paying member gets access to a premium forum as well. The site maintains the fiction that there are no affiliate links at the site, but they're everywhere. When Xerox was paying $9 a lead for the sweepstakes they run, the webmaster made $9,000 in a couple of days. Yet they maintain the fiction that the site is supported only by your premium dollars, and the site struggles, blah-blah-blah, and the members buy it. The owner pockets hundreds of thousands yearly between the memberships and the affiliates.
My partner took over this guy's affiliate program, which was netting $400 a month, and turned it into $10,000 a month after a few weeks. Said webmaster had paranoia problems, and banned my partner suddenly and mysteriously, without paying him the percentage he was due. My partner died of an apparent heart attack after spending 9 stressful months trying to collect what he was owed.
The eye-popping $$$ this guy made was an inspiration to get me interested in this business. Running affiliate links at a sweepstakes site is a shoo-in, as it's all non-incentivized business, and the customers deliver themselves. In this case, they're paying for the privilege of belonging to the site and earning affiliate cash. And they're very freewheeling about banning paying members.
I don't run a sweepstakes site exactly, but even so it's a great racket. It could have happened to a nicer guy.
My late partner was the affiliates manager for Online-Sweepstakes.com, a sweeps site that he said gets 19 million hits a month. The webmaster/site owner is from many accounts a zoned out dope user, who basically ignores the site for weeks or months at a time, while his moderators run the site and his members clamor for attention.
They charge $30 a year for "premium" membership, giving paying members access to higher quality sweepstakes that are available for free at other sites. They have a very busy forum, and the paying member gets access to a premium forum as well. The site maintains the fiction that there are no affiliate links at the site, but they're everywhere. When Xerox was paying $9 a lead for the sweepstakes they run, the webmaster made $9,000 in a couple of days. Yet they maintain the fiction that the site is supported only by your premium dollars, and the site struggles, blah-blah-blah, and the members buy it. The owner pockets hundreds of thousands yearly between the memberships and the affiliates.
My partner took over this guy's affiliate program, which was netting $400 a month, and turned it into $10,000 a month after a few weeks. Said webmaster had paranoia problems, and banned my partner suddenly and mysteriously, without paying him the percentage he was due. My partner died of an apparent heart attack after spending 9 stressful months trying to collect what he was owed.
The eye-popping $$$ this guy made was an inspiration to get me interested in this business. Running affiliate links at a sweepstakes site is a shoo-in, as it's all non-incentivized business, and the customers deliver themselves. In this case, they're paying for the privilege of belonging to the site and earning affiliate cash. And they're very freewheeling about banning paying members.
I don't run a sweepstakes site exactly, but even so it's a great racket. It could have happened to a nicer guy.
