Incentive/Rewards sites

[Indy]

Does anyone have any experience with these type of sites? - The "free stuff" sites that Freepay, The Genius Team, etc. run.

I'm contemplating starting one up. Not only are they huge earners; Freepay reported profits of well over $10 million last year; it willl also provide me with an insight into affiliate networks and how they work.

The downside is that a fair amount of capital is needed to pay for the 'rewards' before the cheques start coming in.

[Tyler]

To be honest I've never heard of these types of sites before, could you provide a sample URL or two?

[Indy]

To be honest I've never heard of these types of sites before, could you provide a sample URL or two?

Rewards sites:
ipods.freepay.com (http://ipods.freepay.com)
360giveaway.co.uk (http://www.360giveaway.co.uk/)

Gratis Network aka Freepay on inc.com:
http://www.inc.com/resources/inc500/2005/profiles/open_018.html

It's difficult to explain how they work. I'll try find a decent article about them...

[Karl Evans]

You can create a lot of money, depending on what items you are targetting.

A lot of investment would not only be needed to attract people to the website but to buy what ever items you're offering.

I remember seeing the same one of these websites sold on a few times at SitePoint (Link Here (http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=381030&highlight=directfw)). Could be a very profitable website if you do it right.

Let us know if you start one of these websites up and if you do, how you get on. :)

[Indy]

I certainly will do. I can't see it happening anytime soon though...

A lot of investment would not only be needed to attract people to the website

That's the great thing about these sites... After the initial stream of members, they do all the advertising for you, by posting their referral link in various places.

[Karl Evans]

You will need quite a bit of investment to get the ball rolling and attract the first few members, after that like you said, it's all easy.

[Andreas Bard]

I used to own one, but it was only for the Swedish market, and that did not give me that much money really, only a couple of $100 /month.

But I bet it could work in the US market, many of the big affiliate networks have tools to build in to your site to help you reward visitors when shopping automaticlly.

//Andreas

[Joel]

I own a Swedish one (http://www.smssidan.se) where members can send SMS for free. To do this they collect credits by doing certain things like be member on eBay (eBay pay me for every member they get..)

Well, I do a some money of this (atleast 300 USD/day).

Maybe something for the US Market?
Here in sweden people are crazy in free sms, because it's quite expensive to send from cellularphones/operators..

/Joel

[Stan]

do any of these sites even work though? You have to sign up for like a credit card use it and then you get your prize.

can anyone vouch that they legitmately received one of the things being offered?

[kaizan]

Interesting scam. Good luck to them. Just as well there are a lot of stupid people out there.

I signed up for an account with an email address just setup and not advertised anwhere, amazing now, its spammed daily with utter crap... nice.

[Superpoo]

Joel, how do you do that, for sending the sms? I think it would be very profitable in my country too

[aloksingh]

Yes, it will be quite a profitable little thing to do. Please tell more about it, Joel...

[charley]

There are sites which provides free ipods, playstations, etc. But I am not sure how genuine they are. It's all by getting them referrals.

[Arthur07]

These things aren't scams, well some of them, sites get big names to support them. E.g. BT, Visa etc...and for each customer that the site gets signed up to there services they give them some sort of referral payment.

All you have to do is make sure you get paid more than you have to shell out on PS2's etc. The thruth is many people, sign up with the sponsors but never managed to refer 10 friends (who also have to complete the signup), thus you make even more money (as you don't have to send out gifts).

Probably, not worth the risk :P.

[igauresh]

Well it depends on what websites you signup to. I have a similar project in mind like indy but something which is more fast rewarding for the members.
I have done the testing of the offers on networks like CJ and clixgalore. CJ payments are approved and so as soon as i get the payment for my tested affiliate programs (which I asked my friends to signup to ) So now I can use that as capital for paying the initial members and later on the cycle will set in.
The problem is with automating it which I would like to make like www.itpaystolearn.com as this site pays instantly as you complete the offer.

But as of now I would be using jsut CJ sid to track the offers.

[Submerge]

I was thinking about an incentive website. But my main concern is that affiliates don't like reward cash sites. So you'd have to offer gifts instead of money.

[boron]

PTSU - Paid To SignUP are sites where you can earn with taking free but mostly paid offers. Top popular site with many free offers is Treasuretrooper.com . Offers are available mostly for US/Canada residents, but everyone can earn with referrals. Payments are by check and it can take quite some time to be paid (45+ days as I remember from some forums discussions). Referrals are said easy to get, you have to advertise hard though.