Website monetization is not easy. Maybe you have tried multiple CPC networks, even some CPM networks, and you are making about three dollars a day. Sound familiar? It should: 96% of all individuals involved with any sort of CPC or CPM affiliate program make--on average--three dollars per day--or less. There are multiple reasons for this, including the amount of competition that is out there on the Internet, poor CPC network ad relevance to your site's content, "banner blindness" (your site visitors simply ignoring your advertisements), poor up-time and ad loading (slowed pages), ugly creatives (poorly designed, amateur-ish ads), and audits to your earnings by whatever networks you are affiliated with making adjustments after-the-fact that you are powerless to protest against--to name some of the top contenders. Being fair, difficulty getting the right traffic to your web property is a big one, too. However, we feel the biggest reason is that most website owners are putting all of their eggs in one monetization basket; primarily because Cost-Per-Action/Acquisition monetization is--by far-- the most difficult monetization method of all to get right.
It is only natural for ad networks, be they CPC or CPM, whose financial well-being is dependent upon you buying-into the implication that CPC or CPM is the only serious means by which to effectively monetize your web property/properties, to tell you that CPC and/or CPM is the best way to make money with your site(s). Most webmasters believe this to be true if for no other reason than the fact that they hear the same thing from every network. In marketing psychology, this is known as the "expectancy effect," and it is an extremely powerful device: It is in every CPC and CPM ad network's first, best interests for all of them to toe the same line, so that you will display their, and only their, creatives and ad units on your web property/properties. And, the inherent difficulty in correctly monetizing with CPA sure doesn't hurt their case.
Obviously, it is not our intent to disparage CPC or CPM ad network programs. Quite the contrary--they are part and parcel to complete website monetization, we use both on every single one of our web properties; and, further, market them on this very website. What is our intent, however, is to clue you in on a fairly well-kept secret--and it is this: All things being equal, you will make more (usually far more) money, with a well-devised CPA (cost per acquisition/action) program used in conjunction with your CPC and CPM affiliations, than you would with any CPC or CPM affiliate network program, alone. Take the following example:
Let's be quite liberal and say that you are earning, on average, $.30/click with your current CPC network(s). Further, let's say that you are getting 3 clicks/1000 impressions, for an eCPM of $.90/1000 impressions. Let's say that you have a site that generates 10,000 page views/day with 20,000 ad zone impressions--this would yield, based on our earlier numbers, a daily eCPM of $1.80/day, in your pocket. Not horrible--but you surely want more money than this.
Now--let's add a single 728x90 Leaderboard to your website or blog that pays you via CPA (per action/acquisition). This Leaderboard pays you a $92.00 commission per action/acquisition; and, further, generates you this commission--on average--once every 5,000 impressions.
Remember: Your CPC affiliations are making you $.90/1000 impressions; which would be $4.50/5000 impressions. Your new CPA ad zone is making you $92.00 with the same amount of impressions... Why wouldn't you use a CPA ad zone on your website?
Now, your CPM program(s) is/are paying you (again, let's be exceedingly generous) $5.00/1000 impressions. At 5,000 impressions, this would give you a eCPM of $25.00. This is great! But, your new CPA Leaderboard is making you $92.00 in the same amount of impressions! It would take nearly 25,000 impressions of your CPM ad zone to make you as much as 5,000 impressions make you with your CPA ad zone. Ask yourself: Why aren't you utilizing a CPA program on your website...? Well, you have been told that it is not profitable--but simple math shows that it is. At the very least, demonstrates the high probability of making better money, quicker, with an adjunct CPA program.
WHAT WE DO:
Upon reciept of your TMMD.com Affiliate Network Application, we perform an in-depth analysis of your web property/properties, determine which advertisers in our bank of thousands will perform best on your site(s), and then send you our recommendations. These recommendations will include each advertiser's TOS, the amount you will receive per action/acquisition(CPA), payment terms, and any other information that you might need to make an informed decision as to whether or not you would like to accept our CPA offer. Feel free to shoot us back any questions you may have prior to accepting our campaign recommendations, as many times as you need to.
You are obligated to nothing and we will very likely be the most transparent network with whom you have ever dealt: Our offer is quite simply that--an offer. If you do not believe that you will make any money from our offer, we truly and absolutely encourage you to reject it: It is in our first, best interests to partner only with individuals, entities and webmasters that are willing to trust in our recommendations of what will and will not work over the long term regarding our CPA monetization recommendations for your web properties.
WHY WE DO IT:
Of all of the website monetization options available today, CPA monetization is definitely something of an art, a science, a psychology; and, if one takes the most glossary look at most sites that attempt to use CPA, very easy to do incorrectly.
To illustrate, it is not difficult to find CPA ad zones on most websites that try to use them, if for no other reason than there is, as one example of something we have recently seen, a giant "BUY GOLD NOW!" banner on a website whose primary category is video game aficionados. As another example, a banner ad for Rolex watches on a site whose niche is that of single mothers. Another example: An ad zone for a stock trading company on a site about being unemployed... In a sense, it's hard to blame the owners of these web properties: If those ad zones convert, they will make a lot of money. The issue is that the odds of those CPA ad zones ever converting are astronomically low. Over both the long and short term, these webmasters would have been better off putting an effectively chosen CPA zone in those spots that pay a single dollar upon conversion, than taking up that ad real estate with a zone that will never, ever pay the $200 that it does when placed on an appropriate site. We are first and foremost a service: We know what works, when it works, and why it works.
HOW WE DO IT:
First, we contextually analyze your site(s) and discover any categorical predominance that might be present. Next, we semantically analyze your content to discover patterns of communicative meaning that we can then use, in conjunction with our contextual findings, to consider the most logically and psychologically appropriate advertisers. Then, we break-down those advertisers by the same process we used to analyze your web property/properties, to sift-out the strongest parallels to your sites' contextual predominance and relevant semantics. Typically, this still leaves us with hundreds of options to choose from; we therefore further sift-out what we feel will work best on your site(s) by A.) Highest paying advertisers per conversion, B.) The overall aesthetics of the advertiser's creatives, C.) A consideration of the 'Psychology of Color,' which means how certain colors are likely to perform relative to the color scheme of your site(s); and, D.) Banner size availability relative to the size(s) you have requested. If we do not feel that adding an adjunct CPA program to your site will help you make more money, we will inform you of that opinion, and why we hold it, in our response to your application.
THE FUNDAMENTALS:
Upon approval of your TMMD.com Affiliate Network Application, our receipt of your signed and dated Publisher Agreement, and subsequent acceptance of our offer and recommendations, we will provide you with a line of JavaScript/HTML code to insert into your web property/properties. We will issue you a code for each IAB size that you tell us you require, for each of your web properties that have been accepted into the program. Each IAB size you request will be considered an ad zone. We will serve up to 6 different ads in each ad zone, at our discretion. These 6 different ads might be all from the same, one advertiser; they may be 6 different ads from 6 different advertisers and any other logical permutation in-between. This holds true for each zone/size that you request.
As far as what percentage of your ad real estate that you should convert to CPA, we generally recommend the following matrix: 50% CPA, 25% CPM, and 25% CPC--generally speaking, these percentages yield the best results so long as one is appropriately allocating their ad zones. However, every site is different and we will make specific recommendations based on our analysis of your web property/properties, and the information you provide us with your application.
We will send you a weekly report on your web property/properties via the email address that you provide us with on your application, that will include a site-specific detail of your impressions, Clicks, CTR (click-through rate), EPM (base earnings/1000 impressions, EPC (earnings/click), eCPM (net earnings/1000 impressions), as well as your total earnings for the week.
Generally speaking, payments are made on a net 60 basis; however, each advertiser will have different terms and your payment terms will ultimately depend on how they pay us. Again, you will be informed of each advertiser's payment terms prior to us issuing you your code.
We pay via PayPal.
We monitor each of our affiliates web properties that have been accepted into the program on a daily basis. If at any time your web property is found to be in violation of any of our, or our advertisers' TOS, as decided by our advertisers or The Making Money Depot.com, your commissions from that point on will be forfeit, and your web property/properties we be deleted from the program.
Our revenue share model is as follows:
- All web properties start-out at 70% revenue share
- If after two (2) months of affiliation your web property/properties is/are generating over $300 in revenue per month, your revenue share will be increased to %75
- If after three (3) months of affiliation your web property/properties is/are generating over $500 in revenue per month, your revenue share will be increased to %80
- If after four (4) months of affiliation your web property/properties is/are generating over $1000 in revenue per month, your revenue share will be increased to %85
- If after six (6) months of affiliation your web property/properties is/are generating over $5,000 in revenue per month, your revenue share will be increased to %90
You must have a privacy policy on your website(s) that indicates to your web property's/properties' users that you use cookies: The code we issue to you can only track your data if your site visitors have cookies enabled. Your site visitors have privacy rights: They are legally entitled to be informed that their computer is having a cookie deposited on it while viewing your web property.
We cannot accept any site that discusses overtly controversial topics; will not accept any site that engages in any illegal activity; or, any site that--as deemed by us or our advertisers--is unacceptable in any way shape or form. We, indeed, do take responsibly for accepting sites into the TMMD.com Affiliate Network at the point which we accept them. However, after having accepted them into the program, we reserve the right to dispatch with any web property--whatsoever--that we deem to have changed in any manner which might threaten the relationships we posses with our advertisers. In the exceedingly rare occurrence that this happens, we will provide you with a detailed explanation of our decision, why it has occurred; and, provide you with the requisite amount of time to remedy the issue. That being said, certain violations are, and will be, so severe as to warrant immediate removal from the TMMD.com Affiliate Network with no recourse. Please abide by the policies to which you agree.
We have immediate relationships with thousands of advertisers, in nearly every conceivable category, niche and vertical; and, can therefore typically construct your campaign inside of 72 hours. However, your site may very well warrant us reaching-out to advertisers with whom we have no formal affiliation or contractual agreement. In such instances, it may take as long as two (2) if not three (3) weeks for us to return our recommendations to you. In the event that this is the case, we will be sure to keep you abreast of our efforts to construct the most effective CPA campaign possible for your web property/properties.
At this time, we can and will only pay-out on actions fulfilled by United States customers. I.e., We can and will only pay for actions performed by way of your CPA ad zones, provided by us, that have actions that originate from the United States. We truly wish this were different, but have no control over such things. Our weekly report to you via the email address you provide us with your application will accurately indicate your earnings according to these terms, and we guarantee that it will do so 100% of the time. If the majority (50%+) of your site traffic is from The United States, this program will be advantageous for you.
Of course, you may withdraw from the TMMD.com Affiliate Network Program at any time: Effectively doing so by removing the JavaScript/HTML code that we have provided to you from your web property's/properties' pages. In the event that you wish to withdraw from our program, we do ask that you send us an email indicating that you have done so, to: Affiliates@TheMakingMoneyDepot.com. Although you certainly do not have to, we also ask for a reason why you have done so. We promise: If you work with us, we will work with you--if you are unsatisfied with your campaign, we are entirely dedicated to altering it so that you make as much money as your web property will enable you to make: We will always be painfully honest about why our campaign for you may or may not be performing to your expectations. That being said, we cannot give your web property more impressions--we can only make recommendations as to how you might accomplish this; we cannot make your site's visitors click anything or fulfill terms that will generate a commission for you--we can only provide you with honest advice as to why your site's visitors are not fulfilling said actions; and, we cannot control your web property's/properties site design or technical implementation--of which, both have a profound impact on your ability to make money on the Internet. We can, and will, however, work with you every step of the way to maximize your web property's/properties' earning potential.
The ad code(s) we distribute to you is/are for the web property/properties that we have accepted into the TMMD.com Affiliate Network Program. Any distribution to sub-affiliates or affiliations is strictly prohibited and grounds for immediate removal from the program. Further, the code we issue to you is for use on standard web properties, such as sites and blogs, and may not be used in any email marketing campaigns or the like. You may not alter the code in any way, shape or form without the express written permission of TMMD.com Affiliate Network Program.
We have no minimum page-view/month requirements. However, we ask that you bear in mind that your earnings expectations should be realistically based on both the quality and quantity of the traffic to your site(s).
On our application, we ask you for the age of your site(s), average page-views per month, average unique visitors per month, how many pages of your web property/properties you intend on putting the code we issue to you on, and all such information only to construct the most effective CPA campaign. Ergo, it is absolutely crucial that you do not inflate these numbers: We can only provide you with a viable campaign if the data you provide us is accurate. We will not take responsibility for lackluster campaigns that are so as a direct result of inaccurate information on your application.
We do not, and will never, share or sell your personally identifiable information. Nor will the email address you provide us with be shared with anyone outside of TMMD.com Affiliate Network Administration.
BY DOING SO, YOU EXPRESSLY AGREE TO, AND INDICATE THAT YOU HAVE READ, THE ABOVE TERMS OF SERVICE. YOU FURTHER INDICATE THAT YOU HAVE READ THE ADDITIONAL PRIVACY INFORMATION AND TOU, HERE, AND AGREE TO THESE IN THEIR ENTIRETY.
