Mr Beach Bum.com

I’ve recently come across an interesting website called Fixya.com. And lest you be concerned, I am not affiliated with them in anyway other than the account I created specifically for the purpose of this review.

Fixya.com is a community where people who need help with just about anything can float a question and “experts” on various subjects, who are also members, can answer them. It’s the mother of all forums in a lot of ways, but there is a nice little “make money” hook to it all which is what makes it so compelling.

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Last week I received my Text Link Ads commission check and promptly deposited it into my business account. I haven’t been with them too long and have only really experimented with their service so far but still managed to earn over $100 for my first check and without having to do much at all to be honest.

Unfortunately I received a notice from my bank on Saturday which informed me that the check bounced. All kinds of thoughts run through my head when something like this happens. There really is nothing worse than having money you’ve earned yanked back from you, but I did have to give them the benefit of the doubt. We all make mistakes, after all.

So I sent an email to customer service and got the following response back:

“I apologize for this inconvenience.  Our internet service provider has been down the past few days, and this is causing issues with publishers who have tried to cash their checks during this time.  We are working on a resolution, and I will contact you as soon as this is resolved.  Once again, I apologize for the inconvenience and we appreciate your patience in this matter.”

I have never heard of an Internet Service Provider outage causing checks to bounce. I must say that is a first. But what can you do? I have no choice but to wait for them to reissue a check or string me along.

Has anyone else out there run into this problem with Text Link Ads? Is this happening to everyone right now or is this just a fluke?

As soon as I find out more I will update this post.

UPDATE (from Text Link Ads):

“We apologize for the inconvenience that you have experienced with your June TLA check.  Our internet service provider was down towards the end of last week, an issue that affected a large part of the New York area, and was completely out of our hands.  The way this affected the cashing of checks, is when a bank receives a check from TLA, they contact us and request a positive pay file.  These files are sent in automated emails,
and because of the internet outage were never sent, resulting in the checks to bounce.  All checks that bounced are going to be re-sent by Wednesday of this week.  If your bank charged you some sort of processing fee, please let me know the amount and we will reimburse you for the fee on your next TLA check (If you previously mentioned the
amount it has been noted and there is no need to reply).  Once again, we apologize for this inconvenience and if you have any questions, please let me know.”

7/5/08 Update:

I was just recently given a new check and so far that has not bounced. Still curious if anyone else ran into this problem in the past month so feel free to comment.

I know this is waaaay off topic for me, but since I have a Nintendo Wii and love it, I happen to know that a lot of people out there still haven’t had much luck in finding one in stock. Well lucky for you I am in affiliate marketing and I just got a special notice from one of my account reps from Buy.com letting me know that they currently have Nintendo Wii’s in stock! But you’d better act fast!!!  Use the link below to get $10 off for new customers. Note: It is the Wii Fall Bundle that they have in stock.

We’ve looked at AuctionAds in the past. I’ve even tried it on a few of my blogs with minor success over the typical Google ads. Then, right smack in the middle of my testing, Auctionads was bought out. Well now they’re back! And their site is totally revamped along with some excellent incentives.

AuctionAds  is offering up a $25 bonus to all new publishers. What this means is that as soon as you sign up, you’ll get a $25 balance on your account! How many times in your life do you get $25 for signing up to a free affiliate program?

 Join today using the following link: AuctionAds

You may recall a previous post in which I mentioned that I had just joined up with a site called Helium. Helium allows you to write articles and submit them for review. Once your article makes it up the ranks, Helium shares the ad revenues that it gets from the page(s) that your article appears on.

My challenge was to determine if someone could really make any decent money by writing articles on Helium. To test this I wrote an article and submitted it for review. I also asked my wife to join and she wrote a few articles. My wife is very good at writing and she managed to get into the #1 spot on more than one of her articles. Alas, my own submitted article only really got to about #5 on the list.

What is puzzling, however, is that my article made a whopping $.05 (yes, you read that correctly, 5 cents!). Yet, despite a couple of my wife’s articles making it into the top spot, she has only made $.06. So how do people really make any money with Helium?

Well, as I have become more familiar with Helium I have discovered that there is a way to make some very good money there. However you really need to be a near-expert on some very diverse subjects in order to do so. They have a section called the marketplace where you can search through a list of topics that publishers are requesting to have written. Many of these requests have decent payouts on them. Most articles appear to start at around $16. Some are higher. I have even seen a few for $100 or more but you’ll really have to put work in to get that.

The problem I have with the Marketplace is that some of the topics are just too niche for just anyone to go in and make a decent monthly income just by writing articles for Helium every day. However it is a good way to get some extra cash now and then when you need it if you’re willing to put in the time for a marketplace article. As far as the ad-sharing portion of Helium is concerned, I just do not see how this could be a steady income stream. Even if you write an article and get to #1 every time I still don’t see how you can make much money. I will admit, however, that this could vary greatly by the popularity of the topic you are writing about so maybe there is potential - but again, I don’t see how you could always count on this as an income source.

If you disagree with some of the findings I have here because you have had a successful track record with them, please comment and let us know. We’d love to hear it!

Note: This is the first installment in a new series of Affiliate Network reviews that we will feature here from now on. If you have a specific affiliate network that you’d like us to review, please feel free to comment below and we’ll consider adding it to our list of future reviews if it is not already planned. Keep checking back for this series and look for the Affiliate Network Review Series tags to make it easy to find. 

I am a member of quite a few affiliate networks. Since joining up with an affiliate network is typically free, it is in my best interest to diversify. I urge you to do the same. Seriously, why limit your possibilities for income to just one network when you can choose the ads that work best for your website from a plethora of suppliers?

The fact of the matter is, you are not necessarily going to find every advertiser you may want for your website in just one affiliate network. As a matter of fact, the only way you may have access to every advertiser that might work best for you is by joining multiple affiliate networks.

What I’ve found is that each network tends to have a niche market all their own in terms of the programs they offer. For example, I’ve found LinkShare.com to be my go-to for many of the big name brand advertisers such as Dell, Apple, etc. In the same token, I know I can count on Clickbank.com to keep a large pool of “work from home“, “Free iPOD / iPhone /PS3 / Wii / younameit” type of ads as well.

So where does Shareasale fit in?

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