One of the most common mistakes made by newcomers to this business is to leap in and join every program they can find. This is foolish on any number of levels, firstly because until you've been doing this a while, you have no idea how long it's going to take for you to "work" all the programs you have joined. Overfull inboxes, sorry looking program activity statistics make for a feeling of frustration and that can really take the fun out of things.
Any program you join and don't use is going to earn you nothing at all, yet I see folks joining programs under me daily and then not using them. This is exactly like getting a job and never showing up for work! Signing up for a program isn't going to make you one penny, unless you subsequently use it, whether it be click on the links in their emails, surf their page rotator, click the banner links, whatever. To think otherwise is daft!
Attempt to cheat the programs. Such attempts are made daily and the industry is wise to the various methods used to try and acquire extra income. Checks are made frequently with just about every program, but the most thorough check is made by all programs when members ask to be paid. So, even if you escape the routine scans for cheaters, I pretty much guarantee you'll get caught before you ever see a penny! There are so many honest ways to earn money in this industry, that cheating is pitiful, as well as usually fruitless.
Feel free to experiment by joining one or two of pretty much every type program, different folks like different things. Some I know hate clicking page after page, so manual traffic exchanges are definitely not their cup of tea. Others I know find it restful and also take some comfort in the fact that these companies are about the most reliable payers in play right now. If you don't try something, how do you know whether you'll like it or not?
Because I'm such a swell fellow 
, I am willing to share my
list of PTS programs that are earning me money right now. You can find most of those that I belong to currently, by clicking on "The Programs" on the left, the programs are sorted by the minimum amount you need to earn before you can ask them for money.
Actually, it's not entirely philanthropic. I'd be suspicious of such motives too.
One of the main reasons that these programs are so attractive to so many, is that they
offer such a thing as referral commissions. Every person introduced to a program you
are a member of using your "referral link" becomes part of your "downline" and if they
use the program you will be rewarded by being paid a commission dependent on how much
work they do.
Almost all programs use the "confirmation email" method for enrolling new members these days.
This involves entering your personal data (name, address, email address, etc.), some just ask for
an email address and you'll fill in the rest of the information later, also you will normally need
to check the "I have read the Terms of Service" box as well. Then you click on the "Submit"
button, which will cause a "confirmation email" to be sent to the email address you provided, assuming that you entered your email address correctly,
this will include a special link for you to continue the sign up process, at which point you will be come a
member of that program. Now you can start using that program and earning some money.
Let's say you wish to join WePaid, a paid to read email program I can highly recommend. First, you click on the link WePaid Enter your information as required, then sit back and wait for the confirmation email to arrive. When it does, either click the included URL, or copy and paste it into an already open browser window, then complete the sign up process. After you have done this, you should start receiving emails (at most eight in one day, we don't want to start off by overloading your inbox). Each one of these will contain one or two paid links, one for cash (normally half a cent) and the other (if there is one) for points, which have a value determined at the end of each month, depending how successful the members and owner were at attracting other income to the program.
Remember, none of this will cost you anything more than a little of your time. If you don't like it, fair enough, different strokes and all that, but at least you can say you've tried it if you're quizzed by a colleague in the future who's trying to snag you as a referral. Quite a few have started building downline empires by recruiting friends or relatives.
For starters, you'll need to get yourself a payment processor of some kind. I personally use PayPal and e-Gold. While both have their critics, for myself as a US resident, I've found them to be the most reliable and useful ways of receiving and spending my online earnings. For those in Europe especially, I understand that MoneyBookers and AlertPay are popular options also.
The reason for starting here, is that most programs require your payment preference as part of your registration information and some even use it as your username.
To get you going and also to let you experience a good range of the various types of programs available, so that you can decide what you like, or don't like. I am going to suggest a list of program types, with examples of each for you to get your "hands dirty" with. All of the links will open in a new window, in case you need to refer back to this page.
A paid to read (PTR) ~ WePaid, PenniesByEmail
A paid to click (PTC) ~ Tesas's Tea Mails, DonkeyMails
An Autosurf (TX) ~ NoMoreClicking
A manual TX ~ TrafficMeet
A fun program ~ NetWinner
For the PTRs, it's just a question of waiting for the mails to arrive, identifying the paying links clicking on them and earning whatever is the offer for that link. If you've clicked on a search link, please, please complete a search, either by clicking on one of the listed options, or typing in your own search and clicking on one of the results. If you don't like those (you'll not be alone), don't click on them again, most are clearly labelled and you'll soon learn the names of the most common PPC (Pay Per Click) search programs. Be on the watch for Cheat links designed to catch those using cheat software! These are clearly marked and shouldn't trip up anyone actually reading the emails.
For the PTCs, you actually have to go to the website, login with your username and password, find the Click for Cash/Paid Links or similar link and follow the instructions on that page. Most are worth checking once or twice a day, at least, as new advertisers like to see their ads posted as soon as possible after they've paid for the advert and this after all is a truly 24/7 business with advertisers and program owners from around the entire globe. True PTCs are uncommon these days and the closest you are likely to find are the PTP style of program that is extremely popular at the moment. While they prefer to call themselves PTR programs, from my experience using them, they're pretty much set up as the old style PTC programs were. Examples are DonkeyMails, PolarPTR, Tesas' Tea Mails.
The autosurfs are just that, automatic, most will have sent you a 'surfing link' in their welcome email, either clicking on that link, or pasting it into an open browser window will get you started and aside from checking to see if it's hit a snag (framebreaker, bad URL, etc.) you can let it do its thing. Look ma, I'm surfing and hands free. :o) You will, however be expected to enter at least one URL as part of your set up information (see there is a reason for the order of these things) and probably send at least some of your credits earned as 'hits' to that or those pages. Most programs require that you don't use earning pages with these types of programs, or at least will not give you credit if you do so, but you can add your referral page URL for other programs you are a member and there's a slim chance that you'll get a referral or two from them.
The most 'work', though I hesitate to use the word, is with the manual traffic exchanges, some have 'surfing links', others expect you to log in and start your surfing session from there, usually by clicking on "Surf for Cash", or some variant on that theme. These can be the most complex of the Paid To Surf programs, especially the older ones, who are adding more bells and whistles to keep them attractive to new members. Essentially, they all work on the same basis, a page will be shown to you, within a frame which contains a timer (normally in the 20-30 sec range) and after the timer expires you will be asked to click on the correct image to move to the next page. Most now, will also show an anti-cheat page every so often, where you will be asked to copy some number, click on some image, or other device for you to prove that you're a live functioning human and not some piece of software attempting to defraud the program. Good pages to display in these type of programs would be PTP(Paid To Promote) pages, which act as both referral pages and earn you credits each time someone sees your page. And example of such a page can be found at PolarPTR, DonkeyMails and similar programs, though some Traffic Exchanges, such as HogsHollow and MoneyAndHits also offer their members this type of page.
Now, being only one person and one with other duties and obligations, there is no way for me to be a member of anything like a decent percentage of all the programs that exist these days. Remember, if you're not going to use them after joining them, you're wasting your time joining, so keep your program list within the limits your own lifestyle allows you to use.
There are a few places online that will allow you to enquire as to what programs
are paying, owned by reputable, experienced people, and share tips on how to use them
most efficiently, what's just launched that might be worth joining. My favourite of
this kind of resource is the BeenPaid
program, which only lists programs that have
actually paid people and have been around long enough, not to be a 'fly by night'
operation. Other resources to look into, if you are looking for information about a
program that you might like to join; GPTBoycott, which focuses primarily on those
programs that should be avoided and GetPaidForum
, which is a more general forum, plus used by quite a few programs as their forum resource to discuss their program.
