Do you avoid generating referrals?

[MercyL]

I have written for article sites that encourage writers to bring more writers in, through referral links. There's usually a promise of a percentage of the referral's revenue, assuming they actually write once they join the website.

I have watched the evolutions of several of these sites and there tends to be a pattern. The site goes live, offering better payments than most, and conditions favoring the authors. They provide a referral link and, without thinking, the first tier of authors populates the site with more authors.

Once the site has a certain number of active authors, it changes its payment arrangement. The company cuts back on up front payments, lowers the amount paid out, and/or raises the amount of money you must have in your account before requesting a pay out.

Then, the site slowly eliminates up front payments. The website no longer need to nurture or entice its users because there are enough of them to keep the site afloat.

Having noticed this, I have stopped "chumming" for referrals for sites that encourage this sort of recruiting. Some has lamented my throwing potential money away because I will not get referral payments, but I'm looking at something else. Those payments don't mean nearly as much as being valued does. The fewer writers there are, the more valuable the existing writer remain.

What have you noticed when writing for article sites that encourage referrals? Have you ever stopped seeking referrals to avoid being less valuable?

 

[RomanAnthonysMama]

I used to make money with referrals. It was one of the main ways that I generated income. However, I don't like how sites have so many rules and regulations, as you stated. On the specific site I was on, you earned fifty cents per sign up, but if the users refrained from being active, your own pay rates would go down. It seemed unfair to me.

 

[crazycroc]

I used to make money with referrals. It was one of the main ways that I generated income. However, I don't like how sites have so many rules and regulations, as you stated. On the specific site I was on, you earned fifty cents per sign up, but if the users refrained from being active, your own pay rates would go down. It seemed unfair to me.

Yeah that seems unfair to me, you are right. Generally when you sign someone up you have no idea how active they are going to be and activity on the site depends more on how interesting and active the site is in general. Things like that only encourage people not to use their affiliate program.

 

[Rube]

I'm more likely to join a writing site that does not pay referrals, because then I know that any recommendations I read are genuine. Members of websites with referrals or affiliate programs tend to over-hype the opportunity to make money. They encourage people to join what they see as an easy money making opportunity, but many of them are not capable of writing quality content. The referrer does not benefit from this, nor will the website.

 

[davidj212]

My entire online business is based off of working with referrals. I use a PTC site called Neobux, and they have a rented referral program, which allows you to rent refeerals on their site in order to make money. This is a very good option for people such as myself, that are horrible at obtaining direct referrals. This is the only site where I have ever made money with referrals and I must say that I'm really enjoying it so far.

 

[Cammie27]

Not only do I not tend to generate referrals, I'm most comfortable working for companies that don't push referrals as essential to the money-making model. I want to be paid for what I do, not for who I recruit, and I believe that sites that most heavily emphasize referrals are the ones most likely to eventually go scam/non-paying or go under completely because of the weight of all those downlines.

 

[Kristy]

Some of the sites I use to make money have referral programs so I will post a referral link at the end of the reviews I do on my blog but I always make it clear it's a referral link and if someone would rather not be a referral they can always sign up on the site's main page. The funny thing is that I have tons of referrals but almost all of them are completely inactive. So I make very little from referrals. Out of all the sites I use, the one I do the best with as far as referrals go is socialspark.com. They pay people to do sponsored blog posts on their own blogs. I have a couple of bloggers signed up under me so every so often I'll randomly get a payment. So far the most I've made on there from referrals only was about $13 (this was back in May) and the least has been around $2.

But other than posting referral links on my blog, I don't really try to get referrals. I don't want to bug people. lol. But if someone comes across my blog it's usually through google which means they are actually interested in something I wrote about and I figure if they want to sign up they will. If not they won't.

 

[Nymph]

I generally pay no heed to such referral schemes that clearly offer little value in what they claim to be promoting let alone avoid generating referrals to them. It can be difficult to have prospective and would-be content writers sign up, take action, actually begin writing as you pointed out, then having their articles sell, assuming a referral or two can outflank the incredibly fierce competition in that market.

There is just too many steps and too much time between setting up campaigns to acquire the referral and get a payout. One would have to look at programs that are as little as a day to a month old to have any luck with this due to a great influx of desperate people always looking for the next best thing. But then, how can you trust them to pay you when the time comes? The business is very risky, and I would hold generating referrals to even PPCs and GPTs to a higher standard than attempting to refer writers.

 

[ozadin]

Referrals are always a want, not a need. I don't rely on them, but it's always nice to have at times. After all, who doesn't like passive income? Referrals are also not to be trusted. They may be active for a few weeks, but may grow tired of the specific site, and stop earning completely. If you were living off of that particular referral, you would most likely quit as well.