One of my writers asked me if I had ever written about paid-to-click work opportunities, because he was interested in trying one out. “Maybe some people would be interested too,” he said.
Well, I have never written about paid-to-click schemes, but I will now—not to talk about how you can sign up for one but to say why you should not. (The writer backed out of his plan to sign up for one too, by the way.)
Short background on Web ads
Web advertisements often work this way: the ad is displayed on a site, and the advertiser pays the site a certain amount every time somebody clicks on the advertiser’s ad on that site.
The presumption is that when somebody clicks on an ad, that person is interested in the product and has the potential to become a buyer.
But in a paid-to-click site, it doesn’t work that way.
How paid-to-click sites work
At a paid-to-click site, people don’t click ads because they are interested in what the ad offers. They click on the ads because they are paid for every ad they click.
Mind you, they are not paid to view the ads; they are paid to just click. And since they want to earn as much money as they can in the shortest time possible, why bother to view anything, right?
So the people who are paid to click never view. Which means they will never buy either.
What's wrong with this picture?
Now, at the risk of being redundant, let’s go back to why advertisers are paying for clicks: they hope people would view their site and become buyers, of course!
And what happens to advertisers who become victims of pay-to-click schemes?
Why then, they are charged for clicks that have little or no chance of getting converted. The advertiser’s money is wasted, the site earns money without giving any real service, and the person clicking but never really viewing the ads gets paid for not doing any real work.
I don’t know about you, but I find something terribly wrong with this picture.
Whose problem is it?
A very few of you may think, “That’s the advertiser’s problem, not mine. I have a family to feed.”
Well, think about this: if a site has no qualms about cheating its clients on the left (the advertisers), what makes you think it would have any qualms about cheating its clients on the right (you)?
Paid-to-click schemes often turn out to be paid-to-click scams. A quick Internet search will reveal that.
And even if they do turn out to be paying, remember where the money they’re paying with comes from. What goes around comes around.
The gist: stay away from pay-to-click schemes. Your time and self-respect is worth more than the peanuts they pay you for every second it takes you to click those ads.
Jan 21, 2011
What’s Wrong with Paid-to-Click Schemes?
