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By the time you figure all this out, though, you need to be prepared to pay a couple thousand bucks.
A sensible amount to cover resources and administration I will let a supplier get away with (Google Adwords is $5 for example), but by asking for $50 up front, as Sprinks do, tells me that their product cannot stand up on its own merit, and the only way they can make money is by stinging you for $50. Then when you find out it doesn't work they're not bothered, because they'll just sting the next unsuspecting webmaster for $50.
It's a common business model on the Internet, and works by having a seemingly viable product, that really isn't, charging sometimes very large amounts (take a minimum contract with Yahoo! for example) on a non-refundable basis; and then perform the same sting on the next unsuspecting customer.
I theorise that advertising with Yahoo! brings no viable return on investment; but that doesn't bother Yahoo! you see; because there are thousands of companies waiting to give it a go. They can even sell up to you by making out that they have a waiting list.
A bricks and mortar company using a similar business model is sometimes called a "Tourist Trap".
It's funny.
I was skeptical about Sprinks at first, but gave them a try just to make sure. On high volume keywords, I received a ton of traffic but low conversion. On higer targeted keywords though with a little bit lower volume, I was able to generate an effective conversion which covered my advertising cost. They ain't bad..worth a $50 try..
In one case we were bidding the 5¢ minimum on a term. We were in 3rd place and getting 5 to 6 clicks a day. Based on the total volume of the rest of the terms this was huge. The two advertisers in front disappeared one day and we were in first with a minimum bid. What a disaster. The click rate jumped to 20 or 30 per day and the visitors didn't even stay on the page long enough to get the counter to count them. After some refunds after complaining we finally just deleted that term and a few others that seem to attract the fraud clicks.
One thing we notice is that there are very few advertisers in our area right now. We have 82 terms all at minimum and most in first place. We average between 0 and 2 clicks a day for all the 82 terms. As a comparison on AdWords covering the exact same terms we get between 150 and 200 clicks a day with no evidence of major fraud.
The really annoying thing about Sprinks is that if you fall below $10 in your account they send you a notice EVERY DAY that you are low in funds. At the rate they send clicks our $10 is good for more than 3 months so that's close to 100 e-mails telling you that you account is low in funds. Is that annoying? We finally blocked all Sprinks mail at our server so my bloodpressure wouldn't go up. And yes, we did write them and say how annoying it was.
