Any referrals "success stories"?

If referrals earn you over $500 monthly, share your story

[John Carpenter]

Do referrals (Firefox, AdSense, or AdWords) earn your more than $500 monthly? If so, post your story and please include the average number of unique visitors your site gets per day.

(I'm asking to find out whether referrals are even worth trying -- yes, I'm being rather skeptical.)

[humblebeginnings]

No success story for me:-(

I got about 20 Adsense referrals and they gave me zero cash. The first of the Adsense referrals is about 6 months old so as of now my referrals are slowly expiring. I really don't get this; how on earth is it possible not to make $100 with Adsense in 6 months? Because of Adsense TOS I can not give you detailed numbers but I needed many thousands of page impressions to get those 20 sign-ups.

I also have Adwords referral buttons on some of my pages. Thousands of impressions but as of yet no sign-ups:-(

I had the Firefox referral buttons on my sites for a while. But since I know Google pays me only 10 cent per referral, I took the buttons off my pages.
As I stated before: If I want to make 10 cent, I prefer a good old MFA click.

I think the referrals are a waste of webspace. In my case, a simple ad-block generates much more money.

Hope others are doing better cause my story s#cks...

[ann]

Used referrals for free software for a week and NOT 1 CLICK out of thousands of impressions.

Took them off, they didn't deserve the space.

Ann

[farmboy]

I really don't get this; how on earth is it possible not to make $100 with Adsense in 6 months?

Hmmm. That's about 56 cents per day. My guess is either someone was accepted but never put the ads on the site...

...or Google has a very low threshold concerning the quality of sites they accept into AdSense and thus AdSense is being put on sites getting very little traffic.

FarmBoy

[Play_Bach]

I've made only a few bucks (well under $500!) with the Firefox referral, very poor performance overall. Never tried the AdSense and AdWords referrals as they just didn't make sense to me. Trying the Picasa referral for now - so far, zilch. For what it's worth, I'm much more concerned about the huge drop in traffic lately and the rise of the Froogle links than I am the referral program.

[edited by: Play_Bach at 4:21 pm (utc) on May 8, 2006]

[greatstart]

I just added the Google Pack, and will give it one week to see how it does.

Most likely, I will be taking it off, as I did with the other referrals I tried. They simply do not convert well at all!

[jetteroheller]

I created 2004 a web site for an artist.
As payment, he agreed to use my AdSense on the site.
After 23 month runing only $259.49.

He is happy about his small site, has some times interesting requests, but if it would have been a AdSense referral from me, shure would have failed the $100 in 6 month target.

The person mentioned in the "I could save 3 people" thread had his first $100 in 3 weeks, but this was a well established web site and I used my experience to place the ads on his site.

What beginner would think, that AdLinks are such a strong earner?

So I think without consulting, there is maybe only a 10% chance that a newbie makes $100 in 6 month.

[spyder8005]

so i'm guessing no one is having much luck with the referrals

[Tearabite]

i have a tech-related site and we really push Firefox. Over the weekend alone i made about $60 from FF referrals, and $2-$3 in the Picasa and Googlepack referrals.

This is huge for me as my site is new.

[mattg3]

5 clicktroughs with an abysmal ctr made me my first 10 cents for referral. We make 1000 - 1500 dollars from that site with bog standard adsense and search.

Everything else, adsense, adwords, ff nothing works
Picasa only on the picture pages is the first time that I had any conversions, but not the promised dollar it seems, but a 10th of that for 1 conversion. :( Maybe the 10 cents are for something else. :\

Gonna throw it off in 2 days if this pattern continues. I think the picture banners are not very good. Why not have text ad?

[Andrew Bassett]

My startup site has just one small section. I plan to expand to 5 later this year and around 40 this time next year. If I were to maintain my current pace, I wouldn't earn my first $100 for a few years. So that's how it's possible.

[ken_b]

I really don't get this; how on earth is it possible not to make $100 with Adsense in 6 months?

This forum is littered with comments from folks who haven't made $100.00 in six months, (at least that's my impreesion). My guess is that it isn't at all hard to earn so little.

[FrostyMug]

I'd had them on my site in 2 different trials, both lasting about a week, and MAYBE made $2 in all that time. absolutely not worth it for me.

the site has nothing to do with tech or FireFox, or google or AdSense, maybe that's why it's not converting.

this is a ~2K/day unique visitor site.

[John Carpenter]

i have a tech-related site and we really push Firefox. Over the weekend alone i made about $60 from FF referrals, and $2-$3 in the Picasa and Googlepack referrals.

Not bad, Tearabite. How many page views does the site get daily, on average?

[bts111]

I would not touch them with a ten foot pole.

[Hobbs]

I make over $500 per month from referrals
(sorry can't post other numbers here)

- I serve it as alternate ad to Google
- I have it in places where Ad units are not performing well.
- I place them in top center below navigation
- My site serves millions of impressions monthly
- Mainly Picasa & Firefox
- Google Referrers paid Zero so far with lots of signups!

Is no one's using them the reason I did not get a reply to my question about referrals here?
[webmasterworld.com...]

[Tearabite]

My site has been getting 1,500 - 1,900 uniques per day.

the bulk of my earnings has been from FF ($43 from FF yesterday).. STILL only $2 or $3 total from Picasa

[John Carpenter]

My site has been getting 1,500 - 1,900 uniques per day.
the bulk of my earnings has been from FF ($43 from FF yesterday)..

IMO, very good results. Where do you place the referrals, and which format works better for you -- text or image?

[garyr_h]

Hobbs, from what I have read, you are not allowed to use refferals as alternate ads :\

[humblebeginnings]

Adsense TOS:

you may not specify Google ads as your alternate ads

[Hobbs]

True in the Policies
[google.com...]
Under Alternate Ads it says:

If you have elected to receive contextually-targeted ads, you can make sure that your advertising space is always being used effectively, either by targeted Google ads, or by your own choice of content by specifying an image or ad server of your choice. However, you may not specify Google ads as your alternate ads

I understand it as talking about contextually-targeted ads not referral

Also about specifying Google ads as an alternate to another network which could make sense.

In my case I am specifying Google referral as alternate to Google contextual.

I will contact them and confirm the interpretation.

[garyr_h]

"Referral buttons are considered to be ‘Google ads’ for purposes of these program policies."

Also from the policies.

[bushes]

my earning for referrals since their introduction is $ 0. So now i have changed to text referrals. but even that is not better. anyway it reduces the page loading time. that makes me happy.

[Hobbs]

Thanks garyr, you are right.
I removed the referral Alternate Ads for now.

It makes sense for Google not wanting to be any other network's Alternate Ads with their market dominance, but to deny keeping the ads within the same network makes little sense to me, anyway, will update you when they reply.

[Hobbs]

Quick update,
Google replied and confirmed your interpretation, it is Not Allowed. I will post a new thread with an appropriate title for future reference other WW members who wouldn't expect this information in this thread.