A few of my readers shared pertinent information about their experience with Today. After reading their posts, I decided to do a little investigation on my own. I went to the Forums and the Today FAQ page and here’s what I found:

From the Forum

After weeding through many posts about promotions and links to blogs and general conversation, I found a closed post that stated:

“We’ve changed the starting rates for NEWLY CREATED BLOGS. This does not affect CURRENT blogs.

From now on new blogs get:

+ $2.00 per thousand unique visitors.

+ After a 30 day provisional period outstanding blogs may be promoted to our pay per post program.

If you participate in the referral program please make note of these changes when advertising today.com. We’ve changed the referral program so new incoming referred blogs will need to post at least 20 times over 20 days to become a qualified referred blogger.”

I guess the moderator knew that it would generate much conversation so the post was marked closed.

FAQ

Then I went over to the FAQ of my VIP account and read the following:

“…How much you make in the long term will depend on a number of factors including the popularity of your topic and writing. Generally speaking, the more steady readers the inbound links and you attract, the better. As you gain in popularity your earnings will increase. To get you started we guarantee you will earn at least $1.00 per daily post for at least 1 month. Your blog will be evaluated monthly and payments may be adjusted up or down depending on how well you are doing. “

My Take on the Situation

As a new blogger, I hardly find it worthwhile to earn $2 per thousand unique visitors. Just to give you an idea, I started blogging there in mid December. I made 17 “approved” posts in December and I posted 8 in January. I don’t know if my January posts are “approved” as yet because they have not been reviewed. Who knows, according to the info in the FAQ, they may review my blog and decide it’s no longer worth $1 per post.

As a result of the two months of posting I had 325 unique visits in December and so far 319 in January; a far cry from a thousand unique visitors on which a new blogger would earn $2. Unless you seriously market your blog and gain a quick following, you won’t make much at all. At my current rate, having a total of 644 unique visitors translates into a total of $1.34 in residual income.

On top of that I’ve earned $20 in referrals. That will dry up as soon as I explain the new payment structure to potential Today.com bloggers. Not everyone wants to write 20 blog posts for 20 days for such little reward. I know I wouldn’t.

I’ve got to admit; currently I put very little work into the blog. I sign in once a week, pre date three blog posts and I’m done. I only sign into my account if I receive a comment that needs to be approved. At $1 per post, it’s barely worth the trouble, but I’m a long-term thinker and believe over time the residuals will begin to pick up.

I’m willing to give it a few months before I throw my hands up and say, “It’s not worth it.” But, I’ve got to say; I don’t think I would sign up for a Today.com blog under the current pay structure. It seems that they want you to put in a lot of work for 30 days to see if your blog is worth $1 per post plus residuals. I think there are more lucrative opportunities on the internet without having to jump through such hoops. That’s just my opinion.

Apparently when I originally signed up, there were no review offers that matched my blog so I never wrote anything for them. Subsequently I’ve received a few email notifications from them advising that there are available “Campaign Offers,” but my plate was too full for me to look into them.

Yesterday I got another such notification so I decided to check it out to see what the offers were all about. Apparently, when I signed up I submitted this blog (No Job for Mom), so the review offers should be in line with this blog’s subject matter (or so I thought).

I signed into my account and found two offers; one offer was for a gambling site and the other for a World of Warcraft gaming site, both offering to pay $5 per review. Hmmm, I don’t think so.

In looking through my inbox, it seems that since I signed up in July, I’ve received five emails from ReviewMe advising of available campaign offers. I don’t know if it’s because my blog is not what they’re looking for or they just don’t have many offers.

If you’re looking to make money through paid blogging, check it out, but from my experience, I wouldn’t expect too much from them.

Has anyone else had much luck with ReviewMe?

Not one to turn away free money, I figured what the heck, why not give it a try. I completed the application and submitted my BLULOW blog for approval.

Surprise Surprise

Imagine my surprise when my blog was rejected. It wasn’t the rejection that bothered me so much (as a freelance writer, you get used to rejection), but it was the reason for the rejection that bothered me. Here’s the text of the rejection e-mail:

We regret to inform you that your website was unsuitable for the TheAdNetwork advertising network. There are a number of reasons why we may reject applications, please refer to our terms and conditions webpage on http://www.theadnetwork.co.uk/legal/ for more information.

Reason: Unoriginal Content: Your site consists of unoriginal content, which fails our advertiser requirements

Our team wish you all the best in continuing to better your site.

Regards,
TheAdNetwork Team

Huh?! Unoriginal content? I could have understood if they had said that I haven’t been posting to the blog regularly or they didn’t want blogs about living green and the environment, or even if they said they didn’t like the colors used I used on the blog, but unoriginal content? Ouch! They’ve got to be kidding me.

If at first you don’t succeed…

Okay, not one to give up easily, I decided to submit the No Job for Mom blog to them. Since I post to this blog regularly, there’s no way they can come back and give me the same silly reason for rejecting the blog.

I was doubly surprised to see that they rejected this blog too. This time, they didn’t bother to give me a reason. They gave me the same boilerplate email text, minus the reason for rejection.

We regret to inform you that your website was unsuitable for the TheAdNetwork advertising network. There are a number of reasons why we may reject applications, please refer to our terms and conditions webpage on http://www.theadnetwork.co.uk/legal/ for more information.

Our team wish you all the best in continuing to better your site.

Regards,
TheAdNetwork Team

I followed their link to the terms and conditions page and re-read their terms and conditions and re-read their acceptability terms. Neither of my blogs violates either clause.

It’s pointless to continue hitting my head against a brick wall so I decided to leave it alone and find other more viable opportunities.

Lessons Learned:

1. You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.
2. My time is much better spent finding lucrative opportunities than trying to prove to one of the thousands of Internet ad networks that they’re wrong. Onward and upwards…

Here’s what happened to me:

I accepted a writing assignment, which was to be completed within seven days of acceptance.

SponsoredReveiws is good about sending reminders about assignment due dates. I managed to write the assignment with one day to spare (it was a particularly busy writing time for me).

Happy that I was able to cross it off of my ‘To Do’ list, I diligently began working on the next item on my list. After a couple of days, it dawned on me that I didn’t receive an email notification about my SponsoredReview post being accepted. Thinking it was a little odd, I signed onto my account to see if they forgot to notify me.

[smartads]

Surprise, Surprise

Imagine my surprise when I saw that my post wasn’t accepted. WHAT?!! Not accepted! Why, that’s unacceptable in my book. I take my paid writing seriously.

I was doubly surprised when the advertiser alleged that I did not use the proper link text or site link in my post. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. I knew for a fact that I not only used the text link that we agreed to, but I also used the site link I had agreed to when I accepted the assignment.

SponsoredReviews Support

Being a little annoyed by this I wrote to SponsoredReviews and explained my situation. Here was their response:

Hi Felicia, Advertisers have the option to update/change their requirements, and they often do so. Sometimes there are multiple keywords or links they want to get used so they will update them every few days. This is why we suggest reviews be finished as soon as possible, preferably within 1-3 days. The review must meet all requirements at the time it is submitted. Just before writing your review(s), log in to verify the requirements have not changed just in case. Regards, Mandy

The current status of this ticket is: Close

Things Certainly Have Changed

Maybe it’s my business insurance background or my old-fashioned way of thinking, but once you agree to something, the terms or conditions should not change unless both parties agree to it. In this case, the advertiser decided to make changes without prior notification. Apparently the onus was on me to ‘check my account’ to make sure that what I agreed to was what I ‘still’ agreed to.

This is a new one on me. I guess I’ll live and learn.

Lessons Learned:

1. Old-school business and insurance logic doesn’t always prevail in the online writing world
2. Posts written for SponsoredReviews (if I use them again) should be written promptly before the advertiser has a chance to change the terms of the post.

I agree with you. As a rational and somewhat sane person, I wouldn’t either. So why did I turn down money?

Here’s the Scoop

In the past I did a review about SponsoredReviews.com. It’s a great pay for blogging website. Their offers are legit; their payment terms are better than a couple I’ve tried and their advertisers offer sound services and products.

Yesterday I received four offers from advertisers to post about their companies right here on No Job for Mom. Whew, I finally arrived. Advertisers were seeking my blog! I was so excited until I went to the advertisers websites. All of them were legit and I would love to blog about them, but just not here. Their products are not targeted for my audience.
[smartads]
How do I determine whether or not they’re a good fit?

Potential posts for advertisers must pass my blog test. The test is simply: “Would I blog about that particular product or service on the No Job for Mom blog even if I were not getting paid by the advertiser?” If the answer is no, then it’s not a fit.

It pained me to go into my SponsoredReveiws account and decline offer after offer. The good thing about it is I get to explain why I declined the offer. While this blog isn’t a good fit, I do have another blog where I wouldn’t mind writing about their products.

The downside to that is my other blog currently has a Google rank of 2 and some of the advertisers wanted a higher Google page rank.

Okay, go ahead and say it… I’ve lost my mind. Two of my other income earning options are currently taking a nosedive (Demand Studios and Google AdSense), the price of gas is rising, food costs are soaring and it’s soon time to fill the oil tank. How can I turn down quick, easy and legitimate money from a site as reputable as SponsoredReviews?

Test Number Two: The Mirror Test

The one good thing about turning them down is that when I pass by a mirror I could stand to look myself in the face rather than feeling like I sold out for a few dollars. There may be a fuzzy line when it comes to failing the blog post test, but failing the mirror test is not an option.