Reviews of affiliate programs

Alladvantage

Update 12 May 2001: It appears that Alladvantage have gone out of business!

The program
Alladvantage pays you to surf the web. When you refer someone else to sign up, you get paid while they surf too (and likewise for any of their referrals etc).

All you need to do is download a small piece of software (called the Viewbar™) which displays ads and you get paid. You can dock the Viewbar™ to the bottom of your screen, or the top of the screen. You can also undock it and move it around freely. It also contains menus with useful links such as search engines, portals, shopping sites etc. You can also hide the Viewbar or even quit out of it (but you don't get paid for those times).

Payments
Payments are usually around 50 American cents per hour for your own time online, 10 American cents per hour for when your referrals are online, and 1.75 American cents per hour when your referrals' referrals are online. For me based in Australia, it works out at 75 cents / 15 cents / 2.5 cents respectively.

The reason Alladvantage can afford to pay you is because they can target ads to your specific needs, based on where you surf on the internet. This makes it an advertisers' dream, so they are more than happy to pay Alladvantage for advertising with them.

Recommendation
I have found Alladvantage to be a very professional company. They have obviously spent a lot of time and money making the whole sign up process as easy as possible. They also provide extensive support in the event that you have problems with the Viewbar™.

This is a very easy program to refer people to. It generally refers itself. The words "Get paid to surf the web" seem to have a certain ring to them!

Find out more at the Alladvantage website.

Adsenger

The program
Adsenger is similar to the Alladvantage program in that you get paid to view ads. What makes this program different to Alladvantage, is that you don't get paid per hour of surfing, rather, you get paid per ad viewed. Once you install Adsenger, it sits in the system tray at the bottom left of your screen. When an ad arrives, it starts flashing. You simply double click on it and an ad pops up. You get paid.

Payment
At the time of writing, you can receive up to US$10 per ad. OK, to get $10 you would need to interact with the ad. This is usually in the form of answering a few questions. If you answer 8 questions, you get $10. There are other ads which require less interaction, or don't require interaction at all but pay less. Still, it's pretty good going for simply viewing an ad!

Referrals
On top of getting paid for the ads that you view, you also get paid 20% of the earnings of your direct referrals, and 10% of the earnings of indirect referrals (your referrals' referrals, and their referrals etc). This goes on for 4 levels.

Find out more at the Adsenger website.