Another reason to turn down listing an offer..

I saw a new offer on one of my advertising networks today that I thought would be good. It was a health trial offer and cost $4.95 and the user payout would be about $18. That seemed pretty good to me! I checked it out though and noticed that for payment you had to enter your checking account information. That.. is kind of shady. Basically they do this because it's much harder to stop someone from drafting on your checking account than on a credit card - a credit card company will let you dispute charges and do other things to fight back if you have been unfairly charged, but if it's drawn directly on your bank account there isn't much you can do about it. So I didn't list it because I don't want anything bad to happen to my lovely ducklings! Some things are just not worth the money.

New $5 gift certificates

I've put up some more $5 certificates and will be looking for more!

General reminder: If you are nearing or think you will near $600 this year, please submit a W-9. I won't send you a 1099 unless you actually go over $600, but I need the W-9 before I can send you any amount that pushes you over $600. You can submit an online W-9 by using the link on the left hand sidebar of CashDuck.

A new policy I think you'll like...

I've decided to institute a new CashDuck policy, to help ease the fears of those of you who haven't gotten into paid trials yet!

If you do a $1 trial, and it either doesn't credit normally or I can't get manual credit for you, I'll refund your $1.

Check out some of the $1 trials here!

This policy is not being put in because there is anything wrong with the crediting, I just thought that it might encourage you to try out trials if you haven't already. Now you have nothing to lose. =) So try, try away!

New Seven Feather Special!

The new Seven Feather Special is the eHarlequin II offer - check it out here! For a cost of $1.99 you can get two Harlequin books, great for long winter nights.. in addition to earning $15 and 7 feathers.

Another interesting interaction with an advertising network...

So as you may know, all my offers come from various advertising networks, who tell me how much they will pay me which determines how much I can pay you, and this is all set out in advance. It's rare that I have to change the payout on an offer, because this usually is all known beforehand.

So you can imagine I was very surprised to receive an email from a rep from the CCR company (they of the no-scrub offers I was so excited about) telling me that they would not be able to pay me the rate on those that they had said before, and at that rate they were actually losing money. He quoted me a rate about 1/3 lower and said "at this rate we will be breaking even" and to let him know if I wanted to keep running them at this new rate. (Which means of course that eventually they would have cut the rate even further in order to make money.) And if they cut it farther, it would go so low that I wouldn't be able to pay enough to make it worthwhile for anybody. So I said no thanks. Currently I am only running two offers from this company, and I might try to find those offers on another network and stop using this one altogether.

So why am I so concerned about this? Well, everything pretty much works on either a fixed rate, or a rate that only goes up. Sometimes (and I doubt this will ever happen to CashDuck!) if you get a high enough volume of signups for a particular offer, your rate goes up and you get more per signup. Never have I seen an instance where the more offers you brought in, the less you made. What kind of incentive would that be? So I have to wonder how it is that they decided they couldn't afford the rate they had originally quoted me. My guess is that these offers weren't supposed to be given to sites who pay users to fill them out (advertisers give us lower rates than non-paid sites) and when the company found out that they were getting paid traffic, they forced them to lower the rate.

So I don't really know what happened, but this is the sort of stuff that sometimes goes on behind the scenes!

Contests R Awesome

Keep your eyes peeled for a NEW weekly contest where you can win something cute and fluffy! I will be having a large box of cute things delivered to my house later this week...

(I think that choosing ducks as a theme for the site has made it infinitely easier to design things; what if it had been Sharp Dangerous Pointy Moneymaking Site?)

WOW

It is only the 20th and already all you lovely ducklings have already earned more than TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. Holy cow!!!!

Check out these spiffy new features!

-- When you use your feathers to get a free referral, you will be automatically sent an email with that referral's username.

-- Check out the new inbox system! Click on "My Inbox" on the sidebar and you can send messages to your friends and referrals.

Don't forget that this month's contest is still going strong - third place is now at about $500. Anyone who didn't get first, second, or third place but cashes out more than $200 gets a 5% runner's up bonus!

New Seven Feather Special!

The new Seven Feather Special is the Robert Allen trial - costs just $4.95 for shipping but pays $25! Check it out!

Why I don't have outside banner ads

Although CashDuck has the capability of running banner ads, and there is software in place to allow people to automatically buy banner ads, I've taken it out. You can still run a banner ad, but it has to go through me first, and I won't put it up if it's for another CashDuck-like site. I'm all for people using banner ads to promote their own home businesses or what not, but I just think it's in poor taste to display ads for competitors on your own site. For simplicity's sake, I ask that if you want to run an ad, that you are already a CashDuck member and have earned some money so I can just deduct the $5 from your account. It makes it a lot simpler for my records - plus there have been a few instances of people from other sites who sign up just to run ads, and then leave, which I think is odd.

I have a few reasons really why I don't want to put up banner ads:

1. Most of them aren't very pretty. I have a certain style I like to keep, and most of the banner ads for other sites are in line with that site's style - which is guaranteed to be louder and brighter than mine. So it's visually jarring.

2. I like to use the banner ads as a way to communicate with my ducklings. Not everybody reads the forum, so it's a good way to get information to everybody in a fairly unobtrusive way.

3. I just don't need the five bucks bad enough to overlook reasons 1 or 2. The usual banner ad price is $5 for 10,000 impressions - I currently have $5 for 5,000 impressions simply because the site has only recorded a bit over 50,000 impressions and I don't want people to see the same damn ad for three months. Once the site gets more traffic, I'll up the number.

So if you've got a business you would like to promote (like design, or crafts, or whatever) then let me know and we can set it up!

New Seven Feather Special

The new Seven Feather Special is the Pricestore $1 trial - you'll earn a whopping SEVEN feathers for completing this, in addition to the regular $13 it offered before. Check it out!

The very first CashDuck contest!!

Announcing the first contest, to get things going! This contest will be based on TOTAL cashouts through October 31st, 11:59PM EST. There's plenty of month left, but don't dawdle! Here's the prizes:

First place: 20% of total cashouts
Second place: 15% of total cashouts
Third place: 10% of total cashouts

And a special prize for those who came close - a 5% bonus for anyone cashing out more than $200!

Remember, you have until the stroke of midnight EST on Halloween night to earn.. so let's go! This also includes your referral earnings, so refer more people and earn a bigger prize!

Mmmm, taxes

A quick note about taxes - if you earn more than $600 in a calendar year, I will need to get your social security number from you and I will send you a 1099-MISC form during January of the next year. You'll need to send me a W-9 form - to get it, go to irs.gov and click on Form W-9 on the left hand sidebar. If you are close to earning $600, I will not be able to send you any money that would push you over the $600 limit until I receive your W-9. No taxes are withheld from the money I send you, so if you need to report it on your taxes you will need to pay taxes on it then.

Here's the address to send it to:

CashDuck
c/o Kira B.
1376 Forsythe
Columbus, OH 43201

Or you can scan a copy and email it to cashduck@gmail.com.

IMPORTANT - If you move between the time you send me the W-9 and the time I send you the 1099, PLEASE let me know what your new address is, or the 1099 may get lost in the mail. If you would like an electronic copy, I can also send you one.

All I can say is, WOW!

You guys are terrific! When I started CashDuck six weeks ago, I decided that I would wait until October to actually start promoting the site, so that I would be able to put up all the offers and find great networks and get everything together so that it would be ready for business. Well, things have certainly taken off! I posted in one forum, and was listed on another website, and wow! We are now up to EIGHTY-THREE members, from 52 the day before! It feels like a party in here! Thanks to all members who spread the word, you did a great job! Exclamation point exclamation point exclamation point!

New no-scrub offers!

I put up a bunch of new no-scrub (ie they don't check the database to see if you've done them before) offers from a new network, so check it out! Search for CCR - that's the network they're under.

I also added the option to get a free referral with 50 feathers, and a $5 Amazon gift certificate for 75, so that you don't have to wait too long to get a prize!

Haven't had this email address six weeks and already I'm winning prizes with it.. ;)

POWERBALL LOTTO. Bv
POWERBALL LOTTO -wheel E-game 2006,

Date:6, 10, 2006
Ref Nr: PBL/CN/6654/CP
Dear Consultation Prize Winner,


CONSOLATION PRIZE WINNER NOTICE

Europe/ America private international e-games organizers and co-sponsors, POWERBALL LOTTO Group International, officially bring to your notice of the final draw result of the 2, 10, 2006 POWERBALL LOTTO -wheel E-game which was conducted at our international corporate office complex in The UNITED KINGDOM.

Most recently this foundation set up the NEW LOTTERY SCHEME to give out prizes based on COMPUTER BALLOT SYSTEM. By doing this the foundation seek to encourage the use of Internet for academic and business pursuits. Its major aim is to promote music, theater, art,literature,projects in the social and political arena with a focus on health, as well as science, research, and higher education.

We wish to congratulate and inform you on the selection of your email coupon number which was selected among the 6 lucky consolation prize winners Your email ID identified with coupon No. PBL2348974321 and was selected by our E-games Random Selection System (ERSS) with entries from the 50,000 different email addresses enrolled for the E-game. Your email ID was included among the 50,000 different email addresses submitted by our partner international email provider companies. You have won a consultation cash prize of US $ 500,000.00 (Five Hundred Thousand US Dollars) only. The POWERBALL LOTTO Group. BV, have approved a payout of your consultation cash prize which will be remunerated directly to you by the official Payment Agency Board.

Our DUE PROCESS UNIT (DPU) will render to you complete assistance and provide additional information and processes for the claims of your consultation prize. For due processing of your winning claim, please contact the DPU Information Officer Mr Willie Right who has been assigned to assist you.You are to contact him immediatelly with your contact details for the release of your winnings.Please see the email below:

Stampy stampy...

Got a stamper and a bunch of other custom-printed stuff today.. I think this is the last of it. Now that I have it all I'm not sure why I wanted some of it (100 duck postcards?) other than that it was free. But the stamper is pretty useful - I stamped a receipt to make sure that I knew it was for CashDuck expenses.

Why I needed to stamp it three times, well, that's another story.

Yay banners!

I uploaded my banners so that any CashDuck member can use them on their own site to refer people. Click here (you'll have to login) to see. They're preformatted with HTML so that you can cut and paste them. Remember that you get 10% of any first-level referrals' earnings, INCLUDING feathers, 4% of the earnings of anyone they refer, and 2% of the third-level's earnings. So referring a few people and giving them some pointers about the site could net you some nice rewards without work on your part.