Balancing Incentives

I am currently working on a project that is a series of websites that each offer a free service (one is file hosting, one is user uploaded videos, one is user uploaded pictures, etc.). I am planning on having the user accounts shared across all the sites so they do not have to register multiple times. The part where CPA comes in is that I will offer incentives for users to upgrade their accounts, earning additional benefits for each site(unlimited files, higher file size limit, etc.).

What I am having trouble planning is how to balance these benefits. I was originally thinking doing an offer would upgrade an account for life, but maybe it would be better to have it for a certain amount of time to have offers completed multiple times. This, however, would make less people to complete the offers because the incentive is not as great. This is what I mean by balancing, generally how good should I make the benefits against the amount of money I will make?

I haven't gotten any sleep and I feel like I am rambling on and I don't know if you even understand what I am asking. Long story short: is it better to have a lot of crappy incentives (less chance of being completed) or a few good ones (more chance of being completed)?

I'd do lifetime if I were you, there are already so many free sites that do not have any limits for those said things.

Well if I'm getting what you're asking, I think you are wanting to have them complete one good incentive (that pays you a lot) and give them access for life, or multiple crappy ones (that pay you less) and they have to complete them periodically.

I would go with the ones where they have to periodically complete them, especially if they are free for the user, like an email submit or full page submit, cause I'd see that making more money. If after the incentive you provide a quality service, people WILL return for more. The only problem I see with that would be someone completing an offer multiple times and then the advertiser catching on and reporting you to your network for fraud.

You could maybe give the user weekly or monthly access, and every week or month they'd have to complete another simple offer to regain access, but that means you'd have to rotate offers weekly or monthly to avoid chances of being banned from your network. I hope all that made sense, and I hope I got what you were asking ha!

TermsB said:

I'd do lifetime if I were you, there are already so many free sites that do not have any limits for those said things.

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He/She makes a valid point; you'd have to offer a very unique service in order for them to complete short forms or email submits periodically.

I'd go lifetime too, unless you have something very special to offer that makes you unique.

haydenm92 said:

I would go with the ones where they have to periodically complete them

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haydenm92 said:

I'd go lifetime

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:/ indecisive fail

mappum said:

:/ indecisive fail

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Post before brought up a good point, I changed my mind

There are two main questions I think you want to ask yourself.

First, figure out how much it costs you on a per-user basis to run your site. Once you have that number, you know about how much you have to earn from each user through incentive offers, making sure you include a profit in there for yourself.

Next, decide whether you want these members long-term or not. If you do NOT want them long term, then bombard them with as many low-paying incentive offers as they'll take. Most low-paying incentive offers are easy to fill out, convert well enough, and will make you some money, BUT, these types of offers will typically fill up your user's mailboxes with junk mail, leaving them upset with you and never returning.

If you want them longer term, I'd suggest you offer them high-paying offers where there is a real product/service being offered to the surfer. Examples: book club signups, credit card signups, credit report offers, etc. AVOID nutraceutical rebills (i.e. acai, resv, etc.). By offering only products, services that have value to the surfer, chances are they won't get upset by your site and will continue using it (provided they find value in it, of course).

Of course, make sure you use only offers that allow incentive.

mappum said:

I am currently working on a project that is a series of websites that each offer a free service (one is file hosting, one is user uploaded videos, one is user uploaded pictures, etc.). I am planning on having the user accounts shared across all the sites so they do not have to register multiple times. The part where CPA comes in is that I will offer incentives for users to upgrade their accounts, earning additional benefits for each site(unlimited files, higher file size limit, etc.).

What I am having trouble planning is how to balance these benefits. I was originally thinking doing an offer would upgrade an account for life, but maybe it would be better to have it for a certain amount of time to have offers completed multiple times. This, however, would make less people to complete the offers because the incentive is not as great. This is what I mean by balancing, generally how good should I make the benefits against the amount of money I will make?

I haven't gotten any sleep and I feel like I am rambling on and I don't know if you even understand what I am asking. Long story short: is it better to have a lot of crappy incentives (less chance of being completed) or a few good ones (more chance of being completed)?

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of course, steve don't be a dumb jackass like me and get greedy and run mutiple offers from one network using incentives, when you weren't supposed to. this will get you banned. and in my case, very scared for a while :O