Making Money Online with YouData Just Doesn't Compute!
By Kidgas
I first found out about YouData here on HubPages and signed up right away. It sure sounded like a good idea to make a little bit of money online by watching ads, getting paid by advertisers for my attention. I did a little bit of searching on the web and found out that people were, in fact, getting paid. I was new to making money online and wanted to do what I could to get started. YouData sounded like it might be the ticket.
I filled out some demographic information in my MeFile as it is called. It took quite some time to go through and answer all the questions. I ended up splitting the task over a few different sessions since it was somewhat tedious. This was supposed to let advertisers know more about me so they could hone in and show me the proper ads for which I would be paid. It seemed to work out OK initially, but take a look at the following results and see if you can detect a pattern:
Month
| YouData Earnings
| |
|---|---|---|
June 2009
| $ 3.74
| decent
|
July 2009
| $ 0.47
| what happened
|
August 2009
| $ 0.19
| you gotta be kidding
|
As you can see, the earnings have dropped off considerably in just 3 months’ time. What initially was filled with promise has turned out to be a dud! How did this happen? Well, YouData makes mention of it in a “market update” dated 6/15/2009. It seems that the prospect of free money in a down economy is just too good to pass up and so many people are signing up, there aren’t enough advertisers with ads to go around. I haven’t seen an ad since August 8th.
Christmas Shopping
 | Amazon Price: $174.99 List Price: $199.00 |
 | Amazon Price: $174.99 List Price: $199.00 |
 | Amazon Price: $229.00 List Price: $249.00 |
 | Amazon Price: $272.95 List Price: $299.00 |
 | Amazon Price: $139.99 List Price: $149.00 |
| Amazon Price: $118.00 List Price: $129.00 |
 | Amazon Price: $46.00 List Price: $49.00 |
 | Amazon Price: $228.99 List Price: $249.00 |
Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were an advertiser, it wouldn’t take long for me to figure out that people willing to click on an ad for ten cents probably aren’t gonna buy my automatic pet feeder for hundreds of dollars. I would be better off putting my advertising dollars in rare dog breeding magazines. It just doesn’t make sense that this business model is sustainable. If you go to Alexa.com, you can see that traffic to YouData has been slowly declining since May. I suspect that people and advertisers are figuring this out. The problem is that there are so many positive reports on YouData that it is likely that people are continuing to sign up faster than advertisers.
I am not at all saying that YouData is a scam. Not at all! The site is legitimate and deposited money to my Paypal account every Friday like clockwork. They have lots of integrity and are to be commended for that. The problem is that I don’t think they have a workable business model. I could be wrong. Only time will tell if YouData will again enable me to make a little bit of money online. But I already have my own “voice activated” automatic dog feeder. I just say, “Son, feed the dogs.”
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Comments
Thank you for all the time and energy it took to get this information together. Nice to know there are bright people like you to count on just a few clicks away
Hello Kidgas!
James here from YouData. Thanks for your write-up!
We are definitely working hard to bring more advertisers into the market. The problem is still one of an imbalance between the number of MeFiles and the ads necessary to support them. In the past, a $1,000 loosely targeted campaign would cover a larger percentage of our MeFiles. Today, that same campaign still hits the same number but at a much smaller percentage of the whole. That means that you are competing for those ads the moment that they become available. After the campaign is exhausted, your offer is removed. So the solution is purely volume on the ad side to keep pace with our 600% growth rate on the MeFile side.
As a result of the dynamics, our ad sales focus has moved locally into a few regions as well as one major demographic on a national level. So, for instance, there is a greater concentration of availability in the areas where we operate and have greater connections with the community. We are Texas-based, so you can imagine where those areas might be at the moment. :)
It's not an easy task but we are thinking about it every day and working on it every day. We truly appreciate you for giving us a go and we look forward to the day when we can look back on this as a success.
Take care,
James
Thank you to James Mayes for his comments. As I said, there is nothing wrong with the integrity at YouData. They have paid on time and every time and Mr. Mayes does not dispute this.
He restates the central theme of my article being that the rapid growth of MeFiles vs advertisers prevents the type of online income that many of those joining would expect to receive. These people will likely become disillusioned and move onto the next viable opportunity. I think this is manifested in the decreasing levels of traffic as noted on Alexa.
I am sure YouData is working hard to attract advertisers but I would ultimately suspect that those advertisers would move on to greener pastures as would the MeFilers. Just my suspicion, but I could be wrong. I hope I am, cause I still have a MeFile up and could use more online income.
Good review, good feedback. Times are tough everywhere, it seems even on line.:)
Great hub!
Thanks Kidgas for another informative hub on money making opportunities online.
This is intriguing. There are plenty of ways to make money online, and if it's easy, it's not going to pay much... that's just kinda the way it goes. But, still, a little bit of pocket change from a site like YouData could be very helpful for someone who is still a college student who has literally no free spending money.
I agree that the business model is flawed due to the high number of viewers and the relatively low number of ads... perhaps becoming an invitation only site (like utalkback.com) could fix this? Who knows.
I found this page really interesting! I have signed up to a few Pay to click and pay to read sites and have not reached the payout minimums yet. I decided not to give away personal information so that if they are not legit I have lost nothing but a few mins a day. Best part is that either way a hub page review might be popular for others hoping to find a way to earn that little bit extra. I was very impressed with this review, very sincere and fair handed!
Thank you to everyone for all these wonderful comments. I will always be honest and fair in my writing.
YouData is what it is. A free to join opportunity to make money online, which is alright by me. I've never had a problem getting paid every week and yes my first week was the best as well. But I still find it quite easy to refer others because of the weekly payouts. So many other PTC sites that pay you a penny a click or less and have unrealistic minimums just discourage new members from joining. Here's to YouData surviving and thriving in 2010 and spilling over with ads for all!
bestmommy,
I hope YouData continues to survive and thrive. I think they are clearly a company with integrity as I also have been paid regularly when applicable. I have been making about 18 cents each month. I just don't want anyone to have any unrealistic expectations.
Hi Kidgas:
I'm having the same dropped earnings in Youdata and I think is the fact that they pay as soon as you click the ad, so the viewer just closes the windows and proceed to the other ad without a time-frame or limiter to prevent this. As a consequence of this the viewer won't really view the ads and will only keep closing them as soon as they hear the money sound.
Just my opinion and experience with Youdata.
I haven't made anything since January. It is pretty pitiful if you ask me. You are right that there is no timer and that many likely click and move on.
I made .40 cents my first day.... and nothing since. I'm afraid this money tree has gone bare.
JonSterling 2 years ago
I have tried several different revenue streams in the past - some just like Adsense have a threshold for payouts - like $100.00 - but I would get within 2 or 3 dollars of said threshold for it to stay there indefinitely. The only ones that have not really scammed or gamed me is Adsense and Amazon.com.
Back in the late 90's cigar dot com - went bust owing me over $1100.00 - So the moral of the story is stick with the big guys...good read...