Monday, March 01, 2010

Payouts

Squidoo has ads on (virtually) every lens. The ads are nearly always google adsense ads but there are other ad formats

In order to prevent ‘click fraud’ - people clicking on their own ads in order to make money - Squidoo takes all of the money from these ads and dumps them into a big pot. This pot then has 5% taken for charity, then is split with 45% to Squidoo HQ and and the remaining 50% to all the lensmasters.

However, not every lens receives the same amount of money from the pot. The pile of money for lensmasters is broken down, with some lenses receiving more than others.

TIERS

Currently, there are 4 major ‘tiers’ that you lens can fall into when HQ determines payouts.

The tiers vary in payout each month depending on how much money Squidoo made.

Tiers are calculated from of the average lensrank of a lens for the entire month.

The top tier is TO 2,000 lenses, the second tier is TO 8,000 , and the third tier is TO 85,000. Then there's the rest.

The ‘moneymaker’ modules.

There are several of these for different merchants and in different formats.

By adding modules from these vendors to your lens, you have the opportunity to earn a commission anytime someone visits that vendor by clicking a link to them on your lens. If they click through your lens and make a purchase (note: what the guest purchases does not have to be what is listed on your lens) then Squidoo gets a small commission.

Squidoo takes all of the commissions they earn through these programs and creates a bunch of little pots, one for each lensmaster. These pots then give 5% to charity and HQ takes 45% and the remaining 50% is yours

Payout Timing - If you start using squidoo in March, the first time you will receive a payment from Squidoo is in May, due to the lag time in the system. Squidoo can’t pay out money that it hasn’t yet received.

Dashboard Earnings - The earnings on your dashboard only reflect money from money maker modules, not your adsense share.