Are those unsolicited "we'll pay you to post/advertise" messages legit?

February 21, 2024 9:57 AM

Are those unsolicited "we'll pay you $$ to post/advertise on your website/socials" messages ever legitimate? If so, how much do they actually pay, and what are the requirements?

One recent message I got was "We will pay $3700 per week for 2 ads. We will send you 10 created ads per week so you have to choose only 2 ad for posting on your page."

This was sent via Facebook from an account that is clearly fake, so I won't be pursuing. Still, curious if anyone has ever seen these work out (or been ripped off by them).

posted by Unsomnambulist to Work & Money (5 answers total)

To understand the scam, it's helpful to understand some other payment numbers:

For Google AdSense, you would need about 300,000 website views to earn around $3,500.

For YouTube, you'd need about 650,000 views for around $3,700.

No one is paying you that amount for 2 ads a week.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 10:16 AM on February 21 [9 favorites]

A rule of thumb I use is that people advertise to the people who are the source of their income.

That means their income comes from the people agreeing to sign up for this, not the ads.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:22 AM on February 21 [3 favorites]

Ages ago (like the noughts) I added some capability to add ads to my blog. Back then I was getting probably a thousand to fifteen hundred weekly readers (these days I'm getting maybe ten). My rules were static link, text only, rel="nofollow" on the link, I had I think two people take me up on it and pay me on the order of $50 a month for a few months.

I eventually just filtered all those requests into spam 'cause I didn't think it was worthwhile, and because it's not the vibe I wanna promote on my personal blog. But I think if you worked it, and found the right advertisers who wanted to be more focused than Google will let them, there's probably a little money there.
posted by straw at 12:15 PM on February 21

In theory, there is some money to be made in advertising other people's shit on social media. But making anywhere near what they are claiming (which is obviously ridiculous) would require a massive following and a willingness of that following to actually click on the ads or interact with them somehow. For the average person, I don't see much outcome except your friends will start to hate you for spamming them.
posted by dg at 5:04 PM on February 21

Cory Doctorow recently wrote a blog post about scams like this.
posted by snarfois at 3:44 AM on February 22 [1 favorite]