Hack19.Make Money with Skype


Hack 19. Make Money with Skype

Join the Skype Affiliate Program and have Skype pay you!

Works with: all versions of Skype.

If you have your own web site or blog, you can refer people to Skype and get paid for it under Skype's Affiliate Program. You get paid a percentage of the money spent by those people whom you refer to Skype via your web site or blog, and who subsequently buy Skype services within 90 days of being referred. Here's how it works:

  1. Join Skype affiliates by completing the short application form on Skype's web site.

  2. Sign in to your new affiliate account.

  3. Choose the links to place on your web site or blog.

  4. Sit back and wait for the money to roll in!

You can join the Skype Affiliate Program by visiting http://www.skype.com/partners/affiliate/.

So, how much can you expect to make? This rather depends on how successful you are at driving people to Skype and whether they buy Skype services. The program is set up to reward success in converting people to Skype services; the more people you convert, the more money you make. Table 2-17 shows the commission rates in effect at the time of this writing.

Table 2-17. Skype affiliate commission rates

Monthly converts

SkypeOut

SkypeIn

Skype Voicemail

1unlimited

5%

10%

10%


Skype will track who buys, how much they buy, and when they buy. Every customer who clicks through to Skype from your web site is counted, even if he visits Skype's web site directly later on. Provided he purchases Skype services within 90 days from clicking through from your site, you will get a piece of the action.

Before investing the time and effort to sign up for the Skype Affiliate Program and modifying your web site or blogall of which, incidentally, took me less than 15 minutesyou might want to do some simple money calculations.

Consider this what-if scenario. Suppose that with just a little effort promoting your web site, and Skype services specifically, you judge that 3,000 referrals per month and a 10% conversion rate are not unrealistic. That means 300 converts to Skype services per month. Furthermore, of these converts, suppose 250 buy 10 of SkypeOut credits, 100 of those also buy a one-year subscription to SkypeIn, and 50 buy voicemail only. Crunching the numbers, here's what we get:

Monthly income = 250 X 10 X 5% + 100 X 30 X 10% + 50 X 15 X 10% = 500 (about $625)

Not bad for a little upfront effort to set up and a little ongoing effort to promote your web site and Skype services. And, of course, there's nothing stopping you from doing this on all your web sites, or on those you set up just for this purpose.

For those who want to look at different scenarios and how they might profit from the Skype Affiliate Program, a Skype Affiliate Income Estimator spreadsheet is available from this book's web site at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/SkypeHacks/index.html.

2.8.1. Skype Points

An alternative to the Skype Affiliate Program, you can make money (points to be used as Skype credit, actually) through the Skype Points program.

You can accrue Skype Points only by referring people to Skype. Presently, you cannot use points for anything; they just accrue. However, Skype intends to allow points to be exchanged in payment for Skype services sometime in the future. For details, see http://share.skype.com/tools_for_sharing/tools_for_sharing/skype_points_faq/.




Skype Hacks
Skype Hacks: Tips & Tools for Cheap, Fun, Innovative Phone Service
ISBN: 0596101899
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 168

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