Freaking Ringtones

Without a doubt, the majority of new affiliates want their first niche to be ringtones. Why? Because everyone and their mom talks about them. We all know there’s a ton of money in ringtones, so most affiliates think it’s an easy piece of pie. I wanted to blog about ringtones some day and just never got to it, but after reading Shoemoney today, I figured it was time. I have quite a few thoughts about ringtones and where they’re going, so to organize it and make my points clear, I’ll do it in bullet-fashion.

Everything You Need to Know About Ringtones as of December 12, 2008

• Ringtones are great because they target younger kids, they’re in demand, and the price tag is in size 2px font in the upper right hand corner.
• Ringtones are not dying, like everybody has been saying they are for the past 50 years. They’re slowing down I think, but there’s still enough money in them to buy a small country.
• There’s been a lot of talk about ringtone policy’s changing on January 1st of this coming year. Subscription notifications with pricing and whatnot will be changing, although nothing is crystal clear. Ringtone providers are still going to do their best job to “hide” the pricetag I think. So there’s still going to be money in them, it just may be harder.
• I don’t advise ringtones for beginners. It’s easy money but it’s not as simple as making a few long-tail campaigns. I’ve had so many questions regarding ringtone campaigns and it’s NOT as simple as bidding 10 cents in Yahoo for “motorola xd8237x ringtone”.
• The only good money I’ve made in ringtones was by getting lucky. I’ve bid for the #1-2 spot in Google for “ringtone”, “free ringtone”, “verizon ringtone”, “cingular ringtone”, and more. I paid around $1/click after letting history/CTR build. After some work, I just found for me that it wasn’t worth the effort to scale it. I’d have some days where I’d make a couple hundred, and others where I’d lose the same amount. I’m pretty much positive that everyone in those top spots now is profiting, but there’s other things out there.
• Word to the wise, “free ringtones” and “ringtones” convert at around 3-4% in the #1 spot in Google. So for that position and the price you’ll be paying, you can lose a couple grand in a day.
• Networks are getting in trouble for ringtones, and forking over some nice money with the feds. See that Shoemoney post above for a couple links. It just makes you feel like maybe ringtones aren’t the most long-term and healthy niche out there.
• THERE IS STILL MONEY IN RINGTONES. I don’t want you to think because of the way I’m wording this post that I’m saying ringtones suck. There’s many ways to make money with ringtones, and you could find the next way. I just advise starting in a different direction if you’re first starting out. There’s just as much money in other offers and they won’t be as tricky as ringtones. Ringtones are simple and tricky at the same time. I’m sure plenty of you are making money with ringtones, and it was the first niche I got in to. But most people go into it thinking it’s the best thing out there, and then after working on a campaign they have 100 problems after the first day it’s launched.
• If you’re still going to try ringtones, carrier pages work best. Don’t direct link or just iframe the landing page. Make a carrier page, and then link those to yoursite.com/cingular and iframe the offer on that page.
• The more simple the page, the better. Don’t have 100 pictures of Fergie looking sexy all over and preview clips of all the wallpapers. Just have the person select their carrier and move on with life. Animated arrows = good.
• These are all personal experiences, so don’t email me saying “Dude you’re a dumbass there’s like 50 other ways to promote ringtones and make sick profit, you’re such a noob.” Ringtones isn’t my biggest offer and I’ve never spent close to enough time to scale it out. There are millions of dollars in ringtones, and I’m sure the top guys in the field are doing 100k/day in them. I’m just not one of those guys. These are my thoughts and experiences with them.

Alright so there’s most of what you should know about ringtones. Where they are, where they’re going, and how I’ve done with them. My opinion is that there’s money in them for beginners, but there are other offers out there.

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