Comparison: The 13 Twitter Advertising Networks (Update)

Make Money by Tweeting Adverts

1. MyLikes – So Far I’ve made $226.78
MyLikes is a new advertising network created by two ex-Google employees as an advertising alternative to Google’s AdSense. MyLikes allows you to create “Likes” of certain products. Advertisers can then allow publishers to post “Sponsored Likes” on to their twitter account as a tweet (as well as Blogger blogs posts). MyLikes is currently the best advertising network for those with a low number of followers, as the payout amount is an industry-low of just $2. Instead of trying to reach $50 or even $100 just to cash out to PayPal, any small publishers can rely on MyLikes. The payments are also automatic, meaning that you won’t have to manually request a payout. The average cost per click is $0.48 – this means you only need 5 clicks per ad to cash out to PayPal! That’s amazingly easy.
Recommended for Twitter accounts with low number of followers.

2. Sponsored Tweets – So far I’ve made $612.13
Sponsored Tweets is IZEA’s brand new advertising network. IZEA is a social media marketing company and the world leader in sponsored conversations. IZEA operates a network of over 250000 bloggers and 25000 advertisers. Izea has numerous sponsored advertising networks prior to SponsoredTweets, including PayPerPost and SocialSpark. This being said, SponsoredTweets is geared more towards Web Celebrities like John Chow and Shoemoney, although smaller tweeters will still get opportunities.
Recommended for those with high number of followers (ie. 10,000+).

3. ad.ly – S0 far I’ve made $1490.88
ad.ly, not to be confused with adf.ly below, is the latest Twitter Advertising network, having just launched on the 22nd of September. Again, similar to Sponsored Tweets above, this service mostly caters to highend advertisers (my two advertisers were Microsoft and NBC) wanting to connect with celebrities and other high-end Twitter users. In fact, founder and CEO Sean Rad says that he wants Ad.ly to be the Federated Media for Twitter. They have an impressive list of high-profile celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, Brooke Burke, Nicole Richie, Brody Jenner, Dr. Drew and Samantha Ronson.
Recommended for those with high number of followers (ie. 10,000+).

4. TwittAd – So far I’ve made $817.72
TwittAd is the original (and the first) Twitter advertising network. Currently, the payment system is “Pay Per Opportunity”,where you sell your background and allow 3 advertising tweet on your twitter account for a sett time (usually 7 days). Although there aren’t many opportunities, once in a while an opportunity once pop up, and it can be quite high paying too (one was $100! for just 7 days).
Recommended for those with a medium number of followers (ie. in the thousands).

5. RevTwt – So far I’ve made $165.99
Although RevTwt‘s website does look like a scam, I’ll admit it’s not a scam. RevTwt advertising are placed as a tweet, which is displayed on your Twitter Profile. There are no disclaimers for the ads, so your followers may find it hard to distinguish between ads and real tweets. Unlike Magpie though, RevTwt pays per click, not per view (a.k.a. Pay-Per-Tweet). This allows the system to be more open to click fraud, similar to Google AdSense, although their system in place seems to be able to detect fraud pretty well, by looking at RevTwt’s Twitter profile. If you have over 8,000 followers, you become part of RevTwt‘s Elite program, with higher paying ads up to $0.20 per click. Normal adverts pays around $0.05 per click.
Update: MyLikes’ average is $0.48 per click. You can earn 5 times more with MyLikes compared with RevTwt.

6. Be-A-Magpie – So far I’ve made $429.70
Be-A-Magpie, a company located in Germany, places relevant advert “tweets” which are placed along with your existing tweets. They pay according to 4 different models: pay per view, pay per click, pay per lead and pay per sale. Just like any other Entrepreneurial Teenager would do, I signed up for this service (with a sub account) to experiment with it. At first, the adverts were about Magpie itself, or Magpie’s parent company’s other product called Stock Pilot. And then I discovered they paid an extremely high €20-30 per pay-per-view tweet. You can cash out after you reach €50. Now, simple maths can tell you that with only 2 magpie tweets, you can get up to €50 in your PayPal already! So you might be asking, I made $429.70 (or €323.90) from something as simple as this? Well, it’s the truth. Read the blog post about Magpie, with the PayPal payment proof.
Update: Seems pretty inactive now. I’m not receiving any more ads from Magpie.

7. PayMeTweets
PayMeTweets pays you to retweet sponsors. In my opinion, they pay so ridiculously  low (less than $0.100 CPM per retweet, or less than $0.10 per 1000 followers) it’s not even worth it. With my @joshlam account (with 45,000+ followers), the ads pay $0.20-$0.80, which is really low when compared to Sponsored Tweets ($110 per tweet) or Magpie (€32/$46 per tweet).

8. TweetROI
Unlike PayMeTweets,  the payment terms are more reasonable. The highest tweet pays $2.5, and with a $50 payout, this isn’t too bad. Similarly to the other smaller advertising networks, there doesn’t seem like many opportunities available.

9. AdCause
AdCause is a Twitter advertising network with a twist. They allow you to donate a portion (or all of) your earnings to a specific charity of your choice. While this seems like a good idea, there doesn’t seem like a load of advertisers on this network once again.

10. twivert
Twivert is a Pay Per Click advertising network, similar to RevTwt above. On average, the payment terms is $0.01 per click. Sign up though this promotional link to get a $5 bonus. Overall, the payout is one of the lowest compared to the other networks, although the earning potential seems quite low.

Make money by Shortening URL’s

11. adf.ly
Adf.ly or “AdFly” is a Pay-Per-Impression advertising network. Unlike other networks, adf.ly shows an ad while your visitor is being transfer to their link – which might be an annoyance to your followers. Payment is based on CPM, with up to $1.5CPM for US visitors to $0.50CPM for International Visitors. View this sample shortened link http://adf.ly/59/joshlam where an ad (in my case this was simply adf.ly‘s website) is shown before being redirected to joshlam.com. Notice the “Skip Ad” button at the top right.

12. Tweetbucks
Tweetbucks allow you to make money via affiliate links, abet Tweetbucks will take a portion of the affiliate earnings per sale. To be honest, this is really a lazy man’s way to not signing up to ClickBank, Commission Junction or Amazon Associates and just create the links yourself. By signing up to these networks yourself, no third-party will take a portion of your earnings, which will mean more money for you.

13. adjix.com
Those shortened URL’s contain an iFrame which contains ads. The payouts are quite low compared to the two other service I mentioned above. I only suggest using Adjix if you have a large base of followers, otherwise you’ll find it quite hard to monetize this service. Personally, I don’t actually like this service much.

(14. Revtwt)
Revtwt has been previously mentioned above as a Pay-Per-Click network, but they also allow you to make money by Shortening Links.

Scams

As much as I’ll like to promote some of these companies, I have to shame some companies as well.  These companies are unlikely to pay you any money, even though you’ve tweeted their ads. Do not sign up for these networks. Here’s the list:

YakBurst
YakBurst is a scam. They will not pay you any requested funds from your account.  It states that payments will be made from the 1st to the 15th every month. I’ve still haven’t received a singly payment from them yet from a request made 2 months ago. www.yakburst.com

I am currently reviewing the following sites: Adapt.ly, TwtMob.com, CrowdRally.com. As soon as I get accepted / paid I will add them here.

16/05/2011 Update 3: Updated earnings amount, Currently Reviewing List.
18/04/2010 Update 2: Added MyLikes, new jQuery sortable table and updated earnings amount
20/10/2010 Update 1: Added ad.ly and updated new earnings amount