Our First Evil Money Making Post!
Did you guys know we actually have not done anything evil like the big beef even though he’s our role model? We’ll we figured it’s time to change that. You’re here to make moo-ney and we’re here to teach you how. Moo-haha.
Ever heard of YPN? It’s Yahoo’s answer to online ads dominatrix Google and her adwords. We’re not gonna get into the details of online marketing with buzzwords like CPM, CPC, PPC etc..there’s plenty of blogs out there that can provide you with that stuff. We’re no expert on all that but we do recognize the opportunity to make a quick buck when we see one!
This evening we were browsing along the web and stumbled upon a certain forum where we found someone that was selling $50 and $75 YPN vouchers for $10. Basically you sign up with YPN and receive the credit to spend on your ad campaigns via that voucher. All you need to do is put in $5 of your own money. Here’s the small print from Yahoo:
1. Offer open to new Sponsored Search advertisers only. (A new advertiser is one who has not advertised with Yahoo! Search Marketing for the past 13 months). Each account requires a nonrefundable $5 initial deposit. Advertisers signing up for Self Serve will receive a $75 credit into the account. Advertisers signing up for the Assisted Setup service will receive $75 off the $199 service charge. In each case, initial credits are nonrefundable and will be applied to click charges. There is a minimum bid requirement of $0.10 per click-through. Limit one offer per customer, and one use per customer on a single account. Sellers of certain legally restricted products may require third party certification at extra cost. Search listings subject to editorial review. Offer may not be combined with any other offers or discounts, separated, redeemed for cash, or transferred. Other terms and conditions may apply; see Advertiser Terms and Conditions when you sign up.
2. Each account requires a nonrefundable $5 initial deposit. There is a minimum bid requirement of $0.10 per click-through. Sellers of certain legally restricted products may require third-party certification at extra cost.
3. You receive a full campaign proposal in 2-5 business days.
See? for $5 you get $80 back in traffic. Traffic which will make you money via Google ads 
So how did we get the vouchers? Well we’d love to brag and say we hacked our way into the systems and exploited a vulnerability in the algorithm, but that would diminish the beauty of the simplicity that got us the vouchers. We paid $10 for a voucher and got a URL to register at back. There’s 4 digits at the end of that URL and we quickly found that with a bit of mixing up the numbers, there’s heaps more vouchers available, all with different values! $20, $50, $60, $75 and probably $100 but we didn’t find that one. We grabbed a $75 voucher and can confirm this is working, we just setup an ad campaign worth $80
We initially wanted to sell the URL to you guys but we’re just not evil enough… so here you go: Free YPN Vouchers
(If you didn’t understand it, you need to try all the possible 4 digit combinations at the end of the URL and hope you get a quality voucher!)
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great post, has it generated any results for you?
@ mahdi: He just got the vouchers today, so it’s not possible to see the results yet. Even though this is a contest, I think it’d still be good to add some value to the comments.
@ Cow: thanks for the link! This, combined with the TextLinkAds promo and any others can equal some really good results for almost any site. I want to be strategic about using these links, so that the visitors can turn in to regular readers, and not simply a spike in hits for a day or two.
I was just accepted into the YPN but have yet to try it out yet. I’ve heard that the click through rate, or one of the figures was better than Google’s, but the ads weren’t targeted as well.
Great post. Looks like a viable alternative to Google AdSense. By the way, I just did a post about you on my site. Actually, it’s about you AND John Chow dot com.
Nice post
Yahoo CPC is very high though compared to adsense returns, having said that, you can still get a good return and use the money to test your offer and test your campaigns
Got a $100 one. Go me.
That is very interesting. Maybe I could make a kick ass landing page and run some azoogle / google referrals on there and get loads of cash. Although I’ve never done that before. I want to get into that sometime though.
LOL @ loads of cash. The ads will make them come, but the content will make them stay.
Maybe on this post we could get more people chiming in with other good deals on advertising products. Well, I use this one, and so far the results are mixed but hey, it’s free! Adgridwork displays advertisements like Google AdSense and YPN, you just post a simple script on your page and other people’s ads show up in minutes, while your ad is displayed on other people’s pages.
Out of 2000 impressions, I have only received 4 clicks, and 2 conversions. So I don’t know if it is the ad I’m running, the membership, or if the planets aren’t aligned properly. But hey it’s another resource if anyone wants to try it out: http://www.adgridwork.com/
i think you are doing what cow referred to as spamming i am going to take the high road and not bastardize john’s site, i will continue to comment in a normal fashion, because if me and you start up this comment war again there will be no end!
[...] reading on how to get free Yahoo Publiser Network (YPN) vouchers at JohnCow.com, I decided to try my luck. And I found some good free vouchers. I don’t have [...]
Thanks JC. I found 2 Free assisted setup vouchers and 2 $100 self serve vouchers and blogged about it.
On an afterthought, is it illegal to openly publish vouchers like this?
The YPN terms says, “Offer may not be combined with any other offers or discounts, separated, redeemed for cash, or transferred.”
be careful. Thats one big cow to mess with
Found the $100
Yay !! I found a $100 coupon in 2 minutes. A big -Thank You- to the cows!
i believe Joyce found it first! you could have just gone to her site!
Wrong. His site and not her site
Any idea where to sell such coupons???
That still didn’t answer my question??
You’ve been stumbled, great post! Thanks!
Found the $100 after guessing about 15-20 random numbers.
This is truly evil. I love it! I am not going to use one at the moment, but I did get this link for a $50 one if anyone needs it:
$50 voucher
he provided one for 75 in the post, and i believe Joyce posted one for a hundred!
hrm.. you killed it..
Yahoo Search Marketing, System Error
We’re sorry. We could not process your request at this time. Please try again later.
Nice work
Slick
Did this error came when you tried to sign up or with the initial coupon url? I still have a coupon url with me..so just was asking.
BTW can we open search marketing account using funding from paypal or do we necessarily need Credit Card?
Yep, only when I used that ID..
- Slick
Nice one cheers for the link
I open account with YPN 75$ free, but at “account balance” section i see only 3$ ?!? Where can i see my “prepaid” credit? PS - I am not from USA&CA, does this offer is for World wide? (signup proces whent ok, and i saw 75+5 while they proccess my data) ??? Thanks!
100$ coupon code: http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/choose.php?o=US2258&cmp=Yahoo_banners&s2=NO&s3=B
“I open account with YPN 75$ free, but at “account balance” section i see only 3$ ?!? Where can i see my “prepaid” credit? PS - I am not from USA&CA, does this offer is for World wide? (signup proces whent ok, and i saw 75+5 while they proccess my data) ??? Thanks!”
I asked Y! support and they replay to me to wait 2-3 days to see free credit in account, and they where very FAST! 5 stars for them!
thanks for that info- you saved me a ton of time!
Your welcome, but just for info i changed my country to USA before i hit them, becouse i saw on Digital point in one thread members “blabling” that offer is only for USA webmasters (but maybe this was before, thread is form June and i did’t ask Y! about that)
Why does everyone get such a kick out of being evil?
Evil begets evil. Short terms goals with too many long term risks.
I can’t find any problem with using a hacked coupon. In the long run, you will be giving Yahoo! much more than this. Which is the primary idea behind giving such discount vouchers. The only evilness is that we are getting it indirectly.
My advice is “Make hay while the sun shines.”
you are a god of cows!!! Cheers for the link
Anybody used 100$ coupon (?), i saw link that after using working 75$ coupon…
[...] seems evil is rubbing off on the cow. They posted a way to get unlimited Yahoo! Search Marketing coupons. There’s 4 digits at the end of that URL and we quickly found that with a bit of mixing up the [...]
free YPN Voucher
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/choose.php?o=US5000
I’ve working coupons from $25 to $199
I’ve stumbled it, I’ve been here for a while and I’ve never read this before. What a shame..
I wanna try it, too.
Now thats just plain awesome. Thanks alot
Great post John. I have a great summary of how to earn with Yahoo Search. It will explain everything you need to know on how to optimize your ad to get the most out of it. I also have tons of other great posts with help in getting the most for your money and earning money on the internet today. Stop by and let me know if you like. Like I said before great post John you always have useful information that is simple enough to use. Kind of like my posts. Talk to you soon.
-Nico
thanks for the info. am gonna try this one out.
That is very interesting. Maybe I could make a kick ass landing page and run some azoogle / google referrals on there and get loads of cash. Although I've never done that before. I want to get into that sometime though.
@Mahdi - Wise decision
We’ll sell you the URL where you can sell the vouchers for $50
Navjot: people will love you more if you give away the information. I’ve seen someone else post this information on their website just a few hours ago, so it won’t be long before it gets out to Yahoo and they change their policies, so for any of you who are serious about using them, get on it quick. After today, it could be slim pickings.
I know…I was just kind of being evil.
Was joking. I know nobody buys such coupons nowdays not after when John Cow reveals the trick. Yeah it may not be long before Yahoo! plugs the big hole.
Anyways I will also post some wonderful coupons found on my sites.