There are three primary areas where it would be wise to consider using specific strategies designed to help enhance your profits, limit your risks, or both.



1. Program Selection

2. Portfolio Management

3. Money Management

1. Program Selection

You'll get lots of different opinions on this subject, but the bottom line for this issue is the same as it is for many others. Your ultimate decision will depend on your tolerance for risk. That may sound a little odd considering that all of these programs are high risk, but it's also true that some are riskier than others. I recommend that you keep the following in mind when choosing a program:

Transparency - How much information is available regarding the program administrator(s)? Do they have an established reputation? How do they generate their revenue? Where are they located? What other programs have they been involved in?

When to get in - In most cases, it's probably wise to wait until a program has gone through a couple of cycles of timely payouts before you jump in with very much money.

When to get out - We also know that most programs don't last for even a year, so if a program has already been around for several months, keep on eye on it's alexa charts and the forums to watch for any signs of downward trends. You should support the programs and admins you trust and believe in, but don't let false hopes lead you to make poor financial decisions.

Return on Investment (ROI) - Stay away from programs with an unusually high ROI. The returns offered by most of these programs are already fantastic. Don't get greedy. When a program appears to be offering a return that's unbelievable, then that's probably just what it is. Some programs have had fairly long lives offering as much as 2% net return per day, but that seems to be the upper limit.

Comparing Different Program ROIs - When comparing programs' ROIs, don't just look at their advertised rates like "10% for 13 days". This only tells you what your "Gross ROI" is (your return before any other expenses). What you want to use for comparison sake is "Net Daily ROI" (your % return per day after all expenses). 130% could be considered your Gross ROI in the example above, but how many days does it take for you to actually get paid? 7 business days equates to about 10 calendar days on average so that would be 13 days + 10 days. And don't forget fees. Here's an example:

$100 spend earns $30 gross profit

Payment processor fee for spend was 2% ($2.00)

Program fees are 1% to cash out ($1.30)

Net profit = $30.00 - $1.30 - $2.00 = $26.7

Total time to receive funds back into your account = 23 days

So ... Net Daily ROI = $26.7 / 23 days = 1.16

Now you know how to accurately compare programs.

Referral Commissions

If you're a ROI Detectives Associate, or otherwise interested in developing passive streams of income, then you'll need to pay attention to referral commissions. These commissions generally range from 1% all the way to 12%. In addition, several programs offer tiered commissions often going two to three levels deep. The profit potential here can be pretty staggering.

The point is that if you want to generate additional and passive streams of income, it is in your bests interests to select programs that have higher rates and multiple levels of referral commissions. It is also in your best interest to promote these programs more heavily than those programs without these incentives.

Hopefully, this short introduction will help steer you down the right path when it comes to program selection. Part II will focus on Portfolio Management.