The Long Lull

Right now it’s Day 278 of “The Amazing Tale” and I am in the midst of the long lull in the annual PTC business cycle.

Depending on when you began following my story, you may be at about the same place in the annual ad spending cycle, or you may be at a very different place. But if you stick with the PTCs for more than just a few months you will eventually hit the long lull that I am experiencing now. What am I talking about?

Sailors will know what I’m talking about. Say you have a boat and you take it out for an afternoon on the lake. The wind was fine in the morning, but as the day warms up the wind dies away and you can find yourself out there on placid water, with your sails slack. No wind. No action, no excitement, just a quiet slapping of ripples against the bow. The wind has died and it will take hours to get back into harbor.* That’s the long lull.

THE LONG LULL

As I mentioned in a previous post about the ebb and flow, there was a dramatic drop-off of advertising in the PTCs immediately following the new year. The situation improved as we headed into springtime. But now that we’re easing into the summer season ad spending has flatlined, and probably won’t begin to tick upwards again until we approach the end of summer in early August. That’s over two months away.

Then, get ready, because Fall and Halloween and the Thanksgiving/Christmas season thru end of the year is a fantastic time to be working in the PTCs.

This is a business cycle I have seen repeated year after year for the past four years and more. Several years before I finally dipped my toe in the water with ClixSense.

THEN THE SURGE

I’d see it in the Traffic Exchanges and in SafeLists — as summer nears an end, there’s more and more PTC ads showing up. And that advertising is accompanied by more ads within the PTCs too. It ramps up and up and up. Slowly at first, then faster month by month. A big surge across several months into the Fall and Holiday seasons. As we head through August, September, October, and towards the year-end, ad spending increases.

It will be larger than last year, in a pattern that has repeated almost every year since the beginning of online advertising back in the late 1990s.

And of course when there are more ads, everyone makes more money.

But now, it’s enough just to hang in there through the long lull. You remember what I was earning back on Day 98 of my Amazing Tale? Over $10.00 a day. And it wasn’t just NerdBux, it was the annual PTC business cycle. While it was happening I was sure it would continue forever, up and up and up. I wasn’t connecting my observations of the PTC annual business cycle with what I was experiencing in the midst of the year-end run-up.

In my business right now, the long lull means I am only earning about $2.50 each day for my hour or so of clicking. That’s $75 per month. A nice bit of change, and certainly better than $nothing which is what I would be making if I just stopped clicking.

HERE’S WHAT I DO EVERY DAY

Every day I load up tabs with the PTC sites I’ve joined, I log in, and I click all the ads. Every day. Normally I can complete all my “daily clicks” within an hour. (I do it on my laptop, while I am drinking my first cup of coffee, still sitting in bed!) Often I have completed my daily clicks by 8am, coffee has kicked in, and I’m ready to seize the day engaged in other parts of my business. Much of that first hour is spent in Ojooo. Even now Ojooo seems to have many more ads than the other Paid-To-Click sites, so it takes more time there to click all the ads.

I make a few cents from my own clicks. Plus I earn more from Direct and Rented referrals. But at this point, on Day 278 in building my PTC business, I earn just about $2.50 a day.

That’s a little discouraging, but I know that I will double or triple that ($225 per month) during next year’s lull, and double or triple that ($675 per month) again the year after. As long as I stick with it and do all my daily clicks.

Each year I will have more Direct referrals — others like YOU who are following my progress and joining some of the same PTCs that I’m focusing on. And I am providing the very best mentoring possible so that you can do the same things I am doing to build an always-growing PTC business.

Persistence. That’s how I know you will stick with it, even through the long lull. It’s the only way you’ll achieve success in this business (or any other business of your own for that matter.) In the long run, nothing succeeds like persistence.

WRITERS BLOCK

Let’s face it, any business has its dull periods, it’s tedium, and the long lull is it for the PTCs.

You notice it’s been over three weeks since I got a new blog post out? The long lull has a lot to do with that.

During this awful slow period, it’s enough to just get the daily clicks all done. We’re easing into summertime, and I want to enjoy the fine weather, work in the garden, go bicycling, or go swimming in the outdoor pool, take a vacation, have a cookout with friends in the backyard. Anything but tote up my earnings for the day and see it’s just $2.50 a day.

Here at Tame Bear Central I was in the midst of a little series I called “The Perfect Campaign” when the dreaded writers block set in. It was time to write about autoresponders, and I just couldn’t get a handle on how to write a simple blog post about using an autoresonder in ad pages to build your list. Couldn’t even get started. Total blank.

It’ll come sooner or later.

But I decided in the meantime because I am here in the long lull I better write about the lull so you know what it’s all about. Or if you haven’t hit it yet, you know what’s coming and when to expect it.

The sails go slack. The air is still, the water like glass. Fire up the engine* and motor your way home. Do your daily clicks, do your own blog posts, don’t work too hard, enjoy the summer. The winds will change in a couple months and summer will be coming to a close before you know it. Get ready, get ready — haul on the tiller, swing the boat hard around and let the main sheet run because the wind is returning and you are gonna fly!

* Your boat has a motor, right?