Earn rewards through cashback shopping sites

Cashback shopping sites fall into an advertising loophole scenario where you, the customer, are rewarded for signing up to products and services without actually spending money. It is possible to make a few hundred pounds a year this way or even more depending on what you do.

The general ideas outlined in this article apply to most cashback sites, and hopefully will help you gain some understanding. It's up to you who you sign up with. I personally suggest signing up with all of them, keeping a log of all usernames and passwords. You can then decide which cashback site you prefer as you use them.

A simpler form of advertising

Cashback sites operate with a simple model: they are a portal to thousands of merchants and retailers selling their products and services. These merchants and retailers pay the cashback site/portal everytime a sale on any product is made. It’s the equivalent of providing a sales lead, and the cashback site shares some of this revenue with you in the form of points redeemable as gift vouchers or cash. From the retailer’s perspective this is an extraordinarily cheap way of advertising via the internet because a company usually throws a ton of money behind a product and hopes it sells. Now, customers are clicking through to the retailers on their own because an incentive is attached, making it easier and more attractive for both the customer and retailer. Products at a fraction of the normal advertising cost, through the internet with a small reward for redirecting your spending habits is a pretty good deal. Everything is done automatically through link-tracking software so you can earn your points.

From the cashback site's perspective, all they’re doing is sharing a percentage they make from the retailers with you, because you were the one who signed up to these products and services through the portal. As an example, Tesco are one of the retailers affiliated with more than one cashback site. Not only are they sending customers to the Tesco website to buy goods and paying you points as a “thankyou, come again”, but Tesco Clubcard points are earned simultaneously. Double whammy!

The loophole and the money you can make

How can you earn money without spending any? It’s all very well getting paid for having something you do want, such as a DVD, or CD, but purchasing things you don’t really need is pointless, right?

This is where the loophole exists, and the trick is to look for the products offering the highest points upon sign up, but which also offer a free trial period where you don’t actually pay until a set date. By canceling just before the trial ends, you keep the points earned and avoid paying for the product. I did this with LoveFilm and cancelled, but you can guarantee that some people forget and get charged, thus justifying the whole point of cashback/points sites and indeed the concept of the “free” trial.

Using Pigsback, I signed up for postal junk mail and email spam for points, but the junk mail only came a few times and was simply thrown away -  the email spam is sent to a dedicated free email account so it’s kept away from my personal email account. This earns me instant points each time I register for a newsletter of some sort. The same guidelines apply to other reward sites.

Free cash for clicks

Pigsback features “clickthroughs” which earn you small amounts points for clicking on buttons leading to a random retailer. Again, this is dangling a carrot and providing a lead for that retailer. It may well lead to a purchase from a customer (you) but there is no obligation and the points are still yours. I never purchase but instead go back to the homepage, refresh, and repeat.

The future of cashback advertising

The next stage for the cashback/affiliate/referall system is to operate on the high street where you’ll be rewarded to shop in certain stores. GreasyPalm are already doing this on what appears to be a beta testing scale, so watch this space as it could get lucrative.

To summarise: You sign up to Cashback site X who expose you to hundreds of companies plugging their wares. You sign up to as many as possible, take notes of dates, passwords etc, earn the points but CANCEL before you are charged so you don’t have to pay for the product. These points are redeemable as gift vouchers, paid for by the retailers, as they saved money by not having to advertise as intensively. Although you cancelled, you can guarantee enough people are purchasing actual products which systematically generate enough money to pay Cashback site X, and of course, you.

Tips.

• Don’t sign up for any type of cashback site that charges for signup.
• Open a new email account dedicated precisely for this kind of endevour. By participating in these sites, you’re inviting hundreds of spam messages.
• Get Roboform, or something similar, to make the filling in of registration forms quicker.
• When you sign up to Pigsback, in the main profile area, tick ALL interests so that more of the points redeemable clickthroughs are available.
• Keep a written record of everything you sign up to, By being organized, you can deal with any problems that arise, as well as having a reminder as to when to cancel subscriptions and trials to forego payment.
• When signing up to a third party offer, take a print screen shot for proof of sign up. Sometimes the Pigsback people don’t credit your points and you’ll need conformation emails, visual proof etc. This is much easier than it sounds as long as you’re organized.

Cash paying sites:

Topcashback
Quidco
Cashback Kings
Giveortake
Wepromiseto
GreasyPalm

Points paying sites:

Pigsback