My Advertising Pays (MAPS) Review
Rainer Barton is a German Internet marketer who I believe has done a indepth review about My Advertising Pays and its CEO Michael Deese.
As always; Business For Home does not endorse companies, we report facts and figures (plenty below) and we encourage network marketers to do further Due Diligence (research).
Because of many false reports and calculations on the Internet and because of the many requests I got, partly also from existing MAP partners, I want to take a stand on this subject. I went to Biloxi on January 25/26, 2016 to see Michael Deese personally, the founder and owner of MAP, so I got this information absolutely first-hand.
I’d like to use this opportunity also to respond once more to some of the aspects of the business model.
MyAdvertisingPays is often referred to as an MLM (multi-level marketing) company, others are calling it even a Ponzi scheme or a pyramid system. These people spend months, hour after hour, to write incredibly long reports, and this without ever having understood this business of MAP. According to the opinion of these Internet experts, and the emphasis here is on „opinion,“ MAP should have been insolvent already for the past 18 months.
But thanks to its perfect business model MAP enjoys great financial health and also was able to hire a complete, experienced and highly qualified team of IT professionals using its own resources and thus is no longer forced to work with freelancers who need to share their lifeblood amongst several projects. In addition, there is a new, modern and unique Website in the works that will allow MyAdvertisingPays to achieve significantly higher revenues in the future.
Evidence of financial strength is also demonstrated by the fastest payouts in the industry as well as the incredibly strong support with an average response time of less than three hours.
MAP is an online advertising platform that sells products (advertisements, banner advertising and guaranteed visitors for a Web page) on its Website, as many other companies do. These products are offered existing partners of MAP in the form of Credit Packs (CPs) at a price of $49.99.
Other revenues are coming in through renting banner space to major customers like Adhitz and Traffic Swarm. The amount of sales due to these key accounts (also called external revenue) varies daily and the percentage of the external revenue versus the sales of CPs also varies daily between 20 to 60%. External sales at MAP cannot be increased much further due to the design of the current Website, which is one of the reasons for the coming new Website. We even have to turn away business for that reason at the moment.
With MAP, profits (e.g. revenues minus costs) are distributed to the accounts of all the partners every 20 minutes, if they own at least one active CP and they have watched 10 advertisements within the last 24 hours. The number of CPs is the distribution key for the personal profit share. Simply put, the more CPs someone owns the higher his or her profit share.
It is often reported that MAP earns money on the advertisements of its partners in the Traffic Exchange, the internal MAP advertising page. This statement is, of course, wrong, because the partners have paid for their advertising here already by buying the CPs. However, five big banner advertisements are shown here with which MAP does earn money again. Another false statement is that the MAPper are being paid for their „clicking.“
To understand the business model, it is important to know, that CPs cost $49.99 each and that they participate in the profit sharing until they earned $60 each. Because MAP has an unlimited affiliate program, i.e. a referral program, the recommending partners are here rewarded with up to 10% commissions an sales of their partners.
Out of this business model, the following questions arise for the sceptics and critics:
- Is this business model legal or a hidden pyramid scheme?
- Where does MAP take the money from to pay out its partners more than what these have paid for the products?
- Why does Michael Deese pass on incredible 95% of the profits?
Is MyAdvertisingPays legal or a hidden pyramid scheme?
In today’s information age, many thousands, even very well known companies are using the friendship advertising as a revenue turbo.
From A – like Amazon to Z – like Zalando, you find referral links on Websites. The commisions people get for their recommendations are far below the usual distribution costs of those companies. On top of that comes the quick, free propagation of the brand name on the Internet, which is an additional value for the publicity of the company. The referral business is therefore extremely profitable for businesses. One of the allegations of skeptics is that MAP generates its revenues primarily through existing members and that it later then distributes or redistributes the profits to existing partners.
For comparison, let’s look at the ADAC company in Germany with its nearly 19 million members. Here too, there is a recommendation link and enormous commissions. Looking at their Website more closely, one realizes that the ADAC itself recommends many other businesses, and it probably doesn’t do this for just a warm handshake.
Does the ADAC have a legal business model?
Is the money of the members worth less than the money that is generated by other sources within the comany, or is this just the forming of a WIN-WIN situation for the company and its member?
Ok, let’s take a look at another company, this time an international one as the pay-TV broadcaster Sky. Here, you also have to be a member, a partner or a subscriber, it does not matter what you call it. And again, you have to pay for a service and you can then recommend it to others.
Is this TV station going to be banned now, because here too very good money is paid for recommendations and also money earned with advertising?
Isn’t it up to each company alone how much it wants to spend on recommendation advertising from its profits?
Is the government intervening if up to 150 Euros are being paid just because someone recommends the „Sportbild“ magazine, or, listen to this, several hundred Euros for the recommendation of health insurance?
So far, I have never heard that this were unlawful practice and there weren’t any discussions, as far as I know, when washing machines, books, telephone contracts, electricity contracts or insurances and so much more were recommended for a commission. But the product „advertising“ which is marketed here just like all other products with a one-level referral commission, this should be an illegal pyramid scheme?
Isn’t that funny?
Now that everyone knows that the recommendation of advertising is illegal, one could use that as a reason to proceed against Google, right? They are also paying recommendation commissions. The only difference to MAP is that the bulk of the money goes to the shareholders.
Who does not advertise, dies. This was already recognized by Henry Ford – and a referral commission is the price for an advertisement that was successful and so, we have another WIN-WIN situation again.
How much more are companies spending on advertising without returning a success, meaning a sale?
My recommendation to all who are doubting, who are skeptical or even think that these business models are prohibited, please just enter „affiliate marketing“ as a search term in Wikipedia.
You’ll find that MAP does not differ here from thousands of well-known companies in this world. There is a highly effective distribution channel at work here which has proven itself very well in the fast world of the Internet.
Where does the money come from to pay the partners and why does MAP pay out 95% of the profits as commissions and profit share?
As described already before, every business is living from sales, and so does MAP. The difference between services or products compared to the MAP products lies in the production costs. MAP is selling digital consumer products which are costing virtually no money to produce. MAP products generate traffic, the gold of the Internet.
However, the same business laws still apply as for any other business. Without sales, no profit. Of course, MAP has costs to pay, employees must be paid, servers are costing money, rent and social security as well as research and development are not going to be given for free to MAP just because Mike Deese has such a beautiful smile. MAP doesn’t differ from another company here. If there are no or too few sales, the company suffers a loss and has to apply for bankruptcy.
For the company itself it doesn’t really matter a whole lot whether the money comes from the so-called external buyers or from the partners.
At this point, I’d like to make a one-time digression on the subject of external revenue and the number of active MAPper. The so-called Internet experts want to draw conclusions from the data they are getting from Adhitz. Unfortunately, I have to disappoint these experts a little because the displayed „unique clicks“ from MAP members are showing only the number of partners who are still logging themselves in via the main page and not via the Login page as most of the MAPpers now do. Detailed explanations regarding this topic can be found here:
The second disappointment for enviers and hobby networker will be the kind of payment model that Michael Deese has chosen to use. There are two common options. With currently over 112 million clicks per month you’d assume that the „pay per view“ payment model applies where only the actual display of the banner advertisement will be paid. This is based on calculations one can find in the Internet. These calculations are completely wrong.
The actual payment model that Mike Deese as a publisher of the MyAdvertisementPays site offers is the „pay per click“ payment. A payment is only made when a banner is actually clicked, this is happening far less often, but the returns are still many times higher. As described already above, the external advertising is at its absolute limit with regard to sales, with the new Website those requests can be accepted that MAP currently has to turn away. I think it doesn’t get any better than being completely sold out with a 100% utilization. No one could have foreseen this and the high number of partners at the start 2 Years ago.
One of the most frequently asked questions regarding MAP from prospects, MAPper themselves and of course the skeptics ist the question about the 20% that a CP earns on top of what it had cost.
ALL CALCULATIONS THAT I FOUND ABOUT IT ON THE INTERNET, ARE UNFORTUNATELY TOTALLY WRONG!
This alone for the reasons I have just described. At this point, I would like to explain this so that it is really comprehensible for everyone because this is such an important aspect of the business model.
A Credit Pack costs $49,99 of which 5% are going to the company and up to $5 to the sponsor – his or her reward for having made the recommendation. $42.50 can now be recorded as profit, i.e. can be booked towards the profit share. So, we now have a difference of $17.50 between the target earning of $60, that each Credit Pack has to generate, and this profit share. Based on the $42.50, this comes not to 20% but rather 41%, more than double the percentages than what is obtained in those known calculations.
But, because 5% of the $60 are flowing into the AdFund, which are remaining within the company, MAP generates another revenue stream in this ingenious way and reduces the money that must be generated by $3 down to $14.50.
The amounts in the balance and in the AdFund are always freely available to the partner. Therefore, the sum of all accounts for both balances represents the current and exact liability of MAP to its partners.
This amount, called by Mike Deese the „earmark“, is available to the system at all times and that is checked several times a day. If a partner now buys a Credit Pack from his balance, the liabilities are reduced and the paid amount turns into revenue, as described above. The „earmark“ total is parked in the so-called Reserve Fund and it is at this moment no longer money belonging to MAP, but of course managed by MAP. Purchases from the balance (Reserve Fund) are categorized for the calculation as new revenue. Additionally, 5% of commissions are flowing into the AdFund, yet ensuring higher revenues again.
MAP does not want to, can not nor is it allowed to guarantee any profits; if profits are made they are varying every day anyway.
Now, I am getting to the biggest errors that are made in all calculations I found on the Internet, namely the time factor. Even without a single cent from external deposits this concept would be completely legal and function to 100%. The partner would still get the products from the purchases made but the profit share would be lower, so that you have to assume that it might take 150 to 200 days until a CP has reached its target value of $60.
A question to the kings of Excel tables, would this still be a good deal? I think so, but everyone must answer this for themselves.
Let’s look at the reality. $14,50 per Pack and a runtime of 120 days corresponds to about 12 cents of external revenue per day. If you put these 12 cents in relation to the 50 cents profit share per day, this comes out to about 25% that the external sales have to generate in revenue.
During my first visit to Biloxi 2 years ago Mike Deese spoke of fluctuating external revenues between 20 and 60%. Therefore, it is no wonder that now, at full utilization of external advertising space, the runtime of CPs lies well below 120 days.
What du you think, are the prices for external advertising falling or rising if the number of page visits increases?
If MAP continues to pass on 95% of the profits even if the revenue is varying, anybody can figure out that this is a business to stay for eternity.
Mike Deese knows that he can spend each Dollar only once, so that is why he took great care that no fantasy figures are going to be paid just to look better than the competion in comparison. The companies that do this, more than 40, have come and gone, but MAP is standing here solid as a rock.
After more than 2 years now MAP has proved this in a very impressive way, thousands of Diamonds are forced to make withdrawals because of the limitation to 1200 Packs. Would a pyramid scheme try to keep the money in the system or would it force its partners to make withdrawals?
Many Diamonds have not sponsored a single partner and yet receive their withdrawals punctually and quickly; how can that be if in a pyramid scheme one is paid from the money of recruited people?
Lets get to the question now why 95% of the profits are paid out.
Not everyone of the nearly 250,000 registered partners at MAP is active. In the Internet industry the percentage is nevertheless very high compared to other online companies. The number of CPs is turned over about 3.5 times within a year. With thousands of Diamonds and many, many thousand partners who are on their way to become Diamonds, one can assume that many millions of CPs were purchased from MAP. If you multiply that number, and I’ll leave that number up to your imagination for now, with $2.50, a very handsome amount is indeed the result. This amount is definitely enough to cover the costs of MAP, but a fund is established here in addition.
The prerequisite for this business model is solely traffic, i.e. visitors to a Website. Search engines like Google, social networks like Facebook, video channels like YouTube that are all generating traffic are already in existence and they would be a much too overwhelming competition for a startup company. So, he came up with the idea to pay his partners decently for the traffic. True, similar companies exist already too but in those, 95% of the profits are flowing into the company and less than 5% to the partners; that these 5% are easily enough for the entrepreneur and person Michael Deese I have already proved formidably above.
The success is reflected by the breathtaking number of clicks on the Website. Every partner is being paid 72 times a day and is looking into his account several times daily. The saying that MAP is addicting doesn’t come from nothing but this happens much for the benefit of the company and for the own account.
So, I hope that I answered this question to your complete satisfaction too.
If you have now recognized the ingeniousness of MyAdvertisingPays, as thousands of MAPpers have, your questions are answered and you have a good feeling about starting with MAP, I’d like to offer my knowledge and my coaching free of charge to you. We are taking your road to MAP together. Your success is my priority.
The original article can be found here: www.rainer-barton.com