We’ve received several questions about why S’more pays 10 points per day. The answer is a bit long and slightly complicated, but because we’ve had so many questions on it we want to take the time to explain how S’more ads work and why it makes sense for us to award 10 points per day.
Points Per Day: CPC vs. CPM
First of all, It is important to understand how online advertising works. There are two common methods of payment in the world of online advertising: CPM and CPC. CPC, or Cost Per Click, is pretty self explanatory. An advertiser is paid each time someone clicks on their ad. The other method of payment is called CPM or “Cost Per Thousand.” This means the publisher is paid for every 1,000 impressions on a given ad.
Our users often ask us, “why don’t I get paid each time I click on an ad?” We don’t pay our users per click because that’s not how we receive payment from our advertisers. Instead, we are paid by our advertisers on a CPM basis, or per 1,000 impressions. For S’more, this means we are paid when an add loads on our user’s lock screens 1,000 times.
Understandably, most advertisers don’t like to pay on a CPC basis if they think people may be incentivized to click on an ad. Since that would clearly be the scenario if we paid our users per click, we run our ads on a CPM basis.
Points Per Day: Ad Network Quality
We currently do not make as much money as we are paying our users. In business, this is known as a loss leader. We willingly pay S’more users more than we earn, in hopes that in the future we will be able to demand higher rates from advertisers when we can offer them a bigger network.
There are many factors involved in how much you can earn for running ads. One important factor is the quality of your network. When it comes down to it, some impressions are more valuable to advertisers than others. One thing that affects the quality of the S’more network is it’s size. As S’more grows, we hope to be able to increase payouts.
We launched the S’more network in March of 2016 and we’re still pretty small. We can’t yet command the highest rates from advertisers. We have hopes to expand over the next year and continue to earn more from our advertisers, and pass those earnings down to you, our users.
At S’more, our highest priority is helping you earn money on things you already do every day, like using your phone. Additionally, we have plans to expand our features and offer you more ways to earn and save. We are your savings-savvy, consumer advocate and we’re here for you! If you have any further questions, drop us a line anytime at support@donately.org.
TL;DR: “The Bigger our Network Grows, the More We Can Pay You!”