AC Page Views and Up-Front Payments: How They Work Over the Life Cycle of an Associated Content CP

When I go out and read the forums, there are a lot of people obsessing about increasing their up-front payments, but not worrying so much about keywording or article promotion. The more I write for AC, the more this doesn't make sense to me. Instead, a long-term point of view, figuring in your pageviews over time and long-term strategies for increasing your audience, give you much more money for your work than making that quick buck right now.

I'm developing a pageview tracking spreadsheet (which after I have it fully automated I will share with everyone) and it is helping me get a realistic perspective on how important PVs really are in the long run. Here are a few of the things I've figured out from it, as well as a lot of wisdom I've gleaned from folks out on the forums (thanks, guys!).

Lifecycle of a CP - The Beginner

There are three phases of CP development, especially with the advent of the upfront+bonus payment system: beginner, adolescent, and advanced. In the beginner phase, up to about clout 3, the upfront payments are critical. You may be getting $5 for an article that gets you a dollar in page views. Most of your income at this level comes from your up-front payments, not your PVs.

For instance, let's say you really get moving on your first month (relatively speaking). You write 12 ordinary articles and manage to get paid for three news articles as well (more about fast pageviews than the upfront $5 payment). For the sake of simplicity, let's say you get paid $5 for each of these, for a total of $75.

Your PVs, of course, are anemic. You're still learning about keywording, you don't have a social network yet, and your articles average about 100 PVs each for the whole month, for a total of - 1500 PVs. That gives you a whopping bonus of $2.25. Your up-front payment is many times this, and at this point seems much more important.

$75.00 > $2.25

Lifecycle of a CP - The Adolescent CP

Most CPs who are really focusing on building a career at AC will make a clout 4 within a month or so; this is an adolescent CP. The typical clout 4 CP has a minimum of ten articles with decent pageviews of around a hundred each.