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Beginner’s Guide to Anything4Free: Method 2

Christina Crowe — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 18:48:02 +0000

If you have a trade rating (TR) of 4 or higher and you think you’re ready to move on to Method 2 of freebie trading and recruit your own referrals, buckle your seat belts. It’s going to be a long and entertaining ride. But, if you’re new to freebie trading or think you can still benefit from Method 1, I suggest reading my Beginner’s Guide to Anything4Free: Method 1 post to familiarize yourself with the process. For a more detailed overview on Method 1 and Method 2, read my Project Payday review.

First, you’ll need to master the art of patience before freebie trading can become a rewarding hobby. There are so many factors of freebie trading that is beyond your control when diving into Method 2. Referrals will go on hold, offers will take centuries to credit and questions will pile up in your in-box, among the few. It will become your duty to help your referrals go off that hold, explain how to submit missing credit requests to speed up the process of offer crediting and answer all questions in your in-box, one by one.

You’ll also need to be flexible. Some days will be hectic, and you’ll have to bustle about answering questions, initiating trades and responding to trade thread inquiries. Other days you’ll find yourself refreshing the Anything4Free forums tab a hundred times, just to see if you have any new messages.

Photo by Zack Mccarthy (flickr)

With Method 2, the core of your freebie trading efforts will evolve around your trading thread. However, your trading thread shouldn’t be the only thing you should focus on. See my guide on recruiting referrals to freebie trading websites for additional things you can do to attract referrals. Though, since one of our main objectives in Method 2 is to make an effective trading thread, we’ll focus on that in this post.

Before Making a Trading Thread on Anything4Free

Before you create a trading thread, you’ll need to list your trades in the trade manager so that potential referrals can initiate trades with you. You do this by going to the Trade Manager and then the “Add Trade Offer” link in the manager menu. Until you are able to collect more trades, the trades that you add will be the first 4 trades you completed with me or previous trade mentors.

Choose the types of trades you want to display in your trade list. You can choose from the following:
- Referral for Referral – Referral for Referral trades are used if you want to increase the variety of trades you have in your trade list and raise your TR. Basically, you complete a trade for someone else, get paid after the offers credit, have that person complete a trade for you and pay them for the completed trade. You earn money from the trader you’re working with and the freebie website the referral completed offers on. You also pay the trader for completing offers as your referral.
- Referral for Cash – Referral for cash is the traditional approach to freebie trading. You pay your referral a certain amount of money to complete a trade with you, and you get paid from the freebie website the referral completed offers on.
- Referral for Other – Referral for Other is used if you want to exchange something other than cash with the other trader.
No matter what type of trade you do, you will receive your payment from the freebie websites you completed offers for as long as your referrals complete their offers under your referral link.
Choose a timing for the trade. The options are the following:
- On Green – Your referrals will complete the offers under your referral link and go “green” once they receive credit for the offers completed. You then pay the trader, submit the account for approval and get paid from the freebie website. Paying “On Green” is mostly used so that referrals receive payment quicker. However, because you submit the account for approval AFTER you pay the referral, you risk the chance of getting scammed (the referral going on hold because he/she provided false information or his/her credit card was bad when you submit the account for approval). If a referral goes on hold when you submit the account for approval, you do not get paid.
- On Approval – The referral gets credited for all the required offers, you submit the account for approval, the account gets approved successfully (and does not go on hold), you pay the referral the amount due and then you get paid from the freebie website. By using this option, it might be slower for the referral to receive payment, but there is no risks involved. You’ll get paid no matter what. If the referral’s account does go on hold for whatever reason, you can help the referral get off hold and, if this doesn’t work (the referral provided false information purposely, for example), you don’t lose any money because you never paid the referral yet in the first place.
- Same Time – This option is mainly used for “Referral for Referral” trades. Basically, you both complete the required offers and you both pay each other after each trader goes “green.”
Choose the order of the trade. If you’re paying referrals after they complete offers for you on the freebie website, I suggest the “Partner goes first” option, since your referral will have to complete the required offers and get credited first before the trade is complete. The “same time” option is generally used with “Referral for Referral” trades.
Fill in the freebie website information. Enter in the website name your referrals will be completing offers on, your referral link for that freebie website and a link to the offer list on the freebie website so that referrals can see the offers before committing to a trade.
Decide how much money you’ll pay each referral for completing offers on the freebie website. When choosing pricing, look around the trading forums and see how much money other traders pay for the specific trade in order to determine the average. You can pay higher or lower than average, depending on your needs. Higher payments generally attract more referrals, though you’ll earn less when subtracting that amount from the money the freebie website will give you.
Choose a color for your trade. Many traders like to color code or group their trades into a specific color group. You can also pin certain trades so that they show up first in the trade list.

Creating a Trading Thread

Once you have your trades up in the trade list, you’re ready to start working on your trading thread. However, I suggest first buying premium membership on Anything4Free, since premium membership gives you access to the Beginner’s Trading Post section of the forums. With premium membership, you also receive an expanded in-box for more saved in-box messages, 2,000 or more points to use in the Anything4Free store, a reduced response time (so that you don’t have to wait several minutes before you can respond to a private message or send private messages) and access to the pinned waiting list. Premium membership is only $30 for 6 months or $50 for a year.

To be more successful and recruit more referrals, access to the Beginner’s Trading Post is essential. You only receive access if you have a TR of 3 and below or have premium status. If you don’t have premium status, it may be hard to find referrals in the other trading sections (Referral 4 Cash Trades, Referral 4 Referral Trades and Referral 4 Other Trades). Beginner traders can’t access any of the three above trading sections because they don’t have a TR higher than 4, and many traders that hit a TR of 4 or higher aren’t interested in doing any more trades because they are already preoccupied with recruiting their own referrals. If you don’t mind waiting and have mastered the art of patience, you may not need to buy premium membership. However, I highly recommend it.

Decide which trading sections on the forums you’ll like to put your trading threads in. The trading sections are the Beginner’s Trading Post, Referral 4 Cash Trades, Referral 4 Referral Trades and Referral 4 Other Trades. You can choose to create only one trading thread for one specific trading section, multiple trading threads for each section or one trading thread for each section. However, you can’t make more than one trading thread in one section. Once you decide on which section(s) you want to use, click the “New Topic” button on the upper right corner of the trading section. The following blank page you’ll use to fill out your trading thread.
Make a catchy heading for your trading thread. This can be the tricky part. Your heading can make the difference between multiple referrals a day and no referrals at all. You want your heading to be unique and memorable. Try to spice it up a bit and go with a theme. For example, would you click on a heading that reads “Are you a hungry newbie? Fresh hot money served here!” or “Need referrals! I pay quick! Make money here.” The answer is obvious. The first heading isn’t only unique, it’s creative. Being creative, it attracts attention. You want your heading to turn heads and make potential referrals click to view your trading thread. Without a good heading, you have no business.
Make the body of your trading thread. Don’t just toss on links to the trades in your trade list and hope potential referrals will be inclined to click them. Organize the structure of your trading thread. You wouldn’t first build a house without putting up a framework, would you? Not unless you want your house to topple down before you could even live in it. Well, freebie trading is pretty much the same thing. Before your trading thread can be successful, you need to first build your framework. How will your thread start? What sections should you include in your trading thread (Ex: About Me, Benefits, Advantages, Features)? How will you entice potential traders to initiate trades with you?
Analyze the competition. What are other traders putting in their trading threads and how can yours be different? You don’t want to copy another trader’s trading thread. That’s just dull and boring. Besides, it’s plagiarism and you’ll get in a lot more trouble doing that. Instead, find out what other traders are saying and determine what they’re leaving out. To rise on top, you need to provide the best service, or appear like you are. For example, some traders don’t offer bonus packages. Should you? If an idea strikes, use it.
Put links to each of your trades in your trading thread. Make a list of all your trades or group them together into similar categories. For example, group all of your ZipNadaZilch trades together and your ZeroPriceTags trades in a separate section. You can even color code specific groups. Start off each list item with the trade name and end each item with a link to initiate the trade. Between the name and trade initiation link, include how many credits traders will need to acquire and the link to the offers of the freebie website listed. Some traders like to browse the offers of a freebie website first to make sure that they can complete them.

After your trading thread is complete, bump it three times a day so that it can stay on top of all the other trading threads. You can only bump a trade once every 6 hours. Use the feature wisely and test certain hours per day to determine which hours give you the most response. For more information on acquiring referrals, read my guide on recruiting referrals.

Beginner’s Guide to Anything4Free: Method 1

Christina Crowe — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:44:38 +0000

Because freebie trading has very good money making potential, many people want to give it a try, but they’re unsure with how to start. As I mentioned in my Project Payday Review, there are three ways to make money from trading. In this guide I focus on getting started with the forums Anything4Free.

Photo by Photos8.com (flickr)

If you read my Project Payday Review, you would know that there are three ways to make money on Anything4Free using incentivized freebie websites:

Complete offers to go “green”. The person you’re trading with on Anything4Free will then pay you when all the required offers are credited.
Pay referrals to complete offers to go “green”. You make money through the incentivized freebie website when the offers your referrals complete credits.
Sell the gifts you receive from incentivized freebie websites. If you prefer not to receive the cash prize when you get enough referrals, you can choose to receive a gift and sell it instead.

Honestly, I prefer Method 1 and 2 when making money on Anything4Free, but everyone is different. It’s good to first decide which methods you want to do before you get started. My personal favorite method is Method 2, since it’s less stressful and easier to do. However, you need to do Method 1 before you can do Method 2, just like how you need to do Method 2 before you can do Method 3. For this tutorial, we will focus on Method 1.

Anything4Free Trading Terms

By now you probably have a lot of questions running through your head. Let’s discuss trading terms before we move forward.

Trading Forums: An example of a trading forums is the forum Anything4Free. Signing up on Anything4Free is where you’ll start to begin trading. Trading forums advertise a variety of different companies, which you’ll use when trading.
IFW – Incentivized Freebie Websites: Incentivized freebie websites are companies you complete offers for and recruit referrals to in order to receive a gift or cash prize. In Method 2, freebie websites will be your main source of income.
Going Green: “Going green” is a term used to refer to when a user from Anything4Free successfully receives credit for all required offers on the incentivized freebie website. This is what you ultimately want to do throughout your trading business in order to get paid from both the freebie website and other traders if you’re in Method 1.
Going Red: “Going red” is a term used to describe when credit for a specific trade is revoked. This is what you ultimately don’t want to do while trading. Traders get their credit revoked in a variety of ways, but mainly it’s because they gave fraudulent information to the incentivized freebie website when signing up or while completing offers.
Trade: Trading is the process in which you complete offers on a specific freebie website for another individual on Anything4Free. By doing trades, you’ll increase your trade rating. This will become handy later on once you start doing Method 2 and recruiting referrals.

Trading Using Method 1

Before You Trade

Before we get started with Method 1 on Anything4Free, you should clear your cookies first. The purpose of clearing cookies is to insure that you get credit for the offers you complete. If you use Firefox, you can clear your cookies by going to Tools -> Options -> Privacy tab -> Remove Individual Cookies -> Remove All Cookies.

Also, it’s good to keep a notebook nearby or a text document open so that you can record what offers you do on the freebie websites, especially if you’re doing free trial offers that you may or may not be interested in. I’ll explain more about recording your trades later on in this tutorial.

Now, you’ll first want to sign up for a trading forum. For this tutorial, we’ll use the forum Anything4Free. Click the link and complete the sign up page. You can view loads upon loads of useful information in the Freebie University section of the forums once you sign up. Browse the pinned topics if you’d like. You can also ask your own questions here, though you probably won’t need to do that since I’ll be here to help you every step of the way.

After you browse the Freebie University on Anything4Free, I suggest introducing yourself to the Anything4Free community in the Introductions section. This way, everyone gets to know you as an individual. It’s also always good to interact with the community in the beginning to prepare for Method 2 when you’ll be needing your own referrals.

A Couple Things You Should Remember

From time to time, you’ll need to update each trade in the “My Status” area. Here’s a list of the various updates and when to do them:

Offer(s) Completed – Waiting for Credit: Use this update when you’ve completed all the required offers on the freebie website but have not received credit for them yet. We will then wait for the offers to credit.
Offer(s) Completed – Green: Use this update when you’ve completed all the offers on the freebie website and have also received credit for them. I will then submit the trade for approval and you will be paid once you’re approved.
MCR Submitted: Use this update when you’ve submitted a missing credit request (MCR) on a specific offer. You should submit a MCR if a certain offer doesn’t credit for longer than 5 days. How you submit the MCR will vary depending on the freebie website. However, usually you can submit it in the “submit a ticket” area.
Completed: Use this update after I have paid you and the trade is completed (don’t forget to comment and rate the trade so that we both can receive trade ratings).

The Trading Process

To start, you should visit my Beginner’s Trading Post if you have a trade rating of 3 or below. More experienced traders will benefit more from my trading post here.

You’ll need to decide if you want to take part in my Fast Fifteen Package or my Beginner Package first on Anything4Free. I strongly suggest completing the Fast Fifteen Package before you move on to my Beginner Package, since the Fast Fifteen Package is quickest and easiest to complete. It should also take no longer than fifteen minutes to go green. You’ll receive a $5 bonus after completing each package ($10 bonus overall), along with a payment after you complete each specific trade. You can view more details of each package in my Beginner’s Trading Post on the Anything4Free forums.
Each package has a list of trades that will need to be completed in order to complete the package. Once you’ve decided on the package you wanted to complete, simply click the link “Click here to start trading!” next to the first trade in the list and you’ll be taken to a form where you’ll need to fill out your PayPal email address (so that I can pay you) and the email you’ll use to sign up for the freebie website (so that I can check your progress and confirm that you’ve done the trade). Check “Yes” next to “Commit to trade” (or else you won’t be able to start the trade) and click the button “Initiate Trade”. You’ve now begun the trading process.
Once the trade is initiated, you can then go to your Trade Manager (the blue tab at the top of the page). Here you can check the progress of all your trades, add trades of your own, and so on. From the Trade Manager Menu, click the “My Trades” link and you’ll notice the trade you initiated with me in the list.
To complete the trade on Anything4Free, click on the link in the “Site/Item/Other” section of the “My Trades” menu in the Trade Manager. The referral link will open up in another tab and you’ll need to join the website under me to receive payment. Complete the form, sign in, and browse the various offers for one that you think you can do. There are many offers that will be available. Some require you to buy a product, others only require you to sign up, and others require you to try a program. My personal favorite types of offers are the free trials, since most of the time they’re free. I also love the game offers where you deposit a certain amount of money and play games with that money in hopes of winning more money.

Once you’re done completing offers for the required credit on Anything4Free (I’ll let you know how much credit you need beforehand for the trade to be completed), update the Trade Manager and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can (should take no longer than 24 hours at the latest). You’ll receive payment once the trade is approved, which will usually only take a few hours.

Remember to keep a record of every offer that you do. Also, if you plan on canceling a free trial offer, don’t do it too quickly or your credit may be revoked. Instead, wait until the trial is almost done and then cancel.

Keeping a Record of All Trades

Another tip that will help on Anything4Free is to keep a record of all the offers you complete so that you have something to look back on if you need to file a missing credit request and so that you can cancel trial offers in time before you get charged. In my Anything4Free trading records, I like to include the name of the person I’m trading with, the incentivized freebie website link, the names of the offers I completed, a link to each offer, any deadlines I need to be aware of (when the free trial ends, for example), and how many credits I should receive for each offer.

If you have any additional questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to send me a private message on the Anything4Free forum (view my profile here), respond to this blog post, or send me an email (christina@cashcampfire.com).

Once you complete the Fast Fifteen Package and Beginner Package, you’ll be ready to move on to Method 2.

Good luck with Method 1!

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How do you like Anything4Free?

*This post has some affiliate links distributed in the content. Read more about them on the Disclosure page.

How to Get Referrals on Freebie Websites

Christina Crowe — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:35:43 +0000

Want to learn how to get referrals on freebie websites? Many new members to Anything4Free and other freebie forums want to get referrals as soon as they reach a trade rating of 4 or higher in order to increase their money making potential. After trying for a while to get referrals but finding that none will come their way, some new members start getting discouraged and quit trading altogether. What they don’t realize is that it takes time and effort to get anywhere in the trading business, especially if your goal is to get that big trade rating of 50 or even 100. You have to really work at it in order to have referrals start piling up. After all, members in the community need to trust you in order to even consider trading with you. As the community expands, some members start scamming others by falsely completing a trade or not paying after a completed trade, so trustworthy reputable traders are in higher demand. Because of this, some newcomers won’t even consider trading with someone else who has a low trade rating. However, there are ways to turn their heads and increase the chances that they’ll trade with you. Find out how to get referrals in the steps to follow.

If you don’t know the basics of Method 1 yet, you should practice that method first before you move on to getting referrals.

How to Get Referrals – Some Things to Remember

You can put up a trading thread, which will become one of your main sources for getting referrals, when you’ve reached a trade rating of 4 or higher if you’re using the Anything4Free forums.
Don’t spam, for this will most likely hurt you than help you. No one wants to trade with someone who has a negative reputation and, if you get banned, you won’t be able to trade with anyone at all.

Photo by Balazs Gal (flickr)

How to Get Referrals on Freebie Websites

The best advice for how to get referrals is to be patient. You won’t get 10 referrals overnight when you’re new (unless you’re extremely lucky). Yes, I know, we all want those referrals to start banging on our door as soon as we put up our first trading thread. However, this just cannot be possible. Having patience and not giving up will reward you in the months to come, so hang in there and keep trying! Whatever you do, though, do not spam.
Take advantage of your signature. I can’t stress this enough! Many people overlook their signatures, and this can be a big mistake! Your signature will become one of the major tools that will drive referrals to your profile (and later, to your trade list). You want to be as creative and informative (while also brief) as you can in your signature. Moreover, it doesn’t hurt to spice your signature up with a picture, adding color while you’re at it. Many traders prefer to use flash pictures. Whatever you do, it’s up to you, but you should always describe how you intend to help fellow traders in your signature in order to get referrals.
Put up an avatar! It might not seem like an avatar will help you much, but it can if you make use of it. With an avatar, viewers will get a sense of what kind of person you are. Many traders also like to use flash images for their avatar and make the avatar similar to their signature (in terms of describing the services they intend to provide). However, you can also put up a personal photo (like I did) to get referrals. Personal photos help others warm up to you and a personal photo will also help others relate to you as a person. Another option for an avatar would be a creative representation of your name (almost like a logo). For example, someone with the words “cat” in their name may put up an avatar with a picture of a cat.

Spice up your trading thread! After all, what’s the use of putting it up if no one is inspired to trade with you? Don’t just put up a trading thread describing the various trades you have to offer. Tell everyone who you are, what you intend to achieve, and how you’ll help the trading community. You can even tweak it by adding personalized images (everyone likes a bit of color). A great tip on how to get referrals is to include bonuses every now and then to further entice traders to trade with you! For example, you can put a bonus of $5 on some trades or you can offer a free giveaway if referrals complete a certain number of trades with you.
Tweak your profile! For some traders, your profile will be the final decision on whether or not they’ll trade with you. If someone clicks your name and sees that you didn’t really put the time in to add any information about who you are, this possible referral might think that you’re trying to hide something or you just might not be experienced. If you’re reading this, then you know that is the last thing you want! So, spend time on your profile in order to get referrals. Let others know your interests, who you are, and how traders can contact you if they need help.
Interact with the community! Just registering on the forums and trading with fellow forum members are quite different than actually interacting with the community. Start posting around the forums and you’ll discover that more people will visit your profile. Don’t just post nonsense either. Try to help and your help will be returned. Interacting with the community will also help members discover the real person behind that avatar of yours, and they’ll be more likely to trade with you. The main thing to remember here is to have fun and enjoy yourself while you get referrals! Usually, the most successful traders enjoy helping out everyone else.
Increase your trade rating! As awful as this may sound to some of you, increasing your trade rating is a great way of getting referrals. Your trade rating is one of the major things that will show that you’re an experienced trader. Even though you can start recruiting for referrals after a trade rating of 4 on Anything4Free, it might be beneficial to wait a bit and increase your trade rating a little higher (until it’s at 10 or 15). This way, you have an advantage over members with lower trade ratings. You’ll also have a larger variety of trades your referrals can choose from. This increases the chances that they’ll trade with you more than once. After all, you want your referrals to continue trading, don’t you?

If you do all the tips above on how to get referrals, eventually you’ll start getting a good stream of referrals. Just remember: Don’t give up. Referrals will come eventually. It just takes time.

Post Your Input

What’s your advice on how to get referrals?
Do certain tactics work more than others?

*This post has some affiliate links distributed in the content. Read more about them on the Disclosure page.