How to get referrals?

That's the billion dollar question...How to get referrals in any kind of Paid To program?

We all know that the way to really make money with these sites is to get as much referrals as possible in your downline.As for any person joining under you, you'll get a percentage of their earnings. This percentage varies from one program to another.
Having a consequent downline is the only way to make much money in Paid To programs, but then, how to do in order to attract potential referrals?

I'll only list the most simple ways to get referrals here, assuming that those who read my post are not "professionnal" advertisers with already huge downlines ;o)

1- First of all, do you have friends who could be interested in PTR? I mean, online friends as well as "real life " friends. This is a good point to start building your downline. If so, talk with them and introduce the programs you trust the most. It would be a pity to lose some friends because you lied on program, telling they're good but finding out at the end that they're not paying...
Send them a mail to motivate them and explain what you're doing (I just LOVE my friends but I wouldn't follow them blindly in their ventures without any explanation)

2- Join some dedicated Paid To forums and add your referral links into your signature (take care though and read their TOS, because some forums do not allow links in signatures)
Once you joined, post a lot, and be friendly and helpful, the more you post, the more your links will be seen, and as for being friendly, it seems logical that no-one would like to sign under an unfriendly person.

3- Try to set up a webpage or a blog, and promote your programs there.
Stay simple if it's your first attempt, as it'll be very time consuming if you try it complex. You'll lose your focus on PTR and spend too much time on trying to understand how to design your website.
Put your referral banners as well as some comments about the site(payout, how many ads per day, if the admin seems responsive and serious, as well as some notes about your personnal experience about the site)
Tell also a bit about yourself, as we all know that people will be more attracted by someone they feel "close to" and they'll more likely sign under for the same reasons.
Do not advertise too much programs on the same page...ask yourself which reaction you would have if you saw a page full of blinking banners and referral links...I'm sure you would close the page in the very same minute, anyway...I would!

Here's a link where you can create a free website, it's just an example, you can find many of those sites just by typing "free website" in your prefered search engine.
http://members.freewebs.com/

Creating a webpage will allow you to spend less into advertising, when you'll buy some advertising, you'll send traffic to YOUR site where all your programs are listed, instead of buying advertising for each and every program.

4- Try to find good deals of advertising on the programs you already belong to (paid to signup for example, or just a classical "paid to read" ad).
When you begin to promote, try to find the cheapest possible.

5- Browse the web if you try to join a particular audience. Some programs are USA/UK/CANADA/AUSTRALIA only, if you're not living in any of these countries, you won't be able to sign up as a member there, but some of them do allow advertisers from "outside".
From my personal experience, I got the best advertising results and the most active referrals from one of these programs. Advertising there is not more expensive than at any other site, but then you're sure you'll get "quality" referrals.
By "quality" referral, I mean coming from "search friendly" countries ; their searches will be accepted on search engines, and as many ads do promote searches, the most ads your refferals will be able to perform, the more you'll earn from them.(these countries are not limited to US/UK... but, unless you have a "targeted ad" option you can't usually have US+ europe, which are actually the "search friendly" countries)

6- Don't promote a PTR which is hardly promoted by anyone, you won't attract many people.There's an exeption though : if the program is brand new! this is the best moment to promote !!
In the same view, don't promote those having hundreds of thousand members as they have certainly reached a maximum point, and it will be hard to find more members : those who were interested in did certainly already sign up.

7- Try all the free means : manual surf, autosurf, traffic exchange, link exchange programs...
these are not much successful, but you'll certainly catch one or another referral , and as it is free ...

And last but not least : don't give up! your advertising results will certainly be very dissapointing in the beginning, but with much perseverance you'll have sucess and maybe, who knows, have one of these big promoters with a lot of referrals in your downline.