With the dollar in near free fall against the Euro, I’ve been researching other means of income that will help offset the painful 30% loss I’m experiencing now in the exchange rate. The most obvious means, aside from robbing banks, is through affiliate and ad sales because neither requires large investments of time or money.

I’m not a complete neophyte to the whole affiliate scheme, but I haven’t been very serious about it either. Right now I make between $60 and $80 a month through affiliate sales that requires no more time than depositing the monthly check or transferring the money out of PayPal. There’s no reason that can’t be increased to a steady $200 – $300 a month with a little effort put forward now that even my webhost (I’m shameless) offers a referral program. I’m not looking to changing career paths into internet marketing mogul, but I think most people can relate to the appeal of seeing a few hundred bucks in extra monthly income.

Searching google for internet affiliate programs will turn up countless blogs listing their top 10 selections that were probably copied from another blog. What I’ve been looking for are affiliate programs that pay in pounds or euros and support PayPal or Moneybookers. PayPal allows you to hold multiple currencies in your account and convert one currency to another at any time, which could add a significant boost in revenue if I transfer between currencies when one currency is higher than the other. It’d be an easy way to hedge those finances and keep from losing my shirt every time the dollar drops another cent.

The one that I’ve found that interests me the most is a company called Oxado out of England Ireland. From what I’ve read by other users, they pay on average between €0.5 to €1 per click, which if you are living in the US and your currency is dollars because that equates to $0.70 to $1.40 per click. To me, their biggest advantage is that they don’t require personal information such as my social security number — a sacred number I hold on to tighter than my family jewels.

My sites are awaiting approval to display their ads, so I don’t have any personal experience with them, but they sound like a better moneymaker than AdSense and worth considering. For me, it’s a boon because I can either keep the money in Euros to use here in Italy or exchange it to Dollars, make even more profit, and pay off recurring expenses in the US. For you in the US, your profit would get higher the lower the dollar falls, which doesn’t seem to be seeing any bottom.

For those of you with blogs and websites, what do you think about the whole online advertising scheme? Do you find it’s worth the trouble or does the whole subject not even interest you?

Update: I’ve since dropped Oxado and will write why later on. I would not suggest using them.