Techniques learned in my first week

More journal entries and offer reviews are on their way, but in the meantime I’d like to publish a few of the techniques and tips I’ve picked up during my first week using CashCrate.

Tip #1: Use a different email address for surveys / offers.

One of the side effects of giving your email address to a few of these surveys companies is that they will start sending you offers and other unsolicited mail to the email address you provide. Some companies are worse than others, and it’s difficult to tell which companies are , so it’s just a factor that you have to deal with.

The easiest way to keep the unwanted email from reaching your email is to create a secondary email address just for the surveys / free offers. On my primary email account the only CashCrate related emails I receive are confirmations when offers have cleared and the earnings have been added to my account:

I am a big fan of Gmail, their webmail service works really well (spam filtering, searching, etc.). You can sign up for your own Gmail address here. (or register a few addresses, it’s very easy!)

Which brings me to the next tip

Tip #2: Learn how to separate spam from real email (confirmations).

Once you have your secondary email account set up for offers you need to be able to identify the real email (confirmation and activation emails) quickly and accurately.

First off, a word about how surveys and offers work. The only way CashCrate can operate successfully (i.e. getting paid by the companies who provide surveys and offers so they can pass the earnings to users who fill them out) is if they can guarantee that the users are entering real data. One of the ways they do this is by sending you a confirmation email to ensure that your email address is valid. Once an email address is validated you are much more likely to have CashCrate confirm your offer and deposit the earnings in your account. Quickly confirming an offer by clicking on an activation link could be the difference between receiving your earnings and not receiving anything at all.

Here’s how I quickly find and confirm the activation emails:

• First, before you sit down and start doing offers delete all the Spam in your Spam box (since some confirmation emails will show up in your Spam box). In Gmail you do this by clicking “Spam” and then “Delete all spam messages now”. This will give you a clean slate to let you more easily see which new emails are legitimate and which are spam.
• Next, go to the CashCrate site and complete an offer. When you reach the end of the offer / survey go to your inbox right away and look for any new email (I like to keep two windows open, CashCrate / offers in the first window and my Gmail inbox in the background). If you see any new spam go ahead and delete it. If you see a confirmation email open it and follow the link inside. Here are some example subject lines of confirmation emails:
  • Please Confirm Your MySurvey.com Registration
  • Thank you for registering. Please open for important information.
  • Welcome aboard (name)
  • Your RecipeRewards registration: please confirm
  • EliteMate.com Registration Confirmation
  • (name), Activate your SendEarnings Account!
  • Dear (name), Welcome to Pandaresearch
  • Welcome from Winning Surveys
  • IMPORTANT: Please confirm your registration

• Always check your spam as well as your inbox. For me Gmail has classified a few of the confirmations as spam. You can tell Gmail not to mark something as spam by clicking the “Not Spam” button. Try to keep your unread messages and spam messages to a minimum so you can more easily see incoming activation emails.

Note: I usually submit offers to CashCrate right after I finish the offer. I don’t necessarily wait for the activation links. I think the most important thing is that you click the activation link within a reasonable amount of time for it to count towards your earnings.

Those are the most useful tips for me right now. If you’re thinking about signing up, please use my CashCrate link so I can keep bringing you more reviews and tips in the future!