What sponsors actually know about the niches of their sites?
 

This should be an interesting discussion.

What sponsors actually know about the niches of their sites?

For example.......

Sponsor A has an Upskirt site. Sponsor B has a foot fetish site. etc. etc. etc.

What sponsors really have a clue about the niche sites they have?

Do any sponsors actually hire an expert in each niche field to help them? Or do they just guess?

Here is a prime example.

An Upskirt site with a girl on the tour lifting her skirt and smiling at the camera.

Come on! this is not Upskirt! Who do they think they are kidding?

Or a pantie fetish site with a picture of a girl being fucked with her panties pulled aside. Again who are they kidding? This is not pantie fetish.

What sponsors actually have a clue about niches?

Hugs,
Danielle

a lot of sponsors have no fu**ing clue about niches, it is quantity, upsells, cross-sells, e-mail collecting, and whatever else kinda sells they come up with to make it profitable for them |couch|

you know what I am going to say :) No, they don't know. Even on the lower 'odd' side with BBWs they don't have a clue but make it a 'real' fetish and it is even more obvious. They can all buy my book when it is out.

I've seen many sponsor's inside and the site is terrible. If you are promoting a revshare you should ALWAYS ask to see the inside. If it is full of crap and upsells then don't promote it

As already mentioned many sites could be built NOT to convert to avoid the $35-40 payout but making the money on popups and installs.

that is some of the best advice I have heard in a long time

I really agree with you Danielle, although with my own program I have really learned the fetishes and understand what they like. Especially my foot fetish site. Even though I loathe feet personally, I have spent time in the fetish/trampling community to see what makes them tick. I think it's very important. Otherwise, how can retention be any good?

My personal pet peeve- we do not open a site until we understand the fetish inside & out. Even then, we wont add it to the affiliate program until we're damn sure it's right.

Sometimes the tours could use a good niche critique before going live definitely..
Bigger programs do work on sheer volume in many cases I think, so have less to lose (so to speak) if a few niche tours get panned by the niche specialists. Their sheer quantity will keep it profitable..

But thankfully, you can build your own tour and link to join page in many cases ;) *not so subtle hint* lmao :D

Sadly, I think that happens more than we realize, sure seems like it. Or offer a lower price after they try backing out, bypassing the webmaster.

As Danielle mentioned so many tours just plain stink. While back I was looking for a big nipple site, went through like three large sponsors, not one of the tours had any girls with big nipples, not one, just amazing.

ronnie

Well, there isn't much point on me building my own tour to attract the surfers if the insides don't back it up.

If the members area *does* have the content but the tour is just in the wrong direction, a custom tour might be one solution was what I intended to suggest ;)

I mean, it would be even worse to have a killer niche tour with no content. :(

It's got to sell whats in there, with the proper niche appeal.

Niche??
Wasn't he a philosopher?
jk -

Danielle - spot on, though I doubt it will matters much and I wouldn't worry about it.
You're not going to change Their sites.
I just do what I know I have access to.


Newbies - ask for a 1 hour pass. If they don't give you that, why would you even want to promote them?

Most sponsors are laughable when it comes to niches. Opinion.

And if they aren't laughable, they are insulting to the surfer they are trying to market to.

Someone in this thread mentioned BBW. Take a look sometime at some of the sponsors that promo them. Look at the language they use. The terminology. Then talk to someone who really digs larger women.

There's a difference. And not a favorable one.

exactly Selena...freak show traffic isn't the traffic that is going to rebill over and over. The guys that are really into BBWs love those women and don't want to see them being grossly insulted.

Yep, the language used is usually a big giveaway. I know of one supposed "for women" site that assumes the surfer is male (or assumes the female surfer doesn't even know what it's like to be a woman and speaks to her as if she's a man).

I'm biased of course, but smaller companies that concentrate on one or two niches often have a much better product than a cookie-cutter site from a major sponsor. It comes down to quality vs. quantity. You may not get a huge amount up front, but you know the rebills will be golden because the specialty sites know how to keep customers coming back.

All the critique would be great to find it's way to the sponsors ears. I mean, how could it hurt to give feedback? Plus it could help a lot of people.
:)

I am very knowleded on the gay market, thanks to years and years of personal experience :D

cheers,
Luke

I agree, generally speaking. I'm sure sites like your own and JenC's...that y'all have taken the time to know your market.

Same thing with one small femdom site I have on revshare. She's right on the money with what you'd hear alot of male submissives say they want. She's tapped into the fantasy.

On the other hand, you'll hear scant few of them talking about Mistress giving them a blow job, yet such stuff is commonplace on fhg, fhs, and sponsor tours.

Sarah, I can't remember the sponsor, or the exact phrasing. But I swear to you that I once saw a sponsor banner that was along the lines of "click here for these fat cows"

I was like "WTF???" I know nothing about the niche. But I would venture a guess that potential buyers are more apt to think of them as voluptuous Goddess' or something, than fat cows.

I love fat cows :)

I'm glad it's not just me seeing this problem. I really hope many sponsors start figuring out that their niche tours don't have anything to do with the niche they say they are.

Hugs,
Danielle

Oh trust me, as someone very involved with the BBW side of things I have seen much worse than that. You know how you can tell? If there is food graphics on the tour.

I totally agree with the comment about how niche sites "should be" marketed and how to retain members for a good biz plan.
That said, I also think that the larger sponsors that have 40 or 50 "niche" sites that sometimes include access to the same members area or offer access to 10 other sites as well, do so not to fill the niche, but to get cross-sales and their own sponsor/inside sales. A large sponsor that does that can make a profit based on those cross sales and email collection etc, and really have very little concern with retention.
Add to that the fact that a large sponsor is going to have hosted galleries/other promotional products that will get used by hundreds if not thousands of affiliates, with loads of crappy traffic but keeps the sales ratio high enough that it doesnt really matter if the surfer stays on for more than 1 extra month. That is all figured into the profit margin (which is very low for these sponsors - a good indicator is when they are worried about chargebacks in the micro percentages)
and as long as they stay above a certain percentage it doesnt matter what the niche is as long as they fill TGP and LL categories with their banners/links.
Add to that the recent explosion in sponsors getting into the SE game by using rather shady practices to get traffic and you have a perfect recipe for their ability to convert just enough niche traffic to justify having a tour built for that niche no matter what it says.

For the purists in us (I have a niche that I know damn well) there will always be much better converting and retaining niche sites that know what they are doing and we try to help build the brand name to help educate the surfer - and that tends to give us an extremely good return in the end and eventually the big sponsors tend to drop those niches (has happened twice in the last 1 1/2 years that I can remember) as the very low conversion ratio doesnt hit their profit margin anymore.

Just my opinion :)

What a great thread. I wish there was a place people knowledgable in a niche could be consulted (i.e. $$$) when building a niche site. Anyone here interested in that idea?

Yep, I've noticed this as well.
The site descriptions are the worst I think. The language is awful. Most people are degrading, like the BBW niche mentioned earlier. I wish they would stop and think that people stay because it TURNS THEM ON. When you're referring to them as cows and huge heffers, obviously people into that would think it's rude, and not want to join, no?
I don't know, maybe they can get away with that.. they obviously make money..
I think I've repeated what's already been said, but I had to rant. :P

Speaking of, I've been looking at niche sponsors, and a lot of the good ones I have never heard of, or they're very small and I'm not sure about them (if they can be trusted, etc.). Anyone have a GOOD list of trusted sponsors, well known or not?
If you don't want to give them away on the board, shoot me a PM. lol