Programs That Offer PPS With No Trial
 

One thing that I did hear when I went to Vegas that has been weighing on my mind for some time is that sponsors that have no trial signups for the surfers & pay per signup on those sales are making out like bandits.

Everyone knows that I'm a big fan of the PPS option & getting $30 when a surfer pays $29.95 to join a site still seems like a good idea on paper, but I have this feeling that programs that have no trials are more likely to re-bill, which probably means more money down the road.

Some numbers to mull over when you're taking your next dump:

20 no trial sales on a 50/50 program where the surfers pays $30 means $15 for each initial sale. If the program re-bills at a decent rate (let's say 50% for the sake of easy numbers) then you'd have $300 the 1st month, $450 the 2nd, $525 the 3rd & $562.50 the 4th & so on.

So after the 4th month, you'd be at $28.13/sign up, plus whatever re-bills come after that.

Now, you throw those numbers at the same program that's paying $30/signup, it might make sense down the road to use the 50/50 option.

I'd like to hear everyone's thought on this. Any experience with Revshare/No Trial & PPS/No Trial? What would you use? Some numbers (no dollar amounts are necessary)

I'm just wondering how everyone else promotes these :)

Danni.com has 2 signup options, $19.95 and $29.95 for VIP access and they pay $30 per sale. No other option. I would prefer revshare in this case as I am sure that is a site that retains. With the amount of sales I send I can only imagine the rebills I'd be at right now.

Anyway...the question in hand. If a program has no trial and has PPS then that is fine with me as long as the monthly is NOT higher than the PPS payout to me. I hate programs that pay $30 PPS but their monthly membership is $39.95. Seems like a ripoff to me in that case.

And I have no problem at all with revshare and prefer it in most cases! However I think I would much rather prefer no trial on revshare. No matter how good your site is trial to full is 30-40% on most traffic mixtures of TGP, LL and hub sales. I hate stats of 8 sales and income of $34.

Jup I would never push a revshare program that had a trial join price. The low ratio of fokers that don't rebill to full join, for income earnt, is a pittance. In comparison If I took the PPS option and sent the same traffic to it.

-N

Unless pay site retention has changed drastically in the past couple of years to the better, you have to assume that an average member will stay for 2.5 months. I know that number changes with solo girl type sites but, still not a lot.

But, most sites that offer PPS, are not solo girl type sites with the real girl doing webcams, answering emails and other stuff that she may do to keep the member interested.

2.5 months was the number used back in 97 and was the number used by other programs I have worked with more recently. So, if you use revshare with a program that has a trial, you need to count on the average signup making you about, $24 + or -

But, you will get more signups with a trial. And when I say the Average member lasts 2.5 months, that does take in account for both trial and non-trial sites.

So, using my calculations...PPS is almost always best. Unless you are dealing with a truly unique site that "really" is designed to keep members as members.

Of course, I could be full of shit. But, probably not...

Jim - ummm, ahhhh, well, errrr...you wanna reread the question? :D

I'm talking about sites that have NO trial option when the surfer sign's up (just a flat fee per month)

Based on your 2.5 number & my example above, 10 PPS's would be $300 & 10 50/50's would be $375 so that is something to think about.

That's wonderful, but it doesn't really apply to this thread since I'm talking about sites that have NO trial option.

***********

Did I really word my 1st post that poorly? |huh

I did read the question but then others brought up trials, so I included them.

But without that factor, you are right.

Fine, we can blame nekrom :D

Jim - did any of the programs you've worked with in the past have a tour with just a monthly membership? If so, what do you remember about them?

So not confuse what I said above if a site has no trial I prefer revshare for sure!! If they have a trial and only revshare that is fine with me but I will watch the stats more closely.

Nahhh, they all had trials. And they all had free trials at that :) The good old days when we and other programs actually paid up to $50/free trial. But I digress.

Of course CE had and has so many different options, there was no way I could break everything down. And if I did, I don't remember how everything looked.

But for linklist owners sending traffic directly from their site, I would almost always stick to PPS :) With you being such a close friend, I did look at that issue. I don't want to piss linklist owners off so I won't say why. :)

Oh please, by all means, feel free to piss people off :D

But the PPS option doesn't jive with the 2.5 re-bill theory, which would make you more money in the long run in a lot of cases....but there's so many variables as far as join price & PPS payout & percent of the revshare that I think I might just be spinning my wheels on this one.

I think a no trial and PPS is a clear sign of a program confident in either retaining a customer or upselling him enough to pay the freight.

My feeling is that PPS program (trial or not) are betting that their product retains better than whatever the monthly payout is - and they will work to make sure it happens. I have a feeling too often that revshare is a "share the pain defence" rather than a good offence.

If a program offers both, I often go with the revshare, looking for those longer term rebills (which is why I asked the question in the other thread about % rebills or % of per click revenue from rebills, it is an important number in the discussion).

Alex

So, what I am saying is only for larger programs but, linklist traffic converts great but for some unknown reason, the members don't stay (in most cases)

Traffic filtered from linklists to freesites seemed to weed out the members that left early.

I used to study the stats at both CE and Flashcash to try to see why this happened but never could. I came up with a theory that the linklist surfers trusted the linklist owners so they joined. Then when they got in, they found out the site was not quite as good as they thought it would be. Which was no fault of the linklist owner. :)

Why they stayed longer after being sent from a linklist to a freesite is beyond me.

No offense, and I'm not trying to defend Link Lists, but you're talking about 2 programs that thrived off free trials while you were working for them :)

I don't take any offense to that. They did thrive on Free Trials. But, how does that make any difference in this much off topic part of the thread?

Like I said, it really isn't the linklist owner's fault. I mean you work hard to develop that amount of trust from the surfers. I'm just telling you what I saw and what my theory was about it.

Let's try this with linklist owners. And only with larger programs that offer and you use Revshare. Check how your retention is with links directly from the linklist itself. And if you can, check the retention of your linklist to your freesite to sponsor. I think you would see that the retention from the first is much less than the second. Free Trials, any kind of trials and no trials.

All I am really saying is, freesites make a lot of money from linklist traffic :) And, retention is great. Everyone should be happy about that :)

Where the hell is MikeB when you need him? :) He and I both talked about it a few times when we were both at CE. There were a few people he hated to have to tell they were being switched from PPS to Revshare because of this phenomenon.

That my friend is VERY true :D

Let's get back to the subject at hand.....

This thread reads like the transcript from one of your radio shows :D

Hoi foker, I blame Ramster for confusing my simple aussie brain. :)

To answer your question, Revshare No Trial, Bdsm niche (one site from one program - Random months stats)
clicks: 20480
uniques: 14983
new joins: 58
ratio: 1:258
rebills: 30
Refunds/CB: 3

And I've not data for PPS/No Trial.

-N

nekrom - thank you very much for posting those numbers. It does aid me in my quest for answers in this thread, as well as back up my theory of 50% rebills |shake|

I think it depends a great deal on the sites don't you? If you think a site isn't updating or might not have what it takes to keep a good percentage of your referrals retaining, then I would go for the PPS/no trial rather than the revshare/no trial.

If the sites have something to offer and they do update then I would go for the revshare/no trial option because that is there the most money is.

My latest foray into looking at the inside of recent paysite releases tells me a little different story than what most of you remember from a few years ago. I especially was looking at the paysites that were hawking the no trial signups for basically the same reason as Greenie.
I found that a pretty high percentage were basing their model not on what Alex put forward so much of the retention ability confidence, but the upsell confidence. I say this because at least 50% of the links inside the paysite were upsells to something the sponsor made money from - and that 50% was a low number in most cases.
My conclusion was that the retention was probably very low - 2.5 months was no longer a good number.
Best guess here is that these newer sponsors with the no trial are making enough on the upsells inside to cover paying the equivalent of a PPS for the affiliate and that comparing them to a revshare was not a good comparison.
The only outlying sites I saw were highly targetted micro-niches that were not the everyday reality/same old content and feeds sites that comprise most of the no-trial recent entries.

I'm going to have to go with Revshare -- meatcash and smashbucks both do really well for me.

If people will pony up full for the first month...they usually are not afraid of a few rebills....sometimes you'll get lucky and keep a guy for a year if a program keeps updating.

These figures are from my combined CCBill totals for 2005, which make up about two-thirds of my total income. All but a very few are revshare with unlimited rebill, and those programs that aren't contributed a very small number of sales relative to the total. I shy away from programs with trials, so very small number of trial joins in the totals.

Most programs that offer recurring also have non-recurring options that I've excluded from the second set of figures, so that only transactions that had an opportunity to rebill are included.

all transactions:
rebills made up 33.6% of all transactions and 28.5% of total sales $$$

recurring transactions only:
rebills made up 63.2% of transactions and 58.8% of sales $$$

If you're getting paid $30 PPS for a sale to a site with no trials you're getting ripped off IMHO.

Sites without trials retain on average for 4 months. The 2.5 month number that people throw around is for sites with trials, although that number is no longer common. 1.5 months is closer to the "average" in today's adult net.

Think about it this way, programs with free trials pay $45-$55 per "active member" which is a member that has paid for a full month's membership after their trial has expired. Isn't that the same thing as a member who pays for the full month upfront?

If you're not getting $50 per then you need to go revshare on sites with no trials.