My paranoid little rant
 

So, I've been sending traffic to this program and before Xmas I was doing ok, converting at around 1:800 or so, but the last month I sent them over 10000 hits and had 2 sales |huh . So yesterday I sent them an email telling them that their ratios suck ass and that I was considering not to send them any more traffic. I didn't receive a reply but - whopidoo - I had 3(!) sales with them today, converting at a whopping 1:164! Yeah, pretty good compared to the last month's 1:5000!

Compensation, anyone? Shaver turned off? Yes I know this is not *proof* but how could you possibly *not* become paranoid when you see things like this happening?

I'm not gonna out the sponsor's name as of now, but I will consider doing so if the pattern repeats itself. Jesus, how much money are we really losing because of shaving...?

sounds fishy to mee - but what I dont get is, if you got bad ratios with a sponsor, why not just drop it right then and there, and start using another, there are 1000's of sponsors out there, no need for being paranoid :)

I've heard the similar story a bunch of times - webmaster complaining about bad ratios to the sponsor, sales go up the very same day...

Was this a pay per sign up sponsor? If it was there is no doubt in my mind any more that there are many shavers out there. I have pretty much had it with pay per sign up sponsors these days. I have promoted PPS sponsors almost exclusively in previous years and it has finally hit me that there are just too many weird trends I see by looking at my past stats. Like sponsors kicking ass for long periods of time and then seemingly turning the sign up switch off over night. I had one sponsor that was always my best sponsor in 2004-2005 and then starting in Jan. of 2006 they just seemed to shut sign ups off. I think I sent them over 25k hits before I got a sign up in '06 when they had been previously steadily been 1:700-1000. Then you have the sponsors that alternate and always having huge swings even though the traffic sent and traffic sources remain the same. And I have experienced personally and have heard other webmasters say your exact story numerous times, numbers go to hell, bitch about them and then BAM the sales start coming back again, but they will only keep them on long enough to keep you quiet.

After getting sick and tired of that shit I really looked hard at the numbers of the one rev share program I have sent a good chunk of traffic to over the years and I realized that they made way more sales, were almost always steady, and even though it didnt seem like it I ended up making way more on some of their sites and about the same same on other sites as the usual 30-35$ I made on pps sponsors.

I guess my conclusion I have come to is do not ever count on a PPS sponsor for the long haul, and personally from now on I will never promote a PPS sponsor unless it is in a place I can easily go in and remove their links and put something new in. For example I will still use some PPS sponsors on my link list where I can easily go in and replace, but as far as building free sites goes, its all revshare from now on, because you cant just go in and change links of free sites that have already been listed. I send 1000's of hits every month to PPS sponsors that are on my old free sites that I know damn well and good wont make me shit, I worked hard to make those sites and get traffic to them, but its all for not because they are lucky to do anything other than get the sporadic sale here and there and convert 1:4000.

My suggestion is not to use PPS sponsors that have their backend coded inhouse... or just dont care as long as the TOTALs say BANK :) Otherwise start using PPS sponsors on NATS and MPA3 (to all people that hate those - I know you do, so shut up and let it slide, epsecially DD)...

Mr Exotic - why cant you go in and change the links on the old sites? I dont know of one major LL that cares about that?

As far as only trusting MPA and Nats - my only answer would be there is a way around everything - dont fool yourselves - as a good friend of mine and the owner of probably the highest traffic LL out there once told me - every sponsor shaves in some way or another - its just a matter of playing the rev per click and figuring out the ones that dont shave as much |jester|

Well I guess I could, but I have so many free sites, and the vast majority of them I write tons of text in talking up a site in particular, and it would seem pretty silly to have tons of text talking up one site and then linking to another. Then the other problem is I use sponsor content in one way or another, on my older sites I just used the movies in the webmaster areas, but here lately I have mostly been getting passes and downloading and chopping all my own movies so I am not submitting content everyone has already seen.

2mmy: Well with freesites and galleries it's not quite as simple as that, traffic keeps coming from the LL's and you can't just switch links since I'm using the program's content to promote the site (one reason to buy some content I just realised).

Mr Exotic: It was indeed PPS, and $1 trials too. Yeah I'm starting to realise that the whole deal with these $1 trials and the $30,40,50 whatever payouts probably has to include some shaving because it just can't be profitable for the owners to pay that much for every signup.

Anyway, signups keep coming in today (1 more so far).... Seriously, it isn't even funny. It's like they're saying "umm yeah we shaved your ass but here's some candy for you". Then again if ratios stay around 1:200 I'll be a happy camper. Please please *****, don't turn the shaver back on!

There's a whole new business model in this, I'll just stop building and spend all my day harassing pogram owners about their crappy ratios until they're to my liking :)