I'm As Mad As Hell, And I'm Not Going To Take This Anymore!
 

...with a nod to Howard Beale (Peter Finch).

Pre-checked cross sales have gotten completely out of control. So the following has been added to the submit page on all my TGP's.

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY:
Any gallery that promotes a sponsor that
uses pre-checked cross sales below the submit
button on their join page will not be listed.
click for example

In the grand scheme of things my sites are just an inflamed pimple of the buttocks of the WWW, but perhaps some others with a bit more influence will see this and follow suit. If not, well... at least I tried.

Hello to all the users of NATS |waves|

Toby,

For the benefit of some (including me), would you please explain this? I don't know what "pre-checked cross sales" are and why they are not good. Thank you.

---AW

View the example image linked in my first post.

The two check boxes pointed at by the red text are pre-checked cross sales, meaning that the boxes are checked by default when the page loads. In order to NOT accept the offer the surfer must uncheck the boxes before they click the submit button to process the sign-up.

Look further down to find the fine print explaining the terms of these cross sales.

If the surfer fails to scroll down and see the pre-checks before clicking submit then they've actually just signed up for three sites instead of just one. If their spam filters eat the join notification emails (which is highly probable these days) then they'll be unaware of the additional trial memberships they just agreed to and therefore won't know to cancel those before the trial periods expire. End result. $1 for intended trial join, $1 for one of the cross sale trial joins, $39.95 and $39.97 for full month rebill on uncancelled cross sale trials. Total $81.92 before it shows up on their monthly statement. If the billing cycles fall just right, or they don't check the bill right away when it arrives in the mail there could be second pair of monthly rebills added on.

Do you think that surfer is ever going to join a porn site again?

On top of that, many times there will be additional cross sales on the cancel pages. If the surfer isn't on his toes he'll end up being billed for even more sales after thinking he's cancelled the others.

This sleazy shit has to stop before it kills this entire industry.

And the multiple popups, popunders and exit consoles are also big problems that will cannibalize the industry. This stuff only makes the anti-virus companies more aggressive in blocking ads, cookies and URLs.

Not even in the same league, and to be honest, pretty minor these days due to vastly improved popup blockers.

I wonder if it might be worth either starting a new thread or listing in this thread all the sponsors that we know are using pre-checked cross selling techniques like this. Some webmasters may not even be aware of the join forms on some tours that have these pre-checked cross sales on them. And maybe some sponsors will see the light if they can read how much their affiliate webmasters object to this practice.

Is it the sponsor who selects them, or is it the affiliate who requests them? I mean I have never seen an option to "allow cross sales" or anything, but then I had only heard about these before in this post.

Simon, there are rumblings of the jungle drums in regards to compiling and maintaining a comprehensive list on an independent domain.

Here's a partial list...

OCCash

TopBucks

Brazzers

Dee's Evil Empire:
DeeCash
Rage Cash
Extreme Paychecks
Triple X Cash
Jason & Alex
Elite Dollars
Mayors Money
Join Right Now
Bad Girl Bucks
Milf Cash
Epic Cash
Pure Meds

Strictly sponsor choice.

There are a very few sponsors that do pay revshare percentages on cross sales, but they are very few. 99.44% of the time they are of absolutely no benefit to the affiliate.

Don't you really mean "Hello to all users of programs that process thru Epoch"? Hell, why blame either of them? It's the affiliate program's OPTION to use the cross sales. Yes, Epoch offers that OPTION and yes Nats makes that OPTION easy to use, but it's still an OPTION.

Some webmasters should do their homework before they sign up or start to promote a sponsor.

***

You guys are talking as if this is some new thing. Epoch has been offering cross sales for YEARS! I can remember when Jim worked at Flash Cash, once of his jobs was to try & find programs to do cross sales with.

As far as the surfer joining a site, if they are dumb enough to put their CC info in there without reading the entire page - and there's not a lot of text on the example Toby posted - who's fault is that?

Everyone that reviews complains that the submitters need to learn how to read, yet those same people often support surfers that need to learn how to read.

I'm thinking it's time for Jim to get back in the game & assist in this thread, since I know he's had 1st hand experience with the affiliate side of cross-sales.

Yes, I agree, cross sales are nothing new. For quite some time I've had a personal policy of not promoting sponsors using any form or pre-checked cross sale.

What seems to have increased dramatically in recent months is their use below the submit button with text that makes it less than clear that you're really signing up for another trial membership, with terms in fine print even further down the page.

If you view the actual page from my example in a browser window at 1024x768 the pre-checks are not visible without scrolling down, and that's not by accident.

At 1024x768, the bottom thing on my browser is the time that you started the thread:
Yesterday, 08:44 PM

I know it's not the same thing, but come on. Who doesn't know that internet pages scroll down? That you should read the entire page before entering your credit card info?

This isn't exactly a porn problem either - there's a lot of pre-checked boxes all over the internet.

Of course you should read the full page, but the sponsor shouldn't be deceptive about it either. They're taking advantage of people, and that's wrong, with potentially serious long term consequences for all of us.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it.

If this is a partnership program and the webmaster is not given a taste of the cross sale, I have to say I agree a little. But not much..

To run a PPS program, the expenses are huge. Pre-checked cross sales are mostly used to help finance a PPS program so webmasters can get paid much more than their traffic is really worth. Even if it is a partnership program doing this and you don't get a taste, if they are also running a PPS program, again....it is used to finance the huge expense of paying for PPS.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with this practice.

So deceptively banging the surfers credit card for $80 or more when he thinks he's buying a $1 trial is just business?

Bullshit! If that's what's necessary to run a PPS program then the payouts are too high, and retention isn't what it should be.

It's not deceptive. It's right there on the page! Assuming you didn't shrink it, that's a 600x800 page - or the size of a standard picture. You're telling me that it's deceptive because the person entering their credit card info did not see/read a 600x800 page?

Crap like Zango is deceptive. This is nothing.

Pre-checked cross sales are a risk management game.

They are also figured into pps payouts. Like Jim said, they are often being paid less than their traffic is actually worth.

I hear a lot of affiliates complaining about things like pre-checked cross sales, and they threaten to pull traffic, etc. but they almost never do...why? because they want the higher payout.

I did crop the page to make it more generic. When viewing the actually page at 1024x768 the bottom of the visible screen falls just below the cc logos.

Take off your webmaster hat for just a minute and try to think like a porn surfer with a stiff dick. It would not be difficult to think the page ended below the logos.

While all the info may technically be there on the page (otherwise it would be fraud and subject to legal action) it's pretty damn obvious to most that the sponsors are trying to slide it by unnoticed. If they weren't it would be above the submit button where it could not be missed.

Abusing the surfer financially so that he never buys porn online again is BAD business.

He also receives emails concerning the signups....shouldn't he read his email too? I know I would if I just purchased something.

What's the old saying? Ignorance is no excuse?

How much spam do you get in your InBox daily? How much is eaten by spam filters? If he's not aware he just signed up for two additional sites, how likely is he to not notice two emails he isn't expecting? Keep in mind that most of the time these will be coming from entirely separate entities, not from the original site he actually intended to join.

Try to justify the practice any way you want, but tricking the surfer is wrong.

Well here's my take.

Pre-checked is ok if it's not hidden from view, and I know there is a lot of that going on now.
Toby, if you're going to ban all programs that have pre-checked cross sales on their join forms, you're going to run out of people to promote in short order. Times are not just tough for affiliates, they are tough and competitive for program owners as well. I don't agree with any sort of shady business practices within the adult industry, but pre-checked cross sales in the buyer's face is ok in my opinion.

I'm not banning all sponsors with pre-checks, just those sponsors that have them placed below the submit button.