Poor Traffic Or Poor Programs?

[Greenguy]

From today's Newsletter

Poor Traffic Or Poor Programs?
I haven't bitched about anything in a few weeks, so I think I'm due
I've been in the business since 1996 & I think I have built up my websites to a nice level as far as my
quality of traffic is concerned. Until last week, I had never been forced by a program to switch from
Per Sign Up to Recurring because of poor conversions on trial memberships or Chargebacks/Credits.
While I agree 100% with the program that if I am costing the program money by them paying me Per
Sign Up, actions should be taken. But, this does also bring up the question "Are these sites we are
promoting any good in the 1st place?" I look at my job as a webmaster to send traffic to the
sponsors paysite & convince them before they get there to buy a membership (whether it's a trial or a
monthly or whatever) I feel it is my job to get the surfer to your site & the sponsors job to keep them
there.
Needless to say, if I was not doing well on their Per Sign Up Programs, that there's no way in hell I'm
going to use their Recurring Program - LOL So you'll excuse me while I pull a few links
Questions or comments on this?

[Cleo]

I think a lot of it is poor programs that aren't kept fresh. The surfers go in and say seen this been there, nothing to see here, move along.

[Surfn]

I've seen a few sponsors come and go. I personally think that policy stinks! This same thing happened to me with my first adult sponsor. I dropped them and never went back, and they are one of the biggest in the biz.

In the what goes around comes around category: This same sponsor (a year later) submitted to my sites for years with their galleries which I never listed. They didn't know that I knew who they were.

[MrMaryLou]

Sounds like a case of nothing in the backends of the sites

[SimonT]

I don't think I've been forced to move over yet by any sponsor but I do think you have valid comments there GreenGuy.

It's our jobs as webmasters to filter the traffic to the sponsors who will make us the most money for our time and effort.

It's clearly the sponsors job to convert and retain the traffic by providing content of some worth to the surfer on a continual basis so that the sponsor can try and recover their costs. If the surfers cancel before the trial or only stay a month then the sponsor should perhaps take a second look at their sites in question and ask why?

I'm sure all these cookie cutter paysites aren't helping them one little bit either.

[EclectiXXX]

I had the same thing happen to me with a sponsor. I didn't pull links, just didn't add any new ones... I did get 1 recurring sign-up after that though that lasted like 6 months...

[vangend]

A sponsor canned my account about 5 months ago. I was pissed off because they kept my last check. I joined one of their sites and saw the reason the people would cancel. They promise the world and give you shit inside. Lots of pictures that I saw a few years back already, shitty quality, 10 - 20 sec movie clips. To see live shows you must join another program. They are still one of the largest programs around. And to cancell my menbership guess what, cannot find server error on the day I tried.

[ewriter]

I agree too. Some of the sponsors are cranking up new sites at the drop of a hat. There's no way they can provide enough unique content to keep a surfer interested for very long.

When I first started in this business I had a sponsor send me a ton of content and then just about the time I had created several sites using their content, they dropped the whole webmaster program!#$%$#&***

Just had another sponsor do the same thing - they have just dissapeared!|pissed|

ewriter

[Cleo]

ewriter
I merged your reply into this thread so that we don't end up with two threads on the same subject.

[Ramster]

My theory is the same. They liked the tour good enough to signup so now the inside better be good or you'll lose more than you should. Not our fault as webmasters!

The other side is the webmaster who lies about the site and links to the join page directly but programs can search that out easily enough on accounts that get flagged for poor conversions and chargebacks. Which is clearly not the case in Greenguy's situation. They take the tour, they signup...now it's up to you as a paysite owner to keep them!

[eman]

Towards the end of last year I was dropped by a major sponsor because of a "credit/chargeback to transaction problem". Too many people were cancelling, apparently. The sponsor was offering "free trials" at the time.

Some weeks later another sponsor (one of my favourites) moved me from a "free trial" programme because too many of my signups were cancelling.

I'm a straight up sort of person. No hidden dimensions. No deception. What you read is what you get.

I promote their sites on a per signup basis. If their sites don't retain members, it's really not my problem.

[plateman]

i think you will see a lot of sponsors either go under or to rev share

and i been in a few pay sites and they want to sell you more shit when they should be doing things to keep you there

[KCat]

eman - That sort of thing drives me batty. If a site is offering a free sign up, they have to expect that a lot of people are going to sign up & cancel right away. A run of the mill site is not going to convince people to stick around, especially those who sought out the free membership in the first place.

I'd rather see a program charging for the trial instead of dropping webmasters.

[Greenguy]

I'm still not ready to name the sponsors yet, but I did go & peek at my stats for each & to me, they look pretty damn good:

Sponsor #1 - 1808 hits - 14 Sign Ups - 1:129 Ratio
Sponsor #2 - 5807 hits - 40 Signups - 1:145 Ratio

Looking at those numbers, I would have thought there was nothing wrong at all.

Both sponsors use the same stats program too, which is kinda strange.

...and both of them were going to be included in the next edition of my stats, but not anymore!

[plateman]

greenguy is that for the month or week or what

also when a sponsor gets out of line greenguy and jims webmaster board should show the power they have LOL

[Greenguy]

Those are my overall totals for each program - I haven't been using either one for too long (maybe a few months)

[Cleo]

When I grow up I want stats like the Greenguy.

[Surfn]

Originally posted by Greenguy
Sponsor #1 - 1808 hits - 14 Sign Ups - 1:129 Ratio
Sponsor #2 - 5807 hits - 40 Signups - 1:145 Ratio

Looking at those numbers, I would have thought there was nothing wrong at all.

I agree totally! There is nothing unusual in those numbers. If it were me I would just pull their links and move on.

[ewriter]

I'm like Cleo! What do these sponsors expect?

I suppose that the sponsors could just do away with us webmasters and promote their sites on their own by hiring a full time person to do nothing but link them, but a lot of the link site owners are webmasters trying to make some $$$ by promoting sponsors sites. What would happen if all of us webmasters finally got discouraged and got out of the business?

No, like it's already been said - its up to the sponsor to keep the surfer interested enough to keep re-newing their membership by having and adding quality product on a regular basis.

I can think of several sites that I joined in the past and stayed with for 6 months or longer because of their content.

ewriter

[jennym]

GG - I assume the problem is trial to membership ratio, or chargebacks. But, as you say, that is for the sponsor to improve on, not the webmaster. Also, maybe sponsors should show us those ratios in our stats.

Edit - DUH! You said that to begin with. But as you say, how were you to know there was a problem with that?

[dareutwo]

After removing at least 100 links today. I'm not really in a good mood... lol

But GG is right, All Mark's links, and my free sites, are a traffic pump. Nothing blind, nothing deceptive.
I send them to YOU (name sponsor here)

Sponsors listen up - if you are experiencing abnormal chargebacks, surf your own damn site. Compared against the other thousands of paysites out there, why is yours better?
Upsells are fine, but if I pay 30.00 or whatever, then give me what the tour said.

Hmmm - just thought of something.
When a paysite becomes a Real Job, maybe paysite owners become Business People, and forget how they surfed?

[Tommy]

A lot of sponsors have nothing in the inside of their sites

in fact a lot of the major programs have almost nothing inside the sites

and if you speak to some of these poeple they act like charging 39.95 is to cheap

on the other hand there are a lot of professanal surfers out there
who use tgps daily and know how trials memberships work and they know how to cancel them

years ago when the web was new EVERYBODY was stupid.
but like everything else our customers learn how stuff works and are just trying to get the most for their money

[LB]

Originally posted by Greenguy
Sponsor #1 - 1808 hits - 14 Sign Ups - 1:129 Ratio
Sponsor #2 - 5807 hits - 40 Signups - 1:145 Ratio

Looking at those numbers, I would have thought there was nothing wrong at all.

I hate not to be towing the party line here, but I think we need to be careful. Those numbers show signup ratios not retention, upsells, cross sales or any other income that the site would have gotten, and if the sponsor was making a loss on the per-signup then do you blame them for converting to revshare ?

I have worked with a couple of programs of various sizes, and now own my own private one, and you would be amazed at what some webmasters will do for an extra $. After a few cases of webmasters signing up on multiple cards then charging back, linking straight to the join page from a page of false promise, coaching the surfer on how to cancel on a free trial, and more you can get kinda weary.

Now .... that being said ... if you cant support a $30 per signup model on greenguy's traffic then you should take a long hard look at your member's area.

[Tubey]

These programs need to be revised... new owners of paysites can not survive with a new site and limited cash to promote it.
Somehow we need to still promote these sites to offer competition and growth into new areas and ideas within the adult industry. Like one person said "a little piss is good" also for all of us in this matter. We all can not promote the big guys who can afford to offer free trials and payouts to webmasters, so we need to figure out a way to get these smaller sites going and keep us happy as well.
We can not retain members, sponsors can, we can only give them the traffic to the site, the rest is up to them.

[plateman]

Yea good reading with all the replys

traffic is so hard to get and keep and when you send traffic that signs up, Then the sponsors piss about people that cancels..

Id Tell the mother fucker to work on keeping the surfers that join happy

instead they try and bleed more money out of them, offer less than advertised, shitty video and so on , And no shit they cancel