Grand opening, Grand closing. Why don't sponsors last?

[becky]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

One of the most common things I have seen is programs with great tours, very little content inside the sites. It was a real trend a few years ago for companies to turn out piles and piles of "niche sites" that had only a very little bit of content for the niche, and shared content with the 100+ other sites by the same program. At the end of the day, surfers figure out they are getting fucked, the programs don't retain.

Retention is one of the keys to the game, double so for programs that use the PPS model. However, even in partnership arrangements, if the sites don't retain, the webmasters sending the traffic don't make enough per click, and they will move their traffic elsewhere.

Quite simply, if you have no steak, just sizzle... people will stay hungry and look somewhere else.

Alex

I agree with you on this 100%. If you don't offer a quality product for the members, the rest will fall apart. The membership base is the foundation upon which the rest of the business is built. If you don't have a solid foundation, i.e. you provide an excellent product that retains members and thus increases your per member value, the rest of your business is going to fail. It's the money your members give you that pays the bills. Most affiliate programs make the mistake of working too hard to win affiliates and their traffic and not hard enough to earn and retain members.

I also think that programs that aren't a bit more selective with affiliates are working against themselves and their longevity in business. There is such a thing as bad affiliates and bad traffic and if you get enough of both, you can really affect the value of your membership base.