We've all seen our fair share of poorly designed hosted galleries. There will always be a place for those that can build quality galleries and free sites.

Some very good points made in this thread. Agreed, some paysites it's almost necessary to use their content. While some of the more generic sites can be promoted quite successfully with purchased content. It really comes down to the site you're promoting as to what you can/should use.

I have absolutely no problem with quality sponsor content being used on free sites. I will however decline sites if the quality is too poor. Always surprises me that a sponsor would release absolutely crap content to affiliates to promote their site |loony|

Just declined a site last night...sponsor watermarked content...fuzzy as hell vid caps...274x399 size. I'm sure that gets listed in lots of places.

I quoted UW above because his statement bore repeating |thumb

Quality submitters have absolutely nothing to worry about from HFS. I'll always take all the quality trusted submitters I can get :)

I use all bought content. After reading this thread I'm thinking I don't have to buy as much |huh I'm the type that figures if I use sponsor content it will be some that the LL's have already seen.

Agree with MrYum about the quality of the sponsor content though. I've been getting a lot of screen caps that are way to blurry.

Very informative and timely topic........for me anyway. I do submit to galleries part-time in between my schooling and raising kids. I have had some success with two sponsers that I would like to promote further. I prefer the softcore content each sponser offered, but they only offered one softcore set with the rest being hardcore. I contacted each sponser twice with a polite inquirey as to whether I could aquire a few more softcore sets to further promote their sites. Each E-mail was sent two weeks apart so as not to appear I was badgering.

Neither sponser replied to me unfortunatley and I understand they are busy and probably get tons of bogus requests for freebie content.

My question is...............am I just too small and need to establish/confirm myself further to be considered trustworthy, or do I need to go about it another way. Neither sponser is major from what I see, but they offer unique opportunities I'd like to pursue further.

I purchased some content recently, but after reading this thread I thought I would inquire before I used it.

Thank you in advance

It seems to me that a sponsor that didn't bother to answer your e-mails is either not active, or does not care about their affiliates. I would think twice about using a sponsor like that myself.

Don't give up, you have the right idea. Contacting the people you want to promote is ALWAYS a good idea, and the ones that will do well for you are the ones that will corrospond willingly and in a timely manner. Remember the old saying.. if you want something done, ask a busy person. Successful and busy people always make time for the ones that will potentially make them money.

As far as using your purchased content to promote this paysite, it really depends on the site. As some others have stated, some paysites don't lend themselves well to targeted niche content, where others do.

Also, don't forget about your traffic.. always make sure your traffic belongs to YOU! Using sponsor content is somewhat of a risk when for example, you get a good search engine listing. What if the sponsor is not converting well? You're stuck, because you can't use their content to promote anyone else but them... Something to think about

At the very beginning I've been using my own content.. now switching to sponsor content (and pushing their exclusive models) has much better results :D

That sounds like a good plan digifan. Btw, I love the quote in your sig ;)

I'm going to be posting the results of all the 3 boards I posted this poll on tonight around midnight so if you haven't voted yet, get your votes in!

i used to use around 30% sponsor content, 70% bought content but things have changed.

at this point, 90% of the pics and all the movies in our paysite i shoot myself but the content on our 3 premium avs sites is bought.

Will be looking forward to reading it.

Ok here are the results from all three boards NetP, GG&J and Gfy

Total votes
NetP___ 22
GG&J____36
Gfy_____28


0% purchased 100% sponsor
NetP__6___27.27%
GG&J__3____8.33%
Gfy___3___10.71%


20% purchased 80%sponsor
NetP__5___22.73%
GG&J_10___27.78%
Gfy___3___10.71%


40% purchased 60% sponsor
NetP__2____9.09%
GG&J__8___22.22%
Gfy___3___10.71%


80% purchased 20% sponsor
NetP__4____18.18%
GG&J__8____22.22%
Gfy___5____17.86%


100% purchased 0% sponsor
NetP__2_____9.09%
GG&J__9____25.00%
Gfy___7____25.00%


Exclusive
NetP__3____13.64%
GG&J__4____11.11%
Gfy___7____25.00%


Semi-exclusive
NetP__2_____9.09%
GG&J__3_____8.33%
Gfy___6____21.43%


I shoot my own
NetP__3____13.64%
GG&J__6____16.67%
Gfy___8____28.57%

Interesting, now we need to know which ones are making money.

I purposefully avoided putting that question in the poll, because... well.. some webmasters tend to be big fat liars when it comes to the money part....lol

That's all I needed to know |bananna|

hahaha... I knew you'd notice that ;)

When I promoted other sponsors I would purchase my own content, however I knew the sponsors members areas like the back of my hand. I knew where they purchased their content and I would purchase content of say the same model, just a different set. That way the person signing up for that particular model did see her in the members area, and I was accepted everywhere because the content was not over saturated.

Monster Partners is *just* getting into offering free content now to its webmasters. I am sure as soon as we put it up there will be a race to get it, but because we update there will always be more.

Ever thought of putting together a content provider and a sponsor if the content worked well?

Yup, and with a lot of sponsors that use purchased content if they let me know who the provider was I would indeed purchase my own rights to that content to have rights to promote the paysite with the same models.

I would love to see sponsors offer exclusive content from within their site in limited distribution sets for a fee, with the caveat that the content was to be only used in promoting them. The webmasters get a chance to use site specific content that very few others have and thus would not been over used...I know that some sponsors allow the little guy special content (thank you again Emma), and most let the bigger affiliates inside the members area to grab what they want.

Some good points. You missed the chance of earnong more money by putting a sponsor in touch with a content provider. Let's say you know a good content provider who's content would fit a site. Get the sponsor to buy from the content provider and earn a commission.

As for going into a site, this can be a problem. I know some top sites putting up brand new exclusive content daily and giving it to affiliates for free. So you go into the site to grab what is already out there.

Or sponsors who simply do not update with enough, if they have 10 affiliates going into a site to grab content, before long they are all grabbing the same content on some sites.

Just trying to show there is no one answer to this problem.

I'm going to bring up something that's on my mind, and the reason I started this poll in the first place.

I have a problem with selling non-exclusive content to sponsors who will turn around and give it away free to affiliates for promotion. We've never allowed this, because I feel that it's a disservice to the webmasters who've paid for the same content.

Paul, I know you've had some experience trying to deal with this problem, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, and also would like to hear some input and suggestions from others.

I would love to be able to sell non-exclusive content to paysites and let them use the content for promotion. Is there a way to protect the webmaster's investment and sell to paysites who give out free content at the same time?

why not charge more for an affiliate content license?
or only offer your older stuff as affiliate content?

well.. charging more still doesn't help the webmasters who've purchased the same content, they're still in the same situation.

And we don't have any older content ... all of the content on the site has been put up within the last 6 months, but doing this would still compromise the webmaster's investment unless the content is very very old.

Let me ask you basschick, at what point would you be ok with seeing content you paid for being given away for free, I mean, how old would it have to be?

to tell you the truth, i've bought content many times that programs give away for free. unlike some webmasters, i don't really care who does or doesn't pay for content as long as it makes me money.

but consider this - if the affiliate program paid more for the use for affiliates, the affiliates may be getting it for free but your other clients will be aware that the program paid for a separate license, so it wasn't free as extra money was paid.

one other option is to have some cotent that is only available for programs who want to use it for affiliate content.

The simple truth today is, for every one sponsor who will buy a set to give to 500 affilaites there is an affiliate who will buy it because it's not with 500 other guys.

You would think that would work in theory, but here again is the hard truth.

Few sponsors value the free content they give to affiliates enough to pay extra for it, in fact most of them think they should get a massive discount. They don't worry that 10 other sponsors have the same stuff and giving it to affiliates.

There are exceptions and I'm painting it with a broad brush, but the bottom line is one webmaster will never saturate a set as much as 100.

And the sponsors accuse us of selling saturated content. |huh

I'm going to think about what you said basschick, I'm always open to ideas, and you make some good points.

Your last idea about reserving some content for sponsor's affiliate use. That one is giving me some ideas.

Since I started in the content business at the turn of the century.. (always wanted to say that.. :D ) I've always had the webmasters in the forefront of my business plan because I started as a webmaster myself, so I'm familiar with that part.

I know there's a way to come to a middle ground with sponsor content where there's a win/win situation, I just have to figure out what that is.

In the meantime, what we're focusing on and have always had in our business model are the services we offer with the content (galleries, clips etc.). This is one of the areas we want to concentrate on even more, and we have some plans that are pretty exciting. I won't be talking about that yet though, it's something that's still in the works.

Thank you for your input, I notice you always have something interesting to say :)