Does revshare really suck lately?
 

Ok, who's been teaching all those surfers how to cancel their memberships? Come out come out where ever you are...

I've started promoting several revshare programs in the last 6 months (mostly ccbill) and had a fair amount of signups.. but almost all of them (except for 2 who cancelled right after their first rebill) cancelled a few hours/days after they'd signed up...
Whats the problem here? 5 years ago I had a retaintion rate of 60%. I know these days are gone but has it really gotten this bad? Is it the surfers? Are it the paysites?

Enlighten me please.

This is going to be a good thread.

I think it might be a combination of both your answers. Surfers are basically more switched on these days. I would imagine many of them are practiced at joining, getting themselves off, and cancelling each night (good for signups, bad for revshare). I'd "guess" this is the main reason : clever surfers who know they can basically get access to a 40 buck site for free or only a few dollars.

There are also a lot more crappy paysites than in the past. I expect some surfers will leginitimately cancel because the paysite did not live up to expectations. Though I think the incidence of this is probably a LOT less than the first reason.

It's partly that surfers are becoming more & more educated & know that they have to cancel almost immediately so that they are not charged (this is probably due to those wonderful 30 min trials)

...and part of it is that some of these paysites lack a decent amount of content or they are set up very poorly.

I do alot with solo am/teens sites and I haven't really noticed any retention drops. Conversions have dropped with the sudden burst of fresh faces . . . but I will never complain about a growing market.

Crappy might play a part,but its just the norm now.
Why pay for a month on one when you can get a different one each week.
Bigger HD's play a large part,afew gigs here and there and your set.
So ya go back to the site sign up for trial and get updates and cancel.
Some don't want to get burned or simply do it so they don't forget to cancel

Make sure if your gonna send allot of traffic to a revshare program ask to see what your selling too many sites have great tours but lack any content to keep a member :(

Most programs are kinda sceptic about letting you explore their members area. I don't know if I can name one that was willing to let me in to take a peak at what they were offering. But then again, if I would run a paysite I would be careful also who to let in and who not :)

Seriously, if any sponsor denies you this, then just drop them. Any respectable sponsor will let you look behind the scenes. It was doublep who taught me the value of doing this..

Like kristian said if they say no dont bother

I promote serveral sponsors without a trial and you'd be surprised how many surfers signup for the monthly since they have no other option and cancel a day or 2 later. It's amazing.

Why? Who knows but it could be they joined, jacked off and download enough in the day or 2 to jackoff for a while so they cancel in case they forget later.

I like revshare, the rebills are great in the long run. But it's rare that a surfer will stay for several months now. You only 1-2 rebills to make decent money on them though so that's the good thing.

These 30 min free trials really suck! The surfer has half an hour to spank his money. Once he's finished beating his meat I highly doubt he's gonna pay to join that site, unless it's a really exceptionial site with excellent content.

Amen to that !!!

There is also the broadband aspect no one has mentioned, increasing numbers of internet users now have broadband so they can download content a lot faster so why would a member rebill for months on end if he/she can download all the content within 1 or 2 days.

From speaking to a few paysite owners, this is an increasing trate with members, they signup for a 3 day trial or 1 month membership, download all the content, cancel and then re signup to the site in another 6 months and repeat the process over again.

Another case of surfers getting smarter, there are loads of other variables also, what niche are you promoting, is the members area of the site actually any good but the bottom line is, surfers are getting smarter and as time goes on retention will just get worse

The best way I've found to get good rebills is by promoting paysites whose content cannot be downloaded : dating and cams. I plan on doing a lot more of these in the new year. The other niches, I'll let paysite owners figure out how to keep their members. :)

Yea its a good idea for sure !

a lot of the paysites around today suck

they are about toolbars, spam and crossells, the sites arent worth the trial price

I do really good with newsensations on recurring.
first class members areas

and I just got a check from Karups.
I havent sent them any traffic for years, like 3 or 4 years

when you promte a shitty product its always a harder sell

Outback Cash and Bling Cash both do OK for me on revshare...

Their member content is OK... but I believe it's mainly because both have their own billing setups and are not stuck with third party customer service.

I hope you are right about that Kristian... we are trying to protect content from being downloaded easilly by members on privatecelebrity.com ... and the most common cancellation reason is "Cant Download Content"

Still trying to decide if these cancels would simply be people that would suck the content down and cancel anyway.

For sure the spread of broadband has eroded rebills on certain sites.

Probably for revshare programs that have been around for a long time like karups/atk and have a huge archive would do better than a new revshare program.

I haven't seen too many backends, but atk's is excellent. If I wanted to pay for porn I'd be quite happy paying for a membership there.

Due to my HD crash I lost the only porn I ever paid for - which I got like 2 years ago. I bit the bullet and joined the site.

I was fucking pissed when I clciked on the movies in cache and WMP requested a username/pass everytime it loaded.

Copying them from cache to somewhere else which renames the moves fixed that.

But, I simply kept the site open in the background and clicked on every movie as I worked on other things.

Kept the cache folder open and copied a few dozen movies every once in a while.

The price was high and there was a little forum and people complained about the lack of updates and high price. The latest additions had broken links.



After I downloaded ALL the movies available, I cancelled. CCbill told me the membership was good for like another 27 days- that surprised me.

Thing is- there's just nothing to even go back to the site for.

In order to retain people monthly the paysite really HAS to come out with a shitload of updates every month and be consistent about it.

The content would almost have to be custom.

I have 2 online buddies that do buy porn. They both tend to join a trial and download as much as possible into cache then copy it to a CD or HD to view later. Meaning- they don't wank off to the site. It's a lot more fun to have GIGS of stuff in one folder than click around.

ATK Galleria, Natural, and Exotic were all great values IMO. The new affiliate mgr let me in the backend for 3 mos to get content.

They have a really clean backend and SO much good content it boggles the mind.

They poll their users to ask what they specifically like so that they can give them more of what they want.

I've seen a couple other backends that were just SHIT interfaces. One is a big sponsor and I was pretty disappointed at how bad the back end was.

Logically, why would anyone retain a membership unless there were so many updates they felt they were getting a great deal at their monthly price?

Makes much more sense to simply click on everything, copy from cache quit then come back months later and repeat from where ya left off.

So- quality custom content, good price point, frequent updates and a nice clean easy to navigate back end seems the best for revshare. :)

One thing that we take pride in is that our members areas rock. They are full of great content and a shitload of bonus sites, but we've found that we only keep about 30% around. We've also seen that the same person (a more savey porn surfer) will join several times.

To get that 60% retention like you had back in the wild-wild west programs need to have "trial members areas" with less content and an option to upgrade. We are working on this now.

Other than that - it is just the way of the world. Modems are faster, surfers are smarter, and Visa is stricter.

It's a buyers market and the surfers know this.

These sites work cause people come back again & again... It is also the case for paysites based on daily or weekly content release... A good member zone with quality content & that knows how to make his members' mouth water (by making members vote & doing announcements of the upcoming content, for instance) has good retention ratios...

Yes, I agree, that's how I would also enhance retention. :)

But, imo . . .

The only sites that will retain as well as dating and cam sites are single model sites and / or reality sites with a compelling concept to be updated daily or weekly.

Simply adding more content wont cut it. If a member wants more content, he/she just cancels, and signs up for a trial elsewhere. You need community, interactivity, and a winning concept. More and more pics and vids, and the ability to vote, just wont cut it imo.

I have around 50% month to month retention now and 25-30% from trial to full month($39.95), I hope to improve this by 10% within 1-2 months, I have still pretty new sites, but doing 4 updates a week, and show members also previews of the next updates.

Well, except when content is unique and cannot be found somewhere else...|cool|

Yep, as long as the content is unique, and not just exclusive. :)

I'm not having a go at you, btw. You know the score, I'm just expressing thoughts. :)

I love Pay per sign up... its good to get those big checks straight away... but lately both Mark and I have taken a big kick in the butt from google... so sales have slowed a little... the thing that has kept us going is the checks we get from rev share programs! And god bless them!

I look at a lot of amateur programs in CCBill... and they bloody work... send some hits... get some sign ups... and watch them retain. If the content is genuine, good and up to date - the surfers love it... particularly if its in a specific niche!

We certainly cant complain about rebills at this point in time! And Fonz... CCBill would be our biggest checks each week - you just need to research the sites you are thinking of promoting.

Already mentioned was the need to enter a user and pass to watch videos you download. I have a sponsor using that, it's called "Digital Rights Management".

DRM is a technology to put usage restrictions on video files in order to protect them from online piracy or even more from users who sign up, download everything they can only to cancel again. These videos can only be played back after a valid username and password has been entered by the user. This means that users need to remain active and keep their account in good standing to be able to watch the videos, even if they are on their harddrive.

Our retention is way above industry standard for many of the reasons already mentioned.

1. Unique Sites with Exclusive Content
2. Regular Updates
3. Bonus sites with Huge Members areas
4. LIVE content (webcams)

We do not offer trials, these inspire surfers to cancel.
Monthly memberships should create a sense of community.

Affiliates that have been pushing our sites for a few months have more than 50% of the check coming from rebills. Every damn week!

We have members that have paid every month for 3 years.
It is hard to retain longer because of credit card expiration dates!

In short, if the sites are decent... Rev Share ROCKS!

Kezza makes and excellent point. Just over a year ago my entire network of sites, including Jays XXX Links was hacked (or that was the explanation from the host). To make matters worse, I was on tour with my band - I was out of Business for over 2 months. I was able to pay my rent and eat thanks to those Revshare checks.

With those new ARS movie sites, I kick the revshare on them and make way more money because they retain forever.

I find it is best to mix your sponsors with PPS, Revshare, and it doesn't hurt to have some Wegcash, CE Zines, or AEBN mixed in there.

Don't put all you eggs in one basket.