conversions fell down in a disasterous way
 

According to my statistics, I used to have 1:400 through last 4 months until last week. Last week I made only a few sales with average conversion around 1:1500.
The amount and the quality of my traffic didn't change whatsoever. I have the same amount of hits and unique visitors as I have been getting for the last 4 months, but now I have almost no sales, while I always used to make 1-3 sales a day for those last 4 months.

Is there anyone around, who has been experiencing the same sort of problem recently? I wonder what the hell is going on. Is it a sort of seasonal shit or is it the shit that is happening only to me?

Oh yeah, my stats often dance anywhere from 1:150 to 1:6000+ over one week periods.

I tend to make decisions based on, at minimum, 2 month averages. :D

The rest just doesn't matter. |huh

I did notice that some of my PPC sources pretty well dried up over the last month, and the traffic quality from others is down.

Maybe the SE dances are affecting your traffic sources.

My sales had been pretty steady for the past few months, but for some strange reason they've dropped off in a major way, the past week or so.

Exactly, Wito. That's what I'm talking about.

Thanks to all of you, guys. At least, now I know strange things may happen to everyone, but not only me.

The word on the smut-peddlin' streets is that things drop off around now and pick up again in a major way once school starts back up, but I'm not so sure about it.

I figure a lull like this is a good time to play around with a new tour and maybe my pricing, if in fact we can expect a rush soon.

I hope this theory proves true, because if not, it's gonna be a major disappointment.

I cannot find any other explaination to what's happening, other than the one you've given above.

Very sage advice!

Trying to find reasons for short term trends will drive a person crazy. I take note of them, but only get concerned if bad trends continue for a longer time, or get progressively worse.

I make all my "big" decisions based on stats over the last three months.

...and summer is a horrible time to look at one's stats. Some of your sponsors probably have to add extra memory to their servers just to handle the increase in shaving.

Conversions/total sales are down for me in August compared to July but nothing that can't be contributed to normal wacky fluctuations. Rebills are pulling me through, though.

My solution during dry spells is to build and submit more than ever and when things eventually pick up I'll get a boost from those efforts.

Now thats |jester| but it sure feels ... how do I say this, Oh so true!

It seems like every year at this time things do drop. IMO its because its the last couple of weeks of summer so college students are getting in a summer blow out before classes starts and horny dads are taking the damn family on vacation. Things will pick up when the days are shorter and more people are staying out of the cold, they always do.

Haha, I started a thread bitching and complaining about how August started off so shitty for me, but sure enough things ended up pulling thru for me and this month has turned out to be right in my expected income range and if the last couple days are good I may end up a touch above normal.

But like everyone is already saying things are about to pick up, in past years I usually see a good increase in Sept, and then in October things usually get going really good. Of course this year for me my traffic sources are quite a bit different, so I guess I cant really expect anything :)

i think august is not the best period of the year to look into stats too deeply, yeah we see a drop off, mainly due to people being away from their computers - holidays/vacations, good weather, barbecues etc so theres many factors that keep people away - kids are still off school in the UK and parts of europe, only just back in the US

just let the bad cold wet weather kick in and then check the stats

natasha
xxx|thumb

august doing well for me though today - wednesday - not looking good...no sales so far :(

As said, judge ratio's and sales at least per month. Daily checking can drive you nuts.

ronnie

Winter, the webmasters best friend

haha so true!

Every day of the year can be a webmasters best friend..:)

ronnie

Both this year and last, my best months have been July and August.

This month started off incredibly good for me, but the second half has been absolutely disastrous. I guess all things balance out in the universe...or something. :)

I started off this month with the first two weeks that looked as good as any other week of any other month. But the things dropped in such a sudden way for the next two weeks that I got worried. I'll be waiting for a sudden pick up, just as sudden as the drop I experienced in the middle of this month

Summer is ending and sales will grow for sure!

there is no money in porn....its a good hobby though

I have explained in some other post that ups-and-downs are the only constant over the years in this business. Just continue pushing and don't look back. Don't even think about stats, if it helps.

Only thing I do out of the ordinary when sales are down is check if all my domains are up.

BTW, there are so many reported "slowdowns" that I can hardly keep track of them. "Summer", "January", "Weekends", "Every third tuesday in odd months",... who cares! Just do what you do, it will pick up.

The best way to keep you away from "downs" is generating some % sales with rebills.

Hi,

I was wondering, webmasters who make "1 to 3 sales a day" are you TGP owners or are you free site or TGP gallery submitters?

Thanx,
Teebs

Do not know about the others but I submit galleries & freesites. Also own fake tgp and linklists plus there are the hubs as well.

I base everything around ccbill for it is my cake. All other programs are the icing to it. This month is below normal but here it is: 70 sales & 71 rebills. Makes me want to |cry| sometimes. Love the rebills and greatful for the icing as well. But even with all this I know I suck at this and determined to do far better :D

So I assume you're making over 4K a month. Fuck I still don't know what I'm doing wrong in this biz|cry|

Neither. Mostly I handle review sites

I do a little more than "1 to 3 sales a day" as a niche TGP owner and occassional gallery submitter.

The keys, in my opinion, is being able to generate and filter traffic. And once you have that filtered traffic, knowing what that niche surfer is looking for and providing it.

One thing to keep in mind. Cutting your conversion ratio in half is the equivalent of doubling your traffic.

Many people also leaving money on the table by not getting the most clicks out of their ads. 1% v.s 10% can be a huge difference. Course this thread is about conversions.

ronnie

While you guys still keep this thread alive, I'll try to set my point out once again. The reason why I started this thread was not 'sales', but 'conversions'.

I don't submit free sites or galleries, so all my traffic comes from SE. So, what I'm saying is that the attendance of my sites hasn't actually changed to the worse, but only grown after the last major update on Yahoo that I noticed in the middle of this month.

So, when some of you say that in August poeple are away from their computers due to some seasonal reasons', I feel this is not about the visitors of my sites. I get the same amount of visitors coming from SEs to my sites and I get the same amount of them that go on to visit sponsor sites, BUT the thing is that in the first half of August I made around 45 sales, and suddenly, starting from 17th, I have had almost NO sales (only 2), while the my site attendance stats as well as sponsor stats show slight increase rather than any decline. But nobody signs up.

That's what I was saying. Do you think it is a general practice? Any ideas?

BTW, is there any possibility that my visitors go on to sponsor sites, and their hits are tracked there, while their sign-ups are not?

Thanx for all the info everyone

Cheers!

This is always a possibility. How much it happens is a topic of much debate. If you're highly suspect that a specific sponsor is shaving sales, sign up yourself and confirm that it gets tracked.

I can't suspect any sponsor in particular. I promote 15 sponsors or so, and the situation is the same with all of them for me.

I just wonder if there can be any fault on my part. I'm not sophisticated in these things, but, for example, can the encryption of my pages (I recently changed it) effect anything and make any difference in this respect? I may have done something wrong, so I'm just trying to make sure it is not my fault.

One thing I can figure out, is that sponsor links on my sites work as good as they have always done, because sponsor stats show as many hits as they have always shown for me.

Yauhen,
Sorry to get off topic. As Toby & UW mentioned with shaving. Hard to say how bad it is or whether it is there at all.

Now I also believe that there is a correlation to what I mentioned earlier about sales being down, ratios or not. IMO the same people that may normally buy are doing that late summer vacation. Think about this, do you add out of the norm expenses a week or two before taking off on vacation? I know that I do not. I usually cut out movies, going out to dinner, etc if we are going to be dropping a couple grand on a quick trip. I want that to be memorable, then afterwards when I know I did not go way over budget its back to the frills. But thats just me.

I have said this before but I do not care about sponsor ratios. Every sponsor tracks them differently unless you only deal with one mega sponsor. The only ratio that matters to me is income versus expenses. Rebills do not factor into conversions but are a big part. Over 80% of the 71 I had last month at ccbill have rebilled for more than 3 months. Rather have 1:1500 with that then a 1:400 PPS. 1 person has rebilled 38 times now.

I have a feeling that you already know this. Above paragraph was more for newbies just starting out so they can think long term more than short term.

Very very bad
Worst month in years !!!
Stuff that was 1:500 or so are now 1:1500 !!!!

July and August are the worst months of the year (at least for me). Let people get back to work/school and then take a look at your stats. I´m glad summer is over now, phew..

bummer
 

Aug best month so far this year...even got a conversion on the 31st which is a first for me. None on aug 31 2005 or 2004 (year started)

WTF'S goin' ?
2 months of very very bad ratios
Worst since i've been online and we're talking about late 96 here !

I'll shoot myself in the head if it stays like this or GET FUCKING WORST.

When you make money, your life style changes. So instead of paying 300$/month for a car, you go for a 600$ month car. Because you know that the money will come

When you make money, you get a bigger house. Because you know that the money will come

When you make money, you do lots of things, you go out, eat at restaurants, do some travelling YOU'RE HAVING A BALL

So what if the money isn't coming in, or it's not like it used too ?
Fuck the "having a ball part", you're stuck with house, car, motorbike name it name it.

What if you have fucking grey hair now and got kids close to 16 ?
What if you were a dumb ass and invested in stocks just before 9/11th ?

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

And the asshole of the year award goes to.....

I forgot to say: IN NOMINATION FOR blahblahblahblah

August was my worst month in a couple of years and so far September looks no better. Hoping for a turnaround soon. Traffic's down a bit compared to last year but not significantly so - it's the conversion rate that's bottomed out. I'm thinking that too many people have overextended credit cards right now.

|flush|