Which Processor attracts the most promoters (Affiliates)
 

Hi,

I run 2 sites, www.QueenslandGirls.com.au and www.StockingHeelSluts.com
Since the slow decline of promoters who favour Zombaio has reached an unbearable low rate I am in the market for a new Processor.

So, Which Processor attracts the most promoters for your site.

Now heres the tricky part, I live in Australia and dont plan on migrating to the US, Canada or the EU, so CCBill wont be able to process Visa for me.. (If Thailand was on that list Id be right there)

I guess the other question is, How important is Visa processing... Would I get many promoters if I did not process Visa?

I have to assume that roughly 1/2 of porn surfers with credit cards have a Visa - I know I do :)

Have you looked into Epoch?

I would go with CCBill

...or get some affiliate software like NATS or MPA & use all 3 processors |thumb

I am looking at that now...

Even if I cant process Visa?

I know of solo type sites that that have gone MasterCard only due to not wanting to pay the Visa fee and are still getting sales. Taking Visa too would be better but it's their choice.

Anyone wanna tell me whats wrong with my sites, and why I cant get affiliates apart from the Zombaio factor

The Zombaio issue is a deal breaker for me, so I never looked further. Now, taking a look at the tours I don't see any glaring issues. Elevated X template?

I'm also going to disagree with Cleo with regards to CCBill without Visa. That might be fine is you weren't also running an affiliate program, but since you are it's simply not acceptable.

My advice is to talk with some other Aussie pornographers and find out how they got around the CCBill Visa issue. It's probably going to require registering a corporation in another jurisdiction.

Is the issue with CCBill & Visa the $750 fee? or something else?

Not sure, I acquired the site whole as is...

I thought Affiliates made the world go round... Why wouldnt you have a program?

That sounds like alot of friggin around... But if its what i have to do...

Anyone have experince with Epoch and Verotel as a Paysite Owner and as an Affiliate

You misunderstood. I was saying that running CCBill without having Visa may be acceptable if you were just running pay sites. But since you also have an affiliate program associated with those sites then not having Visa as a payment option isn't acceptable. In other words, I'm not going to promote a site that can't process credit cards for over half of my traffic.

It may be more headache than it's worth given all the changes with International finance over the last few years, but I do know there are some Aussie based site owners using CCBill with Visa.

Put Verotel in the same column as Zombaio as far affiliates go. Just barely better than no affiliate program at all. I can't address Epoch, haven't had enough experience using them.

What Toby said about affiliates not wanting to promote a site that doesn't take Visa.

The Visa renewal is less than the original amount charged.

Epoch is much harder to get setup than CCBill. I've never seen as much required paperwork as what Epoch requires and the Visa fee will be the same. Their admin actually makes CCBill admin look fantastic. Really bare bones for affiliates. I think Epoch feels that most sites using them will have them connected behind NATS or something.

If you have both CCBill and Epoch as processors then you will have to pay the Visa fee twice.

I'm with Toby. No way I would promote a sponsor who could not use 50% of the traffic I sent them, I'd just be throwing money away.

I also agree with Toby's comment about "registering a corporation in another jurisdiction". It's is not hard, I live in the UK, but up until about 10 years ago I had a Japanese registration, and could happily "prove" that I was a Japanese company based in Tokyo!

Epoch is very popular but you NEED to accept Visa!

Some feedback for you after just a quick look around...

Being able to accept payment via Visa is very important if you expect any affiliate with significant traffic to promote your program. Having cascading billing with several processors who can handle all possible methods of payment is what's needed to get serious affiliates to sign up for your program(s).

It looks like there are two paysites and two separate affiliate programs. If that's the case it'll also work against you. Just having to sign up twice will turn off some prospective affiliates. But mostly it's knowing they'll have to hit whatever your minimum payout is on each program separately before they can get paid.

I didn't sign up so I have no way to know how long your tracking cookies live, but that could also be working against you if they have a short life before expiring. Particularly since it looks like someone can register for free on the QueenslandGirls forum, and potentially hang around there until they're convinced to join after the cookie's expired.

Another issue is traffic leaks on your tour. For example the large buttons linking to Facebook and Twitter at the bottom of the QueenslandGirls tour pages. Also the buttons six buttons linking to review sites.

The hosted galleries for QueenslandGirls I saw seem to try to get someone to go direct to the join page after seeing only 7 photos without seeing the tour first. (And just for your own good, you should note that all of the links on the gallery which go through Zombaio will generate an error message if there's no affiliate ID, effectively keeping anyone from getting to your tour or join page).

One other thing that may hurt you is that your monthly price of $14.95 means an affiliate will only make $7.48/$8.97 per signup. And on QueenslandGirls you're offering a second month free, so there can't even be any rebill income for 60 days. And affiliates know that many members will have canceled by then since there's not a lot of content on the site yet.

Finally, your tour pages aren't really designed to motivate an interested surfer to become a members. The two sites have very different tours. But both are short with no or only one video preview and there were no links I could find to see large photos. Affiliates know it takes more than what you're showing to convert most potential members so they'll be reluctant to sign up for your program and send traffic to those tours.

Anyway, that's from just a quick look around, which is all you can expect the majority of affiliates to take before they make a decision on whether to promote your sites. So to get back to your original questions, yes, Visa and the right processor(s) are important. But you'll also need to pay some attention to those other issues if you want to attract affiliates who know what they're doing and can send you any volume of quality traffic.

With all that said, welcome to the board and good luck with your sites and your programs.

:)


ADDED: Check the links to the tour, join page, etc. at the bottom of your StockingHeelSluts galleries. They were all 404 errors on the ones I previewed.

Thanks heaps... I will work through that list and try rectify all of it :)

The issue is CCBill will not let me process Visa within Australia

Yes, because i'm part owner of Stocking Heel Sluts

I was unaware of a minimum payout for affiliates... If you had an Affiliate account with Zombaio with other sites surely that wouldn't be an issue.

How does one find this out?

Thats a negative... Only members with active subscriptions have access to the forum.

I might unlink them and just put the username on the graphic...

I killed them, they are no longer there

The Free galleries page is designed for other webmaster to use the HTML or the direct URL with their Affiliate ID at the end like thispage.php?id=Zombaio_ID
Maybe I should change where that join button goes too? THe redesigned tour page or maybe http://bit.ly/XONwqa

But the low price makes members want to sign up doesnt it?

Thats something I should specify on webasters page, all the specials offers are trials by logic flow eg. with my get a 2nd month free its a 60 day trial at $14.95 then rebills monthly as usual afterwards.

Would I have a better chance if I offered 100% on Trials to affiliates?

Every dollar the site generates goes back into it at the moment.. More signus = More(Better) Content

So more videos and more bigger pictures? Galleries too?

Thanks heaps... I can't believe i missed that. It was only on the FHG pages...


Another Question... Who here that is reading this has a Zombaio Affiliate Account?

A few things on what Simon said:

On the price: Unlike Simon, the fact that membership is cheap would make me more likely to sign up as an affiliate BUT it would also mean you would never be the main sponsor on any of my sites. I.E. I would try to sell the surfer a more expensive membership, and only after that try to sell them your site.

Separate affiliate programs: If I was searching for an affiliate along the lines of your sites and came across your program, I would look at the fact that you have not integrated both sites into one as a sign that you either did not care enough, or that you were not a competent enough webmaster to do so. Either way, this would stop me signing up as an affiliate as either one infers that other sponsors are better at their job, so are more likely to know how to convert the traffic I send them.

The tour: This would be the deal breaker. It simply does not sell. It tells me that you have a few pictures and videos of pretty woman and a forum. Big deal! You can get those for free all over the 'net. Basically, since the advent of tubes, all paid websites do is charge people for stuff you can get for free. The only way you will get sign ups is by really selling the site, not by telling the surfer what you have (because however good your site is, they can get whatever you offer for free). And as an affiliate, I am only going to be interested in sending traffic to someone who can convert the traffic. If you want experienced webmasters to sign up as affiliates, you need to study marketing and totally redesign your site's front end. And by "study marketing" I don't mean look for articles on the web or download a few eBooks on the subject, I mean take a few months off and study the subject full time, spend money on a proper course. It is a pain, but it will make the difference between you wombling along making the occasional sale - or retiring a multi millionaire in a few years time.

About Visa: I'm trying to work out why CCBill won't allow Visa payments to Australian webmasters. I have a vague memory that I was told that running a paid pornsite is illegal in Australia. If this is so, you seriously need to go for the "registering a corporation in another jurisdiction" option, not only to protect yourself legally, but because when the credit card companies realise you are using their services for porn they will simply not give you the money they have already collected for you, regardless of processor.

i cant thank everyone enough... I took a long hard look at my site (QLD Girls) and changed some things around, updated some pages, made better graphics and my ratio has gotten better already... within a hour of making changes i had 4 new signups and it has stayed steady since...

I am enlisting the help of some of my marketing and advertising contacts to help with the new tour pages and maybe that will increase ratios again...

As i mentioned earlier, I am only part owner of stocking heel sluts and the major shareholder is not interested in joining processors to come under the one affiliate program, I only joined up with them as I can advertise that site wherever i advertise mine... I get a good cut jsut from doing the same thing jsut for a different site... I dont havemuch control over design, content etc...

As for legalities of Porn in Australia... My site QueenslandGirls.com.au is not considered porn according to the law... There is no stimulation, penetration or even simulated sex... It is no more than the naughtiest magazines you can get in the local servos...

The more hardcore stuff can only be shot in the Country Capital and if hosted within Australia, it must be hosted there as well.. this is why we are hosting offshore as its also alot cheaper...

I have had multiple meetings with solicitors etc to make sure im not in the wrong...

I have family in the EU who seem to be pretty happy to create a CCBill account for me so that is a way around that... If everything went really well i will have to try make one on my own for tax purposes...

It still truly makes me |bighappy| to see webmasters helping each other out |shake|

|evilgrin| Naah, it pisses me off. I want everyone else to fail, so that I get all the business to myself. |nahnah|

everyone feel free to check out the changes ive made and leave any comments here...

Really useful thread here.

Prozac, I'm Australian and I have just got CCBill billing on my new site BrightDesire.com. I started with Zombaio but I have jumped through all the hoops to get CCBill because I want affiliates.

*waves at all my friends on the GG board... casually pointing to my affiliate page (http://www.brightdesire.com/affiliates) *

To get CCBill with Visa we had to fork out $600 or so to get a Delaware company with MyCorporation.com. But there's an extra hoop you need to jump through. Message me if you want the details.

I read through Simon's long comment, I will need to have another look at my tour... but if anyone wants to critique it from an affiliate point of view, please do.

:)

Well may a dingo steal my baby! We haven't heard from you since your Vegas trip :) What brings you out to the board?????

Oh, nevermind :D












|couch| |smooch|

Hey a visit from the old bag!

Bag? Scrotum?|lol| I get jokes :D

Thanks for coming back on to help out GrandmaScrotum...

Ive made new FHGs and updated the tour pages and the sign up page, looks a pretty good now

Why yes, I have been very absent, although I occasionally pop by and read without posting. But have been very VERY busy for a long time with both FTG and the new site. And also, galavanting around the world and getting married by Elvis.

I'll be in Toronto in late March, early April :)

So ive been told that my .com.au is also something that deters people... So I am jsut a few steps away from completing the changeover to the .com, jsut have to wait to see what Zombaio says about it...

Its here... my website is now www.QueenslandGirls.com I changed it over this morning... So now no more worrying about those "Scary Australian Laws" now lets promote the shit out of the site :)

Queensland is no longer in Australia then? :)
|couch|

Haha... not anymore :)

So I have $290 Paypal $$ for advertising QLDGirls... I guess im looking for quality traffic targeted at my niche - Amatuer, GF, Softcore, Nude, Outdoors...

The Butcher from sponsorchat has offered me a deal but im jsut seeing what else is out there...


*I know thats not $290 but you know what i mean*

So, who has offers? Post here or PM, I dont mind...

Sponsorchat doesn't have a happy reputation on this board.

It doesnt have much of a reputation anywhere I am finding out now...