Freesites - New thought for me at least!
 

Hi All,

I have probably build and submitted around 25 free sites the last 3 weeks and thanks for the ones who listed them - they have not been too succesfull saleswise yet, so I am thinking of changing strategy(instead of sponsors!)

So far I have had the 3 outgoing links on the warning page all going to the sponsor. Now I've had a serious brain session of why i am not able to make as many sales as I would like(but of cause when is enough enough!).

Why try and sell sponsors on the warning page? how would it even be possible to pre-sell something on the warning page when it's full of descriptive text to get SE traffic, Recip links to all the good friends, warning text to tell surfers they're entering an adult site and yadi yada!

There's WAY too much noise now on the warning page and most surfers click through to my sponsors from the warning page, so they probably just saw some cool text or an interesting banner and clicked it...no way I've been able to tease them and prepare them for the buy which in my mind equals poor ratios!

So now I will make an experiment and drop all sponsors from the warning page and wait with the sell until the main and gallery pages...

Did any of you think of that before or try that - I would like to hear your results if you have! :)

or just want to hear you out if it sounds like a good idea!

Kind regards
Sodo

You can give a shoot with that idea for the next round and wait for results. On the other hand you are permitted to 3 outgoing links on each page , so not using them on warning pages gives the surfer less choice and only between your ENTER link and recip tables.

My point is if you want to tease them use 3 links on warning pages straight to join page. This way you can eliminate those who wants free stuff.

I may be wrong. Who knows , times are tough.

Dude, sales suck, this is the new normal.

Because you can and more importantly, because it works. With that being said, feel free to experiment on different sales techniques. Figure out what works best for You.

And what Bill said :D

Another way to entice surfers and give them half a hardon is to put a couple of teaser pics on your index, some inviting text, and send them on in to your main page where you sell the shit out of whatever your selling.
That's generally the way it's done on AVS sites and it works. It doesn't eliminate the surfer who's just looking for free stuff, but i think it focuses the average surfer more on what you're offering.

I've always been a fan of getting them inside & then selling them on the paysite, but I know others have had great success with ads on the warning page.

I don't have a very scientific approach to this, not analyzing my stats very much etc, but I can say that I do make sales from the index page as well... And as far as I remember, the sales are divided pretty much equally between the index and main pages and a bit less on gallery pages.
But I do advertize quite heavily on index, and often with hardcore images and banners too.

As far as sales go, I am not selling anything to speak off these days either, I choose to blame the worldwide economic panic and not my sale skills, but who knows ;)

I'd be interested in "hearing" your results. My own experience is that I get double the clicks through to sponsor links on the Index page - sales are about the same however. So with that said, the clicks I get off the gallery pages are more productive.

My stats show more or less the same. Most sales coming from index page.

I wouldn' drop all sponsors from warning, just test different sponsors and you might be lucky. If you are doing PPS, try revshare from some smaller sponsor, try a pill sponsor or perhaps a VOD (greenie seemes to be doing very well with aebn)...

I haven't done the math but from looking at sponsor stats I would guess that 95% of my sales come from the index page, 4% from the main page and 1% from the galleries. But it's very true that what works for someone else may not work for you. Experiment and see what works best for you. |thumb

25 sites in 3 weeks is a good start but unless you're a marketing genious don'e expect ratios of 1:200. You have to send a LOT of hits to a sponsor to get sales. At least I do |banghead|

I think it's an interesting approach, but I also think if you can give them the money shot on the warning page or text they're looking for then they might just click on through to the sponsor instead of your preview...have you considered using one of your sponsors that allows you to create campaigns to see where they're coming from...set up campaigns for warning page, main page, and then gallery 1 and gallery 2 and see where you get the most sponsor traffic from? Just a thought...

Well thanks for all the comments, I will start next week to promote VOD on the warning page and then hit them hard on the main page with a paysite.

I can see that some of you mention that you get the most sales from your index page, but of cause you will if 90% of the click throughs to the sponsor come from that page.

The problem I see is that surfers clicking a text link that does not mention extremely clearly that it will lead them to a paysite, might just close the page or hit the back button all the way back to where they came from before hitting your index page. Who wants to be mislead, I can see from my server stats that there's quite a drop off between index and main!

Half the drop offs might be surfers who thought they would enter your site or get to see some free pics when they clicked a sponsor link and they ended up on a paysite and thought what the fuck, someone shafted me here! That is a potential lost signup there.

And it's hard to really build up a buying mood on the index page with all the things that already has to be there. I would prefer 30 click throughs instead of 300 anytime if I knew that the surfers clicking through knew it was a paysite and they had some kind of interest in it because that would make them more of a potential buyer than the ones where half feels shafted and the other half was not half way horny yet!

But I will make a follow up in this thread with my results. :o) That will be in 3 weeks time when I have something to compare with. :o)

Once again thanks for sharing your thoughts :o)

Kind regards
Sodo

^^^
In regards to a surfer thinking they'd see free pics etc from a link..I myself don't use misleading text I try and spell out where that link is going, I think most of us here do the same.

The freeloaders with no intention of buying will do that. They're going to see some free pics/movie clips at the paysite's tour anyway so I guess it depends on the text you use to get them there.

And after they enter your site and see your free pics there still needs to be a reason to buy. Personally, I feel that if a surfer gets to my galleries I haven't done my job. The only reason I have image/movie galleries is because link lists require me to have something for the surfer....and a little sampling of what is available might get a sale. (But from my stats that's rare)

|thumb Yep...."Wife won't give you her ass? Take a look at the girls that LOVE anal sex at...............". "Not getting enough cock sucking? The babes at "........." suck cock just so they can swallow cum. Take the free tour and see some of our cock sucking teens". They know they're going to a paysite and will get some free samples.

I can see you have good points there both of you, I just hope I will prove you wrong hehe :o) and get some more sales - It' can't hurt to try - not too much since My ratio at this point is 1:2500 with my main sponsor.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts once again :o)

Kind regards
Sodo :)

I am interested in seeing how this works out for you. I usually have a link to the sponsor as the first link, right at the top of the index page. I get a lot of clicks to the sponsor, that way, but I'm not sure if the quality of the clicks would be better if the surfer browsed around a bit on the freesite....(?).

No idea what sites/niches you promote, but no need to remove the sponsor links, just use this text...

"Please do *NOT* click this link unless you want to pay for access to more hot, nasty (insert niche porn description) than you'll ever need to get yourself off every time you have a few minutes and want to slam one out to real porn for a change. Seriously...don't fucking click this link to (insert linked paysite name) unless you're serious about improving the quality of your fucking stroke sessions. Really, just don't fucking do it."

--

HTH

I don't know if you are being tongue in cheek, but I might just borrow that...seriously...:)

Yeah, Simon, are you putting that in the public domain for us? I love it. )

I've used something similar on some of my warning pages in the past - to the effect of: "Warning, this site contains naked beautiful women engaging in wanton acts of sexual abandon...etc. Do not enter unless you really wish to view [insert lurid descriptions of whatever the fetish or niche is]." It potentially gets the surfer hot and lets you use some good SE terms and phrases. Granted, it's for sending them to the main page and not straight to the sponsor, but if there are a couple of prominent sponsor links there already, then it's good. No idea if if really helps sales but it probably doesn't hurt 'em, either, and getting some good SE search terms there is useful. And it does give fair warning to the surfers who were somehow looking for bible verses or something... |jester|


I still don't believe in using hardcore pics or banners on a warning page, though. Seems like it's just looking for trouble to confront someone with hardcore at the same time you're warning them off from viewing it if they don't wanna see it.

Blind/Misleading links to the sponsor or to enter your freesite's main page are rejected at most of the big LL's around here....so that's not it.

Once again, what works for one person does not necessarily work for another. Experiment to find out what works for YOU and be prepared to do a lot of |banghead|

JustRobert,

I was not talking about those kind of blind links, I was more talking about links not mentioning that it leads to something you have to pay for, that is not blind linking especially not if it's connected to a banner. A blind link is more a link on the last gallery page saying "For More Extremely Fat Girls - Click here" and then leading to a paysite.

kind regards
Sodo

That will also get you rejected at most of the big LL's as well.

Some people can entice and sell a surfer in a sentence or two, others need 4 pages. Neither is right or wrong because some surfers are easy to sell to, some are not and some will never buy. No one method works on ALL surfers in every niche. Thats why experimenting to see what works best for you, in the niche you are working, is the only way to go. Mix it up and find your happy medium ;)

Really? I have'nt done much free site submitting in the past couple of years, but my experience was that a single link like that for exit traffic always used to be allowed, as long as it did really lead to a relevant sponsor link and not to some sort of trash.

I apologize, just checked with the best reviewer I know and I am mistaken.

btw Sodo, in 15 minutes (3pm est) OTB will start and today's topic is about selling. You may want to listen in for ideas.