And they say shaving is a myth

Is it just me or is setgo hard to load at the moment ?

DOS attack maybe ?

One can certainly begin to get that impression at times. My take on it is that the industry isn't really all that bad, as frontiers go. Sure, there's some bandits, pirates and theives about, but the majority of the adult web is ethical, hardworking and honest.

Unfortunately, it appears that the greed of some is no longer satisfied with fleecing surfers but has turned to exploitation of webmasters. No surprise there, since the flood of new (read: naive) surfers has slowed recently while there's been a surge of newcomers into our industry.

The market is now saturated with overused content, overexposed programs and tons of free porn and, in the meantime, the average surfer has become more sophisticated. It's a lot tougher sell nowadays. But there are some who got used to that easy money made a few years ago. Easy money that came from jerking the surfer around. So, they've set there sights on other game.

However, webmasters are going to prove to be a bit handier in dealing with this scum than the surfer. Questionable practices that were tolerated when directed towards nameless surfers are going to end some careers when tried on webmasters. We can look forward to a good deal of rock'n'roll in the next year...

ok
question for the peanut gallery...
you run a program that pays $35 per signup

Webmaster A sends 10 signsup a day, but only 1 of those ever converts to a full month membership
Webmaster B sends 10 signups a day of which 8 recur to full month
the average surfer in your program converts 6-7 of 10 from every trial...

do you keep paying Webmaster A the same as Webmaster B, or do you find reason to terminate them? or if it's available in your software, do you shave Webmaster A since their traffic grossly unproductive in comparison with Webmaster B and your "normal" traffic?

while it is easy to blame poor conversions on bad member's areas, there is some traffic that's worse than others when it comes to retention....depending upon how the traffic is sent (advertising methods)...

now, don't think like affiliates, rather, think like program owners...your bottomline is greatly disrupted by Webmaster A's shitty traffic and what if he increases his traffic to 100 joins per day with the same shitty ratios? now you're losing all or nearly all of the money you're paying to "average webmasters" and even your good traffic sender like Webmaster B....


you probably won't have to worry about shaving in about 6 months...99% of all traffic will probably only be done via private deals and "people you know" newbies and a lot of TGP gallery hobbiests will be shit out of luck....ok, it may take 12 months to come to that, but it's most likely going to happen....or you'll have to prove your traffics's worth by sending to a revshare program FIRST and if conversions are good enough, be allowed to join the per signup program....kind of a probation period, if you will

All this shaving justification from Syk makes me nervous about his programs.

that's exactly why we've stayed as a revshare program
people who send better covnerting traffic make more....those who send lesser quality make less

Then they shouldn't advertise themselves as "$5BILLION PER ****TRIAL**** SIGNUP! FLAT! NO RATIOS!"

This whole "this business is cutthroat so it's okay to steal" shit is lame. Hate to tell everyone, but it's not okay to steal because you're in a competitive business. Not sure where that retarded idea even originated. It's all rationalization in order to make thieves feel better about themselves.

So what about partnership programs then too, is there an incentive or desire for them to shave other than greed ?

BV.

twice today you've claimed knowledge that a webmaster using a third party processor's revshare/partnership software can shave signups.

I read your excuse for not revealing what you know, or claim to know, and it was weak.

I also think IBILL, CCBILL, GLOBILL, JETTIS etc should speak up on this, defend their software if they can.

Many webmasters do throw their traffic at revshare programs because they believe that they will get the fairest shake from somebody using third party software they can't tamper with.

If it's not so, you would be doing many more webmasters a favor revealing what you know than harm by giving out info that might lead somebody to use the info you give out to screw over people.

I think if a company deals with a big enough volume of traffic and is prepared to deal with the fraud and poor convertions along with the good soild 3-4 month retentions. Then they can run a persignup program without stealing from a webmaster. If they tell you $35 a signup then they should be prepared to do that. If they say $35 persignup for the signups that we feel you earned then they turn on the Mach3 Percision adjuster

How logistically possible is it for them to pay per-signup on a sliding scale based on productivity without needing to shave ?

Even if they could I doubt any of them would. They're thinking shorter term now rather than long term. It's easier to get all the traffic, offer higher payouts than they should, and upsell much of it to the other larger paysites than it is to work on their own membership retention. Less risk for them because they don't have to worry as much about retention. You see them cross-billing more and more now, with the extra checkboxes to get them signed up at other sites at the same time.

while I agree with this, one thing you have to think about is...the affiliates...how many sign up for a revshare program? most flock to the per signups, no matter how outrageous the claims...they accuse program owners of being shortsighted, when THEY are the shortsighted ones...going for the one time, fast up front payout as opposed to building a steady income...

While revshare programs can certainly shave, there is less incentive because a webmaster is truly being paid what their traffic is worth...

I'm not slamming PPS signups as a whole (we send to some as well) it's just that they would be more pre-disposed to it...

ok, if I opened a per signup program and had the terms "$35 per signup, but if your ratios suck ass, we reserve the right to terminate you" affiliates would freak out and avoid joining en masse....as they should as there is no way to prove what the ratios truly were...

bottomline, trust who you're sending your traffic to or don't send it....

yup, we even toyed with the idea of crossbilling, but decided against it...

I love the idea of conversion based per signup...hmmm, might be worth looking in to......

I agree with you about who the short sighted people are.

But I don't think the fact that big shiny letters that say "$50 PER SIGNUP" attracts people means it's okay to steal. ;)

There is no other business around where you can make outright lies and get away with it.

Ford can't tell you their cars will last for 500 years and make you breakfast every morning. That would certainly increase their sales.

Pepsi can't say that drinking Pepsi reduces the risk of cancer and each time you open a pepsi a $5 bill appears in your wallet. Again, that would increase sales.

It's too bad the pay per signup programs are victims of their own stupidity by promising what they can't deliver. But that doesn't mean it's okay for them to steal in order to appear to fulfill those promises.

And yes. ;) A good partnership program is the best thing there is around. I have rebills up into the 35+ month range on some sites now. It's nice getting paid for a page I built 3+ years ago. hehe.

Very good point. I only work per signup for the reason that I don't want the risk factor. As a search engine marketer, I want a guaranteed flat rate. I'm willing to forgo some profits for a fixed rate. If the adult company can retain those members for a long time, then congrats to them, they deserve to keep the extra profit. If it means I come under the shave, so be it. For many webmasters, they don't want to wait for months to get the total value from a customer. For me, my business is to lead people from the search engine to the adult company. Once they've converted it's the adult companies responsibility to retain them as long as possible and since i have no influence or control over this factor, I insist on per signup. I'm not bashing revshare, I'm just saying that per signup is a more viable option for those webmasters who want to minimize risk.

WG