Days of Cheap Trials over??

Can someone explain to me the logic or business math behind charging $4.95 or whatever for a trial and then paying adult webmasters $35 for the trial sign up?

[Note: I'm not complaining, I just want to see what calculation goes into the mix]

A related topic: some big sites are moving to "active accounts" model--ie., you only get your referral cash if the referred user signs up for a REGULAR account instead of the trial membership.

I think the logic behind it is one of competitiveness. My guess is that in order to get more webmasters to refer people - that in the early days - someone decided to pay for the value of the sign up -up front. For someone like me - who can use money NOW. I am willing to get a lower amount now and upfront vs a possible higher amount over the long term.

Of course, they would have to figure out how much each sign up is really worth to them - and go from there. I was suprised too when I first started - it just seemed to me like I was reading something wrong, but hey I'm not complaining...

I have been an affiliate in many other non adult programs. Adult webmasters are by far the most demanding. It is very hard to find a good non adult program that pays every two weeks - much less every week like ARS. And most programs don't pay like 3 - 5 days after the period ends.

I guess that in order to get more signups - companies were willing to do what is necessary to entice more webmasters. How much longer will ARS keep their $2.95 sign ups - now that two other big sponsors are more expensive.

I have a ton of ads to change...

i think they taking a risk/gamble when they pay webmaster 35 dollars off a 2- 5 dollar trial. Anything can happen. Of course you will win when there is a sign up. But for the sponsors.. they are hoping the person that signed up to the paysite will stay. Otherwise they might lose out.

Tho.. sometimes the content inside the site is so good that the visitors will keep the account for a long period of time.

I forgot to mention, maybe one key thing that makes the whole $35 per trial signup deal viable is overflow traffic.

Overflow traffic occurs when you send a user to a sponsor through a banner, the user checks out the sponsor's site, doesn't like it and exits. Normally, most programs have exit consoles or popups advertising many other programs. There is a chance the user may sign up for those.

In the end, the sponsor hedges their bet... while they're paying you $35 per trial sign up, you normally don't get credit for overflow traffic that signs up to OTHER programs through the sponsor's popups or consoles.

ARS, by the way, is rare--they actually pay for your overflow traffic to their sites--although they've recently changed this as well [now its 50% their sites, 50% outside sites... but what the hell, I guess 50% will always be better than 0%]

Another way the bet is hedged--when a user does sign up, paysites try to upsell the that user through internal advertising within the paysites.

If the site is good (i.e. trials convert normally with at least 50% of them going to full month - and that's how usually it is) than 35$ is the average amount of money , even a bit less , wich each new customer IN AVERAGE (that means that it's pure statistics, where it doesnt matter if the guy converted from his trial or not) brings in.

Now if You place a LOT of ads from inside the paysite , and they do, You lower down of course the rebilling quite a lot and an average signup worth may be even a bit less than 35$ BUT You get all the money for the inside sales and any other sales You might generate - and that's a fucking lot.

I.E. they just pay You 35$ for ONE sale and from that ONE sale they pay as much as possible, but they get themselves all the rest of sales and that may be quite a fucking lot.

The only trouble they get are pissed of surfers - because in the end with such amounts of heavy ads they pay too much. So its a constant risk of facing exxesive chargebacks,FTS, BBB and alike.


That's the math.

P.S. AN AVERAGE SIGNUP - is a very important shit. That's how it is calculated: Suppose in a certain period You got 2000 sales. wich resulted in 70 000$ total revenue.
Now those 2000 sales include ALL sales made for that paysite. I.E. from those 2000 there are like 1000 of trials for couple of bucks which never converted and 1000 wich did stay for a full month and some of those 70 000$ also came from previous monthes from unlucky guys who remained longer than one month.

Now as a paysite owner You dont give a slight fucking fuck who converted and how and who stayed jerking a fucking month or two longer.

All You do is take Your 70 000$ and devide them by 2000 sales. And see that 2000 NEW customers bring You a 35$ EACH in average.
That means that this is how much You can pay off in maximum per sale.
What for? Well... Read up there - it's all about inside and side sales.

One of the ideas for the increased trial prices is supposedly the "percieved value" of the site. In other words, if someone goes to site A and they are offered a free/$1.95 trial, and then they go check out site B, and the trial is $4.95, whether it is just subconscious or what, theoretically they will think "this site costs more - it must be better"

Bruce

We think by next year, no one will be paying on trials.

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join www.jennacash.com the best conversion on the net

Take cdgirls.com they don't offer trials and still they convert good...

Should we even offer trials?

Hey guys, great discussion going on here. Here is some tid bits of info for you from what we've experienced

1.) Generally speaking the higher the trial, the better trial to full you will get

2.) Higher trial does not (in all cases) mean you will convert less on initial trial sign ups

3.) The market is changing (rapidly) and its becoming VERY difficult to support extremely high monthly recurring charges. This means trial to full percentages (which is KEY to making money) continually drop. This is industry wide, I guarantee it.

4.) I feel many companies will break at the knees and not be able to pay on trials (as we've seen with per active). However I do feel that you will still see it from industry leading folks.

5.) If the model isn't changed and the value of customers continues to decline you could see continued decrease in per sign up commissions. Note: this heads no warning from ARS - we are still capable of paying $35-44 per sign up.

6.) Rather than companies continuing to cut pay out (which active model effectively does, no questions about it) I believe the true innovators and industry leaders will change their model, continue to convert nicely and pay high dollars per sign up.

7.) I see the industry going back more to its roots. We are testing price points. I'm not going to disclose anything yet but if you understand what I mean by retro you may have an idea.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. ARS is currently in development of its 3rd Generation of product. View a little teaser here @ http://stats.adultrevenueservice.com/flash.php Had to throw in a little plug.

One other thing that occured to me is the "Taxi" Effect. One of my favorite episodes of Taxi is when Jim burns down Louie's Apartment and Louie is trying to figure out how much to ask Jim's ($$$ Rich) Dad for.

Of course, he does not ask for the real amount, but the most he think he can get - "If I ask, for $52,000 - He will think $55K an then $60K and will say that's too much".

Anyway, I think most surfers have no clue how much it costs to run a paysite, but $1.95 seems closer to free. $4.95 seems like it is a chunk of change, but nothing I would miss too much.

Do you think it may make the surfer less suspicious? Also, I was still wondering what the history has been as far as payouts in the industry. I have only been in it a few months - any veterans care to share...

Really great discussion here folks.

As a provider of free trials, ( http://www.conversioncash.com ) we have a very different business model from folks such as marc (who has a great program btw)... but the one thing that I haven't seen mentioned that certainly deserves some close inspection....

If the trial price is overly expensive (4.95 imho is too high... there is no good reason to break the 2.95 barrier) then signups will go down right? Well shoot.. I can afford to pay you $60 per signup if i have a $9.95 trial recurring into 39.95 a month. but your conversions will go waaayyy down.

Hope i haven't confused... but the point is that it is very often to the sponsor's advantage to NOT convert those surfers into members.

$2.95 and $3.95 seem the same to me, The question I have is $3.95 seem the same as 4.95?

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Don't Fuck Yourself, get paid 71%...
JOIN CASHTOUR

Hooper you couldn't be more wrong. Unless you are running an unethical program, there is no way you don't want as many members as possible. I profit from every membership I get (on overall statistics) therefore I want as many joins as I can get. If a program is not profiting they need to cut payout, not attempt to 'back door't he traffic to other programs.

You can not assume in all cases that a higher trial means declined sales. If you can pay $60 on a $9.95 trial why are you not paying $50 on a free trial? ) The math is not so simple.

Trials should have NEVER been used. I was one of the last to change to free trials when they arrived in the business. They are killing our model and destroying the value of a member, plain and simple. We have gone from subscription based services to hope they don't cancel so we can at least get a month out of them. Its not fraud but I'm not sure if we are offering value either. I think we would ALL like to see trials go away yet convert new members the same. Be on the lookout - we've got plans

ChrisR - the industry has gone like this re: price points.

No trial, only monthly, generally $9.95
Still no trial price increases $19.95+
FREE trials in early '98 to $19.95
FREE trials raising monthly membership cost
Paid trials, high cost monthly ($39.95)
Paid trials, intelligent surfers, value per member declining

Future is left to be told but I hope we play a part in shaping billing models because the current one is definitely decaying.

"What does this mean? Are $2-$3 Trials going or gone for Pay Per Signup? Max Cash people - have you really noticed an INCREASE is sales - as Max Cash claims?"
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Well, actually the answer is yes to this question. First off, why would anyone from MC want to lie to their resellers about such a simple thing? They haven't been in business longer than nearly anyone else by not having good business practices.

Second off, Marc, you make some excellent points here. For those of you that don't know the history of ARS, they have become one of the very biggest in a matter of only two years, due to smart decisions and the understanding of just how much risk is wise and where to draw the line.

Some people, on the other hand, never seem to miss an opportunity to dog another program in order to promote their own. Funny that I don't ever see the top guys -- the Maxcash, ARS, FlashCash crews playing that game...

"What does this mean? Are $2-$3 Trials going or gone for Pay Per Signup? Max Cash people - have you really noticed an INCREASE is sales - as Max Cash claims?"

Originally posted by Kimmykim:

"First off, why would anyone from MC want to lie to their resellers about such a simple thing?"

I am not suggesting they are lying, but they seem to be saying is we wouldn't be doing this if it didn't make more money and if we make more money -- than you make more money.

This is NOT necessarily true. I have no idea what their margins are and the like, but one does not equal the other and it certainly is counterintuitive that this would be the case.

I do not believe that it could not be true, just that it seems to me that the logic behind it could be explained more.

For example - it seems MOST people agree that a higher trial price is more likely to lead to a conversion. I did the following - totally hypothetical example:

Case A - $4.95 Trial - 66% Conversion Ratio
Case B - $2.95 Trial - 50% Conversion Ratio

Both cases pay $35.00 to webmaster.

Both cases 1 member cancels each month for three months.

Case A -- Webmaster Gets 9 Signups $44.55
Case B -- Webmaster Gets 10 Signups $29.50

After Trial:

Case A -- 6 Conversions $239.70
Case B -- 5 Conversions $199.75

Month 2:

Case A -- 5 Renew $199.75
Case B -- 4 Renew $159.80

Month 3:

Case A -- 4 Renew $159.80
Case B -- 3 Renew $119.85

Month 4:

Everyone Cancels

Case A Brought in $643.80
Case B Brought in $508.90

Case A Webmaster Paid $315.00
Case B Webmaster Paid $350.00

Case A Sponsor Profits $328.80
Case B Sponsor Profits $158.90

I realize these figures are totally made up. I am not sure how realistic they are, but they SEEM possible to me.

I am a very suspicious person - and when someone says "well we wouldn't do it if it didn't make us more money - and if we make more money - you make more money."

That is NOT always true and makes bells go off in my head...

"This is NOT necessarily true. I have no idea what their margins are and the like, but one does not equal the other and it certainly is counterintuitive that this would be the case.

I do not believe that it could not be true, just that it seems to me that the logic behind it could be explained more."
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Well I don't work for Maxcash so it is not my place to explain their decisions to anyone. I can however, say that they are not just making up answers to satisfy themselves or anyone else.

And I will say that your hypothetical numbers are just that -- no offense to you, fortunately I just get the chance to look at not only the aggregate set of numbers for all our billing clients, but the individual numbers as well -- which does indeed make a difference in how I view things that are said or done.

C'mon Kimmy..


Guy has an obvious and 100% correct point - if Signup Sponsor makes more money it doesnt mean that it's webmasters do.

Of course it is so.

Here comes some fantasy math:
A webmaster gets his 35$ in any case. Sponsor might get 5$ out of the same signup on the same site after all expenses calculations and 50$ on side sales still from the same person.

If they do raise trials they might get 40$ from that signup (i.e. more guys stay longer cause that's what higher trials do) and 25$ on side sales which will total in 65$.
Which is like 15$ more.

Now the fun part is that higher trials DO make all sales a bit less.

So lets say You had 100 sales from webmasters in week "A" on cheap trials.
You payed out 3500$ to webmasters and profited how much? Right - 5500$ (5$ on 100 and 50$ sidesales on 100)

Now You have raised Your trials cost.
Lets say it takes away 20% of sales of membership.
Than in same week "A" You made only 80 sales.
So You didnt pay to webmasters 3500$ , You payed only 2800$ but how much did You earn?
Right - 5200$

Now see the joke? It's only 300 bucks less profit to the sponsor when it's whole 700$ less profit to the webmaster...

Now the real answer to the question on what will happen will always remain a secret? Why ? Cause how the fuck should we know the real math? It's all dependant on how much is really one signup worth for each of those guys and how much side sales is done and what exactly result will a raise of trial cost will do on a PER SIGNUP paysite membership retention.

Who knows? If the raise of trials will drop signups A BIT (like 10%) but raise overall (the original sales + side sales by from the same surfer) signup profit REALLY good (like 30%) than YES webmasters will earn less (i.e. exatcly 10% less cause that's how signups will fall down) and sponsor will earn more (yep, 30%).

Anyway it's hard to destinguish what's gonna happen cause it's VERY different in my mind to a usual paysite with no ads or lesser ads inside where higher trials are a proven profit generator.

That's the fun.

But still the words that if signup sponsor makes more money it doesnt mean that webmaster does - are 100% correct.

P.S. To big guys. There's a definite limit a surfer spends on porn and it cant be stretched. If they pay for porn sites 100$ per month in average - they wont pay more.

P.P.S. I still think that all those attempts to change the net are vain. Net doesnt give a fuck about changers and evolves it's own way. And with the amount of QUALITY content sites like ARS , MAX CAHS , GAMMA and alike got inside it is STILL a better idea to give trials away as free as possible.


[This message has been edited by Incognito (edited 08-05-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Incognito (edited 08-05-2001).]

Incognito - if you are speaking of my words on attempting to change the overall market, how is that vain? As in its not possible. Markets follow leaders and trend setters. Nothing just changes on its own. This goes with Einstein's theory - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

If a big player starts making changes, and changes that make sense, the market will generally follow.

I can't speak for others, but I started out with a 4.95 trial for 5 days (about 1 year ago), which I kept for most sites, I tried 9.99 for 7 days and am currently using 5.99 for 5 days

Honestly there are two factors which influence pricing in my mind

1; the cancel surfer who joins and cancels immediately

2; password sites who sign up for a trial, cancel and then post the password on their site (some hackers eh )

Raising the price has solved a couple problems, plus since mine is a partnership, it gives the webmaster $3 bucks even if they only sell a trial

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Make dirty money from your surfers Dirty Gold
Jack Thumbs TGP Search Engine Driven TGP - Pages LISTED INSTANTLY

Incognito --

You can do your hypothetical math, call mine incorrect, all you like, it's not going to bother me. As I said, I am fortunate in the fact that I can see real numbers, both aggregate across the industry and for individual sites and programs.

I will bring up a very interesting point though, something I thought of a couple years ago when I was still building sites --

The sponsors do not need the resellers.

Well, that's heresy, let's burn her at the stake, she's all wrong, she's crazy, yeah I know what's going through your mind right about now.

But it's really simple.

If the sponsors stopped paying the resellers, surfers would still be looking for porn and they would still be buying it. Sponsors could hire people straight out to get and manage traffic, and the resellers would be left out in the cold. No one would build sites, gallery pages etc since there would be no one to buy their traffic. Either everyone started their own paysite or they got a job working for a sponsor. It's that simple.

Don't ever overestimate the worth of a. what you're selling, or b. your ability to sell it.

Just some food for thought...

KimmyKim,

I realize that you are in a certain position that allows you to see figures. It still makes no sense that there would be an increase in sales for the webmaster.

My example was not perfect, but it is plausible - and no one has yet said "you (the webmaster) will make more money by going to more expensive trials"

Also, your idea that sponsors do not need webmasters follows the same logic that is prevalent on the boards. That somehow we have control over supply and demand.

The fact is that sponsors want to make money - they can make more money by having webmasters do the work for them. If a big sponsor stops doing this - there will be 10 more to take its place.

I realize I am not a porn expert, but I have a good grasp on concepts such as supply and demand. I also think it is fair to say as things get more expensive - less people buy them.

If a $4.95 trial DOES LEAD to more sales from the webmaster - than all that would need to be said is:

"Believe it or not, it seems that surfers feel $4.95 trials have a higher value than a $2.95 trial. So even though it doesn't seem like it would work that way - our testing shows that you will get more sign ups based off the same amount of traffic due to the increased value of the signup."

I do not hear anyone saying that. That was my point about the language. It doesn't matter what figures you see - the language is misleading. I know max cash is one of the best sponsors out there, but they are in the business to make money. I do not blame them for going to a $4.95 trial if they need to do so. But to claim it obviously benefits everyone - just because it benefits them - doesn't make sense.

If it WAS true - then why not state something like I did in my example?

I'm not going to split hairs with you, and I'm not going to discuss things that pertain to individual programs, it's just not done in my side of the business.

I'm out of here for awhile but I'll leave you with a reiteration of what's already been said, and it can apply to many many things in a marketplace.

You may say that if one sponsor stopped with resellers, that ten more would take their place. But if the sponsor made more money without the resellers -- remember you are the one making the case that a trial price makes the sponsor more money but not the reseller -- and other sponsors saw this to be fact, don't you think they would all start to do away with resellers?

I know of a few that have no resellers that probably net as much as some doing twice their business, since they don't have that payout to make...

Please keep in mind that I am not in any way suggesting that sponsors will quit paying, as a matter of fact I haven't heard a single one say that ever.

I'm simply pointing out that under all these hypothetical math situations a sponsor could do half, or even less than half in most cases I'd bet, the number of joins they do with resellers and make just as much money. They wouldn't need fraud control, they wouldn't need expensive and complicated stats packages, they wouldn't need as much bandwidth, the list goes on...

Now it's time for food for my tummy

marc.. not saying that we try not to convert.. heck.. we offer free trials ;-))

BUT... i HAVE seen sponsors who purposely make trials that DON'T convert... (predominantly 100% programs)... but make that 70% or 60% & the logic of NOT having members is still very solid.

I recall hearing somebody that tried a really really odd priced trial ($3.87 i believe) and did amazingly well with it. Seems like the odd prices have an impact on surfers...

Perceived value on longterm purchases is important... but perceived value on point-of-sale or impulse items is completely worthless... mba 101. As for the 4.95 trials... we've done it & been there... they decrease conversions no doubt. It is possible however that for a short period of time the "new price" that surfers aren't used to seeing has a positive sales impact.

The assumption... "I haven't seen a 4.95 trial before... it MUST have something different inside!".

In the end the MOST IMPORTANT thing to remember is that markets are cyclical.. every industry has and always will have it's ups & downs... trial prices may go up & down... monthly prices may go up & down... but in the end the market itself will correct itself. But thinking that after 4 years the market has reached it's full corrective status if foolish... we are just seeing the beginning of the corrections.

It's not as simple as you all may think. MarcDe and Kimmy Kim have valid points are are both right.

As far as those of you that are concerned about you're decrease in sales by trials going from 1.95 to 4.95 think again. We switched all of our sites to checks 2.95 and credit cards 5.95 2 years ago and noticed an INCREASE in sales. Some of the webmasters who dont run referral programs dont look at things like a sufer would. A surfer sometimes thinks what kind of site would let me in for a week for only 1.95. They must not have much to offer. Where if you're charging him 6 bucks he feels like he is paying for something. By charging more in the door you're also getting a more qualified customer is more likely to rebill down the road. You would really have to do some serious studies to find out what trial numbers work best but we have tried many methods and 5.95 works well and overall signups are just as high as 1.95.

"How do sponsors pay 35-40 bucks on trial signups" Its not easy, why do you think so many programs have gone to active recurring taking away signups if they cancel and taking away chargebacks. You're actually making $20 or less per signup on some of these programs. Its not easy at all for programs to make money paying 35-40 on trial signups! If we actually make money after paying webmasters its not much at all. We make money on upsells in our sites, links to other programs in our exits and so forth. If we didnt have exit consoles we would have to lower our payouts dramatically.

Marc had a very valid point in stating that the current model isnt very productive and paying webmasters on trials cant go on forever as the way things are progressing now but who knows. I think you'll see more companies lowering payouts or going to active models in the months to follow. I do however think the business continues to thrive and there is a promissing future but we will have to change with the times. But as things stand now Silver Cash will continue to pay $40 on trial signups. If it wasnt productive in some fashion we wouldnt be doing it

LAMike,

This is kinda what I was looking for. I never said it was simple. I can certainly understand the logic behind what you are saying.

I know that I have had more luck promoting the $1.95 trial over free trials. I wanted to find someone who could give first hand experiences with this. You have said that it increased signups and that is what I was looking for - not a "we make more money so obviously everone else does too."

Some people swear that free trials get more sign ups. You seem to think that $5.95 works best. I will try just about anything, and will take a look at your program as well.

I think it is possible that different people have different styles of marketing that may work better at some price points than others.

It is also possible that you are filling that niche - and if everyone else went to it - it might not be as good. Some surfers might want free trials, some might think something is wrong with it.

just my 2 cents

Thanks for clarifying for some of the resellers Mike, as I said, it's not my place to at all since I don't own the programs.

The one thing that I take away from this whole discussion? Two very nice sized program owners came to the thread and agreed on what's what. That ought to tell you something.

I've talked to Marc and regardless of what revenue model that ARS goes to for the surfers, he doesn't plan on lowering reseller payouts at all either...

And one last thing, in my opinion -- while a trial or an initial join from a surfer may indeed be an impulse or a POP type purchase -- the recurrings on that aren't. You want to keep smacking someone for ANY amount of money every month, you better convince them it's worth it.

Chris R: I was comparing cheap trials 1.95 to a little higher trials of 4.95 or 5.95. As far as comparing to free trials that is another story. When the major billing companies all kicked the free trials about 2 years ago now I think, sales went down. I would say they went down 30%. But what is makes it even more odd was that when we offered free trials our conversion rate from the free trial to the monthly memberships went way down. It was really common for free trials to convert at 75% or higher accross the board. When we went to paid trials conversions dropped as low as 35-60% depending on the billing company. My understanding of all this was that because the free trial was deceiving and the surfer never realized that there we're going to be rebilled. The good thing that came out of all this was that chargebacks dropped dramitcally. Most dont realize but it is fairly commen for sites these days doing paid trials to convert as low as 35% of them. We use multiple billing companies and obviously multiple sites and have seen conversion ratios from trial to monthy range from 35% to 70% depending on the site and the billing company. Billing companies that scrub more are going to have higher conversion ratios. A billing company that lets everyone through the door is obviously going to have low conversion ratios. Its all numbers and trying to manipulate them to work in you're favor is the job of the website owner and the billing company and is a never ending task. Ask Kimmy Kim

Kimmy Kim Kim: I think we got some claification out there as you said. Thanks
And I think Marc made a lot of sense also. Marc always has good productive comments. Marc doesnt post on boards much kinda like myself. I think we both try to stay out of the whole "pissing" thing. I'm here to make money for myself, my employees, and my webmasters. It would be nice if all conversations on the boards could be productive

Speaking of Marc....If you're reading I need to talk with ya. I tried calling a few times last week but kept missing you. Give me a buz in the office tomorrow if you can. I'm on the west coast so after noon you're time.
909-509-7676

No really.
This discussion is already cool just because of the names who took part in.
My best wishes and respect to all of big guys. I may be am kinda late with this statement, but nevertheless...


Anyways:
I'd like to comment though couple of points:

1. Kimmy, You should not really get so stern about my comments and math.
Why? Because what You say about Your position to be true is wrong. Why? Because seeing the numbers does not mean You understand them. How possibly could You? It is fairly obvious that big guys who GOT THOSE NUMBERS themselves are not sure about various tendencies and what's better to do, like the situation which was the main question of this discussion - i.e. to raise prices per trial or not?

Numbers themselves cant tell You very much. Every sponsor got it's own ways of promotion, it's own surfer market in many ways and it's own promoters.

This is easy - You see that one guy got expensive trials and the other got cheap and the guy who got expensive trials does more sales and earns more...Now is this enough to say that expensive trials are better for instance? Even if You analise the amount of webmasters in each of those two taken programs and the amount of sales those webmasters do and even the traffic they send, still You cant be sure for even 1% that the price of trials actually matters at all. Cause it all might be because of price and might be not. It might be about content and advertising. Say one sponsor got ads twice as better as the second one. Can You analize that in Your position? Does sales numbers, in fact ANY numbers of a billing company help You ANYWAY to analize that? No they dont. And advertising skills and it's quality and CONTENT'S quality You know is half of this biz. Cant see how billing company can analize that though.

2. Speaking about sponsors without webmasters: it's nonsense. May be it is convinient to state such a possibility for any PR stuff or anything like that. But physically it's impossible and the reason why I say it's impossible is - traffic. Traffic is what really driving this biz. Or to be exact TRAFFIC and ADVERTISING.
Now there's a very easy thing to understand. One human being's power of traffic generation is limited. A single person can make a certain amount of traffic, can run a certain amount of free resources and...not more. We dont take ABNORMAL cases of course - they dont make the industry and at most of times they are limited in duration (i.e. Hun get's finally tired and says BYE-BYE to the biz ) . But in normal situation if Your sales are lets say half a million bucks per month and that is achieved by 2000 active webmasters for example it is extremely easy to understand that to pull those half a million sales per month You got to make EXACTLY the same job those 2000 of webmasters do, cause You got to get same traffic. You cant do that with 20 hired coworkers You know. And the AVERAGE webmaster does NOT earn too much in comparison with a hired mans COST, no - not salary , BUT cost. You do understand that when You hire a person - his salary is not equal to his cost to You? Do You? Because when You hire a person - You pay for his dinner, You pay for his working space, in case of USA You also pay a hell lot of other things I suppose, hard for me to judje - I am russian. So let's say You're not paying any money to webmasters. Good. You hire WORKERS. Ok. Half a million sales made by webmasters equals roughly 250 000$ payouts in case You pay out about half of overall sales. So You got left with the same 250K to achieve in case You dont need webmasters.
Now taking into consideration that You used 2000 webmasters to get half a million sales it's easy to understand that You need 1000 of people to make 250K sales.

How much do You think will 1000 hired WORKERS will cost? How much will only 500 hundred workers cost? I dont even want to think about fucking dinners, social security shit and salaries, honestly the price of the office for such a crowd kills me already....


So a paysite with no sponsorship proggie wont work. Because when You invest in Your sponsorship proggie in the end You if Your product is good You dont only get 2000 guys working for You (though not only for You of course) , but You got MOTIVATED people. That's what SHARING does instead of salary.

And saving all the PR crap You might see that it's a hell cool economy on management costs.

P.S. Kim. I will personally come to one known billing company and literally kiss Your ass ,however it looks by the way, if You show me any paysite which pulls at the very least half of what big guys do without webmasters in program. Really.

Please Kim also, I respect You and the whole discussion. Please dont overreact. I just posted pure math.

Fucking SPANISH dialup kills me!


Anyway, sorry for any double posts I might get - I'll edit them if they come.

Here goes the rest:
3. About the change of market:
It wont work. Why? Cause the market , I stress - in my humble opinion, more or less goes where money is.
If raising trials cost will raise the sponsor income but will lower down webmaster payouts - some of them will go away.
Definitely.

4. My ideas about PR for big guys (I dont stress that my opinion is needed so please dont overreact too...lol). I noticed a great public opinion reaction on those trials tests by major guys. Which is no wonder. There's a very limited amount of big guys and major players in the porn net. Basicly all webmasters , at least all US guys work for them. There's no wonder that even when You change a fucking pixel in the design of webmaster page - there are discussions about it everywhere. My advice is that You hire couple of guys to do...own traffic in some more or less average amount with average incomes. Why? That way You could test whatever You want without any public attention of it.

5. My point of the whole porn mainstream market. I think that all will agree that the main killer is the cometition. When 1 on 1000 conversion is normal - that means that competition is OUT of normal.

Now what I think is that one of the things which does a great deal for such stuff is ...price of QUALITY content. It's too low.
Anyone with just A FRACTION OF MONTH SALES of big guys got enough investments to build a similar paysite or several of them. Now thats not good I beleive.

And that's one of the things , speaking of market regulations , big guys relatively easy can change.

I am not sure big guys have possibilities to lead market one way or another. But raising prices for content is withing reach and the profitability of such an action might help a GREAT deal.

That's just my humble opinion.

Nice thread in here...


With all due respect Kim, you probably don't have intimate knowledge of what that guy's overhead is without a sponsor program. He may be billing the same amount but how much you want to bet it's costing him a shitload more than the guy that has a literal army of webmaster salespeople doing the marketing job?

We buy the content, we pay the hosting and we pay in time...some of us 12-16 hours a day, some even more. We pay in designing galleries as well. Let's see one compnay shoulder all that AND net as much money as the company that has outside contractors. I'm not saying they won't do as much gross billing, but no way they're taking home the same money if they do it all themselves. Ain't gonna happen.

Regarding trials, I have two ways of looking at them. If a sponsor offers a trial the only way I will sell that product is if they pay per sign-up. I will not enter into a recurring partnership program, even though I vastly prefer those (especially in the summer), with a sponsor that offers a $2.95 trial and wants me to take half of it. It costs me just as much to produce that $1.47 as it does to produce the $35.00 for a trial signup. Plus, if the member does't recur (and why the hell should they if they can keep bouncing from program to program for $2.95?) I never make my expenses back, forget about profit.

I like recurring programs. I like sponsors that offer recurring programs at $19.95 a month. I'll take $10 now for the promise of future income, and it usually works in my favor. But I won't take $1.47 with little chance of it converting into more than that.

And what's the deal with sponsors that offer trials at a daily rate less than that of their full membership? 5 days $2.95, one month $29.95. Doesn't take a genius to figure out that if he/she buys that month, they're getting reamed. The daily rate on a trial should be significantly more than the daily rate for a full membership. The value item needs to be the membership, not the damn trial.

</rant>



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The Webmaster's Folder

Gold words are those by the way. Funny - I feel sorry that I myself forgot to mention that.

Damn I even saw EMAILS from surfers who said "Damn are You stupid? Why the fuck should I get a month if I can just go from trial to trial and it gets cheaper when I get ALL I want?"

Truth it is.

Though I will not sign under words about "who needs trials anyway".
A paysite without trials converts HORRIBLY.

You actually will make MORE with trial partnerships than without them.

But what You said up there and what I have quoted is undoubtfully true.

Sorry for my english.

I think AOL proved the value of trials a long time ago. Of course, it is a little different, but if porn sites gave something that people needed each month - they could rebill forever.

And as far as webmasters go, yes a sponsor may make a great % profit, but % profit doesn't matter if they already have the infrastructure in place. I fail to see how my comments about the rise in trial price make any difference here.

A sponsor who has tons of webmasters can get more content, make their site better, andhopefully get more rebill than a sponsor who does everything on their own.

It is all supply and demand. Nothing more and nothing less. There will ALWAYS be sponsors that pay webmasters and I suspect there will always be sponsors that pay per trial, and so on. The price will go up and down, but there are enough sponsors there - that one will step in to fill the void others leave behind. That is as long as they can still make a profit - and the laws stay the same.

If SOME people want free trials and SOME webmasters want to promote it and SOME credit card processor is willing to do it - it will be there.

Not in my experience. My best converting sponsor does not have a trial. $19.95 a month, take it or leave it. They join and they stay because the content is fresh and 98% exclusive (besides the packaged live feeds). This summer, while new sales of everything have been slightly depressed (including this sponsor) I'm still collecting 8-10 rebills a day and not worrying about trials etc.



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The Webmaster's Folder

"Why? Because seeing the numbers does not mean You understand them. How possibly could You? "
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I understand them, as does any good program operator, it's my job to understand them and make recommendations to our customers based on what I see and to explain to them where there are issues with what they see.

I stick by everything I said, we bill for all types of sites and I can get a good cross section of most anything I want to look at.

If you want to come down and kiss my ass you're still welcome to tho

Kimmy we got an obvious misunderstanding here!
I never said I gonna come and kiss Your ass if it turns our You're a good specialist - I never denied it.

I kinda said that You cant show me a single paysite which pulls at least half of what mainstream big guys do per month IF that single paysite does not have a webmaster program.
Please read me over if got time...Cause judging by Your comment I suspect You do generally like the idea (me coming and the stuff) but aint gonna happen before I see the site.


As for the rest of course I will not try to persuade You or to lead You to a different point of view.
I just pointed out a clear fact that PROFIT of paysites does not come from prices of signups and trials , their duration and stuff like that. With all their importance they are just HELPING to run it when the real stuff is - quality of content , quality of it's presentation , quality of advertising and ways of advertising.
Now a billing company to my mind does not track it in any way.

OK, here we go and then I'm done on the topic, I'd bet that most people are bored with it.

"I kinda said that You cant show me a single paysite which pulls at least half of what mainstream big guys do per month IF that single paysite does not have a webmaster program."
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Well to put it bluntly I'd be looking for a job if I ever showed one customers numbers to another, much less showed a public forum the same thing. I pretty much like being VP of Marketing for CCBill and Cavecreek so I'll keep the job over the ass kissing thank you

That said, if you read other boards you could probably pick up on who I am referring to, they are as much a friend of mine as a customer of ours, and don't have a problem telling anyone that they canned their wm program awhile back, and it's also obvious that they are doing very well.

"I just pointed out a clear fact that PROFIT of paysites does not come from prices of signups and trials , their duration and stuff like that."
=============================
I have NO CLUE what kind of math or business skills you are referencing here, since the income of a pay site is determined from the number of joins, how they retain, and how one charges for each. Just as in any other business, what you pay to acquire a sale versus how much the sale is determines the gross profit of that sale. Then by factoring out the costs of running the business you see the net profit. There is no other formula to get GMROI that I'm aware of.

"With all their importance they are just HELPING to run it when the real stuff is - quality of content , quality of it's presentation , quality of advertising and ways of advertising."
===========================
Funny how the most beautiful site in the world will die with no traffic but you throw a million uniques a day at a total dog and the owner will be eating caviar on a yacht somewhere...

"Now a billing company to my mind does not track it in any way."
==========================
We track many things for our clients, including the effectiveness of their individual resellers and even their individual ad banners. We provide comprehensive stats so they can track price to retention combinations and ratios and we also provide people to explain those numbers to new webmasters who may need help in reading what's really there. We know our customers conversion rates, retention rates, best pricing points, best number of trial days, when they are down for two hours, hell if I looked hard enough I might be able to tell them what they had for lunch. Oh, and let's not forget we can tell them who's cheating, eliminating the number one profit killer to a sponsor...

And we are by no means the only billing companies which can and do provide these services to our customers. Both Jettis and IBill also run very comprehensive stats for their clients.

Now, as I said, I'm done talking about it in this thread since I don't want to bore the rest of the readers to death, but if you'd like to take it up in email, I'll be more than happy to do so with you

[email protected]

if i'm right incognito you're in spain for vacations :-) hope you're doing fine and don't forget to do some scuba diving

as far the topic, i'll agree with the opinion that if a paysite doesn't have a webmaster program is missing a lot of things. Only the feedback you'll get from other webmasters will keep you "live".

time to go or i'll sleep on the pc....

[This message has been edited by Soul_Rebel (edited 08-07-2001).]

Well I wouldnt like to bore down everyone completely too so lets just remain at our points of view.

As I said I did not have in my mind changing anyone's opinion on those matters and just shared my experience.

Sorry for bothering Kimmy anyway. Thanks for the email - I'll keep it.
(guess there was no public secret anyway? )
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Soul_Rebel: Yep I am here. Costa del Sol to be exact. Damn it has become one crowdy place and all the nice guys are moving out already I think.

Used to be Scandinavian/English community with some good strict rules like no pool usage after 9pm. Now it's german/russian/arabian and I am happy they dont piss in the pool at the very least.


Never gonna come here in hot season again - lots of people. Even damn fucking parking in Mijas takes fucking half an hour.

So much worse than Maldives couple of monthes ago where I even managed to sing "Please forgive me" to Brian Adams personally (100% serious)...


Telling this cause I remember some dude here I think told his dream to sit and work with a view of Africa over the sea. Well doesnt worth it anymore.

As far as I'm concerned, trials are over for us. We've taken them off our pay sites.



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Sin-Text-Because text sells sex.