Great post Fletch. Some good points in this thread.
I signup for paysites in stealth mode every week, sometimes two a week. I don't ask for password access, I buy my way in. Currently I have five recurring paysites on my CC. I inspect the members areas and see if the sponsor program delivers on what they promise on the tours. We've heard it all. Daily updates, exclusive high quality content, bla, bla, bla.
I'm a pretty big pervert with high expectations for what I get with my dollar, so if the member area satisfies my perverted cravings, then I'm confident it will for my surfers as well.
I do this before sending traffic. It takes months before being able to determine accurately whether or not the paysite is recurring members as they should. By then, thousands of hits are lost and who knows how much cash.
When I inspect the members areas, I'm mostly concerned with the amount of content, site navigation, speed, site updates, and quality of the content. I think these are the most important aspects for member retention. A members area loaded with confusing links that lead to upsells is also taken into consideration. A members area that ranks well in all the above criteria, and has a few dvd upsell links, I don't consider it a big deal.
I've ran across some excellent
member areas with frequent updates and great content, and some very
poor ones that never update with the only hope for member retention is the surfer forgetting to cancel the recurring charge. They just seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.
Also, as a pervert, I'm not interested in any DVD's. I bought my way in for access to the paysites movie content that I can download and make my own DVD's. If a paysite has 300 movies for download, why would I be concerned with spending more money on a DVD? This is just my opinion from a perverted surfers perspective. Be interested in any real numbers on this....