We have tried many price points over the years and lowering the monthly re-bill rate does not increase retention enough.

Also everybody plays the 1% ratio game that's why everybody uses multiple merchant accounts. It is nearly impossible to stay below 1% no matter what your volume.

In respect of the monthly re-bill rate it is great if affiliates can generate traffic cheap enough. We buy quite a bit of traffic and getting it cheap enough to make a profit on $20 pps is impossible in my experience. By that I mean it costs me more than $20 to buy enough traffic to get a join so I need to be paid at least $30 to hope I make a profit.

To each their own I guess.

Maybe I just suck at buying traffic.

I think we can look at a lot of things and wonder if it's a reflection on the state of the industry. Does lower payouts mean a program is in trouble? Not necessarily, we want to still be around in another ten years paying out webmasters.

I see people let go from their job all the time, in fact four people who hold the same job I do for another company (sales and marketing directors) have been let go in the last six weeks. State of things? Cause TB is always hiring.

If its only changed for NEW affiliates, there was nothing to communicate.
Anyone already being paid had no change and anyone signing up saw the new rate that would be applied to their new accounts.
Its only when changes are made to existing accounts that notices need to be sent.
I've had an account there for years and have not seen my rate changed at all.

why I like TopBucks! :1orglaugh

Thank you! Normally when a program makes changes that does not affect existing WMs, they don't broadcast it. To avoid threads like these. :)

Any new WM that signed up was fully aware of the payout.

CB's aren't actually 1 out of 100, which gives you 1%.. It's 1% over 100 CB's monthly, with a per-transaction ratio and monthly volume, all added/twisted together to give ratios to people that actually have ratios.

The bigger you are, the more you have to watch this.... and just because someone has multiple merchant accounts doesn't mean they're rolling CB's or exchanging volume. Because, once you're TB's size, if you pump a merchant account with sales - you can never stop, or you will always hit the CB limits.


I buy based on ROI, if my average is $30 PPS right now, no traffic buy in the world would get more than that.

I once got a free access to their sites, it was like 6 years ago.. If I were a surfer, I would charge back after a first click in the members area back then. I could not find any original content, just bunch of feeds, games, ads and similiar shit. Total mess. Was the same with all the big sponsors from the time. I cant believe people actually stayed as members of these paysites. I seriously hope they completely rebuilt their sites.

I'm sure many will disagree with you, especially on your statement about lack of original content.

Perhaps you want to send some traffic and check out our members area now? 6 years ago it was a different age in this business :winkwink:

But it's not the same thing, is it? The exposure period with revshare is much greater. The longer it takes to pay out my money, the longer I am at risk of losing some or all of it.

With PPS, I'm looking at my payout generally within about two weeks. To make the same amount off of a revshare sponsor is going to take at LEAST 2 months, generally.

So fore me, specifically, I'm looking at 4 times the exposure at minimum and I don't see greater returns over the long run either once I factor in losses of billers and rebills over the last 10 years.

I think that may include a time investment... like if you're making $30pps vs. revshare with an average value of $30 (time of course), you're basically hit the same if they both fold up.

In the short term, it probably is safer to go with PPS, but if you know a company is solid and your traffic matches well, revshare can kick PPS in the teeth for your profits. A bit of danger and game either way....

Edit, I guess it does equal out... If you're banking on the investment and it's lost, that's harsh. Same fold, if you're banking on the money up front and it goes, it's going to hurt either way.

Fiddy Top Bucks answers. :)

I am not going to get into a discussion over how to manage merchant account and how CB's ratios are calculated. I am sure somebody finds what you have posted useful, thanks.

This isn't a discussion on CB's, no worries... You injected into the thread over the reflection of the industry stating your members are worth more than $30 thus you pay more than $30.

So to squash your half spam attempt I simply showed how you pay more and why a company like Topbucks has to watch things more. It doesn't make one better than the other, it's just why they're different.

So, 2004-05? We were already producing exclusive content. However if you go into our members area it looks like a bunch of feeds, cause they are -- ours. It's our leased feeds.

We just recently re-did the tours and members are to be more tube style, less feed-like. Our upsells have always been in their own section with a few on the main page (chat, cams, our other products, like mobile).

Hit me up for a new password, I'd love for you to take a look.

getting $20 pps? rofl you might as well go with revshare there is no benefit to that shit.

You don't squash anything I do and your opinion of your position here is vastly inflated. Your points would have more validity if you ran a program that had paid out millions of dollars over the last 13 years.
However I am surprised you have picked up a few buzz words over the years helping program owners setup nats etc.

Anything else you would like to share I am sure everybody is all ears, thanks.

HAHAHAHA... look at you try to be a somebody.

Funny stuff, I've paid tens of millions to affiliates, hell why keep track anymore. You know those pretty little trial member area / upgrades you use - make ya so much money? I hope you like'em, I'm the creator of them...

Buzz buzz....

One last thing to share, if I'm speaking, you should take notes, as it will probably make you money, I like to share my experience... even to wannabes.

Yes JFK I think it is!

At the end of the day a member is worth less today then it was a few years ago, this has nothing to do with TB as a company and more to do with people having less money to spend. All you need to do is map the change in member decline due to "insufficient funds" to know this.

I think the companies that are blindly looking at primary sales numbers as the be all and end all of success are the ones people really need to worry about because they are the companies that one day close the doors and have nothing left to pay webmasters.

Buy a sale at $40 to make $32 from that member = Death

Changing payout inline with lower LTV of a member = Long term sustainable business.

Simple math but something to many people in this industry don't understand!

I guess that's the difference between our companies. You'd never see our owner posting about their program in a thread like this. But then again, you wouldn't see Kevin on GFY, or in the office, lol.

err ok....enough time wasted on you. Keep posting on gfy all day.

Your too much :)

Thanks for taking time out of your life to post, just once more! :thumbsup