Affiliate programs closing. Why do you think?

[2MuchMark]

I just read that AdultProfit is closing their affiliate program at https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=970916. It seems like more and more are closing down.

I am not surprised. If you run your own affiliate program, I urge you to take a closer look at your numbers and the practices of others.

We stopped taking on new affiliates to our affiliate program 2 weeks ago because of the expense that it took to run, the incredible amount of fraud, the huge payouts we had to make just to compete, and the general unreliable traffic we were getting (A webmaster could send us good traffic today, but change their mind and send it to our competitor tomorrow).

Just to compete, we were forced in to offering 50% Pay per sign-up which was a loss-leader. After the cost per transaction, payout to the chat model content owners, we would actually lose as much as $25.00 on every $100 sale in hopes of keeping the customer around later.

This method is very dangerous especially for small businesses. It almost worked, until the fraud was factored in. The more we were paying out (we started at 20% and bumped it up over time), the more fraud we got. 50% just seemed to invite all the shitheads out of the wood-work.

This doesn't mean of course that affiliate programs are a waste. What you want to do though is carefully go over the real cost of your own affiliate program. Don't guess at your numbers. If you "bet" on recurring sales to make a profit, try it out, but check your stats closely to make sure your bet is actually paying off for you. Yes it may mean lower payouts for affiliates but it will also mean better health for your business.

[LoveSandra]

bump bump

[Marcus Aurelius]

Originally Posted by **********

A webmaster could send us good traffic today, but change their mind and send it to our competitor tomorrow

What assholes! I can't believe someone would dare such a thing!

[Paul Markham]

http://www.2much.net/ good looking site there.

[TeenCat]

man ... no one can live forever ...

[cardinalvices]

payouts these days are insane.. I'm looking at the banner "Now Offering $50 per sign up!". Holly shit, how can you make any profit on this payout?
And naturally, the higher you go, the more scumbags you attracts.

[AdPatron]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

http://www.2much.net/ good looking site there.

Ekk, that site is UGLY!

[stever]

most programs that closed were PPS and not revshare

i do not see a revshare program closing unless its only intentions are to run away with the money

[Agent 488]

millions of business have closed during the great recession. it's not about fucking pps jesus ...

[BlackCrayon]

thank fuck my main source of income is no longer affiliate programs....

[signupdamnit]

If you aren't able to make a 50/50 revshare be profitable for you there's probably something very wrong with the way you run things.

[ShellyCrash]

Originally Posted by signupdamnit

If you aren't able to make a 50/50 revshare be profitable for you there's probably something very wrong with the way you run things.

He's talking live cams. Its a different animal. Huge chunk goes directly to model.

[Trixie]

As an affiliate, I totally understand being sad to see the high dollar PPS going away (or at least becoming less common), but as a sponsor I am really happy that smaller, ethically-run programs with great sites are going to be able to compete in the future by continuing to offer sustainable revshare payouts without fucking customers and the entire industry.

[CamsMaster]

probably the inhouse traffic goes better or is more profitable

[Davy]

Originally Posted by Trixie

As an affiliate, I totally understand being sad to see the high dollar PPS going away (or at least becoming less common), but as a sponsor I am really happy that smaller, ethically-run programs with great sites are going to be able to compete in the future by continuing to offer sustainable revshare payouts without fucking customers and the entire industry.

I agree. Paysites are not dying out and will be around for a long time.

[2MuchMark]

Hi again,

Sorry I should clarify something. The affiliate program I'm talking about is for our video chat site, LiveCamNetwork.com. (Affiliate site: LCNCash.com).

And Shelly cash is right. The typical payout to a chat model is 50%. If you're paying out 50% to the model and 50% pps, you're already at zero. Then add the cost of the transaction and you're now in the red.

Anyway, I'm not "blaming' any program type. I'm just letting everyone know that they should check their numbers closely and watch out for fraud.

[seeandsee]

cam payouts 50% lifetime revshare?!?, where ?!??

[Dirty Dane]

Instead of closing because you can't compete and are victims of fraud, limit your number of affiliates

[ShellyCrash]

I'm curious to you guys who are closing your affiliate programs but staying in business, are you switching everything over to paid marketing? What avenues of paid marketing are you focusing on?

Personally, I've always found affiliate marketing and basically anything with a CPA payout to be the most efficent way to spend advertizing dollars. To make an attractive PPS offer you have to put out a little bit of a loss leader, but you are pretty much guaranteed a return on your investment (if you've done your math right).

When you buy ad space by impressions, by click or for a set period of time there's no guaranteed return. There's no guarantee of transactions. Even if you write into your IO a sale guarantee- as anyone who worked with iporn can probably tell you- you still can get burned and wind up holding the bag.

If you don't want to talk about the secrets in your sauce I hear you, or if you'd rather talk on ICQ I'm game. Just curious and love seeing the game from new perspecitives.

[LickMyBalls]

[PastorSinAlot]

like your company over billed me right mark?

[$5 submissions]

One thing is for sure... some people out there are managing to come out of this bigger and better. The herd sure is thinning but that's a far cry from saying the herd/species is dying out. Evolution often works in silent ways.

[Argos88]

People can't pretend to make money selling something that is available for free, Easy as that. Don't over think it.

.

[will76]

Originally Posted by **********

I just read that AdultProfit is closing their affiliate program at https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=970916. It seems like more and more are closing down.

I am not surprised. If you run your own affiliate program, I urge you to take a closer look at your numbers and the practices of others.

We stopped taking on new affiliates to our affiliate program 2 weeks ago because of the expense that it took to run, the incredible amount of fraud, the huge payouts we had to make just to compete, and the general unreliable traffic we were getting (A webmaster could send us good traffic today, but change their mind and send it to our competitor tomorrow).

Just to compete, we were forced in to offering 50% Pay per sign-up which was a loss-leader. After the cost per transaction, payout to the chat model content owners, we would actually lose as much as $25.00 on every $100 sale in hopes of keeping the customer around later.

This method is very dangerous especially for small businesses. It almost worked, until the fraud was factored in. The more we were paying out (we started at 20% and bumped it up over time), the more fraud we got. 50% just seemed to invite all the shitheads out of the wood-work.

This doesn't mean of course that affiliate programs are a waste. What you want to do though is carefully go over the real cost of your own affiliate program. Don't guess at your numbers. If you "bet" on recurring sales to make a profit, try it out, but check your stats closely to make sure your bet is actually paying off for you. Yes it may mean lower payouts for affiliates but it will also mean better health for your business.

If you monitized your traffic better you would be able to afford to pay out $100 PPS.

The more money your program makes the more competitive it is with the others sites, which you can then afford to pay affiliates more money. Then you get more affiliates, and stable affiliates sending you quality traffic day in and day out.

You own a cam site. You should not be in the same sentence with "all the affiliate programs closing". All of those affiliate programs are from membership sites.

This isn't just directed at you, but at several cam site owners here. What a waste of lost income by a lot of you. You need to do more than sell cam credits these days to make enough money to compete with the bigger cam sites. If you can't compete then you are going to be stuck with very few affiiliates...You will then be forced to buy traffic, which inturn most of it you wont be able to profit on because your profit margin is so low. You profit margin is low because you don't monitize your traffic on your cam site.... follow ?

It funny, but sad at the same time. Its like you guys have a old car that is out of gas. I have a gas station and garage shop. If you just want to pull your car in and work together we can do some serious business. But if you keep pissing in the tank and wondering why people are passing you up on the road... you never going to get above 10 mph. (also not directed at you)

[BIGTYMER]

With cross sales and shaving they can afford to pay $50 per sale and still make huge money.

[will76]

Originally Posted by ShellyCrash

I'm curious to you guys who are closing your affiliate programs but staying in business, are you switching everything over to paid marketing? What avenues of paid marketing are you focusing on?

Personally, I've always found affiliate marketing and basically anything with a CPA payout to be the most efficent way to spend advertizing dollars. To make an attractive PPS offer you have to put out a little bit of a loss leader, but you are pretty much guaranteed a return on your investment (if you've done your math right).

When you buy ad space by impressions, by click or for a set period of time there's no guaranteed return. There's no guarantee of transactions. Even if you write into your IO a sale guarantee- as anyone who worked with iporn can probably tell you- you still can get burned and wind up holding the bag.

If you don't want to talk about the secrets in your sauce I hear you, or if you'd rather talk on ICQ I'm game. Just curious and love seeing the game from new perspecitives.

I believe most as using it as an exit strategy. (not Mark) The bigger ones who don't have many new sales coming in basically can close up shop, lay off employees, stop making updates etc... by closing the affiliate program they can make 100% of the future rebills. This will give them a nice infusion of cash, which I assume they are banking or using for something else.

There are a few I suppose who think they can turn the ship around on their own after they cut out (screw) their affiliates and buy traffic on their own. But if they haven't bought much traffic in the past they will lose their asses. Buying traffic isn't something you learn over night, especially when you are desperate.

[2MuchMark]

Originally Posted by Dirty Dane

Instead of closing because you can't compete and are victims of fraud, limit your number of affiliates

Thats what I was thinking. I don't want to keep it closed permanently, I want to re-tool it and keep a much closer eye on things. I was just letting it run without paying much attention to it. Hence, watch your stats.

[Raf1]

keeping the program open on an invite-only basis might be a good way to handle this?

[DVTimes]

or you could just promote the www.mrban.com sites.

[ShellyCrash]

Originally Posted by **********

Thats what I was thinking. I don't want to keep it closed permanently, I want to re-tool it and keep a much closer eye on things. I was just letting it run without paying much attention to it. Hence, watch your stats.

I really think in the long run more damage is caused by closing a program and trying to relaunch than lowering your payouts in the interim while you retool and fine tune what you have.

Closing a program and severing payouts breaches the affiliate / program relationship, allows the program to keep 100% of recurring revenue that affiliates have worked hard to generate and they deserve to recieve some payout from it.

[Naechy]

mainstream only

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by ShellyCrash

I really think in the long run more damage is caused by closing a program and trying to relaunch than lowering your payouts in the interim while you retool and fine tune what you have.

Closing a program and severing payouts breaches the affiliate / program relationship, allows the program to keep 100% of recurring revenue that affiliates have worked hard to generate and they deserve to recieve some payout from it.

True dat sweetpea.

[DaddyHalbucks]

You can thank Obama and the 150 Little Obamas in Congress.

[Tempest]

Originally Posted by DaddyHalbucks

You can thank Obama and the 150 Little Obamas in Congress.

Yeah.. Like they had anything to do with the shit storm wallstreet caused which brought about everyone having less money, less credit, fewer jobs etc. All of which is one of the major contributing factors over the last couple years to the decline in revenue and thus the closing of programs.

[Zorgman]

Close affiliate program and hire full time staff to send traffic and run tgp/tubes with flat rate weekly pay.