WTF. These are factors that were factors month ago. He is talking specifically about september sales drop.

Sure, add those factors and add:

World Economy sinking
HUGE layoffs coming - across public and private sectors
Middle East is about to blow
East Asia is about to blow

If a surfer has a brain he is not spending - other than that its a femdom blackhat attack conspiracy going down.

What has been left out, my lord?

Exactly. All those factors were here before. My traffic is same, from same sources and most of it is SE (organic from dozen blogs). It would be good to hear some of paysite owners here what they have to say if they are sincere. I've talked to two of them and they see the same shit going on.

Yes i agree with that, you need volume to really see changes, well yes you can also see on smaller volume, but it doesnt has the same value... compare 200 sales to 20 sales is not the same...in both you can see variation, but higher is the number, the more relevant will be the analyse (if you do 200 sales and you drop 50 well there might be a problem) ...

I see so many affiliates that contact us and says hey my sales drop 60% yesterday... yes, but from 6 to 2 come on.... you cant over analyse and look very short time period.. at the end you have an average of 6, some days will be 10 some 2.. its pretty normal,

Well it was for example, with our biggest sponsors we push more bigger numbers than that !

I consider myself small affiliate. And I can,feel when sales are not coming into my inbox. beside feeling, there is a simple tool called Nifty Stats, that is merging my overall data together, and it is perfect tools for analysis. This mean that If I compare with any random month before september 2012, I will see twice worse conversions average so I guess it is enough after 5 or 6 years of statistics included. maybe, it is specific niche , but It is (it was) stable. Sure, there were some bad periods before, but they were compensated or created by google panda in my case. this is something different, and I would love that I am wrong.

Thank you for posting that. For me the first 2 weeks of Sept were the best all year but I sure as hell do not think it has anything to do with anything but luck. I do not have enough sales for it to show what is going on with the economy or what was for dinner last night LOL.
I think Roland would agree with us both too. Just how it is.

Things have definitely slowed down, not like pre 2005. Anyway hit me up I think we can work together as femdom does nicely with cuckold traffic.

x3upload(at)hotmail.com

Stealing a car is illegal. Viewing videos on tube sites is not. Thats a silly comparison. But lets say this:

- if wal-mart gave out food you think anyone would buy it?
- if Exxon gave out gas you think anyone would buy it?
- if car dealers gave away free cars you think anyone would buy them?
- if utilities gave out free service you think anyone would pay for it?
- if YOUR host offered you free hosting would you take it or you gonna pay for that too?

society as a whole has a "everything on the net is free" mentality. I mean 90% of the people here are calling the kettle black. How many of you download music and movies off the internet and don't pay a dime or software. How is that any differnt then tube sites stealing video clips.

September is the whackiest month to me. Other months are more easily explained (July-August, summertime; Feb-March, Super Bowl, Winter, etc etc). But with September it's end of summer, Labor Day, back to school, back to work, off to college...now if these trends continue into October THEN I cry foul.

Sales always tank mid-month they have for around 18 months now - I work with dozens of programmes and have access to a lot of data. A lot of people earn less than they did 2 years ago, but still spend as they once earnt, so come the middle of the month they tighten up to see the month out - it's hand to mouth living. It sucks.

A Beautiful, almost poetical post.. :thumbsup

One of these days the economy will turnaround and there will be more credit, bigger paychecks for everyone and the monopoly of one particular search engine will be a distant memory. Unfortunately our grandkids will be in nursing homes by then. We've simply chosen the wrong era to live in. :disgust

I see a lot of the fem-dom stuff heavily pirated, moreso than other niches. Tell your sponsors to hire removeyourcontent or some other means of removing pirated stuff.

I think every porn site member out there (and there are still millions) disagree.

It's not just you.

Just got together with a group of small companies that have sites ranging from the amateur solo model to the non exclusive mainstream ( i.e. POV sites, general hardcore etc). They, including us are all experiencing the same thing. I wont go into who these companies are unless they want to jump in here but they are ok with me sharing some real numbers.

Company 1:

- 9 sites ( 2 of which used to do very well & are still very active)
- 2003-2008 average monthly gross revenue: $96,238

- 2012 average monthly gross revenue : 27,863


Company 2:

- One very popular solo model site
- 2003-2008 average monthly gross revenue: $38,116
- 2012 average monthly gross revenue: 11,908


Company 3:

- 4 total sites ( one very active solo model who used to do well )
- 2003-2008 average monthly gross revenue: $41,328
- 2012 average monthly gross revenue: $6,713


The solo models we spoke to have completely changed their business models because of these incredible declines. The vast majority of their income now comes from live cams, paid shoots in LA and "personal engagements"


And it's not conversion ratios that are suffering. What we saw almost universally is that conversion ratios are better than ever. Traffic has all but vanished. Those with decent sized affiliate programs ( 10k + webmasters ) are seeing traffic from less than 20 of their affiliates regardless of how much time is spent on working with them. And that traffic is minimal compared to what it used to be. The general consensus was that the affiliate programs are now a waste of time and money.

Running a 9 site company on $27,863 monthly gross is nowhere close to a shit ton of money. :2 cents:

When all is said and done the owner could make a much better salary going to work for someone else and forego the aggravations.

Thanks for what I presume to be an honest take. Those were some impressive numbers in past years. The % of decline is hard to look at though not unexpected. I bet the 28k monthly gets eaten up pretty fast. Our 10k$ average is gone before it gets here. :disgust

Do you understand the difference between gross and net?

Like in Hollywood. If someone is offering you net points on a movie they are offering you $0.

Fuck you Paul.

Never pass up an opportunity to glance at yourself in the mirror. Why waste your time and effort when you could be using that time making money somewhere else?

true dat. he's a porn shithouse poet. compliment intended.

Because unlike you. I don't need to work. Now what do you think of them apples? :1orglaugh

After paying affiliates; cc processing; employees; shooting new updates for 9 sites; paying
tax.... there wont be left very much...

I like what you said right here.

When people compare conversion numbers today with conversion numbers of five years ago, they are forgetting one very big thing that has happened over those five years. The Second and Third World are now online. Look at your logs. India, Malaysia, China, Turkey, Pakistan? those countries will now make up a significant portion of traffic. Lumping that traffic in for conversion statistics with North America and Western Europe is going to totally slaughter numbers.

If you break your numbers down and look at your American conversions, your Canadian conversions, your Western Europe conversions? they aren't all that bad at all and are actually quite often on par with what one would see five years ago.

Extraordinary post. How much would you charge to do an analysis for one company? :)

The numbers revealed in this post are staggering - more than a 60% drop in revenue....of course, having said THAT...1/2 million a year a few years ago for a solo model site is AMAZING income, even then even now.

So I sure as fuck hope those websites making that kind of bank way back then (5+ years ago) saved their money, invested it, played it smart....oh wait, coke and whores and parties and Harleys. Never mind.

Well it depends . In my case, most of traffic is US, and EU. Ive noticed several clicks from Iran, but that doesn't bother me, because those people are already killed by government for watching porn. In my case, (niche) things were more or less, steady. Sure, I had panda shit hit but again,conversion were same, small variations. Hey...,someone just bought something while I am tying and made me $35

With all due respect but this is really not saying a whole lot. It just shows a big drop without any more info. Did they change anything in their strategy, did they become lazy, did they neglect their sites, did they stop updating, etc etc. without that info and a better view on the overall situation these numbers are basically worthless.

Name names ;))))

I had a convo about this yesterday with Kenny (kennies pennies), that sponsors ask me why our numbers dropped with them over the years. In 9 out of 10 cases it turns out they stopped getting us content and stopped using the tools we offer. So whose there to blame really? Sure tubes and the economy don't help but god dammit stop being lazy and start working. This is not 2008 anymore, the ratios will never get back to the glory day numbers. Accept it and start working or stfu and go flip burgers.

Ps I'm not saying the above programs are lazy, just wanted to point out something we notice a lot.

Fuck I love this industry :thumbsup

Cheers!

You forgot these ones:

• December 21 2012 is coming
• Nibiru/PlanetX is coming (I'm pissing my pants)
• People is too busy for election day

P.S.: if you are the woman in the avatar you're wonderful

We provide cam plugins for member areas since several years (both erotica and teensex sites, so both softcore and hardcore), and so we can count the different members per month clicking the cam link from those member areas, and we cna do comparisons year by year.
In most cases the drop it is as the examples above, some lost 80% of members really, with a bigger drop in generic teensex/hardcore as those vids type are so widely available in tubes... more than erotica photos (photosets are however widely traded in torrents and filelocker links in forums).
I should note that as Roald said, those programs who did NOT updated their contents, had the biggest drops, some time brutal like 95% drop (approximate lol - some may even dead I did not checked all affiliate member areas so in deail, some may have dead).

What we done about it? As a cam site we reduced priority of cam plugin for member areas, since most of these areas are shrinking or just collapsing; and anyway not so many new programs being launched, except from those big programs who owns a cam site themselves or have deal with usual top 3 cam sites, so unlikely they put our cam plugin.

In other words: total sales we do it is same as "before", we had no drop in sales but still unhappy we had not a growth; however source of sales widely changed: while years ago 50% of new users came from member areas (cam plugin) and this was lots of traffic, today that's like 5% or less: the 95% comes from other sources, especially tubecamgirl.com which is "free" and so we can send skimmed or else tube traffic there, getting some results. Unlikely to get results sending tube traffic to a "2 minutes free but pay to continue" page of any kind, as pre-2008 (more exactly as pre-2007, I seen a drop after 2006 myself).

Company 4:

1999: $618 billion value
2012: $225 billion value

Company 5:

1997: $3 billion value
2012: $620 billion value

Moral? Things change.

Exactly,

I am no expert on the adult industry. Im a long time ( and still ) suit & tie who decided to dabble back in 2005. I do a lot of work with financial pro forma's and banking... and that I am good at.

I had .. and in many respects still have no idea what people consider solid revenue for sites / companies. I'm just looking at the facts & trends. The facts and trends I'm seeing are daunting.

When you look at the real numbers from 2003-2008 you'll find that these companies had some solo models and or sites that had "x" factor. Those companies, from 2003-2008 were making between 38k - 98k per month gross.

These same companies also had sites that did very little.

Company 1 : 87% of their revenue came from two of the 9 sites.

But as businesses, they are in tight spots today.

Gross Revenue: $28,000ha
- Processing & Fees ha 4, 200
- Affiliate Payout ha ha ha 6,ha300
- Server Costsha ha ha ha ha ha ha 1, 800
- Model / Content Costs ha 6, 400
- Software Licences ha ha ha 500
- Domain Registrations ha ha ha 280
- Business Class Internet ha ha ha 495
- Utilities ha ha ha 425
- Rent ha 1,ha 750
- Marketing ha ha ha ha ha ha ha 1,ha 500
- Line of Creditha ha ha ha 400
- Business Taxes 964

- Leftover for Payroll $2, 986

This is not taking into account any equipment costs (computers, cameras ), travel, trade show registrations etc.

Your right about that.. conversions are not that bad. In many cases for those who sat down and "opened the books" so to say the conversion ratios were actually better in 2012.

That said I'll take 2005 revenue and poor conversion ratios LOL!

Completely respect what you are saying here. I have no doubt that many programs were successful in spite of themselves. At least for those who met, these are companies whose sites and or models are in fact active. they are updating, in some cases daily. They have tried redesigns, upgraded software, faster servers etc. These people care & are trying everything.

In the past this group of people might have considered the others "competitors". Here they were literally logging each other into their accounting / stats software


the one item that has been cut for all of those that met was their marketing budgets. They ( and I ) really don't know where to market any longer. These companies used to buy spots on numerous TGP's, banner ads etc. None of that works any longer and they don't have the capital to advertise on the sites with the most traffic.. tubes.

Not to blow smoke but Freeones was in the top 5 affiliates of every company present :thumbsup

LOL!

Well some of them did blow the money on "toys" but in most cases they reinvested in what was working at the time. That proved to be a mistake.

So the typical scenario is that these owners

a. have mortgages that were previously easy to afford
b. have car loans that were previously easy to afford
c. have lifestyles that were previously easy to afford

Only one of those who attended has consistently lived below her means and has saved. The rest lived at their means.

This was not an extravagant bunch. But those who lived at their means are struggling.

sorry about those ha ha ha's I'm not sure why that happens?

Now I understand, you obviously don't run a company. You run a hobby.

98k a month aint shit for 2003-2008.
ds

Why were they buying 30 domain names a month?

They had, at one time 600+ domains they utilized for blogs, other SEO etc. many were never developed and they dumped them.

See that's good to know.

and regardless of whether or not that was good for that time period, these people / companies were comfortable then .. not so much now.

This thread is like passengers on a boat trying to work out why it's sinking.

http://static.flickr.com/29/46634061_f1e080158b.jpg

The truth is you all were punching holes into the hull.

Why No one is Buying?

No one has to buy.

The Internet is bringing the porn industry down to a very tiny industry. You had 10 years to make coin 1998 to 2008, if you missed out. Tough shit.

Yes some made good money and if they were frugal they're fine.

If they blew it on cars, houses, toys, bling, etc. They need to keep working and downsize.

Many I expect, have few options and can't get out because no ones hiring. Well no one want's to hiring them.

Some will be still here because the returns are still nice, like Roald. I suspect he's now stashing his cash away for the future.

Microsoft, Apple

End of days .....................

This will be my last post or I run the risk of sounding like "PM" :helpme

All of the above was to simply point out that the small & mid sized paysite business that gathered are indeed struggling. We all seem to be in the same boat with our paysites. What is being done to mitigate these significant declines in the paysite business:

1. Shooting "LA" Porn: For whatever reason, fans seem to differentiate between "pornstars" and "web girls". Fair or not, having that "pornstar" moniker, in most cases raises their rate for other aspects of business. Also, those that have started shooting in "LA" are getting a day rate between $800 - $1200 ( a lot more than they are making on their paysites )

This does zero for those companies who buy their content and / or don't manage their models directly. But for the owner / operator ..it's a big bump.


2. Live Cam: The model's seem to prefer two networks in particular & they are making great money on them. The average hourly amongst this group was $187.00 / hour & they are averaging $1,496 per week

Again, this does zero for those companies who buy their content and / or don't manage their models directly. But for the owner / operator ..it's a big bump. Some of these companies are starting to set up studio accounts so they get a little piece of the pie. Studio accounts, if done right, can be lucrative. The most interesting tactic & one that has worked well .. the company is recruiting housewives from the suburbs rather than typical models. They contend these women are motivated, find it fun and treat the situation professionally. ( i.e. they show up on time, put in their work & have little drama )


3. Clips4Sale : Niche certainly works better. But for the solo model or "mainstream" porn these companies are making money on C4S. The range is all over the board however. $600 - $2200 per month. This revenue stream does actually benefit the companies regardless of whether or not they manage their models.


4. Feature Dancing: Again, this really only benefits the model & this game has changed significantly in the past two years. There are essentially two main booking agents for this. I know there are more than two but there are two who handle a significant percentage of the bookings. Recently, Clubs are either booking "A" lister's only or booking non "A" lister's at significantly reduced rates. Feature dancing continues to be lucrative for the feature. The non 'A" listers, in markets over 400k people are averaging $250 per show from the club & getting booked for an average of 5 shows. Tips vary widely but averaged $2400 combined for those 5 shows. This has a lot to do with whether or not the feature is doing private dances, selling dvd's , polaroids etc. Interestingly, polaroids outsell dvd's according to the features.

5. "Private Sessions": Call it what you will but this is a reality of the business and potentially the most lucrative aspect of it. Again, this benefits the individual model rather than the companies.

Trend I seen in past years it is that live cam sites who previous owned or subsidized cam studios, stopped to own or subsidize any studio or cam models as that's not worth being more a cost of time & money, and also a risk it collapses wasting investment... why a cam site doing $$ with site itself with no any need to manage or pay any cam studio, should risk own money and time in studios, given studios will signup on site with own expensies and risks, and there's so many studios and cam girls today (due to crisis) that sites can not even register all them and should do a selection?

It coudl be some "new" cam site owner may think "I setup my studio too" but this is an easier and quicker way to fail really, unless incredible luck as manage cam girls studios it is as stable as radioactive uranium.

good thread

do you think prob is on your end or everyone on the interment stopped buying. time for you to find new traffic bro

So how suddenly something iw wrong with my traffic? it is mostly Se traffic with conversion stable for years. As Ive mention, Ive talked to several other webmasters and they feel the same.

Great post - Trend, I disagree with you that cam girls are averaging 187/hr. On Stripperweb that is all they talk about and 50/hr is more average, even on the top sites. Some CGs do make much more. The housewife thing would be brilliant - they'd make a killing.