His NUMBER OF SALES dropped almost in half? All I see is that his ratio dropped in half and the only reasonable explanation is that he got extra bitcoin trash traffic that hurt his ratio.

I mean you can not possibly believe that adding btc option can discourage half of the people to join just because they saw btc option and thought "they have btc option I better not join this site".. maybe 1% or 3% could be scared, but not 50% (actually even more as not evrybody study full option list), to believe that would be just insanely insane.

So, you're saying he is lying.

Interesting.

I would be saying that if he said that his NUMBER OF SALES dropped in half.
But he is not saying that. He is saying that his RATIO dropped in half.

I see, then L-pink's comment could be the explanation. I was assuming this was typically generated traffic for them.

You are making assumptions that are unfounded. No one said "scared". Until you manage a lot of traffic and buy a lot of traffic, you'll understand that "more" is not better. "More" is more often than not, confusing. It's called The Paradox of Choice. Further, when presented with more choices and particularly ones they are not familiar with such as Bitcoins... they are likely not being "scared"... they are likely leaving the join page to educating themselves on bitcoins and getting lost in an endless sea of information, much of it bad.

Making a sale online is about guiding an users thoughts to a conclusion. You have to answer the questions they are silently but actively asking themselves the moment they open the site in a form of a dialogue, where you answer those questions through the presentation, well laid out information, guiding them to a conclusion where at that point, all questions should have been well answered. Getting them to the join page and asking "Would you like to pay with Turnips" is just going to cause a shit ton of questions at the exact wrong moment and most are going to research what that is about. The user is then lost.

He's not mentioned the sales. He's mentioned the ratio. And he didn't issue any press releases about accepting it that I saw. So, the conclusion here is that you are a big silly goose assuming anything about someone else's sales or ratios.

Carry on.

And the biggest message in this has gone ignored.... Tubes killed porn. Porn is dead. No one pays for porn.

He relies heavily on tubes for his traffic.....

"We have just launched our 17th website and now have an active member database of more than 23,000 paying members," added JT. "The initial phase of the affiliate program rollout included the launch of more than a dozen top quality exclusive video sites."

Not bad for few years of aggressive effort.

Like I said, you can not believe that adding BTC option could possibly scare 50% of ready to join customers :)
Maybe some would be scared thinking "I heard bitcoin is used for drugs, this site accepting btc must be shady, I will not join", but it should be like 1% or 3%.. not 50%.. That would be beyond insanse thinking.
Plus take into consideration other BTC accepting paysites, even if they saw 10% decrease in sales they would drop BTC option as a rock... And we are engaging thinking that number might be 50%. It is just not a reasonable thinking to put politely :)

I believe everything JT has to say about selling membership websites.

Have you considered that simply offering ANY secondary payment option would change ratios?

No? Didn't think so.

Carry on.

You are correct.
"scared" is just a word, let's include all the things you said in to it. I was just using it for simplicity.
All I was saying that adding BTC option can not discourage 50% of people to join the site that otherwise would have joined.

Of course it can change ratios.
But adding one payment option can NOT discourage 50% + people from joining the site.

Like you have a payiste with steady 200 sales a day, add bitcoin option amongst others and just because of that you start getting only 100 sales.

Come on man... You can not be this stupid.

Simple and seemingly beneficial or innocuous changes often have a very profound impact, positive or negative and the results are nearly always counter-intuitive. My experience is that its very possible and it would depending primarily on how it was presented to the user. For example, if its presented like "Best Deal: Save 50%, pay with Bitcoins"... then almost every single user who doesn't know what a bitcoin is has to leave the join process to educate themselves. Those that do know, have to leave the join process to calculate the actual cost to them. Either way, they are lost.

Damian, I agree with you more than many on here, but on this one you're missing the point. The doubled ratio could indeed just be from increased traffic but no additional sales, not actual decreased sales. Without another metric (i.e. did traffic increase substantially, or not) it's not possible to tell.

But I do think adding something like Bitcoin could reduce signups that much too. It's amazing how tiny changes to the signup process can affect customer decisions, and Bitcoin isn't exactly a confidence-inducing commodity right now...

This is valid point. I seriously doubt there was discounted option presented like that in this case.
But, look, man.
There are other paysites accepting BTC. Even if adding btc option would have decreased their sales by 5-10% they would have dropped it within the first week! 5-10%. And we are engaging into considering 50%+++

PLEASE!

If btc could decrease signups by 5-10% EVERY site accepting them would have dropped this option immediately. And you are considering 50%!
Please, I do not wish to live on this planet anymore if seemingly smart GFYers are saying things like that. Unbelievable. :2 cents:

There's no need to categorize people having insane/not reasonable thinking when it comes to trying to sort out customer buying habits.

You can simple disagree and post your views and comments.

No offense meant, I was just genuinely (more than) shocked by this line of thinking :2 cents:
I am being honest here ^

I'm not saying anything definitive one way or another, just that it's possible IMO. Over the years I've seen - both from my own sites and closely working with others - extremely small changes to tours, join pages, and signup forms have substantial effects on sales. Sometimes the changes seem so minor that you don't believe them yourself until testing and stats over time bears them out. And yes, even 50% swings or more.

Personally I wouldn't offer Bitcoin for L-Pink's reasoning - all those guys know where to find the free porn. In this day & age we need to understand our market segments and focus only on the ones who are proven to buy.

it smells like clever marketing, what better way to draw attention to your sites than to make some bold claim?

it's also pretty convenient that OP writes articles for a living and his site that happens to improve conversions is mentioned in the article...

this thread will probably turn into a 10-pager, and with some luck some mainstream media will also pick up on it...

well played :thumbsup

Thanks Sean

Nice to see a genuine smack down of damianj stupidity and endless brown nosing. Really entertaining to watch.

I will agree that minor changes in any one step of the join process can have a huge impact (positive or negative) but certainly seems like more going on then 50% drop in *sales* by just adding bitcoin.

However, like I said in previous post and thoughts... I think the option could be added and have absolutely no negative impact and then the decision would be... is it even worth it at all? Maybe, maybe not... if it doesn't hurt the process, then why not.

Two points:

1. I've "fiddled with" my Join pages and found the tiniest change can affect ratios. Example: I added an orange border around my Join options (only 3, no more) and form hits jumped 22%. WTF??? I'm serious: a PayPal-orange-colored 2 pixel thick fucking border around the white Join options. WHAMMO a 22% click-through increase. Took the border away, form hits dropped back down 22%. NOT joking. Then I read where orange is an 'action color". Maybe that's why PayPal uses it, eh? Hmmm....

(Many have said my Join options are "too thin, too small" and have suggested I "make them bigger, easier to read" so I tried that. A-B tested it. After ten days of shitty sales I put the old, "odd-sized" Join buttons back. Sales magically returned. NEVER TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS ALWAYS A-B TEST.)

2. I now believe JT's biggest advantage was the money he received from the sale of YouPorn. This allowed him to do something very few could do in today's shrinking revenue marketplace: re-invest every penny back into his business. I applaud him for this and ackowledge his achievements. I do, however, wish more companies could expand in this way in today's environment.

What I don't understand is why larger companies who still film their own content are not employing the same filming/editing strategies (based on tube research) Ruseful is employing to maximize their tube traffic. I still see "the same old shit" being regurgitated endlessly while the Producers of this content complain about their shrinking ratios. Odd.

My traffic stayed consistent throughout the 7 days testing on Casting.xxx and the 24hrs on PublicAgent.com. We did not do a press release about accepting Bitcoin. So in effect, the sales ratio did worsen for this same traffic. The only difference to the user experience was having the word "Bitcoin" on my join page.

We first listed Bitcoin as a 4th pay option in the list. No icon, simply Bitcoin. After 3 days, we created a heading of "alternative payment" under the 3rd payment option. This had no effect. We removed Bitcoin from Casting.xxx and put it live on PublicAgent.com, under "alternative payment" and saw the same effects.

The reason we tested for 8 days before pulling is that we wanted to give this enough time. Believe me, I wanted to pull this after 48 hrs.

Also understand, if someone could tell me what I did wrong, and suggested a solution, I would put Bitcoin back on a site for testing.

An important factor to consider that differentiates my sites from others that accept Bitcoin is the fact that over 90% of my traffic is derived from the tubes. That is what I founded my company on, given my background. Maybe this traffic is fickle to Bitcoin? Maybe those users thought "interesting, Bitcoin..." and then went off to explore about Bitcoin, maybe looking at what price it was.

I consider the traffic to my sites to be in a different mindset to more traditional traffic. Quite simply, they have whacked off to one of my clips on the tubes, and are now in a happy place, with all the hormones running through their brain. For a tube site, if you can keep these users on your tube, is golden times. They explore, clicking more pages, doing more searches, clicking on more banners. This is when the ave page view per visitor really increases, and therefore, really increases your banner impressions. And, ultimate goal of the tube is to have that user exit your tube by clicking on a banner. We studied this behaviour intensely and were the first tube to offer the "we recommend" option for other videos they may like. We listed thumbnails on the video player page of other videos they may like. This was a serious hook to get the users to stay on YouPorn post masturbation, and helped us increase our ave page views per visit to an average of 10.7.

With the tube user being in this mindset, in exploratory mode, they start to click banners on the video player page (thats why the next to video a and b banners on a tubes video player page are prime real estate as its post masturbation). Some of those users click on my banner under the video player and come have a look around my tour. A side note: for every 1 user that clicks on my banner, 2 directly type my website name directly into their browser. Maybe there is a trust issue for those 2 users of clicking a banner on a tube?

So, now that I have classified the mindset of the traffic hitting my website, maybe, just maybe, the Bitcoin option on my join form, gave them another reason to go off exploring. Right now, thats the only rational explanation I have as to why Bitcoin simply did not work for me.

Most people don't have a clue what bitcoin is so its hard for me to imagine why having bitcoin as a billing option would mess with sales ratio.

I am working with a exclusive sponsor and i am directly targeting bitcoin holders and here are the stats for the 9 days:

1:317 8567 27 sales


did a search for casting.xxx and found some bitcoin addresses that were receiving payments off of torrents.

19CWNopXCHSwWtWQ89NHC471LMn2Gy5j5G 90.80
13La83tHanB9GJSHg41rrufafwLhbbE73U 11.34
1XeH1kKXWYbzZcFHokGiZ4d3MWW5WyXzU 8.58
1KeBs4HBQzkdHC2ou3gpyGHqcL7aKzwTve 41,305.61 Piratebay
1WVpM2ygBqDpSRz7xLv7rBfzJWMimSYgD 298.94

Yep, you are directly targeting bit coin users, I simply put bit coin on my join option.

Can you clarify what you mean about you did a search for casting.xxx and the torrents?

Also, are you my old affiliate manager? If so, would you mind contacting me?

Lol,you dont remember your previous employee ?

By the way one note to some of you who advocated strange things in this thread: read the title of the thread, it says "removes bitcoin for LACK OF VALUE".
Do you think title would be like this is bitcoin option stole 50% of the sales? :1orglaugh

And this note is just on top of everything else what I said and what was basic common sense :)

Yes I do, but my old affiliate manager simply vanished from the face of the earth after having an accident over a year ago. I thought he has died. And he used the gfy nick of Tampa toker.

"My traffic stayed consistent throughout the 7 days testing on Casting.xxx and the 24hrs on PublicAgent.com. We did not do a press release about accepting Bitcoin. So in effect, the sales ratio did worsen for this same traffic. The only difference to the user experience was having the word "Bitcoin" on my join page."

See, Beaner, this is the difference between you and me. In short, I was right and you assumed, speculated and were horribly wrong. Like with so many life choices you make.

Lolsome.

xoxoxo

Thanks for clarifying the details even more JT. Really useful information!

lo bitcoin is killer

mineistaken, did you read this?


:winkwink:

Look, I'm not trying to step on anyone's cock, but one company came out and said that adding bitcoin to its tube raised sales by 50% and nobody doubted it, but when another guy comes and says adding bitcoin to his tube dropped sales by 50% and folks don't believe it... I know both companies watch their stats better than most folks here, so it's not like they don't know what they're doing, but it's clear that some bitcoin fanboys are only interested in hearing positive news, rather than the truth.

There are other companies that jumped on the bandwagon for the pure PR value, and you may see more retractions in the future as additional companies step back from bitcoin...

:2 cents:

I think everyone who doesn't have a turnip instead of a brain doubted it, actually. :)

I was speaking in context of this venue fine sir, so...

As to the point, I like that first firm, but I couldn't help think "50%? What, did you make two sales today and one was via bitcoin?"

@Stepehen
I definitely don't see the two news items as contrary. That it may work well on one site and not on another isn't really surprising - especially when the traffic pathing to point of sale and traffic sources are likely to be very different.

As was mentioned on another board: I'd also be very curious to see how Bitcoin would do on a gay site aimed at men on the down-low. Someone like a married guy cruising gay porn, shopping escorts on Eros, or a cheating spouse using dating sites and not wanting their significant other to find out on AshleyMadison would also seem to be a good Bitcoin target consumer.

The lesson here isn't "bitcoin good" or "bitcoin bad" like Frankenstein might mutter to himself. There is more complexity to it than that...

It's like with many other factors in this biz, your mileage may vary.

My comment was mostly aimed at the responses to these statements rather than the statements themselves.

Yes JT it is me. I will hit you up later today......

Aww man I love your posts :thumbsup I burst out laughing when I read that :)

Very interesting article by JT, that guy does some serious testing so I wouldn't doubt what he says for a second. When he talks, I listen!

I dunno if you saw this thread, some incredible info JT shared with GFY about his promo on the tubes

https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1131741

You quoted me saying I agree minor changes can have a huge impact, positive or negative. It statements like this that make you look like a gimp...

And the reason you look like a blind eye pea is because you are, and your choice of words solidifies that.

Now, back to real, adult talk. Anything so drastic, as what has been posted, obviously has a reason. So we are considering 3 options:
1) design
2) hate for bitcoin
3) combination of 1 and 2

Here is a revised first step join form for you JT. It will lower your ratios and allows bitcoin people to follow the bitcoin link :upsidedow

http://i.imgur.com/xjKeqF5.jpg