Relentless

Every affiliate making money still promotes sites. Either sponsors or their own sites. Affiliates who do not make money (and do not send sales) have left. They have been replaced by in-house sponsor networks and professional webmaster services-for-hire. The retirement of webmasters isn't reducing the sales of sponsor programs at all. More webmasters doesn't mean more sales in most instances.

Anyone who thinks that is unfair can easily create their own Paysites and promote them. Affiliates have all the power. We can create Paysites, tubes, do SEO work, create new businesses any time we want. All it takes is work, money or both.

signupdamnit

Of course some will try to spin it but the bottom line is that the value proposition for the affiliate in adult is quite a bit less than it was in the past. It's pennies versus dollars. It's like the question of whether people coming out of college would like to become managers or whether they would like to work as a cashier at Walmart. Go to a mainstream forum and ask how many of them are ex-adult webmasters or why they don't work in adult with adult affiliate programs.

You will get two main answers:

1. It's all available for free. Nobody pays for porn these days!
2. All adult programs shave like crazy.

I don't entirely agree with #2 but that is the perception the industry has largely built for itself- a reputation of cheating affiliates. Again, don't ask 12clicks or oldjeff go ask the affiliates themselves. I think most of the affiliates here will tell you the same thing too. But somehow the input from actual affiliates tends to get ignored in favor of the BROtalk. And that's another reason why you can't find affiliates. Treat people like shit and they will eventually leave.

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Relentless

Either you didn't read my post or you failed to understand it.

The affiliate model died for most Webmasters way back when WEG, Maxcash and Quickbuck wrapped up operations. For many businesses it became more profitable to build hundreds of sites, or hire a handful of professionals to build them, than to have hundreds of webmasters build one each. Site owners can make one traffic deal with another site owner and bring in more sales than hundreds of webmasters would send in a month. That's not a sad day for being an affiliate, it's a smart day to become a site owner or professional service provider.

If a guy who used to send two sales a year quit... What do you think happened to those same two sales in the future? They still bought two sites, they just don't buy them through him anymore and he earns nothing from them. It's not like affiliates made more people buy porn or like affiliates do something site owners can't do (or hire a professional to do).

The "affiliates" who still exist are either running their own Paysites, work as paid professionals, have sites earning quietly on autopilot, are hobbyists doing it for fun, or have massive traffic. The rest have retired or changed business models. Shaving didn't cause any of that. A shift in the cost / benefit of paying affiliates or building traffic sites in house caused a lot of it.... Years ago.

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Barefootsies

This is nothing new. They openly have talked about this since 2007-2008 at the conferences. Basically in a nutshell, many affiliate programs said they were constantly being held hostage by greedy affiliates always threatening to pull their traffic. Demanding $100 PPS, paid in advance on joins, and alike.

In short, many at that time made a commitment to move traffic in-house and away from some of this slavery where they were overly dependent on the affiliate traffic model. The tubes came along at the right time, and made that even easier centralizing traffic and simply making it a pay to play. Now an affiliate program was no longer held ransom and could afford to stay in business.

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Enough Said.

"Would you rather live like a king for a year or like a prince forever?"

signupdamnit

Yet many of those programs are out of business now. And for example Kink reported it's first decline in 2011, Manwin can't pay their taxes and has to layoff people like crazy, and on and on.

To sum it up:

"Adult. An Industry in constant denial."

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signupdamnit

No I read it and I understand it. It's what I call BROspeak or maybe a better term might be BROshit. It's what I've heard a lot from here over the years over and over again. It's not even worth my taking apart. The BROshit record of this industry speaks for itself and that is why people have left and it's overall revenues are declining. Of course you'll disagree and so will every bro on here but that's why it's called BROshit. Anyway I have better things to do. I've made my point long ago.

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Barefootsies

"McAffiliates. A Hamburglar in constant denial."

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Enough Said.

"Would you rather live like a king for a year or like a prince forever?"

ruff

I don't know why you and others think programs are moving away from the affiliate model. I belong to many affiliate programs. My inbox is full every week with affiliate promo material. With equal amounts of photo and video content. If you think TGP's are dead, where are all of these FHG's being posted? There is still a huge market out there for photos or no one would make the effort to market to them. The programs making money are the programs that are providing their affiliates with promo every week. Unless a program is good at generating its own traffic and there are many that are, they still need the affiliate or they die. So I don't see the affiliate model dying out at all. I see the successful program operators doubling down on promo to their affiliates. If they weren't getting results, they would not be doing it.

And something else. I work the amateur niche. When I see established amateur girls, and most of you know who I mean, start sending out promo by email, that tells me they need that affiliate to start promoting them. A lot have had a huge fan/member base that maybe they have taken for granted. When the membership starts to drop off, it's time to start hustling again. Who do they need? Affiliates.

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adultmobile

As a (cam) program I noticed this: before, lots of affiliates it was from USA, Canada, West Europe, because the "money per hour of effort" it was worth comparable to (remote, from bedroom) jobs in western countries.

In the last few years, I see less and less active affiliates from US, CA, UK etc., but I see more from countries I never noted before, such as: Georgia (the ex-ussr country, not USA state), Bangladesh, Egypt. Still there's the filipino, romanians, indians, south americans around, adult that's still worth for many, there.

Note that in the past, lots of signups it was from (between) member areas & pay user newsletters, cross site advertising often not accounted to affiliates. Cam sites also had lots of signups from cam plugins inside member areas. When member areas lacked of users, this cross-sell (no original affiliate paid in most cases) also went down.

Where the westerns (and some high profile russians) who was affiliates (tgp) or pay site owners ended? In tubes and tube/forums advertising networks. Adultking blames this often, as well as Mike South's. So what the programs do today? They Shave? I think no, this was worth before, perhaps. They buy from ad networks, and on the side, they keep lots of 3rd world affiliates happy.

In the past, when you launched a new program/site, you could rely on affiliates to launch it, in just revshare. I was around pre-2003 when you just order custom shoots in russia or ukraine to build a site, launch it and thehun etc. it was full of submissions magically, ccbill handled all, and you only cared to pay the bill of fhg server.
Now instead, the fhg hosting is cheap, but you need to buy ads to make some volume (this needs media buying skills, you did not needed if using affiliates only!), and the (mostly non-western) affiliates will contribute only a little, and find you late.

About the fact that there are other ways to make more money online than adult: there was in the past too, think at gambling affiliation, or the dot-com bubble funded naive's who paid lots of dollars per install of "internet optimizer" software (I made nice cash pre-2001 with that).

Of course there may be programs still shaving, for example think at cams revshare: if you shave just very few big whales, it is 1% or less of users you shave, but that's relevant difference like 30% of sales. That's sneaky as signups number it keeps real.

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Relentless

I'm pretty sure you would agree you are not the 'ordinary' affiliate.

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Relentless

I've not heard a "Bro" say any of that

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lucas131

good words, fucked up scammer. fuck off, ok? ... go steal some more money from your surfers, you piece of fucking shit ...

ruff

Or there could be affiliate referral delay and you will never know you pulled in a whale. When that whale reaches a payment threshold, your referral link disappears and you never knew anything about it. But I'm sure that kind of thing doesn't happen in porn. We have known thieves posting on GFY all the time, but we don't mind. Live and let live, let bygones be bygones. So yeah, there is shaving going on, it's been going on, and will continue to go on. If you don't believe that, you're just naive. If there is a third party program between your sale and the credit card processor, there is the possibility of shaving. It's just not spoken about, but it is the elephant in the room, isn't it?

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ruff

Not quite sure what an ordinary affiliate is. I'm certainly not a "super-affliliate" whatever that is.

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Relentless

The great majority of 'ordinary affiliates' sent a tiny fraction of sales, required constant hand-holding and relied almost exclusively on sponsor-supplied tools. Most did little more than make carbon copies of sites that worked (or at least what they thought were carbon copies) and then wondered why they didn't suddenly perform as well as the sites they copied.

I can't even begin to tell you how many affiliate review sites were launched that ripped ideas from mine, copied code (which was easy to detect since it was all custom coded to begin with), spintaxed original reviews published to my sites and so on... then tried to push the same programs. At one point I even had a guy who ripped my content email me to ask why his clone wasn't converting for him

Affiliates are supposed to bring something to the table. An ability to generate traffic, an innovative way of pushing sales... something, anything, that the sponsors they push aren't already providing for themselves. That has gotten much harder now that so many sponsors are building their own traffic networks.

The one thing that has remained simple all along is that it is very easy to figure out exactly how much each sponsor is paying you per click.

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Relentless

It's an impotent elephant. Once you know how much each sponsor pays you per click there is zero relevance to focusing on the distraction of how they arrive that that amount.

If a sponsor claims 50/50 revshare, 30PPS, or any other payscale... it's a meaningless number. A sponsor who pays you 8 cents per click is bidding 8 cents per click for your traffic. The moment that number changes, his bid is now different. You are auctioning your traffic to the highest bidder... who cares why they bid more or bid less.

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OldJeff

I have no problems finding affiliates, but then again my definition of affiliate is probably different than yours is, like I require affiliates to actually be able to generate sales. Not throw up a gallery page, get a shitty ratio, then bitch and moan they are being shaved or the tubes have killed the industry.

Would like to stick around a play some more, but there is an Adirondack Chair on my deck that greatly requires my ass attached to it. Stop by again tomorrow, in the meantime, I suggest Desitin for a bunch of you

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mopek1

I still get about the same amount or slightly more emails from program managers trying to get me to sign up to their affiliate program as I did in 2006.

I also still see lots of program owners on gfy talking about how they still value their affiliates.

Relentless

Bulk email affiliate spam and GFY posts are the metrics you are relying on ?

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The Porn Nerd

That, and don't forget all the free drinks and blow from the BROS. :D

I value all affiliates because you never know when one will magically make a sale or begin promoting your stuff. Besides, what 'competition' is a small affiliate providing for larger affiliates who actually produce sales? Little to none.

But I agree the #1 thing affiliates (should) bring to the table is traffic. Problem is, the ways affiliates used to get traffic is drying up, consolodating, and disappearing.

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Robbie

If THAT is the metric...then the affiliate model is dead!

But I'll do some "testing" when I attend the New Orleans show and report back!

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The Porn Nerd

Exactly what we need: a man in the field to report his findings. We need up-to-date pricing on Bolivian marching powder. :D

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Robbie

I've been "researching" for the last few years...apparently actual "cocaine" does not exist anymore.

But there is plenty of speed crushed up into a white powder that LOOKS like cocaine!

Unfortunately, instead of having a nice, alert feeling with a slight head buzz (like you do when you have the real stuff)...you end up jittery, your cock shrinks to the size of a thimble, and your nose burns like hell!

We need some "Bolivian Bros" to get in the industry so we will stop being fooled into this crushed up speed shit that's being passed off as the real thing!

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mopek1

Why would they bother with the spam (bulk and sent by hand) if they didn't need affiliates? It is one metric I use but I also don't see all that many programs that have either closed their affiliate programs or have none at all.

12clicks

nonsense, clueless. The pressure you're feeling and the webmasters who've been squeezed out of the business is because the business is maturing and the dumb get squeezed out.
Webmasters keep confusing themselves thinking they're business owners. You're not. Your people who are wasting valuable working years at a dead end job.
Get out. Thinking that someone is shaving and that shaving is the reason you're failing is a lie. You're failing because you're lazy, stupid, or a combination of both.

Think you're being shaved? run your own program and get back to us with your results

12clicks

yeah, we're aggressive.

how about we're just sick of hearing children for the 1000th time claim they're being cheated because they WANT X but only earn Y and blame it on someone else?

12clicks

do you puff your chest out when you type this nonsense out from your hut?
fucking 3rd world loser.

12clicks

yup, its the Bros that are causing you to fail.

ruff

Bulk email affiliate spam suggests garbage. The affiliate promo materials I'm receiving from programs I promote have a decent quality to them. Not template bland but well thought out. There is lot of emphasis on photo FHG's that would suggest TGP sites or something similar are thriving. I operate one that generates 17 - 20K uniques a day. There are also plenty of video FHG's and hybrids. The one thing I've noticed is some programs have pulled their embedded videos. I think there has been a serious shaking out that is still going on, but the small dedicated webmaster still has plenty of opportunity to compete against the big boys.

The trick to using GFY posts as a metric is to do the exact opposite of what 99% of the posters suggest. Most haven't got a clue, they are marginally in the business, they have a free site somewhere so they are in the club. I've been reading for years that the TGP site is dead, so I built one successfully. Ask some of the other TGP owners here, including some that sold out and started again. You want a tube site, build one. Fuck what anyone else says. I'm surprised so many take as gospel whatever any anonymous poster that has jacked his/her post count up into the thousands says. I guess a high post count infers porn cred. (not to insult high post count webmasters that actually contribute something)

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12clicks

christ, the inability to think is deep with this one.

which is it, there aren't many affiliates or shaving a lot of affiliates is profitable.


If you clowns would work as hard on your pretend business as you do looking for excuses for why your pretend business is failing, your pretend business might actually become a real one.

OldJeff

:thum bsup: thumbsup:thumb sup

I approve

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mopek1

Thing is that while some cry the way you are saying above, many of us here in this thread who you are fighting with, are not saying that shaving is the whole reason (or even biggest) for the decline in our incomes.

I believe shaving exists and believe it has happened (and probably still is happening) to me. But it is not the biggest reason my income has declined.

Any mention of shaving and you guys go ballistic.

But, if you are talking about the guy who sends 30 hits and then complains about shaving then I am on your side. He's lazy and not really deserving of anything.

But some of us here have been around awhile and are better able to get a feel for what's going on.

Relentless

Perfect example of my earlier point. You are not an ordinary affiliate ;)

The industry has evolved into three groups:

Business owners and service providers (many who used to be affiliates) making a good living.

A tiny handful of hobbyists or massive traffic webmasters and profitable free site owners (the only real affiliates left) making a good living.

Whiners, conspiracy theorists and trolls (many who used to be affiliates) making nothing but noise.

Which group someone is in is mostly a matter of their own choices, based almost entirely on where each chooses to focus time and energy. To a very large degree this is an effort based business not an aptitude based business. I don't think most people are lazy. I do think they are prone to distractions. Shaving, tubes, .xxx, and many other topics are distractions more than anything else.

Markul

12clicks

again, no one is going ballistic.
However, if you feel you're being shaved, change sponsors. If you think all sponsors shave, do yourself a favor and switch jobs as you're not bright enough for long term success here.
I'll buy all the regular joins I can from good affiliates. The value is there. you don't run off good affiliates by shaving them.
Did guys shave in the old days? I'm sure they did. Do they do it now? I just don't see how its profitable. you keep good affiliates, you NEVER give them a reason to doubt you.

12clicks

This is a reply to mopek, not relentless

mopek1

For many I would agree.

For some of us it's not.

adultmobile

I tend to agree, and to add that number of GFY posts it is normally the inverse of traffic they can generate.

As a (cam) program I can tell that of those affiliates who signed up from GFY (and some I got from there it was rather good, I mean more than $1k/week), nearly no one got high post counts, or posts at all, or account at all: busy guys googleing for "alternative to [chaturbate/whatever]" or so, lands on GFY without having or wishing to open a GFY account, finds my signature in post replies, signup and sends tonds of joins.

On the contrary, nearly no one who posts a lot (esp. complaints about my program) ever signed up or tested my program (and did not answered to question "and what's your affiliate account, if ever asked), so I assume they really sent traffic to no one they talk bad about. Or if signed up, sent 10 hits a year max anyway.

Finally, about all those saying that there are less and less affiliates every year - really, for new programs that starts with zero affiliates, there can be a growth. I have more active affiliates on tubecamgirl now than a year ago, and a year ago I had more than 2 years ago (2012 is when I opened the program). However I lost lots of affiliates in chatgf which was around from 2010 and mostly targeted pay site member areas. Think at crakrevenue I bet everyone agrees they had growth of affiliates each of past year, right? It all matters to open new affiliate programs, more up-to-date, time to time. And not to cry on old affiliate programs dieing, or wrong new ones no one cares at.

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lucas131

fucking oldschool brother, scammer, thief banging cards on flash games and similar crap ... you sir, can live whetever you are, but you will be the biggest piece of shit who still have balls to post on this board ... fucker, fuck off!

mopek1

Many to choose from, not that many to choose from that convert.

Nope. I don't.

I agree.

I agree again. That makes perfect sense. But as you point out some affiliates are dumbasses. I would agree there. But I would also argue that some program owners are too.

In general I have good relationships with my program managers/owners and have for years.

12clicks

ouch!
that one will leave a mark. what's it like to be part of the world's absolute bottom and get to interact with someone who earns more than your whole fucking mudhut village?

lucas131

it is called psychical disease. if you think all you do is good, people around knows and are saying to you that it is not good, but you still think you are on top of the game ... go find a help

12clicks

oh shit, I didn't know you were the village witch doctor too!

lucas131

at least some fun ...

mopek1

Surprised to read this from you Markul. Especially since you are looking to work with affiliates for easyxsites.

ruff

Board juice. The stuff that keeps this forum wound up like a cheap watch. I try and stay away from posting, then, sometimes, I get sucked right back in. Like now, I should be doing my taxes, but I'm doing anything but.

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Markul

I liked his response to the whining cunt signupdamnit.

dehash

Unless this guy had 3 sign ups from this 30 hits with other sponsors. He complains about shaving, Another guy creates thread "joins joins" and gives few weeks before he does test joins. And he finds it right away! For some reason he gets cursed by owner. Offense is best defense?

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mopek1

I thought you saw all affiliates as "lazy, stupid etc..."

Thanks for clearing it up.

As for signupdamnit he does bring good arguments forth and he doesn't call people asswipes or anything like that.

AmeliaG

If your traffic includes a lot of bookmarkers, you need to constantly find new things to show them. As time goes one, the portion of your regulars who are going to buy certain memberships will have bought them already, so you will see rebills (on revshare) but not a lot of new joins.

That's my experience anyway.

If traffic is mostly from search or CJ etc., then I don't think the plateau should apply.

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