What is your biggest business struggle right now?

Got it. Sometimes you just need to lay your thoughts out to get things rolling.

Thanks for starting this thread Shap.

bluepixelsprofits.com - it's always been our bread and butter program, it still is, we do alot more traffic generation inhouse now which is working, would be nice to have that go hand in hand with some great affiliates again too!

Thanks for an excellent tip! I will get on to that and get pics and description included

We did speak before, lets chat again and get it sorted

Same here.

Actually, just finding anything where I can see an opening to profitability and scale in mainstream.

I may be wrong but this is what I would do.

- I would provide the tools the affiliates want (ie like the feedback you got in this thread). I would visit the sites that you want traffic from and see what the affiliates and programs are doing and try to get in on that. But I wouldn't focus much on getting new affiliates. i would focus on maximizing what you have but not spend much on growing the affiliate base.

- Instead of searching out new affiliates I would try to get a few guys (either affiliates or otherwise) to work closely with you. Ie create a partnership where you work together to make more money. I imagine you have limited time for growing your in house traffic. Find a way to get a few guys to work REALLY closely with you beyond an affiliate relationship. Offer them way more than your regular affiliates. I've always said paysites can offer affiliates 100% of the revenue because the type in and brand growth benefits from traffic are huge. So maybe find a few guys and offer them a big piece of the revenue they bring in and work closely with them.

- Work on that in house traffic. Get more and more of it. Go after tubes be the tube king.

I've just got newsletter from femme fatale flims. That is fine, but it can be even better. Bigger photos with description would make me instantly publish at least one post on some of my blogs. You need to talk to affiliates , not all but some with potential for your traffic. For example, I have review site for femdom and I don't have time to update it. I've just noticed that none of your sites is reviewed there. Prepare reviews and I will publish it (coordinate this with me). Stuff like that....there are many things to improve, always. Check this out: Femdom site reviews

Shap must be psychic! This is what I am doing at the moment, too.

Basically Shap the question with paysite sales (these days) is how to scale. I think the days of creating a single mega-brand like Twistys are over unless you invest a LOT of money on exclusive shoots. And we know how expensive those are, add in piracy, and it's tough to invest 100k+ on shoots and updates.

So (for me) the only real solution is this: continue to maximize 'existing traffic' (tubes, TGPs, all the traditional ways) by creating more paysites and affiliate programs. Then, on top of that, creating my own traffic sources (tubes, TGPs, etc). The amount of traffic you can get from tubes today is limited and shrinking.

Between the two I think it's possible to 'scale'. But we're talking 1000 paysites vs. a few. LOL

Too many projects not enough time.
Applying main steam tactics and tools in adult requiring mainstream staffing cost or using staff not familiar with the tactics and or tools.
Not being able to cost effectively use mainstream tools (do to them not wanting any one in adult using them or pricing) resulting in needing to build from scratch...

All of this causing delays or other issues.

I think there are a lot of solid points made but I think the 100% payout strategy is highly risky unless you are 100% on top of the metrics, and most are not.

Just sift through the ashes of so many programs that offered those sort of payouts to affiliates over the years to see what I mean. Yes, there is an increase in revenue through an increase in brand/type in traffic as long as the affiliates are keeping the branding, and there are increases in things like cams or other upsells/leaks in the site, but it better be enough to cover the cost of those high payouts.

And the cost is higher than the 100% payout when you factor in the expense of maintaining those 100% payout affiliates, especially for those that have staff, office, etc. type overhead.

I get the strategy of adding sites. You get a site that earns even just $1000 net per month and try to replicate that into 100 sites doing the same and the sky gets a deeper shade of blue. However, I think the user habits and way that people consume porn is different today than the years where that strategy was the way to go.

Today I think being a lifestyle brand is the way to go. I also think that there is room to build a recognizable brand like a Twisty's etc, although I think the type of brand and the way the community interacts with the content will be far different. Xhamster is a good example. Also, look at ProAdult/voyeurweb - they pretty much blew off affiliates years ahead of many other programs and they are doing better than ever.

Awesome. I am out for a couple of days, but I'll hit you up Friday

Guys who are worried about their focus. I had trouble with this for years as nothing seemed exciting in adault. And I know why. You had to be one step away from illegal to really make money at the moment. Tubes, massive upsales etc. Yes people do ok without all of that but how many? Then a rule change can take away any advantage you have built up at any moment. It was fun but the easy days are over.

So I got into an old school business deal. Why is this better? Because I knew it was going to succeed if I kept my head down and worked at it. Adult no longer offers that opportunity. I know anything can fail. There are no guarantees. In adult I can pretty much guarantee you won't be doing as well or the same deal in a few years. So the frustration level is much higher which leads to burn out.

I did very well before in bricks and mortar, then I killed it in adult (my standards) and am now doing very well in the real world. The best part is I am hopeful for better.

It's funny you should mention Proadult because that's how I started way back when. But is "Proadult" still around? I know Voyeurweb is. But remember, VW and PA are not 'paysites' in the traditional sense. They are like Watchersweb, free user-submitted pics and videos with an upsell to their Premium brand.

I still am not sure how a site grows (today) to the level of a Twistys or Brazzers. Maybe Blacked is the only one doing it in recent years. JT was but he sold to Mind Geek (smart move). But yes, it's pretty much net $1000 a month (or year) x however many sites and life is golden. Most people don't want to put that kind of work in tho.

But if there's another way to grow a paysite (other than throwing massive amounts of cash at it - and even then....) I'm all in. But organic traffic takes time to build and paid traffic is mostly a waste. So there ya go. LOL

Can't someone just make it like it's 2003 again? :D

Yeah, brainfart on the name of the premium site but the point is that they function off their own freemium traffic model, don't rely on tubes to grow their audience, and have a very loyal brand following.

You and I both agree that the tube traffic value is declining so continuing to chase that dollar will only prove more and more futile. If you have (x) number of sites that rely on that traffic then what next?

imho, Shap came out with a Penthouse style brand that successfully used online when Penthouse stumbled online, even though arguably Penthouse had a tremendous head start. His genius was to sell at the top too, but could he pull that off again given today's market? Maybe, but only because he is smart and adaptive, not because he tries to do what he did then.

JT, same thing, he had a massive advantage to seeing what worked on Youporn and he capitalized by creating content that took advantage of that inside knowledge, and he sold out too at the right time. He also created an identifiable brand. Brazzers, the same, Fabian knew exactly what kind of site would sell because he saw all the NATS stats and Brazzers created content that fit the bill.

Still, the user behavior has changed since then so all of them would have to re-think and adapt as well if they came into the market today. They are all very intelligent so I am sure they would figure it out but look at all the programs that died out because they couldn't figure out the flux and got flummoxed trying, crushed by the weight of their hubris...

I didn't sell anything ;)