New Visa Regs Beg For A Change In Payouts

Chargebacks do not show up for 3 months.
A surfer could join today, chargeback today, and his chargeback would show up October 11th.

Once again, you're not getting it.

Joe Surfer shows up at the site, dick in hand. The tour is good, he thinks the site will be worth $39.99, so he signs up. He gets in the site, looks around and decides it isn't worth the $39.99 he just paid. So he calls his bank and does a chargeback.

Chances are Joe Surfer is a lot more likely to decide the site is worth $29.99 then $39.99.

Right now, the big programs are scrambling to reduce their chargeback ratio. They have to cut their ratios by 60%. They're doing everything they can to cut the ratios, including lowering prices, getting rid of free trials and limiting cross sales.

This point has been made a few times and it's an interesting one.

This is only the first day, and already CE has said they are still going to try to pay affiliates what they were previously. Let's see who else is going to stand out and try to be competetive.

I just woke up and just read this thread......WHAT A GREAT WAY TO START THE DAY!!!!!

As a smaller but quality program owner I see a new world of
opportunities. Shouts out and major props to Mike, Marc, Roger,
Lens and ALL others who will decide to come back on Earth.

People buckle up your seatbelts this will become a fun but rocky
ride.....Where's Steve in all this.....what's LS going to do?

I'm sure a lot of smaller program owners are cumming in their
pants just by reading this thread.......I love you all.....I really
fucking do!!!! WooHoo!!!

DynaMite

CECash isn't going to try - CECash is just going to continue, business as usual - changes were made long ago to bring CECash chargebacks down to acceptable levels and CECash never did multiple upsells like all the others that are now experiencing these problems.

Great for you Ron, it's nice to see sponsors being able to achieve the tolerance levels without payout reduction and I commend you for realizing the changes you did months ago.

WG

No, you are not getting it! Even if this "plan" would work to reduce chargebacks there are many other ways to minimize their outgoing cashflow without making the webmasters eat it and 100% of it at that!

And I still don't think this plan is going to work in the way you think it will. If joe surfer goes into a site and pays $39.99 and hates the site, he charges back. If he pays $29.99 and hates the site, he charges back. I don't see such a middle ground on "quality" and "worth" like you are assuming.

If the site sucks, the site sucks. Now if it was a difference between $9.99 and $39.99 then maybe it would make more sense but the site is at least $29.99 if he don't like it and would chargeback $39.99, believe me he will charge back $29.99 too!

The paysite owners should be more focusing on improving their sites, getting rid of deceptive practices, making it easier to cancel the subscriptions and tightening down on their other expenses instead of giving the webmasters who promotes them and helps make them rich 100% of the loss.

Also if you read the threads, the owners are hoping for MORE sales to offset the cut they are giving webmasters by having a lower price per signup and I don't see it happening to the point that it will "make up for it"

Here's an example:

Say I make 300 sales a month. At $35/signup that's $10,500. Times that by $10 (the cut in pay) equals $3,000!

Thats a $3,000 loss on only 300 sales/month. Leaving me at $7,500 Now say 10 more ppl sign up because the price is lower (not likely) times that by $25 (new payout) that gives me an extra $250 on top of the the $7,500 which equals a big $7,750.

I'm still paying the same amount of money for my advertising, hosting, content, etc but still losing an average of $2,750! That could pay for all my content, hosting, advertising etc for the month. That's the mortgage on a kick ass house and other toys each month. That is a big fucking cut in pay when you look at it this way.

I've just recently expanded to hire a full time designer to design galleries for me, AND i still design my own stuff all day long. I upgraded to another dedicated server and now just again the other day another dedicated server. I just started to pay for advertisting and now it's a smaller chance I'll make my money back on advertising if I was to pay for listings at certain places.

So what I am getting at is I've expanded to make more money NOT LESS! As I'm sure many other webmasters are doing. And even worse this all comes in the middle of the summer slowdown! Since all the big guys are always preaching "you have to spend money to make money" And it's true! But don't tell me to spend to make and they you cut my "make" lol

Will the paysites be losing enough money that they "notice" it like I and thousands of other webmasters will? Not a chance. So why dont they eat some of that $10 or all of it and get rid of their big fancy internext showoff parties, their free hosting and hosted galleries which I'm sure cost them TONS of money each month in bandwidth. Make cuts in other places that don't effect people's bottomline income instead of spending all that money showing who has the bigger wallet at the webmaster conventions!

These paysite owners also know that to get big in this game webmasters have to pump out sites and galleries and will not bother to go back and redesign a site and drop that sponsors codes so they aren't going to lose any old traffic sources.

Even if I chose to not promote any sponsors who let the webmaster take the full loss in this, I would still be promoting them through the thousands upon thousands of galleries, free sites, avs sites and full page ads that I have all over the net, in the search engines etc.

so in closing, I understand fully what you are trying to say but you are not looking at the WHOLE picture as I am. They should leave their webmaster payouts as is for now and cut other expenses that won't be noticed or cared about and see how things go.

Lower their prices by $10/month, go for it. I'm not arguing this point at all but I don't see them seeing a BIG difference in their chargeback numbers by doing it. Don't make us hardworking webmasters eat that $10 is all I am saying. There are soooo many other ways around it and if the paysite owners cared one bit about how this would affect us webmasters who they would be nothing without, they would find that way and leave our payouts alone

Like I said before they will now just have more agressive upsells in the members area so I don't see them losing ANYTHING in this. I see the only one losing in this are those that promote them.

This will most likely weed out the "piranha" from the decent honest paysite owners and those will be the ones I promote and recommend to everyone.

I can't believe the amount of sycophantic ass-kissing going on in this thread. It's like some sort of dick-sucking vortex.

SpaceAce

Two things spring to mind after reading this and the other threads that deal with these changes.

1. Who says that the big sponsors really need the independant site and gallery builders in the long term - or even the short term.

2. Marc De in the other thread said that this was just the start of bigger things that were to come. Doesn't anyone want to know what are the other things that are coming?

A number of sponsors are saying that webmaster fraud is one of the critical problems with the industry at the moment. It seems to me that a lot of sponsors are positioning themselves to deal directly with the guys who control the traffic - just look at all the sponsor hosted galleries that are available now. There are even free sites available for link list owners to use.

To me that looks a lot like the first step in a move towards cutting out the middle man - the site and gallery builder - entirely.

Perhaps its even possible that the big sponsors will be looking at buying some of the bigger link lists and TGPs just to ensure that they have full control over the production line.

Having control of the traffic sources would become critical if Visa's next move is to cut out recurring billing because if that were to happen the independents would find life so tough that many would leave and there would go the sponsors' current traffic sources.

Lol. This thread is great. You really get a feel for who is who.

It's just the start peoples. If one of the rumors I heard from my mate in the Aus visa office is true, the next announcement is gonna hurt real bad. Might clean out all the crap though.

Fuck an aussie company was mostly responsible for the first visa and Mc regs. Some of you will know what I'm talking about.

Not to steal any thunder from CE Cash but they lowered payouts long ago. In other words - with other sponsors coming and lowering payouts, now CE Cash will be on par with others.

Also - I keep hearing posts about $10 drop per sign up. Its not that drastic and for the LAST time, this is not about sponsors squeezing more profit from webmasters. I'll post what I posted on Oprano.

Do you realize that sponsors profits have dropped 50% over the last 18 months? However, sign up rates stayed the same. Do you realize that the monthly price point drop is from $39.99 to $29.99 (25% decrease) yet some people are only lowering payout 20% ? That is another 5% 'increase' since sponsors revenues may drop by 25% across a number of months with the decrease in monthly rates.

susanna - I don't have exacts on the ruling from Visa. I also realize that this is NOT 100% about a Visa ruling. This is also about changing things in this business that never should have started. Luckily ARS doesn't have free, multiple cross sells. However, multiple free cross sells is bad. Free trials do increase fraud and worse yet $39.99 per month is just too expensive. All of these factors STARTED in an attempt to stay profitable and be very agressive and competitive in the market. Those of you who say "I'll just sit around and wait to see who stays at $35-40 and send my traffic there" are the BIGGEST contributor to this problem. Its that mentality that has caused programs to continue pushing the limit over and over to keep paying these absurd commissions.

No thanks.... I have enough problems

Marc is dead on on this thing. In the good old days, over 50% of trials would convert to a rebill. That ratio has greadually and steadily dropped to below 30%! You guys on partner programs with trials know that.

$35+ payouts are not merited, even without the new Visa rule. Some of our sites generate more than that per signup, and several do not, meaning we lose money on joins on those sites. But would rather lose money that have a shave module written for our programs. Webmasters don't want programs to shave, and they don't want lower payouts. Why don't I just make everyone a signer on my bank account?

I'm with you beaver, I'm sure many here are and just afraid to speak up.

Lens - don't forget to hit me on ICQ today... 46972932

Can I be first? ;)

I also wanted to know exactly how webmasters fraud the programs? again I have no experience with this so I am not sure if you mean that they lie on advertising or they plunk in stolen credit cards. If its the later, I for one, would appreciate it if you stopped calling them webmasters and referred to them as scammers. Might seem like a technicality but I suspect that it leaves a bad taste in every webmaster's (from hardworking productive to newbie) mouth to be thought of as capable of ripping off paysites.

If I am off base on how they fraud you please enlighten?

susanna - of course most webmasters are hard working honest peeps looking to make a buck. However, as the case with everything, there are a few bad apples.

;o) thats not what I asked... I didnt mean to say you were saying webmasters are not hard working ya da ya da. ... I was curious exactly how they scam you? if you must email that info I would appreciate it. I know telling the world how to scam on a board might not be wise. Am I that sheltered that I am the only one that doesnt know how webmasters are frauding?

Absurb commissions? People just want to make money after all, like you said in another post. If one company is going to pay me more for the same traffic, damn right I am going to send it to them.

You're a multi-millionaire paying these rates, so I don't think they are absurd.

My

Daymare - I made my money from the past. Trust me, my margins fall on a monthly basis because of the state of this industry and its not just me! All sponsor programs feel it. Surfers are smarter, they know how the system works, retention rates have fallen to insanely low amounts and yet commissions stay where they are. That is where the term 'absurd commissions' comes from. However, this isn't about lowering payouts to make more money, this is about lowering payouts so sponsors can make corrective action that should have been done a long time ago. The biggest action is lowering monthly prices, the next is losing multiple cross sells on a page, and the next is losing free cross sells all together. Whether other companies make similar rules as Epoch or not, its the right thing to do. Its time to put greed aside for 2 seconds for the longevity of this business

Gonna be interesting when all the dust settles. Meanwhile, the spin doctors are going to be working overtime.


As always, 60%, excellent recurrings, no shaving, no massive exit consoles, you get paid for anything on the 1 exit we have:

No.

The biggest contributors to this problem are the people who own the programs who agreed to pay $35 to $40 per signup in the first place.

Blaming spoiled kids for being spoiled doesn't float.

FATPad - your opinoin, my opinion, they're all opinions...

Outside of that, it is what it is and it needs to change and that is FACT!

Freaky Beaver just doesnt get the whole thing. Maybe you should run a program since you understand this biz so well.

Do you realize that we pay webmasters $40 per signup on a 1.98 trial membership that 75% cancel. So lets do the numbers...

If you do 4 signups we make 1.98 x 4... about $4 dollars after we pay fees... Now we paid you $160 dollars. Only 1 of the 4 signups you sent goes past the trial and stays 1.5 months for about $50 bucks after fees... So we are in the hole 100 bucks right out the gate. And you wonder why we have so many exit consoles? And you wonder why we have to lower payouts like CE did a year + ago? Its all in the numbers that you fail to see. Not to mention if any of those 4 signups charges back we have to pay a fine.

Freaky.. you also spoke of cutting down ad costs.. Well belive me we have. We went from advertising on 30+ webmaster boards and such to 2. We also canceled one of our magazine and I can go on and on. The profit just isnt there like it once was

Marc De CECash margins are not falling. That's because CECash made these changes November 2001 and have stood by and watched Paysites and processors abuse consumers. So not 'all' sponsor programs are feeling this, the only sponsor programs feeling this are those who were abusing consumers in the first place.

The multiple cross sales have been the cornerstone of most of the abuse, and the Free Trials done without proper disclosure have added to this abuse.

If Free Trial had been handled properly, processors would not have to stop Free Trials, CECash does Free Trials and will continue to do so. AOL's entire marketing plan has been centered around Free Trials, they can do this because they handle it with the proper disclosure.

I find it funny that everyone is speaking of longevity now, after they have ripped off so many consumers. Kind of like closing the gate, after the heard has left!!

I hear ya there - the rest of this years gona be off the wall

Be careful what you ask, lol - whoops, I see KK has already jumped to the front of the line. Dangit!
Don't put her on first, Lens - I'll only take 1%

i find it funny that the program owners keep saying the crosssales have alot to do with us getting lower payouts... i remember when the crosssells came about... and if i remember correctly we didnt get higher payouts, but because the crosssales fucked everything up for you, we get lower payouts!! and your all also saying members dont retain like they used to? maybe thats because 18 months ago(a date i read above) you all had to show each other who the top dog is and you built numerous new sites, none of which have content associated with that niche. no wonder none of the members are retaining like they used to!!!

That's good to hear!

Ron, your (well not you since you sold out) margins may be about the same, but you lost huge marker share, thus overall $ from your paysites. I used to surf around alot, and CE banners are about as common as SIC CASH banners, and I know how tiny we are. Of course, your business model changed to generate your own traffic, mail, etc.

Also, Ron, here you go again trying to make yourself look like an industry leader, which you are not. Much smarter and young people have left you in their wake.

lol

I certainly can see how this model of payout HAS to go... retro like 6 months to a year ago when by the way the huge explosion of sites really started. Anyone ever keep track? If I was a surfer why would I recurr in a site I have seen for a week when there has to be more then 1500 (just the big guys) sites to go? I would keep on getting one month at all that interests me. That woudl actually be my new challenge (that those of us with avs sites have known for a while you must advertise new stuff all the time) to always find something new.

People are curious...they are not going to stay more then one month with so many sites out there. The big programs that have over 100 sites are actually shooting themselves in the foot... if they wanted to get their peers doing anything it should be shutting down all those sites.

Or stop the pay per sign up model.

Again this issue has already been dealt with in the for women market... paying the pps on the same surfer who wants to go into each of the sites in the program. They want to see all the sites they just discovered... and they probably didnt even recurr one month at any of them.

I always said that a 1.95 wank off was pretty sweet. Why would anyone bother recurring on purpose anywhere if you can pay 1.95 an orgasm? and free? fuck!!

I think its good that the programs are starting to make changes...i dont want to be seen as a naysayer but I do hope that its only the beginning of the thought process for alot of the programs.

Paysites would not be paying this if they weren't making money off the surfers in other ways. I bet most member areas have agressive upselling going on and if they worked to retain members then they wouldn't have to worry so much right? Retain the members instead of sending them off to another porn site so you make a quick signup price like webmasters do.

And I'm sure most of the webmasters you were paying were only making $35/signup not $40 as you stated.

This is the paysite operators business and they should be the one taking the risk of losing some income that they will never notice is gone in the first place. Not passing it on to the webmasters who promote there sites, unless it is ABSOLUTEY REQUIRED to stay afloat. (nobody has given a firm YES we HAVE to do this or we'll lose far more money than we are able to)

I'm sure in the last year with the cross sales and popups, your profit margins have SKYROCKETED. Now that you won't make that HUGE amount of extra income that you didn't have last year anyway, why should the webmasters take the 100% cut?

If I worked for a boss and he treated his clients like shit which caused him to lose some money, would I think a cut in my pay was fair? Hell no, that's his job to grow his company, keep his customers happy, not mine.

If your comments above were how it was, you'd of NEVER offered these payouts and would all be driving pintos and living in 1,000 square foot homes lmao

Marc De: if you are stating that lowering payouts should have happened a long time ago as it wasn't working out, do NOT use this new regulation as an excuse. These are the things I have problems with. Just say we cannot afford to pay webmasters the signup price we pay now because we are losing TOO MUCH money, instead of we HAVE TO lower to payouts because of the new 1% chargeback rule.

Lens: It's not the webmasters fault that certain sites retain and certain ones do not. Isn't that the paysite owners job to keep tweaking their sites to make more members stay? Webmasters bust their ass to send the sites their traffic, it's the paysite owners job after that. If I send a signup, do you best to keep that surfer on your site for as long as possible.

I don't surf join pages and members areas so I don't know which programs take that hard earned signup and then send them off to a different programs' site instead of trying to retain them for their own sites. But I have seen alot of ppl talk about doing just that here at GFY so maybe that logic is where the flaw it?

I don't think webmasters will ever be phased out as some of the big tgps refuse to use hosted galleries because it causes the traffic levels to plummet. Ppl want new fresh porn and hosted galleries don't quite measure up. Avs traffic is one of the best out there if not the best, do you think paysite owners will no longer need these either?

All of this from people who have multiple expensive cars, homes, vacation homes, blow money at webmaster conventions to show off and who knows what else they have big money for. Do you think losing $20,000-$100,000+/year like some webmasters are facing now would put a dent in your lifestyle? Most of the big paysite owners probably wouldn't even miss it if they made $500,000 less a year.

Maybe I'm just humble but if I had a house that cost around $300,000 or less and a few fancy cars, a pool, game room etc that would be enough for me to be content. Oh and a hottub of course.

I'm am just worried that if webmasters take this now without bitching, what happens next? $10/signup across the board?

And what about the programs that have a very low chargeback ratio? Now that the big guys announced their $10 price cut will everyone follow suit just because they can or will they look at their own situation and adjust consumer costs and webmaster payouts on the basis of what they feel is needed?

And if what the paysite owners are hoping for comes true. The more signups to offset the lower price per signup. Well then I'll be happy but I do not see it happening.

So what I am getting at is that some owners are just letting $$$ signs and greed get in the way of helping those that help them.

---Just got this email from gigacash and they pay $42 per signup now---

Dear GigaCash Webmasters,

As many of you may have heard already Visa just
issued a new chargeback policy which reduces tolerable
chargeback ratios to 1%.

Rest assured GigaCash has always had extremely low
chargebacks due to our proactive fraud watch policies.

You are in solid hands with GigaCash. Regardless of such
obstacles we will continue paying *TOP* industry payouts.

Payouts will remain the same as we complete our assessment
of these new policies next week and will keep you informed of
any and all changes via email and our website.

---At least they are going to test the waters instead of jumping ship before they know just how this will affect them ---

Bottomline is how much I average per click from a sponsor and those that convert worse than others I still promoted because at least they made me enough money to warrant my hard work. I see the possibility of ars, silvercash, topbucks etc to start losing MAJOR webmasters, therefore decreasing their sales and increasing their chargeback ratios.

I know I can choose who to promote, but i like to promote a big number of sites across a large amount of programs to ensure if one goes under I don't go with it. And because some sponsor sites do better than others.


But only time will tell I guess. I just think the big paysite owners are shooting themselves in the foot and taking from the webmaster an amount that may not be 100% warranted by this new rule.

Now for those like ars and silvercash, you state you needed popups to offset the cost of the high (absurd) webmaster payouts, now that you are lowering payouts are you going to either lower the amount of popups (that webmasters do not get credited for) you use or get rid of them. Very interesting question that I think I can honestly say will not get a YES answer.

We shall see.

FreakyBeaver.. Put simply "you're wrong"

We dont have aggressive upsells. As a matter of fact once you join our site we give you access to every site we have. Believe me we have taken many measures and aksed and answered many of the questions your posing ourselves. We have been looking at numbers sine the inception of this business and the one thing we never had was someone to show us the way. So we had to make it up as we went. And loweing payouts is something that must come.

Its really simple... You cant expect to get paid $40 dollars on a 1.97 trial membership that 75% of all people cancel. Its as simple as that. And we have every fricken video feed and picture out there to make our members areas as nice as possible.


And from an earlier post you made... Yes it is true.. we have numbers from Paycom that show when you charge 29 bucks a month rather then 39 bucks a month the chargebacks drop.


I dont want to go back and forth bashing with you as I know these are just your opinions but I'm trying to tell you that we have looked in depth at these numbers for years. I'm not just making them up as we go. Its not my opinion.. its the facts

freakybeaver - of course the pop ups won't change. The price point is going to drop from $39.99 to $29.99 a $10 drop or 25% and payouts will drop somewhere in line with that. Don't be fooled the only reason this is being done is to make more money. It is being done to offset the decrease in revenue from falling monthly rates.

Member values were dropping at $40 per month, obviously at $30 per month its THAT much more of an issue...

Don't think people continuing to pay $40 per aren't doing something to make that money - whether it be deceptive practices, insane monthly prices, poor disclosure, or other things I won't get into.

EXACTLY!!! And those that don't lower payouts were typically paying between 20-30 to begin with. And the few that do stay at $40 can now have all the webmater fraud that will migrate their way... have fun!

Thank you very little.

Mof, you dont even have a per signup program do you?

Originally posted by Lenny2
I'd like to personally tell all of the people whining about lower payouts and begging for lists of sponsors who aren't making any changes to FUCK OFF!!

Don't you realize that the only reason those sponsors were able to pay you $35-40 per join was by ass fucking the surfer with a dick big enough to kill an elephant?
Charging $40-50 subscription fees, multiple pre-checked cross sales, console hell on every tour, not to mention spamming the living shit out of their member's emails to try and make a buck or two.

Stuff like this is the reason VISA is breathing down our necks and sponsors who continue to operate in this fashion just so they can win the biggest payout dick measuring contest won't be in business for very long I assure you.

You can shear a sheep many times but you can only skin him once.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Used to have the pure PPS, but got tagged by the fraud.

Theoretically we do with Pay it Forward, but I guess it is a "hybrid" program.

A lot of this fraud webmaster traffic will be re-dispersed- that is what I was referring to.

I feel for you guys, but you are shrewd and will weather the storm.

As always test test test and then send traffic to the best converting for your traffic. For 7+ years I have been doing just that. These changes just mean more testing It also means the playing field is flattening, at least till the next trick of billing is brought into the light. Hey at least mastercard and visa have not just said we wont process for adult anymore. Though I do expect that at some point in the next few years. And if you think they cant or wont turn off adult, it will be a big surprise for you when they do. Instead of bashing people for lowering payouts, just test to see if at the new lower payout you are making more money with them than the next program. If you are stay with them, if your not move on to the next program. I can not tell you how many times over the years I have switched back to sponsors after they changed things around a bit. Nothing has changed its buisness as usual. We will be keeping our payouts the same, but then again we have a much different business model, than recurring billing.

Hey that's copyright infringement......LOL

It's funny to see many "clever now" webmasters. Just imagine situation when many sponsors say the same words as now but ..... one two month ago ;)

Lenny, I looked at the local copyright office and didnt see anything on it so I thought I would use it

Good points for sure!!!

We are not reducing our payouts. SEG as been same for years, never will change business model.

We have decided to start paying per sign up in January, $30.00 a sign up. Maybe we don;t attrack all the fast buck webmasters with loads of traffic but we have loyalty and consistency. Before that we where rev share only, now at 60% and we proved that rev share works... Most of our big affiliates would not even think a second to change.

Having Original shot in da house content makes members happy, especially when you always have updates for them. So why in the world would those surfer cancel or CB.

But why take a french frogs word for it. Check it out yourself!!!