Lensman

It's no secret that payouts are decreasing across the board, from hard scrubbing (less signups), netting refunds, not paying on trials, and shaving signups. Cybererotica sent the email below out today. They are lowering the payout per active (non-trial) member to $40. Expect others to follow suit. It's a class act that does it up front instead of shaving the shit out of signups like some other well known programs.

Here's part of the message from Fantasyman:

HUMBLING OF CYBEREROTICA
This is the toughest move I have ever had to make. For the last 5 years CE has always prided themselves on leading the way in higher payouts and leading edge technology.

As stated above, we are not making hasty decisions. All decisions that we are making come from in depth analysis of all of our programs. Also, included in these decisions are factors of increasing costs for credit card processing, credits, chargebacks, chargeback fines and many other factors such as Webmaster fraud.

So effective April 1st, 2001 all of our Free program's payouts are being reduced to $40 per active member. We are not doing this because we want to, we are doing this because we have to. I have always said, you can never take back something that you have already given. Well, at this point we have no choice. For the past 5 years we have prided ourselves by making on time payments to Webmasters. We have paid out well over $200 Million dollars, this is an extreme amount of money. We want to be here for the next 5 years making those same on time payments. To do this and stay solvent we need to cut our payouts back to $40 per active member.

Tanker

things that make you go hmmm

Warphead

I dunno man, since they don't pay on signups that don't go active anyway (about 65% in my experience)- it looks to me like a way to increase their profit margins.

boneprone

I really hate to say it, but for some reason their program does get a lot of charge backs.. More than any other Ive used.. I can get good signups with em no problem, but its disturbing, how many people cancel their program before the trial period is over..

I notice them and Vivid both to have retention problems past the 3 day trial.

Hard to say if it is them, or the changing dynamic of the overall environment of our industry.. However, I do run some recurring programs, and some have been on for months and months and months as members. So it may be a combination of both the internal environment of these programs, and the external environment of our evolving market.

This is still disturbing nonetheless.

[This message has been edited by boneprone (edited 03-29-2001).]

Warphead

Exactly. When CEN first did Traffic Cash Gold and were paying $50 - but not paying on people that cancelled before the trial was over - I sold a shitload of memberships with ZERO cancels.

When I sell a free trial at one of CEN's program I just assume it's going to cancel. Looking at my CE stats just makes me sad.

boneprone

people tand to cancel if they get something for free. When they pay like 2.95 for a trial, they tend to stay longer for some reason. Almost like when a person sees free, they want to test it and see if it really is free.

Warphead

It could be that BP. Could also be I'm sending the types of guys that will signup for free and cancel quick because of the "free" banners.

I'm sure a guy that's willing to pay $2.95 is about 100 times more likely to really buy.

What would be interesting would be if someone from CE would pop in here and give us some comparison stats for paid/free trials.

Platinum Dave

Heck if Cybererotica is paying $40 for an active member I would back thr truck up and take as many of those as I can thank you.

platinum Bucks is still paying $30-35 for a TRIAL membership. The trial quits you still get paid $30-35 for that trial.

Looks like large payrolls at these large companies is making it tough to pay these high rates.

Platinum Bucks is small compact company low over head we can afford to pay the rates also oour sites convert very good compared to industry standards.

------------------
<A HREF="http://www.platinumbucks.com
http://www.cash4blind.com" TARGET=_blank>http://www.platinumbucks.com
http://www.cash4blind.com</A>

rhizome

Does Platinumbucks offer free trials? hmmm. . .

Platinum Dave

Platinum Bucks does not offer free trials

$4.95 5 day trial

you get $30-35 for this trial

nicest stats on the net http://www.platinumbucks.com/affilia...ter/index.html

Soon will have 17 sites in total

------------------
&lt;a href="http://www.platinumbucks.com"&gt;http://www.platinumbucks.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;BR&gt;
&lt;a href="http://ww.cash4blind.com"&gt;http://ww.cash4blind.com&lt;/a&gt;