WarChild

I've seen you post more than once about how giving away several minutes of content just don't sell, and it won't make any money. I was wondering what that's based on?

Do you do a lot of affiliate sales to use as a dataset? Do you own or have access to a large program? Are you just talking out yoru ass, repeating what you've been told?

The reason I ask is because I have one source of traffic that I give 1 to 1.5 minutes of movie content to the surfer. No surprise, it's galleries. It's been a stable income source for 5+ years.

I have another newer source of traffic I give away 10 minute movies to the surfer with. It outsells my galleries by a ratio of 2:1 on the same number of hits. That's right, for me, longer clips are selling twice as good.

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RawAlex

Warchild: Question for you: do you give a 1.5 minute move that plays right through, or do you do what most galleries do and have 3 to 6 clips of 20 seconds each?

The question is important, because (surprise) most surfers whack off with the same hands they use to click their mouse. Most of them can't whack and click at the same time, and 20 seconds isn't long enough for most of them to work themselves up.

However, if they don't have to click, they can just keep working on getting to "the finish".

The basic sales idea (taught to me by people like Mikefold, Ron from CE, and others who started at the start of all this) is to get the surfers dick UP, but don't give the surfer what he needs to finish. Sell him what he needs to finish what he is doing.

I have a hard time believing that 10 minutes movies are leading to more sales, unless that 10 minutes is incredibly dull tease or setup material without much action. Care to post an example?

fuzebox

I also make way more posting a continuous 1-2 minute clip than I do 15-20 second clips such as in a gallery.

WarChild

The clips are 20 second gallery clips, broken in to 4 pieces.

The longer, up to 10 or 12 minute clips are one continous piece. They contain anywhere from say 5-7 minutes of hardcore, the rest being setup.

I was a little surprised myself to see the longer clips so badly outselling the smaller ones.

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RawAlex

Again, don't be shy, go ahead and post a sample. I am all for trying anything that actually works.

I guess the other question would be this: a 10 minute click uses up 10 times more bandwidth than a 1 minute clip. Is your sales increase enough to justify the increased bandwidth bills?

WarChild

This is what I was taught, what I have believed and the business model I have persued over the years; The impulse buy.

I'm starting to think, however, that as the times change, so does the target. Let me explain.

It used to be that you have to be pretty computer savvy to get the free porn goods. You had to know how to use newsgroups (before all the leachers and programs that simplified it), there as no KAZA or Limewire, torrents didn't exist and hosting was so damned expensive that nobody could give away big chunks of movies, not for free. In this scenario I bet most surfers did sign up, dick in hand.

Today, things are not so. Any surfer of even average intelligence can't help but stumpe on sources of free porn, it's just everywhere. The isntant gratification can be beat out quickly. Shit, even Nasty Dollars gives up 4 minute movie galleries they host. Today I think the surfer that signs up does it because he wants the specific content you've hooked him with. He knows he likes it, he's watched some of it and the quality is good. Instead of scouring p2ps which are populated mostly by spam shit (thanks p2pads), or trying to find the specific torrent, he just signs up. He knows he's going to like it, he's already had a good sampling.

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WarChild

I don't really want to post any samples because I want to keep that traffic source on the down low.

When you reach a certain level, as an affiliate, you don't have to pay for much hosting anymore. People fall over themselves to give it to you. So bandwidth costs are equal, as far as I'm concerned.

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RawAlex

Okay, warchild, just for fun, if you are inclined, you can always email mail rawalex |at| hotmail or icq me... I am really curious. So far, I haven't seen anything with longer clips that was able to make up for other losses. The tube sites have pretty much shown that without very aggressive levels of non-porn advertising, they aren't able to make it work out very well.

tony286

This is how we got into the mess, instead of creating super hot creative content its give more and more of it away to hopefully make the sale. Then when the government is way up our asses for giving porn to kids we wonder why.

tony286

sorry it double posted

psili

I actually read this thread as a differentiation of ideas on how to market. One dude's marketing efforts are different from another. Personally, I like WarChild's approach in trying new methods.

I don't know shit so I'll babble:

WarChild tries new strategies / methods to get a surfer to swipe and asks RawAlex for his views.

RawAlex learned his methods on getting a card swipe from those who "started at the start of all this".

From what I gather, you have someone trying something new and asking an opinion compared to someone who does it the same way, as they've learned from the past.

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tony286

giving more shit away is not innovative.

psili

You're right. It's not a new idea. However, it's worked before.
For instance, somehow I'm stuck with a few razor handles that need pricey-ass refills; spent a few bucks for a razor and some blades and to keep using it I get to spend 3x for refills. Fucking genius. What's wrong with trying to do the same with online content?

And no, I'm not talking about complete site rips / torrents / blah blah, of which this thread has nothing to do with.

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WarChild

Maybe not, but it works.

Take Nasty Dollars as an excellent example. They started with hosted galleries, then they gave webmasters full access to members content, then they started making hosted 4 minute 20mb movie galleries.

You're going to tell me Nasty Dollars doesn't know a thing or two about running a pornsite?

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tony286

They are a big company, what their roi is I dont know.Neither do you.

tony286

Because porn is different someone is horny they are able to get off for free,they are just going to look for more free longer shit. Its a slippery slope.

WarChild

Granted, but we can look at someone who is clearly one of the industry leaders and deduce that if they continue to give away more and more content, it must at least be profitable.

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psili

I have to disagree with "someone is horny they are able to get off for free". For one, the type of person who can "get off" on anything will never join a website. They'll Google something and jerk to it regardless if it's 2 seconds or 3 hours. Two, most people need a certain type of content to get off with satisfaction; I could jerk it to the lingerie section of Sears catalog when i was 13, but now it's different. Along with that, if you were an actual consumer would you spend $30 on a porn site you know you can get dedicated content you can jerk to when necessary or try and try again on torrents for a random chance at downloading something you want?

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tony286

I cant assume that, they're roi could be shit or great until thats known its guessing to me if they do well or not and what longer clips also do is feed the fire that pornographers give free porn to kids. Then when they clamp down hard on this, people will have the balls to say why are they picking on us?

tony286

Lets see the net started with very little porn out there , very big bucks to be made and now giving more and more porn away and people are crying sales a down from what they used to be.

WarChild

Okay, but what's gone is gone. The boat's already sailed on free content I'm afraid. People want more, it's human nature.

Now there's more competition, many more choices, it's time to adapt.

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tony286

Giving more shit away is not adapting,its lack of innovative thinking.So people want more and you keep giving them more and more until your out of business is that the plan?

WarChild

People want more content, you don't have to necessarily give them more hardcore porn. I'm not talking about site rips and torrents here, you can't be giving away everything naturally.

I'm just saying it's time to let go over the 20 second clips, because baby, they're pretty much gone.

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RawAlex

Warchild, one of my concerns in the longer run is that the whole free content thing is a dead end. Before we gave away none. Then we gave away 5%. Then we gave away 10%... now if you are giving away 10 minutes you are likely giving away 25% or more of an average scene.

At some point (and I think that point may be behind where you are a bit) you give away so much that most people are satisfied enough with what they get for free.

There is always a big move for free, that isn't a surprise. Sites that give away free content (from fusker to megarotica to youtube) are immensely popular trafficwise because there is no barrier to entry. I am sure that a restaurant that gave away everything for free (but tried to make up the money by covering every inch of their store with ads, and had people roving around trying to sell you stuff) would be immensely popular. As long as you can filter out the advertising and pay attention only to the content, a surfer is good to go.

Here is another example: Ever see a restaurant giving away meals? Rarely. Some of them give away a desert or a beverage (as simple as idea as a Mc combo meal) but nobody gives the food away entirely for free, because they know the simple concept: A person with a full stomach doesn't buy a steak dinner. They might buy a coffee, but they certainly aren't buying dinner.

In reality, the tube and torrent sites mostly work on the same principal: They give away the movies and stuff for free, but hope you click on a dating ad, or a "get rich quick" "get thin" "get a bigger cock" style ads to make up the money they lost giving away the content. "file hosts" are pretty much the same deal, giving away bandwidth in return for a ton of advertising and the "upsell to faster downloads". They don't care about the porn, they aren't selling it, because they know if they were, they would die off because they just gave too much of it away.

A man with a full stomach doesn't buy dinner. There is no reason for a guy with a limp dick and used kleenex to buy porn. It is why I am interested to see what you have going on, because I suspect there is "something" that isn't making this quite as straight as you are suggesting.

RawAlex

Oh, I have to ask - when you talk about conversions being better, are you using:

hits to sponsor / sales

or

hits to gallery / sales

Curious.

sweetcuties

Hey, I've got a great fucking idea:

WHY DON'T I GIVE FREE ACESS TO ALL SURFERS AND NOT MAKE A DIME

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tony286

Hey, if thats what the people want.

psili

Dude, I love your posts, as you're one of the few to throw down quality insight. Hover, what you mention below goes back to the same issue: Are you looking for the one-timer or the repeat customer?

In my opinion, the "one-timer" has been bashed around and has been made useless by the current trends of adult industry. The real consumer is one looking for what they want, somehow finding it and sticking with it until they want something else. It's that simple.

Granted, giving away a shit load of free content is insane. However, changing marketing tactics due to current trends is not.

The days of old are gone. There's plenty of people out there willing to spend cash on something they want to jerk to. And there's many more just wanting to jerk off.

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the Shemp

there was no masturbation before TGPs ...

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baddog

FWIW: Some of you may recall that back when I worked with Mogul we had an all movie AVS, and several MGP's. We initially started out with 10 second clips, then worked our way up to 1 and 2 minute clips.

The longer ones ALWAYS sold better.

Peaches

And giving away free porn happened LONG before people started charging for it. You could get on a BBS for years and get free porn. Paysites didn't start until after a lightbulb came on and someone said "Hey, let's make money with this!" ;)

the Shemp

ya, and what about the JC Penny catalog ?

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Peaches

National Geographic showed boobies and peckers!!

RawAlex

The idea being that if you stopped giving it away and started charging for it, at least SOME of the people would pay for it.

Are we regressing?

Peaches

IMO? Yes. Remember the big whoop de doo a few years ago where NO ONE was going to put hardcore on a site unless it was behind a "You must be 18" disclaimer? That lasted about 6 months.

I've always said this industry is its own worst enemy. Whatever you aren't willing to do, the next guy will.

RawAlex

I guess my problem is that I can't see a repeat customer being a repeat customer if every time he comes to a free site, he gets more than enough fresh content to satisfy his desire. We all want repeat customers, but they are a small part of the larger porn market, IMHO.

Let me give you a great example, real world: Bell Expressvu Sat-tv service in Canada has adult channels. Typical PPV movie (such as College Invasion, or Seymore Butts) is $9.99 a shot. They also offer 30 minutes "shots" of themed content for $3.99. The reality is that most guys left alone don't need a whole porn movie to get satisfaction, Expressvu spotted and addressed a marketplace. So the reality is that it takes 30 minutes or less for most guys to get the satisfaction they are look for from porn.

Giving away 10 minutes of porn, and perhaps making it possible for the punter to get to 3 of those clips would be more than enough for more of the guys to do what they are going to do.

This is for "general porn". Now, when you start to talk about solo girls or say public flashing or celeb content, the guys may not have their dicks in their hands directly, as they aren't just looking for sex but a connection, a thrill, or something similar.

The reality is that porn isn't a single product sold in a single way. Some ways work better than others. Old ideas die, new ideas come up. This is why I am so interested to see these 10 minute clip pages, I am really curious as to what is being done that overcomes the basic principals of selling porn.

Tempest

I tend to agree with Warchild and like him, I'm on the front lines of selling directly to the surfer and have seen how things have changed over time. The old adages of selling porn do not work as well as they used to because the percentage of "newbie" porn surfers is far lower today than it was years ago.

I've told RawAlex this before and I'll say it again... Surfers will download the little 15-20 second clips and loop them in their video player in order to get off.. and/or they'll join them together into one long clip. These are the longer term porn surfers.. the hardcore ones.. also the ones that DO purchase IF you motivate them properly. And this is the really important thing to understand in this current climate... they "collect" their porn.. They don't always jerk off while surfing, instead they surf to collect and THEN they jerk off. They'll surf the porn sites every day in order to collect videos etc. but they might only jerk off a day or 2 later.. They have certain girls they adore and they collect every picture they can of them. Last BIG mainstream company I worked for, before the porn filtering policies came into place, there was a very high level guy who got caught surfing and downloading porn at work. He wasn't jerking off at work.. he was "collecting" it.. he had hard drives worth collected. I believe that these are the types of surfers that are now the majority and you need to market to them differntly.

I've been using some longer clips 1-3 minute continuous on blogs etc. and they're working very well.. They're flash.. so it's a bit more work for them to download them.. Also, I cut up the video intelligently with an eye to teasing and making the surfer want to get the entire video.. no pop shots etc. I have an eye for what a porn surfer "looks for" in certain niches and so I make sure I appeal to that and I try and make the surfer feel like they NEED to get the entire clip. Whether it's for their collection and/or to jerk off.

RawAlex

Tempest, again... if there is enough free porn out there, your collectors won't be watching your 1 minute clip, they will be off downloading stuff off of the tube and torrent sites and completely ignoring your sales pitch.

They will only spend money if you have something they cannot get elsewhere for free easily. If the torrent and tube sites are continuously raiding your content, then they will be the source for all your content for free.

You also make an assumption that end users are computer savvy. Most of them are not. They don't know how to make a video loop. They don't know how to join videos (or make a playlist in WMP) and many of them don't even know how to right click and save as. Anyone who is a serious enough porn collector to know how to do all of these things has long since learned NOT TO PAY FOR PORN.

At some point, you make the very product your are trying to sell valueless. When that happens, there won't be anything to sell. Then what?

baddog

JC Penney had cute white girls though.

Juicy D. Links

i am good looking

Tempest

I don't disagree about the problem of full videos being available out there. That's a serious issue and needs to be dealt with. We don't disagree with that.

But as for the rest of your assumptions, especially about "most" porn surfers not being savvy, you're absolutely wrong.. Most of what you've said was true at one point, but it's not as much today and becoming even less as each day passes. For "casual" porn surfers, it's still somewhat true but even that percentage has decreased and those are becoming less and less as well. How many guys are entered college this year and have a laptop compared to 5 years ago? Even the "newbies" which used to be the bread and butter of "throw anything at them and they'll buy" marketing techniques are more savvy than they used to be. This is where the "adapt" or die comes in.

Again.. You're statement that "serious" porn surfers don't buy is blatently false. If it was true, then bookmarkers on my sites wouldn't be buying membership to the porn sites I promote and I know they do. How do I know? Two reasons.. The first being that sites that have a good bookmark base earn more money for me than those that don't... In addition, whenever I start to promote a new site, I get a ton of sales. Those are from experienced surfers who know what's available and can recognise a new site and so want to get in and grab some "fresh" stuff they've never seen before. I've experienced this time and time again and so know it's very true. In addition, if "serious" porn surfers weren't willing to whip out their credit cards, I suspect that mailings to expired members wouldn't be as profitable as it was.. or that promoting other sites inside a pay site area wouldn't have the great ratios they tend to eperience. In order to "adapt" to this change, WMs need to stop with throwing shit at the wall to get a handfull of sales, and start to adjust their marketing strategies and products in order to make more sales from these types of surfers.

Oh.. and about the 10 minute NastyDollars clips.. I only looked at them once a couple months ago because I was wondering what the fuck they were doing as well. Of the ones I looked at, it appeared that they were giving away the first 10 minutes of the movie.. i.e. all the talking, set up, getting undressedm some cock sucking, ass rubbing, and then some fucking.. Basically, 10 minutes of getting the guy really into the movie and then not giving him enough to finish the job really. I'm still not sure it's a good idea, but it's inline what what I've been saying about using the content more intelligently in order to hook the more experienced surfers.

Linkster

The other point that comes into play here is that while there are the collectors and the quick draw artists (the ones that will join 4 clips) - there is a third type that was kinda touched on but is one that once you have them into a paysite will stay forever. Of course there are very defined types of paysites for them (I know of some where Ive had rebillers since 2000) - that are the specialized niche surfers. Although most of them are going to find the sites through communities or referrals - they can definitely be played with on the longer, quality type content - however Ive rarely seen those paysites with their own hosted galleries - they count on affiliates that get inside content and build a variety of types of sites.
This can apply to a few different niches and one that seems to be popular around the boards but is rarely marketed this way are the solo girl tease sites (even the NN ones) where the point is the guy fantasizes an actual relationship - with these types of sites I could see a longer type clip (and some of the amateurs used to do this ages back) where they would just sit and talk in the clip - very rarely were clothes even removed - and I know Alex remembers these types.

Something I remember a very good friend telling me back when I ran a BBS and gave away free stuff in the days before the internet - get the name out there first - give 10% away free - then charge for the other 90%. Of course it worked well back then, for some reason it still seems to work even today

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RawAlex

Tempest, I don't disagree with most of what you post, but you are mixing some things up:

Mailing expired or ex-members is different from contact the public at large. Going back to someone who is in the 1% willing to pay for porn and offering them something new is like shooting fish in a barrel. They aren't "serious" porn surfers - they are the committed few. It would be like using professional golfers and asking why so few people play sub-par rounds.

As for bookmarkers to your site, consider if they are bookmarking you, then they are likely NOT using tubes,torrents, or other fileshare methods to get their porn. They are comfortable with what they get from your site, and value your judgement.

New and fresh is always good. Nobody will ever disagree with that. Surfers can spot new, they have seen all the old stuff already. If you have surfers as above that "trust" you, then you will see more sales. That is normal.

Linkster, you are correct - the customers fall in different categories and have different needs. I sort of feel that much of the relationship style surfers have been lured (and burned) by the dating sites, and some of them have run up some pretty mighty bills on the cam sites. These are the type of people I suspect would join an amateur site long term, showing up for every camshow, checking in on update day to see the latest pics and videos, etc. Long termers that really make that market go. In many ways, they are long past the concept of "porn".

Anyway, back to the start of all of this: I would love to see a 10 minute clip gallery or page with some sort of explaination of what is going on. I am especially interested not in the ratios at the sponsor level but rather the number of plays required to get a sale. 100 plays? 1000 plays? 10,000 plays? It is an interesting question. I can certainly see that if the video entirely avoids the sex part and sticks with the "setup" that it might work.

BradM

I post 1.5-2 min videos and the performance CPC and overall is much better. +25% since I started doing that over clips.

WTF is the point in 4 split 10-15 second vids when you can do 1 ONE minute vid?

KimJIisEbusDK

My friend Kristopher that is currently up in Norway doing offroad fun stuff says we should not give away any samples... Samples are da evils...!

RawAlex

Brad, is that CPC for clicks that made it to the sponsor, or is that overall considering the people coming to your page?

Longer clips may help in some ways to filter the masses, with only more serious buyers going on to the tour, but at what cost is that filter applied?

AGS-17

i am good looking

KimJIisEbusDK

Looking good yes!

WarChild

Longer clips are making me more money, and by huge margins. For me that's the bottom line.

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RawAlex

warchild, good for you. Enjoy the money.