Affiliates have it ALL WRONG!!!!
 

I'll preface this with the fact that Ive been on every side of this biz so I do get it :)

For years affiliates have played the same game....Test offers, test landers, test creatives. Ive been around over a decade and I can't believe I don't see more affiliates taking this approach (Including MYSELF, lol) Tube ad spots aside, because those that aren't on a self serve platform do sort of do it this way, but Im surprised I don't see it more all around....


A friend of mine is a site owner (really good quality site, smaller / MicroNiche almost) who was in touch with a Big Mailer trying to get him to run his site (mailer sends out a page similar to a tube "categories" page). My buddy wanted the Link/Photo on his page for his specific niche. Now mind you, this guy has big volume. Just a small niche on this page can do 10-15 sales a day. Anyway, as usual, My buddy is telling him about the great conversions, awesome landers blah, blah. And the guys response.....

"I currently make $xxx a day from that spot (I'm happy to show you my stats for the last 3 months) I DONT test new offers, but if you want the spot, your welcome to have it for $xxx + 10% for a minimum of 1 week. Im happy with what I make and I don't want to make less testing something that doesn't work. You want the traffic, you take the risk." To which my buddy replies....My site could make you 20-30% more than what you have now, you never know". And the guys reply....."We'll if thats the case, you'll be doing great only giving me 10% more" LOL.

I have a new project and the traffic is growing by a healthy % every day. Its Very good quality, very consistant (Dating btw). I spend so much time taking 30% of the days traffic testing new stuff, but I have one program thats just head and shoulders above the rest (for my traffic anyway).So...Better to just send 100% to whats doing well ($0.54 EPC vs. about 0.25 with the next closest offer) and take this guys approach? I mean, you can do it with ANY traffic, doesn't need to be an in page ad or fixed. Any traffic source that is consistent enough to show stats over a month or 2.....

you want THIS chunk of traffic....$xxx + 10%
you want THAT stream of traffic....$xxx + 20%
whatever

Anyone else do this? Any Dating programs ever run into this? I mean, its not unreasonable to ask a program to take the risk...right?

I smell a desperate traffic pimp freaking out cause porn.com is about to get anal. :1orglaugh

Huh? Im lost. We mail. Nothing to do with Porn.com

I'd love the traffic, atm my site's converting at about 1:300 but I need the affiliates to send traffic & see :2 cents:

Interesting approach and makes a lot of sense actually.

We tend to have our bread and butter offers that the others don't tend to come close to yet we keep trying anyway lol.

A lot of adult affiliates / companies are lazy and or scared. :2 cents:

Also keep in mind, that his 'known' buyer has likely been paying out for that spot for several months or years in a row and never was late or messed around with a payment. Payment certainty is more crucial than ever... which means many new buyers are asked to pay up front if they want certain spots (even if the existing buyer was paying out on a monthly affiliate payout basis).

with an affiliate account you do not risk grands on content and promo! stay in skool kids!

I get a few emails monthly from affiliate managers, often new to their position, emailing me and telling me what they can offer. How they are certain their offer converts better and blah blah blah.

They have absolutely NO IDEA if they would convert better, they are just taking a chance and asking me to "please try and you'll see". I normally weed them out by saying "ok, I'll try you if you pay me $200-$300 upfront just for the hassle of changing things". Some, who know their product will indeed gladly pay while others, the cheapskates, the talkers, the ones who do not know, will fold and say "no, we cannot do that".

Then, they have also answered the question if I can try them - no I cannot do that.

Pretty much nailed it. :thumbsup

I could never have afforded to test then test again and then test again. A day shooting content could cost from $500 to $1,500.

Only those with low expenses or none can afford to keep testing.

Here's a novel idea. Learn what customers want, how to sell, market, publish before you start testing anything.

you have to test the water for that. :winkwink:

Well, I can see both sides.

While when it comes to testing offers / monetizing one's sites I'm absolutely convinced that most are leaving money on the table. There is also the credibility / time factor where you simply want to make a solid income and save the hassle.

The thing is, for anybody running a bigger network it's almost impossible to give enough time and effort to the actual optimization / monetization of their traffic.

It's time and resources spent on volume maintenance / growing vs. time and resources spent on traffic monetizing.

So let's say if you want to keep or increase the traffic volume you will have very limited time to play around and analyze different offers, combinations, spots performance apart from the basic things like checking what sponsors convert, which aren't, which don't pay etc.

In order to do this properly you would need to treat every offer as a sort of a media buy, in order to squeeze out the best results.

At the end one's network may run at let's say 50 - 70 pct. of its potential, and that if it's run and taken care of the smart way.

On the other hand, there's always plenty of companies with little history that try to get their hands on your traffic with unrealistic expectations and promises. So I can understand that conservative approach as well.

I've been facing the same, there is a solution that has been worked on and optimized for 5 years already, and it's not some no name coming up with this, but somebody who is in the business since 1998 with a proven track record.

We're talking ad management where each spot earns based on its performance (smart bidding, think Ad Sense), strictly CPC, there's the most robust anti click fraud solution and we actually WORK with advertisers so they get returns.

So if you have clean traffic that can actually deliver buyers - you're likely in for good returns.

Now also looking for proven webmasters / sites that could be a good fit for this invite only solution, and yeah there are these sort of responses.

While I understand the conservative approach and there's always the option to prepay, why not just offer a couple spots on a site or two, to see and review the numbers, to optimize the ads, to see see which ad placement works the best, what can be done to improve the eCPM and see what numbers we get?

Then we BOTH earn more in long term!

Your wrong.

If you had a decent site (which you do not) it would convert with ease.

But your site sucks.

We will buy traffic that converts at the rate of 3 paid in conversions per $100 of ad spend by us -- that is $90 to $135 of first buy revenue per $100 traffic acquisition. Not that much different that affiliate rev-share really. That is $0.33 - $0.425 "EPC" v. the affiliate payout so better traffic would have a slight edge -- short term and at a guaranteed price. Long term players would just use rev-share.

Really doesn't matter what the conversion ratios are -- if there is a 1:1000 conversion rate -- that traffic is worth $33.33 in ad spend.
1:10,000 $3.33
>10,001 not considered for an ad buy.


Traffic has to be web based so its value can be estimated and if it doesn't cover its nut the first month deal's off and if continued the price renegotiated. Payment could be 50% in advance and the balance NET 30 -- I want a reserve so I cannot lose too bad.

:thumbsup

Yes Paul, BM's right. If you want to market & publish any niche or product, especially a creative idea, until you begin selling it, you don't know if it's going to work for you. There a 1000's of webmasters missing out on opportunities & money because they don't try something & spend their time on other products that may not be working for them :2 cents:

you chat so much shit, it dribbles from your mouth while you're sleeping :thumbsup


OK, so my "model centro" site sucks? Is that design or content? Because you say site, which leads me think you mean design. This cannot be true, as it's a MC site :thumbsup

Have you ever tried to sell my content or my website? If it's no, don't speak to me about whether my site sells or not as you're just being a hindering mother fucker chatting about something you do not know or cannot prove. Therefore I would say the above post is all another lie.

Now :321GFY

I am not "the guy" quoted above but I easily could be. I've given the exact same sort of response to dozens of random blowhards who want me to "test" my traffic against their dubious offers.

I'm no traffic baron but I got the traffic I have by working hard for it over a really long time. I monetize it the best I can. The chance that some rando dude's rando offer is going to work better than whatever I'm currently doing? Pretty slim. I've been down that road dozens, hundreds, thousands of times.

So, yeah, you want to taste the meal, you might as well buy it.

Of course I take a different view if I'm approached by somebody I know, or somebody from a brand I respect. But oddly enough, the people I know and respect usually approach with cash in hand, they aren't trying to get something-for-nothing like the random cold-approach guys.

You two manage to turn an otherwise relevant business conversation into a 5th graders' mud flinging contest. Put down the keyboard for a moment, walk to the bathroom and look in the mirror. Now walk to wherever you keep your ID, pull it out and look at your DOB. Does your age match the way you would expect yourself to behave? Does it reflect the way you want to be perceived by potential business partners on this forum? Make no mistake, just because many do not post anymore, many still observe.

One of you has to be the bigger man here and say enough, put the other lunatic on ignore and move on.