Now ARS is going to start paying per 'active member' can someone explain what...
 

'Active member' means?

As i understand it this is somewhat more complicated than a simple recurring business model isnt it?

Active member is a surfer that signups for a trial, and then rebills to a full membership.

If he doesn't stay past the trial, you won't be paid anything for his signup.

(though if he doesn't rebill to a full monthly, they may elect to pay you for a percentage of his trial... a dollar, for example)

So basically i send a surfer to a site they buy a $5 trial and i get nothing for that surfer unless they convert to a rebill?

IMO one from us cannot read :2 cents:

That would be a correct assumption :)

If you have really good traffic, it's well worth it. But then you might as well send the surfer straight to a recurring program with no trial.

You have to remember that the worth of a surfer signup, even a free one, as long as he's provided a cc# or a checking account #, is quite high. So, if you don't get paid on the trial, you loose out, unless he stays on to full membership.

At any rate, it seems to me, this kind of payout scheme was hyped up a lot a few years ago, just to fade slowly into the back of the programs offering it. I doubt it's very interesting for the ordinary affiliate. Might have its merits with others, though :)

Exactly.

wtf?!

thats a bunch of bullshit. my job is to get the surfer there and get them to sign up. your job is to see that they retain. thats why you are payin me 25 bucks, not to search and find people that you can rebill for a year.

where did u get this info? if this is true im damn sure pulling all my ars traffic.

So are they switching everything over to the active member program or is this just another program option?

check their board to see what we're talking about

looks like it may be another option (sorry couldnt edit the thread title after i posted it)

Impending doom

could you point me in that direction? im lookin on that board and not seein shit.

if its an option, thats cool

Any company doing that will lose one hell of a lot of webmasters if they do that and still have the shaver module on.

One of the primary reasons for shaving is to recover the paid on trial but not full billed payouts.

per active SUCKS

ARS will cease to pay for trials, it's not an option

we pay on trials $1 trials gets you $25 !

$30 on volume

see sig

fuck ars :)

woot woot

ok how dumb arse stupid and totally greedy are you.

Did you actually think that ARS works for you? You shouldnt have. ARS works for Mark De. Why the fuck should he pay you if your traffic does not convert to a full membership? He will just go bankrupt and then you will get fuck all.

Any intelligent webmaster accepts the shave and lives with it. If the company remains profiable the webmaster remains making money.

Yeah right, then I can assure you no one will be promoting them very much longer...

can someone show me where this info is comming from?

They've had the per-active option for months now.

They dropped free trials about a month back.

If it's only an option, why would anyone choose this option?

It pays $50. (I think, I don't use it.)

Last I heard, Marc De is saying big changes are coming, but he said it won't be a switch to pure recurring or active, so I'm not sure what the original poster is worried about.

Of course, big changes coming usually means reduced payouts in some form. But that's inevitable, we are training surfers to sign and cancel, what did we expect?

I wonder how many more times payouts will be reduced

Read their board, Marc De said himself

Paying webmasters $35 for trials is DEAD (or at least dead for ARS)

MarkDe is a smart guy, and with CECash and Maxcash in a downward spiral ARS fast becoming the most dominant sponsor. I doubt Mark would do something to damage ARS if it wasn't needed.

I honestly think you will see a lot more of these Pay Per Active's in the future, especially with new Visa regs coming in and cross sells starting to become harder to carry off.

I think its a stupid biz model. Id rather make 20-25 bucks per signup, than hope a member stays a month with the shitty member areas these big sites have and get 50.

I'm just happy that Marc De has finally admitted that content actually matters and that cookie cutter shit they've been slogging for years is now dead.

I would never ever in a billion years send traffic to an ARS/GIM site if I knew I would only get paid per active member. At least not with their current content in their members areas.

I think i get it now. If he becomes a member you get fifty and if not you get notta.:1orglaugh

True enough.

He did say the current model was dead. I haven't heard a definition of the new model, but I can't say I'm following it that closely.

This was inevitable. Not that it doesn't suck. All businesses flatten out eventually.

From Marc De

Brandon (9:32 PM) :
hey, there is a bunch of rumors going on about ars changing its pay structure, seems no one has real info about whats going on. http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...hreadid=225729 is everyone gabbing away, I didnt get any information via email about this and was wondering if you can clear it up for us?
Marc De (9:32 PM) :
LOL

its false

Pleasant. Then let's see these "big guys" start worrying more about retention and content instead of cross-sales, exits, and mailers.

I have absolutely no problem with cross-sales, upsells, exits, and mailers... in fact, I think they should be included, it's a great extra revenue stream. My problem is when the sponsor is picking up cross-sales, exits, and email addresses from every trial I send while I make jack shit because the members section sucks and doesn't retain.

I wonder how many % rebills with their shitty member areas...could not be many.

roflmao

ARS is is no way switching to a per active model. I have been on our message board giving a bit of my 'State of the Industry'.

Changes are on the horizon for this ENTIRE industry. Those changes do NOT necessarily mean a reduction in payout. That will NOT solve the problem long term. Many (most) PPS programs are not making profit on new traffic. The model of cookie cutter sites paying more for traffic than that traffic produces in revenue is going to go. Shaves will be turned on (or up in the case of some) or models will change.

This is what I call the year of content. No more over promising tours and under delivering tours. Higher quality sites, less super niche sites, and better content will separate the men from the boys. In the mean time, the old has to be done away with to pave a path for th new.

ARS is not switching from a PPS to a pay per active or recurring model. We are not dropping payouts on our existing portfolio. Our changes are much better than that...

I hope your changes involve filling GIM sites with the best content money can buy.

We come back to a true revshare then don't we :) A true split of the income made on a percentage basis is as fair as you can get.

Sly_RJ - I agree 100% The old shitty cookie cutter sites won't cut it anymore. That said, I can appreciate your opinion of Global's members areas, it leaves something to be desired. That, however, is not 100% the problem. There are many factors that are involved in retention.

? Lack of new internet users - the internet isn't booming nearly as much and previous customers know the recurring / cancel game.
? Increased regulations from card associations - this causes higher levels of disclosure and cancel forms to be put virtually EVERYWHERE.
? Poor Content - as discussed above... also too many ultra niched sites with very little content to support the site.

Low trial to full ratios PLAGUE this industry. It has been a problem for a LONG time and it only continues to get worse. We're past our boom and into our maturity stage as an inudstry. Change is imminent and those that plan and execute will be MUCH better off than those that 'react' :)

Sausage - a true revenue cut is the best deal out there for programs now, however, it would mean a DRASTIC pay cut for most webmasters. I stress MOST!

I have never heard the term 'super niche site' before. My guess is it's a 'general niche' site like teen or something ?

Nope. I don't like rev-share all that much unless it's a killer site that can beat a PPS.

I don't believe I've ever seen a rev-share that splits all income evenly while involving every revenue stream. Again, we're talking cross-sales, upsells, mailers, exits... what rev-share program splits those with you? None. And at the same time, without including those streams on a site, the site owner (and affiliate) are leaving money on the table. Which is why I personally prefer PPS. It's more of a traffic purchase than an actual sale purchase. The traffic/sale conversion is somewhat like a scale system configuring how much the traffic is worth.

Marc means niches like Indian or Midget...

Niches where photos and videos are lacking.

:glugglug

Yes even a couple of years ago you would only make average of $25-$28 on a 50% revshare model that used trials.

I don't see any other way to do it other than a straight split of ALL income, so if you have worked another model out I can't wait to see it !

One good thing for programs that pay per signup is that they can easily hide all income streams behind the per signup model and run their own numbers :)

Sausage - super niched site means midget gay teen lovers. A site that is such a specific niche you couldn't come up with enough content to make it worth a dime. However, some pretty deep niches were created. There is enough content for the tour and thats about it.

I'll take part of the blame for the current state of things. ARS was one of the first programs to fill our portfolio with lots of niche sites under one program. It was part of our business plan. However, 4 years later its biting us in the ass. The unfortunate thing is look at how many other programs followed our footsteps. Lots and lots of sites with lots and lots of shitty content selling to a customer base of consumers who most have already purchased porn, seen the plug in content and shitty licensed photos and know to cancel before their 3 days is up in hopes to avoid paying much of anything for their enjoyment.

Affiliate programs have 1 job - Maximize the Monetization of YOUR Traffic. ARS will always do an effective job of that. One way that is most popularly used by most webmasters is to send their traffic inventory to a paysite, hope the surfer converts and calculate an overall value per click for their traffic. Though this is the most popular, there are MANY other ways to do it. Fun stuff on the horizon... Keep your eyes peeled for the changes :)

as far as i'm concerned ars is the ibill of affiliate programs. both are out of touch dinosaurs.

pamphage - I can see your angle with ibill, but for my own sake can you explain how that comparison is made to ARS?

How exactly are we out of touch?

www.balloonbeauties.com

Not trying to bash you Marc, but for the past 2 years I've said (in posts) how crappy GIM members areas are, and your reply was always that you think they're pretty good or as good as most stuff out there.

This is the first time I've seen you admit that GIM sites are lacking in quality.