Paysite owners, whats your average conversion rate for trials?
 

In my experiences anything over 20% is awesome. (for TGP traffic anyways)

So what kind of rates do you guys get from your trials?
Be honest please.

dont do trials on TGP traffic.. try it:thumbsup Those bastards cancel anyway even if the inside is super...

Yeah I had noticed that. Some of those TGP leeches cancel thier trial before they even log into the members area.

I stopped doing trials about 3 years ago. It didn't stop customers from buying. If anything it gave them a whole month to enjoy my sites and most of them stay beyond the first month. :)
The mentality of most "trial" buyers is to automatically cancel before they've even taken a look at your site.

Right now CuteCouples is doing about 33% + about 1/4 - 1/5 people go straight for the full membership option. We are currently working on ways to improve the 33% conversion ratio or at least squeeze the mose out of the professional trial jockeys.

SpaceAce

we are doing about 45%

true, i was always doing it

~ 30%

thinking about cancelling the trial option

Testing out a new system, about 50% so far. Still playing with it.

Skin Traffic
www.skintraffic.com

About 50% so far...

I don't doubt that alot of people cancel before even logging into the members area with all the people that complain that they cancelled in plent of time and get rebilled anyway. What I would do if I was a surfer would be to get a trial, cancel immediatley, then if I liked the members area I would sign up again, this time for a full month's membership. I wouldn't want the risk of being rebilled for a site I didn't like, either.

Somewhere between 30-35 %.

i know lots that do 50%

I forgot to say that I am becoming better and better.

Last month I had 30 %. The month before that 25 %. This month I have 35 %. I am hoping to reach somewhere up to 45-50%.

I dont belive anyones claims of doing 50%+ from TGP traffic. I dont care what kind of site you have.

SE traffic I might belive.

This issue has come up many many times with clients here and we've done quite a few tests over time where we run a trial then run the same site without. The majority of the time the trial has led to a greater profit margin with the exception being MPEG only sites.

Essentially here's how it shakes out:

Say you do a $29.95 join and a $4.95 trial.

If you do the no trial test and convert 1:1000 across the board with 100,000 uniques, you'd have 100 new members worth $2995 (before fees, etc...).

If you do a trial with the same traffic and having that option increases conversion to say 1:400 (trials will almost always be higher conversion) and 30% of the trials convert to full, it's worth:

250 Trials: $1237.50
75 Converted Trials: $2246
Total: $3483.50

So, you have to watch how much your conversin is helped by trials and what % of your trials convert to full members. Knowing those numbers you can make the right decisions for your site. All it takes is a test period of a good 30 days for each option (with similar traffic sources during both periods).

Good info... :thumbsup