When programs list their "best converting sites" - do you trust them?
 

Many sponsors list their "best conversing sites" for a week etc - do you think these charts are accurate, or do they simply want to encourage us to promote some of their new sites?

And second question - assuming they are the real best converting sites..do you think it is worth taking a look at them and deciding what promote, or do you think it's not accurate at all, since everyone has different kind of traffic and sometimes the sites listed as best converters are simply promoted only by a few webmasters who have some very targetted traffic....but it doesnt mean they would convert the best with "general traffic"?

Any opinions?

Honestly.. There's only a one sponsor that I trust. Sad but true.

I think those charts may be "real" but they seem to reflect more the actual popularity of particular niches and the eb and flow of what people are promoting. i.e. someone with a ton of traffic sees some god concversions on a site that's not even in the top 10, they dump their traffic to it and suddenly it's in the top 10.

Nice marketing tools to get the newbies/IQ challenged though. Sort of like stating conversion rates of 1:25 and it's actually the PIS or Join page conversions and not the Raw hits which is what we truly care about.

For me it's less a trust thing and more of an "it's useless without more data" thing..

That is, supposed it's skewed from a targetted optin mailer from a partner sponsor sent to 3 million people with a conversion rate of 1:200? How does that help me if I'm using PPC and sending a few hundred hits a day? lol

Opposite could be true as well, such as 10 partner sponsors sending to 1 site from consoles and slaughtering the overall ratio which might otherwise be pretty good.

You get my point..:2 cents:

i only trust myself

what they say are their best converting are not my best converting. Its about knowing your traffic and what works best with it.

What Ice said. Promote what works best for YOUR traffic.

EDIT: besides the way some new programs launch you have to wonder if more than 5 guys are pushing ANY traffic at all ;)

Yup, right, don't give too much on the ratios other see for a certain site, you have to sell it. People make tons of cash with it ? Fine, but it's the cash in your own pockets that counts. :2 cents:

A site that is "converting best" does not mean much, because you do not know how people are promoting it. For example, say someone builds a custom tour and links directly to the join page. Although his first page may be getting 1000 hits/day, the actual join page would only be getting around around 50 hits/day. Then say he gets 3 signups a day. Sponsor stats would show join page hits only, hence a ratio of 1:16.