World Wide Billing: Germany
 

Are you marketing just to North America or to the entire international community? Most Webmasters know that there are plenty of paying porn surfers in countries other than the United States and Canada, but how many of those Webmasters know how to market to other countries? The first step towards successfully cracking a foreign market is to understand the history behind that market. In this ?World Wide Billing? series of articles, the crew from NoCreditCard.com take a look at some of the biggest markets outside of North America.

The German Market Today

As Europe's largest economy and most populous nation, Germany is a natural target for Webmasters who want to start making money in Europe. What does the German market look like? Germany has an estimated population of 82 million inhabitants making an average of $26,600 per person ? just a little below the average Joe in the US. There are over 28 million guys between the ages of 15-64 years. In 2002, there where 32.1 million Internet users online in Germany. All of these figures total to a multi-billion dollar market for porn. The question any adult Webmaster wants to ask is, ?How do I get my share of that money?? The answer is to understand the key forces shaping the market today ? fraud and billing fraud.

Fraud

Germany today is a damaged market. Greedy, unscrupulous Webmasters are responsible. They broke every rule imaginable ? including targeting underage users. The result of no self regulation is government regulation. Today it is practically impossible to operate as a porn company inside of Germany. End users who want to view porn may soon need to undergo a face to face identity check to comply with new regulations. It is illegal to show porn of any kind on the Internet in Germany, except behind a member?s area.

Billing Fraud

Telecom billing (dialers, broadband solutions and SMS billing) is used by 1 out of 2 adult surfers in Germany. The ease and efficiency of telecom billing in Germany benefited both end users and dialer companies. Then the criminals came on the scene; they auto-connected surfers who clicked on blind links. Auto-connecting when the user was not at the computer was also common. Some dialers made it impossible for the end user to end the session. They stole from Webmasters by sending Webmaster traffic to numbers on which they did not share revenue. Dialer companies changed ISP settings to charge end users per minute for what the user thought was their regular connection. They put a prefix in front of the dialer number to fool the surfer into thinking he was not connecting to a premium rate number. Any one of these tricks could lead to a charge of more than $10,000. Surfers cheated by unethical dialer companies were forced to pay their bills by the national telecom provider, Deutsche Telecom. The no chargeback policy and weak laws brought massive income to these fraudsters.

Now the government is striking back. The exciting opportunities for SMS billing throughout Europe do not yet exist in Germany. SMS billing for porn is currently banned. Today telecom billing companies must register every dialer before use. One dialer company thought that they could challenge the formally toothless telecom billing regulator, RegTP. It thought wrong. In one day RegTP showed its muscle by cutting 400,000 of their dialers. Today there are far fewer dialer companies operating in Germany. Only those companies who operate legally and are large enough to absorb the new costs of compliance are surviving.

How To Profit In Germany?

At this moment there are huge opportunities to make profits in this massive market of more than 30 million Internet users. Many Webmasters now believe that the market has hit bottom and is beginning to recover. However, all adult Webmasters must deal with the legacy of the big fraudsters who came before. When moving into the market you need to ask yourself two questions about your billing provider in Germany: ?Can they bill legally and effectively in Germany?? and, ?Can I trust them?? If the answer is yes and yes then you are ready to start making money in this high potential market. Additional steps we recommend for growing revenue in Germany are translating your sites into German and partnering to increase your traffic.

another gigantic post:)

Hiya LadyGardenSnake...

Just wanted to add something that was not mentioned:

Currently the most successful billing method in Germany is Direct Debit (Lastschrifteinzugsverfahren). I see this as a highly viable option that allows the surfer not to have to use a "dialer format" payment solution & allows for recurring billing, so that the webmaster may profit month after month!:thumbsup

Here is a Break down of the payment methods for Germany when paying for Adult Sites:
Direct Debit: 75 %
Credit Card: 20 %
Dialer/Voice Call/SMS: 5 %

Look forward to chatting... :winkwink:

Warm regards,
--=Chipmunk=--

you crack me up ..

Don't waste your time on her, she is just copy/pasting news from other sites.

In fact, she is copying and pasting from YNOT without permission from the authors. This article has also appeared in Klixxx, although with a different title.

Trafficbrokercom -Glad I could amuse you :)

Fabuleux & Connor -Thanx for the heads up! I thought it sounded like an article, just never know though..lol Boredom does strange things to people!

--=Chipmunk=--

You can read this nocreditcard.com sponsored article in its entirety as it originally appeared in Klixxx Webmaster Affiliate Magazine here: http://www.klixxx.com/archive/ichbin.shtml

The Klixxx Magazine archive is extensive and now has a new search feature making webmaster education research a breeze - read all the copyrighted Worldwide Webmaster articles at: http://www.klixxx.com/archive/worldwide.shtml and Go Global with klixxx.com:thumbsup

And just to add our :2 cents:

Dear LadySnake,

Some say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

And we are flattered that you have posted three articles from the monthly series entitled ''Worldwide Webmaster" written by the team at Nocreditcard.com and editted and published in Klixxx each month.

It would have been nice if you would have copied and pasted the entire article - including the author and source credits. Its easy to do. Please go to www.klixxx.com/archive/worldwide.shtml and try it.

Kind Regards,

Nocreditcard.Com