Cheap ass webmasters, dumbass sponsors
 

One of the things I hate most about this business is all the newbie webmasters who want to make thousands of dollars every month but who are too fucking cheap and lazy to spend the time or money it takes to do it.

(1) Too lazy to learn html and build a good free site, they start out using free gallery builders and submit to TGPs only.

(2) Too damn lazy to read the TGP rules and submit manually when asked, they turn to free autosubmitters.

(3) Too damn cheap to buy their content, they demand that sponsors give them lots of free content every week/month.

(4) Too fucking cheap to spend money on hosting and bandwidth, they demand that the sponsor host & build the galleries for them (FHG)

(5) Too lazy to write gallery descriptions for all the FHGs the sponsor has provided for them, they demand that the sponsor write descriptions for them.

What next? Will they demand that the sponsor come to their house, drive them to the bank, and cash their fucking checks for them?

I don't know who is worse. Webmasters like this or all the fucking sponsors who give in to their every demand.

We just finished having this discussion in the office, actually. A lot has changed over the years.

I know several webmasters that have been in this biz for years, and still fit this critera.

It's not just newbies. :) As someone who just wrote about a billion descriptions for galleries, I now value those sponsors that provide them for me. But I won't lay on the floor and cry if I have to write them myself. :winkwink:

As a sponsor myself, I don't mind providing free content, but I am very reluctant to do the FHG thing. I realize that competition is very tough for webmaster traffic these days, but I would much rather have fewer webmasters who I know are willing to spend $$ to make $$ in this biz.

If a webmaster is always looking for freebies, that tells me he probably isn't going to be around for too long. I would much rather take the $$ I'm spending on FHGs and give my good webmasters, the ones I know will be around for a while, a better % on recurring sales.

and who da fuck r u supposed to be? u own sex.com? FUCK U NIGGA!

You really don't need descriptions for TGP galleries. A lot of the ones I see use the exact same descriptions for EVERY gallery (e.g., Big Tits Gallery).

Sponsors brough it upon themselves. We made lazy cheap demanding affiliates and it is damn near impossible to put that genie back in the bottle.

When one sponsor offers something be it free hosting, content, designs, graphics, whatever other sponsors jump right in to keep up with competition. As long as sponsors keep playing "keep up with the jones'es) and kissing affiliates asses on every little request it will remain that way. Sad part is most of the affiliates the sponsors bend over for do not even cover the bottom line cost of that ass kissing.

If da shoe fit, NIGGA!

:321GFY

The sponser are not to blame. They want people to promote them, they have to compete

Use circular logic much? Who started it?

I agree. I imagine that these soponsors spend a shitload of $$ on BW from doing this. And if they get a sale from an affiliate, they have to pay the affiliate his/her commission. Why not just soend the money on BUYING traffic directly from a reputable source? If they get sales this way, they keep 100% of the $$.

I have the solution to fhg's...if any sponsor wants to cut back on wasted bandwidth, content, and time...let me know. I'll sell you my idea.

It solves the whole problem from webmaster side to program side...

Main reasons for us. More bandwidth usage has actually reduced our costs, we always do need deductions, and well it is hard to turn away from the traffic.

BUYING = spending
spending != 100% of the $$

LOL and in some cases months.

I agree with almost everything you said, except buying content.

For the old megasites, buying content was fine, even necessary if you truly wanted an edge.

Today however, you NEED sponsor content. There's no sense buying content to promote solo girl sites, or any reality site for that matter.

The trick is to find a sponsor whose content and sites aren't overpromoted AND who you trust will pay you.

That can be a hard combination to find.

(1) Too lazy to learn html and build a good free site, they start out using free gallery builders and submit to TGPs only.

TGP traffic is high volume, easy to get and it's the most known aspect of affiliate traffic. Free gallery builders do suck though.

(2) Too damn lazy to read the TGP rules and submit manually when asked, they turn to free autosubmitters.

Agreed. If they want the traffic, they'd better damn well read the rules.

(3) Too damn cheap to buy their content, they demand that sponsors give them lots of free content every week/month.

If I'm pushing a site with a theme, I actually DO want content that fits the theme. I also want content that the surfer will actually see at the site...Afterall...It's that content that sparked their interest.

(4) Too fucking cheap to spend money on hosting and bandwidth, they demand that the sponsor host & build the galleries for them (FHG)

FHG's are easy to plug and play, and they are a great feature. It's a nice content filler, and it's a plus for the sponser since they will be earning sales that the lazy webmaster might not have sent them otherwise. You might as well make money some way or another.

(5) Too lazy to write gallery descriptions for all the FHGs the sponsor has provided for them, they demand that the sponsor write descriptions for them.

This does suck. It dillutes the gallery descriptions to the surfers and they start to recognize patterns. If a company gets you free galleries, at least put the time in to write the descriptions.

What next? Will they demand that the sponsor come to their house, drive them to the bank, and cash their fucking checks for them?

No, but you can send it via epassporte, please.

I don't know who is worse. Webmasters like this or all the fucking sponsors who give in to their every demand. :thumbsup

I disagree with 3-5. There are reasons other than being lazy for webmasters to request these, and i have no problem offering them for my program.

Frankly, I don't know how a lot of these sponsors stay in business. FHGs, $100.00 days, prizes, including brand new cars, paying $50.00 for a three day non-recurring trial membership.

Insane Midget, who has something interesting to say about once every 1,000 posts or so, mentioned in a post the other day that most of the program owners on GFY probably make less than some of the gallery submitters, which, if true, is a truly sad satate of affairs.

wanna enlighten us how many members your own paysites have? :)

One of the bigger problems too is that newbie webmasters, bless their souls, just don't have the experience to convert well...they fill up a tgp full of fhg and pump traffic to it and it degrades the value of the fhg, the content within it, and the site its promoting.


In many ways I think the fhg was the sponsors answer to the huge thirst for unique gallery templates that we went through about a year ago...everyone wanted templates that converted.


So the sponsors felt in their infinite wisdom that if they built templates that converted and gave them out...they'd increase the value of all the free content they were doling out.


Instead, people saw it as filler, the rest of the sponsors had to play keep up with the jones' and it back fired...fhg flooded the web and supply drowned demand.

You are right. Webmasters might want to use some of these things that sponsors offer for reasons other than being cheap. I have used FHGs for gallery fillers for my TGPs. I've had to deal with way too much BS from open submissions from webmasters I don't know. 99% of my gallery submissions are off topic anyway.

I think that sponsors can still offer perks like these without making them a selling point in their effors to get new affiliates. An affiliate should prove himself before the sponsor offers additional incentives like this.

You mean members or affiliates? Two of my sites, ones I run for pornstars, are doing really well membership-wise. The vast majority of our sales have come from yahoo directory listings, links from babe sites, traffic trades, and personal appearances by the models (radio shows, club appearances).

They have also done pretty well with affiliates, only 5% of which actually send any traffic, but the conversions are really good. We have not actively promoted the affiliate program, however. As a result, you can't really make the comparison. I intend to do this actively in the comming months, so I will be able to tell you then how we do without offering the same incentives other sponsors offer.

My general paysite bites the big one, but I am working on changing that too.

In a lot of ways, FHGs hurt newbie gallery submitters. They have been a HUGE BLESSING to TGP owners who are sick of having to delete galleries for cheating or who waste too much time reviewing submissions by webmasters who haven't bothered to read the rules.

I have a very small TGP and it still gets 300+ submissions per day. If I get 10 galleries worth listing, that's a good day. I end up having to blacklist 5 times as many webmasters every day for not following the rules. Because it is so much easier to use FHGs, many TGP owners have stopped taking submissions because of them. The result? Fewer TGPs for the newbie webmaster to submit to.

this is what we've started doing
we were offering freehosting and went through all of the trouble to get the affiliet setup, then...nothing
so, now if an affilites wants free hosting, they have to send a couple sales first.

I'm always more than willing to bend over backwards for big senders and those willing to make an effort. I'm just sick and tired of wasting my time creating custom galleries, setting up free hosting, doling out special content sets (above and beyond the tons of free content we already give out) and not even get so much as a handful of clicks from it...

I also get webmasters hitting me up with "that's all you have? two sites?" Well, fuck yeah, two QUALITY sites. If you want a bunch of generic front end sites to send to with 2-3 cross sells, 5 exit consoles, etc. then go somewhere else. More sites doesn't = better sites.

Hell, I'm at a point where if I had my way, we'd get rid of afiliates anyways and just hire a shitload of building houses in India, China, etc. Less headaches, less bullshit, less fraud, etc.

On that note, if anyone is willing to put forth a huge effort, I'll bend over backwards to get you the tools you need to promote our sites, hit me up and let's talk traffic and business.

oh and BEWARE THE SULTANS!

the funny thing about this is that I've seen a lot of sponsors that seem to have less of a clue than "newbie" submitters about building galleries ;-))

(1) Too lazy to learn html and build a good free site, they start out using free gallery builders and submit to TGPs only.
I can write it in notepad so this doesn't apply to me.

(2) Too damn lazy to read the TGP rules and submit manually when asked, they turn to free autosubmitters.
I do some small TGP's automatically (few hundred), but I do the big ones by hand (about 100),

(3) Too damn cheap to buy their content, they demand that sponsors give them lots of free content every week/month.
OK, I buy my own content to promote a site. Some surfer likes the girls, signs up, but what? The damn girl isn't on the site. -> Chargeback.


(4) Too fucking cheap to spend money on hosting and bandwidth, they demand that the sponsor host & build the galleries for them (FHG)
I pay for my hosting, but I use FHG's too. When reviewing galleries, you can delete 60% because they suck. Everyday 3 webmasters go on the blacklist because they cheat. This ain't fun. And with the amout of galleries offered now days, you can use 100% FHG's if you want. And that without displaying the same one for over a year. I would be dump if I didn't use this tool.

(5) Too lazy to write gallery descriptions for all the FHGs the sponsor has provided for them, they demand that the sponsor write descriptions for them.
Guess what, because of the FHG's site maintainance takes only minutes. So why not do some other projects too? That has nothing to do with lazyness. Sponsors who do write a discription are on top of my list. Click click click and ready.

So I do, and know how, to do my stuff the old way. But you are dump if you don't take the advantage of new advertising options sponsors offer.

the affiliates making money are the ones who are not lazy, the lazy ones who need everything done for them make 1 signup and wanna know if its going to rebill and for how long and when ccbill pays and how long the mail takes etc.

I respect all affiliates who do anything for my program and at the same time make it clear that noone makes money without being creative on their own.

I have the FHG just do have them but the affiliates who make money use our free FTP hosting create their own stuff, grab stuff the from members area or clips etc.

I agree with you on that. With all the free content, gallery designs, descriptions, hosting, etc, these affiliates are not worth paying $35/join. It seems to have ballooned out of control in the past 2-3 years with sponsors fighting for TGP traffic. Used to be no one gave a shit about TGPs, besides the top guys.

I agree
I'll bend over backwards for any who even make an effort (maybe they've sent a bunch of clicks and no sales yet) and I'll go through and help them with their marketing (that's my job, that's what I'm paid to do). I just get tired of doing extra work for those who won't use the tools we already have.

If someone is making an effort, we'll take care of their hosting, we'll give them extra galleries not available in our FHG's, I'll personally build them custom adverts. It's all about efforts (and results).

The way I see it, these are all the results of a maturing industry where all the
ever-stiffening competition drives both affiliates & programs to new levels...

The smartest will survive and the rest will fail - it's just how capitalism works...
always pushing businesses to produce more, faster & better.

Seen from the programs' side, the hunt for new affiliates will probably always continue.
Both for the few quality "whales" as well as the quantitative "noobs" - this is the
affiliate model, THE reason adult programs online have had the success they've had.

Traffic is king, and there's still no way a program could bring in as much traffic on
it's own as it will with either a very large and/or a very active affiliate-base. :2 cents:

Nothing beats the workforce of qualitative &/ quantitative affiliate-base... yet.
If it ever changes, it will be because of SE technology restructuring.

Just curious.... about how many signups per month does an affiliate need to send to a sponsor for s/he to be considered an asset? 20, 30, 100, 1000?

iwank:

I'd say that you would be considered an asset no matter how few signups/mo. you
send... as long as they can see a trend of your numbers rising over time.

If you've been with them for years but only send 20/month... they'll either see
you as an annoying prick or just feel sorry for you.

If you send 1 a day you are doing better than about 80% of affiliates.

lol, thanks for the response

Hehe :glugglug

That obviously depends on the sponsor. For me, as long as the affiliate is sending traffic consistently and the traffic is producing even one to two sales per month, I'm happy and willing to work with that affiliate to help them produce better.

One of the best ways a newbie can learn about this biz, aside from reading the message boards every day, is to join a good affiliate program, make an honest attempt to send traffic, and establish a good relationship with his/her account representative.

The job of an account representative is to help affiliates sell better. They are usually really good teachers and can help newbies learn the biz and develop the skills necessary to make them successful in this business.

It always amazes me that webmasters want everything a sponsor can give them for free except perhaps the most valuable thing of all -- knowledge.

to me it doesnt matter really

everyone gets treated equal and thats it