Why affiliates should NOT let programs SUBMIT for you !!!!!111eleven
 

Hey guys, I have been noticing a trend that has been disturbing me quite a bit. I am aware that I may be sounding like chicken little or some shit, but I am definately not trying to be a doomsdayer here.

I simply think that if you follow the logical string of events that the ripples will indeed provide some negative repercussions. I would like to address these here and get some thoughts on the matter.

I have been getting a request every now and then for us to submit galleries for affiliates. In addition, some programs have even gone so far as to actually provide this service. While at first glance this seems like an AWESOME tool for you to utilize to profit from, if you think about it and look at it closely, it's actually one of the first steps of DOOOOOM! :1orglaugh

In all seriousness, though, look at it this way: most affiliate programs have the money to hire teams of submitters, right now, as you are reading this, you are ALREADY competing with most of the programs you promote. Your valuable, hard-earned traffic may not be converting as well as it used to not because of saturation of AFFILIATES but by programs competign against it's OWN affiliates for that same traffic.

As time goes by, it's only a small jump from submitting for affiliates as a SERVICE up to basically cutting the affiliate out of the picture all together.

Why pay out to you, provide all the necessary tools, run promos etc. when all a program has to do is simply do your job for you to bring in those sales? And with outsourcing and in most cases, near unlimited budget this theoretically could be a profitable decision for some companies.


**Disclaimer: please do not take what I am 'predicting' as having ANYTHING to do with Hundies, it is my personal opinion and predictions that I am asking for feedback on!**


So I ask YOU, in spite of how tempting it is to have one more "easy" revenue stream, in reality you just might be shooting yourself in the foot for a little bit of short term gain.

and that, my friends, is my :2 cents:

outsourcing..its the new black

good point....VERY good point :winkwink:

yes..and if you lose your partner accounts because an affiliate company screws up...whos to blame?

thats nothing new
i have heard this kind of questions asked by quite a few big people before
question is... is it really that hard for program owners to get their hands on quality partner accounts, the ones their affiliates have?
u know the answer lol

I have brought this up before and was systematicly bashed into the ground by affiliates who swear that without them there would be no sponsors.

I do my own shit thanks.

That's very interesting, link?

And I'm not saying affiliates are worthless btw, nowhere close!

Search is not cooperating with me that well today.

i dont need anything from programs other than fast and professional replying to emails , so i dont like the ones who are sucking affiliates dick so much that they submit even galleries for them anyway :)

You can always make some extra $$ with affiliates, no matther what.

:2 cents:

If you won't say it I will. Affiliates are worthless.

If a program owner has to provide all the tools such as content, free hosting as well as build sites whether they are galleries or freesites and now they submit them. What the fuck is left for the affiliate to do other than receive the checks and cash them?

LOL Marc De has a few hundred cars that beg to differ with you.

However, Luv$ post is pretty much on the money. If I'm hiring people to design galleries, chop up videos to add to them, AND submit them, then why am I putting your ref ID on the link code and sending you a check?

That said, I think having hosted galleries for our webmasters to submit to TGPs is a great tool that all gallery webmasters should be taking advantage of. And it is in the immediately short term plans for Hundies to start pumping out more hosted galleries than ever before. Any good gallery designers out there looking for full time work?

it seems like a no-brainer to me, if you can eliminate the middle man (affiliate) why wouldn't you? You get exactly the same traffic, but now you earn 50% more...

I would not go that far. Affiliates that understand how to work and do the majority of it themselves are worth something.

I know I just argued before that eventually if affiliates keep demanding stuff that one day the program owner will look over their costs and relize that it is cheaper and more efficient to do it all in house.

Woah man, I disagree 100% -

Without affiliates, programs' sites wouldn't be so widely distributed over the web, remember that every little bit helps, and always will.

Economies of scale are very important, but can be overlooked if profitability takes a hit from empowering those economies...

How is me refusing this service going to stop your prediction from happening anyway?

From what you have written I can see that Im damned if I do and damned if I dont - I may as well take the cash and work on other ways of making money while I still have time.

luv$ I am sure you are aware that nearly everyone here has greater broadcasting abilities than nearly any TV station or Radio station ten years ago.

A single program that produces or has produced for it, its own exclusive content. Has its own internal creative department. That also has the right staff behind it with enough knowledge of the industry itself. Can easily reach just as many consumers and would be consumers than they could possibly want without having to pay large sums of money to outside affiliates. In essence having an open program for such a company could in effect dilute the companies own personal sales potential.

there is no circumstance that I can see where it would benefit me to give a program a list of tgp's that I've found send high quality traffic. sounds like one big fishing expedition to see which sites are worth buying banner spots on...

Well, one could take that stance but it's kind of the same mentality of "the environment's fucked anyway, soI'm going to litter with abandon"...

It's early enough now to resist a new trend though...

i wish programs would drop everything they do for affiliates aside from maybe free content for reality type sites.

hey thats what this industry is all about: shooting yourself in the foot for a little short-term revenue..

Programs have been cutting affiliates out for the past 2 years... The smart affiliates are the ones that stop promoting other people's programs and start up their own.

More big submitters have moved this route in the past 2 years than anything.

DH

How will all of this affect my aqcuiring of free tshirts :thumbsup

Great thread Luv$ some very pertinent points in your claim

Affiliates spread the sponsor's master brand into areas of the interweb the outsourcers may never go. Perhaps even locating un-thought of niche traffic sources, that may provide free market research for the sponsor who cares to observe...

Continue thinking that.
80%+ of affiliates do nothing for a program at all but waste resources.
5-10% of affiliates trickle in sales and about half of them cover the sponsors expenses for having them.
5% of affiliates maintain good sales figures and steady traffic, oddly enough only about a third of them use sponsor help or curatives.
Remaining 5% of the affiliates are truly the big pushers. They alone account for about 90% of all affiliate sales. Vast majority use no sponsor help, and no curatives provided by sponsor.

As I see it a sponsor really only needs to tap into about 7.5% of its current affiliates and could go as little as 5% and see no noticeable difference in daily sales. This percentage of affiliate webmaster also will always have job security. I can not say this about the other 92.5% or so.

Good thread.
Affilates have gotten real lazy. There was a time when webmasters acutally had to cut up their own movies into little clips and even encode them. They also would put those video clips in their own home made galleries, not gallery templates the sponsors provide.

again...


www.pimpinpays.com

VS

http://ebtmarketing.com/hundiesjc/sig_luv$.gif

I would NEVER give out my partner accounts for sponsors to use...if they fuck up I'm banned for life :(

it will be interesting to see where the affiliate model goes in the next 5-10 years in adult. i can't see it ever disappearing but can only imagine that ratios would improve if everyone just promoted their own shit. seems like the only way to go if you are in this for the long run and would cut out the 1000's of clueless people polluting the net with free content without any thought to marketing.

One other issue that hasn't been mentioned yet... what if the outsourced employee from a third world country fucks up and copies your affiliate ID incorrectly?

I've had programs offer to submit FHG URLs to my TGPs to make life easier for me, but in reality I'd still have to check every gallery anyway. I may as well just go into the sponsor site and grab the links myself.

I don't know if anyone else noticed but ever since Oxcash stopped taking new affilliates they have had a resurgence in popularity for Bangbus when it comes to word of mouth among the public.

I'm sorry, I don't really grasp what it is you're trying to get across here...

and "again"? I don't remember anything relating to this in the past either.

Could you be specific please?

why would any program submit for their affiliates??? Isn't that the whole point of having affiliates, so they will submit galleries for you? If you are gonna submit for them whey the fuck would you need them??? Makes absolutely no sense. :2 cents:

Some very good points here.

I understand this, but will you be employing someone in your office, US rates would cost more than most affiliates earn. Put him outside your office and how do you control/monitor him?

Good point. But finding that info is not brain surgery. Look around and see who already spends money on the site.

:thumbsup

The smart affiliates stop taking everything from the sponsor when they realise how much it ties him to the sponsor.

Some extremely good points here. but the bottom line is cost/returns.

A very big program with all the traffic driving skills is set up near to us in Czech. You can employ a school leaver with the skills to submit galleries and free sites for around $700+ a month, plus office space and a computer. He will work 160 hours a month, under $5 an hour.

So why do they prefer to employ people to assist affiliates and run a big affiliate program?

Go work it out for yourself. If submitting for yourself worked on a investment/profit basis the big programs would stick a manager in the third world running an office of people submitting. Like some already do with webcam.

Interclimax own a house in Bulgaria full of webcam girls, do they also own a house full of girls submitting?

I love affiliate programs that make my competing affiliates creative duds. Let nature take it's course :thumbsup

"Hello, I just signed up for your program. Where's my check?"

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh !! That sums it up pretty well...

Hmmm... problem... You are acting as though they will submit for me to my partner accounts... They will not, they will however submit to my MGP's which is fine since it has my linking code.

If they ever stopped the checks, I'd just remove their galleries by clicking 3 or 4 links and be done with them.

Here's a thought, might even be worth it's own thread. I thought of this while driving to work.

What would you prefer, a sponsor who does everything he possibly can for you and pays 50% or one who does little and pays 60%?

The % may change due to differing programs, conversion will stay the same as it's the same program.

What I'm saying is nothing is for free in this world. The tools cost money, money that comes from the sign ups affiliates send. So would you prefer little support, maybe just the content and a bigger slice or all the tools and pay for them with a smaller slice?

Good point Paul

Affilates are golden in my view, you can hire a bunch of submitters and buy partner accounts but it certainly can't compete with having 100s of good affilates building and submitting your galleries and advertising to 1000's of places with there hard earned partner accoutns

Affilates build repore and get the partner accounts or find the ones to buy, you can't juts replace all that with a team of submitters and buying a few partner accounts it doesn't work.

We give our affilates all the tools we can, we don't submit for them yet but are looking at submiting for mgp's/tgp's soon though.

Cheers

Matt

Well that depends if u are lucky

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Sliding scale pay-outs based on affiliate type and volume.

While I don't have such a agressive view I do think things will indeed change alot and the whole "giving everything to the affiliate days" will be gone...its a matter of when rather than will IMHO :2 cents:

Oh wait, I just got it. :1orglaugh

I didn't look at your site before when I asked wtf you were talking about.

No, it's not Hundies' new look or anything, that image was for my sig and was for fun. I didn't even know what your site looked like until I clicked on that link this morning.

It was my idea, and I take full responsibility for it :)