What is your average conversion percentage of trials to first billing?
 

I just opened my paysite and was wondering how you guys are doing in keeping your members.

I think my conversions suck! I'm only getting 30% of people to stay long enough for them to get billed after the trial period. What is the norm?

My site is http://www.sexinfinity.net

23% ;/

Don't offer trials. 100% of the signups will be full month minimum that way.

I heard somewhere a long time ago that the average time a person will stay in a descent site is 4 months. I figured this was the reason sponsors could pay $40 a sign and give away cars in contests. That must mean that the people who do stay through the first trial stay for 3 years. lol

I guess I don't have much to go off of. I've only had 15 signs since I opened a couple of weeks ago. I don't want to spend any money promoting until I get this figured out a little more.

Any other paysite owners care to comment?

Shaggy... I haven´t seen you members area, but judging from your tour $34.95 is very much for a montly fee.. ask yourself if you would pay that?

45% which is pretty high, global average is 30

I think that number is pretty far off. I'd say the "average" time that a person stays is maybe 1.x or 2.x months. I don't know about the really big sites (Max Cash, ARS, CEN, etc.), but I can't imagine many paysites are averaging 4 months per sign up.

Kimmy Kim will know the real answer.

maybe consider lowering your prices and getting rid of the trial altogether for awhile, the advantages don't really seem to be evident unless you're very large. why would anyone with any sense let a rebill happen at $35, when they could cancel after the trial, and then sign up for another one in a week or two if they really like the site, repeat as often as neccesary.

No offence, but your tour on your site design looks like crap and the content doesn't get my cock hard.

Tours are usually the best looking part of a paysite. If your tour is that bad, I can only assume your members area is even worse.

I suggest two things:

1. Hire a professional designer.

2. Get better content.

I think the average would have to be more than a month or how could companies afford to pay $35 to a webmaster for a $29.95/month site.

I don't think my site design is the problem since I convert traffic to trials just fine. It's the getting them to stay that is giving me the unexpected problem. I was thinking 50% of so.

Pricing could be an issue, I was planning to spend my add dollar in the SE's for some amateur traffic that I was hoping would stay because they don't know the difference. I don't think that is going to work. I will probably decrease the cost. I wanted to be ready for inflation and I heard a couple of guys saying they didn't notice a difference in conversions when they raised to $34.95 from 29.

What to do, what to do...

i would suggest putting a better variety of girls up on your tour.

The numbers you're reading that say 3 to 4 months on average are numbers from a couple of years ago, it just doesn't work that way anymore.
The exception would be a "great" site that didn't offer a trial, but without the trial your initial sales will be much lower, so pick your poison.

30% from trial to monthly sounds about right, at least in today's market. If you go under 25% take a long hard look at your members area and make improvements.
If you can hit 50% you've either got one peach of a site, OR, you're making it way to hard to cancel and you'll have chargeback problems later.

Does anyone know what the average of how long the member who does stay past the trial will stay?

It depends on you content ofcourse!!

check theses excellent threads:

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...threadid=54309


http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...threadid=54339

bingo. just be sure:

(1) the selling portion of your site reflects the content inside
(2) your content is VERY good

...and I'll go back to the $34.95 thing others have mentioned.

You can easily charge this and get away with it BUT you gotta have good content probably including half decent live feeds. You have to put yourself in the punters shoes and ask if the content is actually worth $35 a month. If you have any doubts I'd personally look at knocking at least $10 off of that. People have mentioned that they saw little difference in number of signups between $29-$35 but they may have completely different content/traffic.

However - the only way to know for sure is experiment. Change it every couple of weeks for a little while trying new options out while it is still early days and see what works for you. You've little to lose at this stage but much to potentially gain from doing so.

If I were starting with a pay site now (and I may be again soon), I'd have the fee between $20-$25 until I have a reasonable base and income then increase the cost a little and purchase more content (ie maybe live feeds). Repeat a couple of times and..... Content always will be king and VERY regular updates keep 'em from cancelling as just downloading it all and doing so means they miss the new stuff.

Of course that's just my :2 cents: and other will have their own way of doing things :) But WTF - works for me.

yes and redo the front of the paysite doesn looks good .. looks like you stole images and copy and paste
the members and join buttons looks like they came from a site that have black background.

Hmmm..hadn't looked at the site. Those buttons really are awful. You may be converting OK but you could probably convert better....

Has anyone thought of selling memberships cheap, and have no trial?
Why aren't I seeing memberships sell for $19.95 - no trial.

You would remove the freeloaders who signup with the intention of canceling before the trial ends.
And $20 is affordable for college students etc..

There are tons of smaller sites that do low signups $14.95-$24.95. However, they can't offer $40 per signup to affiliates at that price point, I would guess.

Think of where you want to send your traffic to - someone who pays $40 up front or does a 50/50 with a $40 signup, or some small site that pays $20 up front or pays 50/50 on $20 signups. You're probably going to send your traffic to the big guy. As a traffic seller, most people don't care about fair prices for surfers, they care about getting paid more.

If you have a private affiliate program, and your own traffic, I'm sure you can make money on your site at a lower membership cost. But if you have affiliates, I think it would be harder.

After giving it some thought. I have came up with a theory and I think I will try it out. Assuming both of these sites have the same content and are a descent average pay site.

Ok you send 1500 people to each of these site.

Site #1: $29.95 a month site. Converts traffic 1:500 to a trial (3 Members). (Trial Rev Share= $1.50), Converts 33% to the monthly (1 member Rev Share=$14) and that member stays 4 months. Total= $4.50 from trials and $56 from the 1 member who stayed 4 months. $60 from 3 members?

Site #2: $12.95 a month site. Converts traffic at 1:187 to a trial (8 members). (Trial Rev Share= $1.50), Converts 66% to the monthly (5.3 members X Rev Share=$5.50) and those members stay for 4 months. Total= $12 from trials and 116.60 from the 5 members who stay. Grand total= 128.6

You could even give a free trial at site #2 and make sure you get the 1:187 and still double site #1.

My numbers could be wrong, that's up for debate. Let's hear it...