My thoughts: What matters to the industry, and have a Great Weekend.
 

These are just my thoughts, they are not attacking any business or persons. Please take them as a way to spark some good debates, not as attacks.





Conversions and whether or not a program shaves. Do you honestly care? It is all about the check you get at the end of the week. People are so concerned with stats that it has spawned a set of new programs and legacy program revamps with the target market of "stats webmasters."

"They only count 2nd page hits..."

Who cares? Let me ask you this, would you send to a program that made you $600 / week that had awesome stats, or would you send to a program that made you $1100 a week that had no stats at all? You just log in and it shows you how much money you have made.

------------------------------



Content. Content matters to specific webmasters that utilize specific website portals. But at the end of the day, all that matters is how much money you, the webmaster, make. Many traffic sources don't respond any differently to exclusive content, in fact, some do worse. We have both, the bulk of our revenue comes from non-exclusive. I know, I am going to get a barrage of people telling me that I am wrong, that this is not accurate, how great exclusive content is. I understand all of this. And I understand that exclusive content is a money maker, my point is that not seeing the bigger picture can lose you money.


------------------------------



Shows. Shows do matter, however, the key to success is deciding how many or how few matter; and how much you spend, where you spend it, and who you spend it on.

We generally do invite only events. The guest list is created as follows:

-People who send us traffic
-People who could send us traffic
-People, friends that invite our staff to their events or freely exchange information between our two companies
-Girls. Not groundbreaking, say what you like, a casual event without alcohol and women in any industry is not typically enjoyable

If I throw together an event, I like to make sure of the following:

-People can hear each other speak
-The venue / bar / restaurant is easy to work with, compatible with adult, and provides excellent service

What I see some programs forgetting is that many webmasters attend shows as a vacation or "time away," and although they enjoy talking business, they don't enjoy being barraged with sales tactics. They are typically going to stay close to where they are comfortable. Providing an environment whereas you get to know people is key to growing business via shows. If your music is too loud, you can forget it.



--------------------------


Webmaster signups. These do not matter. I know, sounds like a strange statement, but I think it is important to say it. Why? Because we are in an environment whereas a lot of reps think that being controversial and then posting "daily webmaster signup" stats proves that their controversy is profitable.

It isn't. Consumer signups do not rise with webmaster signups unless your program is brand new, and that is only because traffic takes some time to build. Most webmaster signups are useless.


-------------------------

PPS is better than Revshare.

Not true, the only difference is the risk you take by allowing your funds to sit in a program; otherwise, I always did better as a webmaster on Rev Share. I am sure that wasn't the answer you expected considering we are a PPS program.

The dynamics of the programs are different, for example, we simply are not Naughty Allie, we never will be, we don't have the time or the knowledge base to ever be them. That said, there are many Rev Share programs that offer things the big PPS programs can't offer, no matter how much they try to finance it.

On the same note, many Rev Share programs tend to talk about how much better their sites are for the consumers and how they make webmasters more money in the end. Not true, it depends on your traffic for one, also, have you looked at the amount of content on a lot of the major PPS programs? Do you know how much money it cost to provide that?

The end of the day point is that the pay type doesn't matter, the sum of your check is what matters. If I were going to promote a single girl site, I would be likely promoting a Rev Share program. If I were looking to promote a lesbian niche on Dollar trials or Free trials, I would promote Weg : ) Being paid out on a trial is huge, just run the numbers on that.

So, where you might say a member is worth $57 on my Rev Share program, you might consider that your actual traffic was overall worth more than $57 due to being paid out full on a trial.

Sorry for the business post : )

Have a Great Weekend,

I just found the video of you and sunny dancing on stage in Cancun

that was a great night!

Thats ok Cory...just dont let it happen again.....

nice post Corey, i read that at JBM

well said...
i agree 100%

lots of good advice :thumbsup

now watch this thread drop like a rock since there are no prizes or pics :error

Brilliant post bud.

Cory,
While I agree with a lot of what you say, you seem to have the mentality that money is the only thing that matters (in your first section).

Yes, I do have problems sending to a program where no stats are available, it leads to the fact that something shady might be happening. I am a firm believer in business ethics and I have pulled money making traffic to sponsors who I find doing things unethical. So at the end of the day, yes I care about how much I make, but I care how I earned it. And I prefer not to give more money to a program that is doing unethical things.

As for the shows, it's about building on existing relationships and doing enough business to earn your ROI. We have seen the industry change trends from large, all out parties to more intimate dinners. There is a reason for this.

As for content, you are right on both ends. I use to sell big dick content, the old school, non-reality stuff. Still burns a ton of bandwidth and there are still tours rocking on ratios with this content. Sometimes, old school is better. Exclusive is good if you plan on exploiting it ... get the use on your paysite, then expand to VOD programs and content plugins.

Okay, my thoughts ... that's it. : )

Hey Kristin, give me a link to send to with no stats and a shave but send me a bigger check than Quickbuck and I will hammer you with traffic. : )

I would take this a step further and say the ONLY thing matters is input vs output. How much effort you put in vs how much money the sponsor pays out. Gallery submitters (as an example) would look at revenue earned per gallery submitted. There are ways to measure this for any other type of promotion.

On that level you can compare sponsors and see which ones will maximize revenue for YOU, which is all that matters. Other people's ratios are irrelevant. What it boils down to is, for the hours you spend working, which sponsor is going to pay you the most for that time & effort.

Do most affiliates work this way? I'd say probably not. But its the key to making the most money out of the time you have.

Very nice insight.

Have a great weekend WEG cory

Always profound thoughts by Cory... :)

Have a great weekend!!!

Brad

Poor sad business thread.

It is now in the business thread graveyard.

i stopped giving my thoughts. waste of words to 99% of this zoo.

have a great weekend :)

Nicely put Cory

yeah, no shit...worthless energy around here

That's retarded. It sounds like you're trying to justify shaving.

I sure some programs can shave and at the same time have good ratios, but if they didn't shave then webmasters would be making even more money.

Stealing is stealing. Period.

I would guess that 90% of the people who give this business a shot are gone within 5 years, many much sooner. The last couple of years in particular, we have seen a rising number of "names" leaving. In short, there are excellent reasons for questioning just about any conventional wisdom.

Conversion ratios do not matter AT ALL, but the check is only one part of the picture. You cannot usefully compare one sponsor with another unless you can evaluate the relative value of the promo spots each are given nor unless you have your own reliable traffic and click stats. Otherwise you have no way to know whether twice as much money from sponsor A than from sponsor B is good or not: perhaps you promoted sponsor A so much better that he should have earned three times as much for you.

Absolutely wrong and those who think otherwise are the ones not seeing the big picture, or more accurately, the long-term picture. Produce a list of sites you would spend your money on, or check out any of the reputable review sites. By the time you get to #50 they are starting to look pretty feeble. Now delete all the revshare sites from the list and see how many are left. Sure the best revshare sites are well promoted, but we know that more affiliates promote PPS. This simple exercise illustrates how many crap sites are being promoted by thousands of webmasters and how many millions of surfers are being exposed to all the tricks that PPS sites use to make money.

We know that none of this is what surfers actually want, yet somehow we manage to convince ourselves that we can expose the majority of them to it, year after year, without hurting ourselves. Get real. We have a global audience of people able to buy and enjoy porn without embarassment, yet after 10 years, online porn - according to the most often-quoted estimate - still accounts for only 5% of adult entertainment. We could double that in 5 years if we started behaving like business professionals instead of petty scam artists.

Of course they don't. But leaving affiliates to get on with it and hoping some of them get it right, makes no more sense than trawling for newbies with some childish board persona. Affiliates carry a cost and they offer potential. Where is the business sense in spending the money it costs - however a sponsor does it - to attract new affiliates, but then doing absolutely nothing to develop his potential. Running a business means exactly that: running it. Not just throwing some mud against a wall and then sitting back to see if any of it happens to stick.

Have a great weekend mate! Just relax and have fun..

Great post Cory, well thought out and MUCH merit in every aspect you cover.

Respect, as always bro, enjoy that weekend.

;-)

P.S.. how's the knee shaping up ?

I disagree. After five years of working full time in this business I'm taking in $2k a month from webmaster signups. It's free money.

I wish what you were saying was what the numbers showed. I seriously do.

But it isn't.

Webmaster signups are not an indicator of success. If you think you can dedicate a staff to optimizing those signups, I suggest you open a program immediately as you will dominate the market.

Content: The point is, most people do not distinguish the difference between exclusive and non-exclusive. We buy both, I am talking numbers here. Sure, if they are looking for a Vanilla DeVille or Raven Riley type site, this does not apply. I have two, sometimes three exclusive content production companies shooting for us, as well as major content deals. When you stand them side-by-side, I think you see the contrast. Also, assuming that all PPS programs are up to tricks is short-sighted, I doubt many programs around today have the content database that we do.

Your post is well thought out as usual, please don't take my disagreeing as denying your thoughts of integrity. One thing I like to do is post honest assessments, I don't really post the marketing fluff. Something I hope you can appreciate.

Thanks man.

The knee is doing real well. I am jogging up now, but still lacking considerable strength.

Will you be in LA for Webmaster Access? If so, please icq me.

Legacy signups on Webmaster refs?

Are you telling me that Adult.com gets productive webmaster signups all day long? I need to get Eric drunk so I can get some of these secrets! :1orglaugh

and you have a great weekend too!

We need more business posts like this. Good one! :thumbsup

I'm well aware of that: hence my first paragraph.

I agreed with you.

I didn't so much as mention the word "exclusive", because in this context it isn't relevant.

Your post attempted to rationalise what by and large this industry has been doing, making it all seem like the consequence of serious thought, based on solid business principles. It is not.

This is an immature industry. When online porn first appeared in a big way, roughly 10 years ago, the only content available was crap. It didn't matter, because demand was many times greater than supply and all our potential customers were first-time buyers. Which not only meant surfers had no choice except bad porn or no porn, but if webmasters weren't happy making only a small fortune, they could earn more by jerking surfers around all day long. They would still come back for more.

You can count on your fingers the number of sponsors who chose to break away from the crowd during the first 5 years and offer their customers a better experience. They are the only ones who actually made decisions, everyone else simply went along with the flow.

And here we are today, facing the reality that the last 5 years haven't been so easy and the next 5 are going to be a lot harder. Big surprise, online porn is growing up, just like every other industry before it.

You appear to think I am arguing from some kind of ethical perspective. I am not. My only considerations are competition and the inevitable way in which it forces an industry to mature. Start a site or a sponsor program today based on the 90's model that most of the biggest sponsors still use and you had better have very deep pockets to stand any chance of buying your way into the market.

Why go that route anyway? I have run service and retail businesses for almost 40 years, and it sticks out a mile that the easiest way to compete with established sponsors is by offering surfers more of what they want. Of course not everyone makes that decision and plenty of those who do, don't get the formula right. But that is the direction many new sites have been taking for the last few years and let's not pretend it has had no impact. The poorest sites are better today than most were 10 years ago and surfers don't get nearly as tough a ride from any as they used to get more or less routinely.

And the more real alternatives surfers are offered, the harder it will become to sell old-style sites with the cross-sells, up-sells and failure to deliver on what was promised. During the next 5 years, watch the sponsors who push this type of site dropping their prices and paying even more to affiliates: it is already starting to happen. If I were going to be around, I would be willing to make a bet that 10 years from now, there will not be a single old-school sponsor left at the top of this business, except for those who are bought out or learn to adapt to the changing circumstances.

Great thread Cory :thumbsup

Have a great weekend :thumbsup

No one else?

And she died.

Some interesting and very deep thoughts here. :)