XSells and Review Sites
 

Question for either program owners or review site owners. Lets say a review site reviews the paysite and notes in its review that there are Xsells on there and to be sure to uncheck them if they do not want them. Considering that programs are paying out a PPS based on the Xsells not being seen, is this an issue? Have review sites been contacted and asked to remove those details or had to take a lower rate? Also would like to hear the opinion of programs who have their sites reviewed as well.

Thanks.

Sorry for posting a business thread around here.

I talked to one of the largest Review site owners to make sure that they do this. They make sure their customers are aware of any pre checked cross sales.

It's a good thing IMO that they do this. I am glad.

Pre checked cross sales are no good.

But sites that use them may not want review sites to point it out. It hurts their bottom line and potentially the amount they make off the affiliate. If I remember correctly, there was a thread awhile back about programs complaining that review sites were pointing out limited trials.

"Pre checked cross sales are no good."
Crooked fucking bastards ..................
Thieves are thieves, "Bro" my ass ...........

They make/made money due to timing only.
A matter of being in the 'right place at the right time'.
Pure 'chance', NO FUCKING BRAINS INVOLVED!

They have absolutely 0 (zero) sales skills.
Couldn't sell snowshoes in Alaska if their fucking life depended on it.

Would NEVER survive in today's marketplace.

:2 cents:

boo hoo

too bad,

that's like asking a movie critic not to say anything bad about his movie review if the movie sucked :2 cents:

would that be right?

if the program doesnt like it they can make another tour for the review site or choose not to have the review site for an affiliate

that would be stupid though because review sites have the best traffic bar none

Why would it be an issue? Surfers know those hidden prechecked x-sales are there and obviously want the wonderful deal being offered to them.

And that is your way of thinking, What is the surfer goes to review site9 and gets fucked by X sells. He is not coming back, He goes to review site4 and the review was just how he expected it. He comes back to review site4 next month and so on.
One might make more today and the other will probably make more for the year

sorry I thought you were saying it the other way around, ignore that

true dat.

i'm pretty sure its illegal in the US too.

wouldn't that be under
something like misleading advertising?

get skills or get a job at McDonalds..

i make sure my reviewers note on the review when the xsells are UNDER the join button. any program that would want to decrease my rate because of that could basically fuck off.

Of course review sites should mention it. The whole point of a review site is to build trust with paying members interested in purchasing memberships. Anything that would detract from the experience (i.e. being billed double billed for duplicate members areas or secretly charged 4x for other memberships) is part of that. Fuck, the whole reason review site traffic is so good IS that trust.

It's an issue if a program is paying $35 because they are getting x-sales on most of their sales. If a review site sends sales that dramatically reduce x-sales, can they still afford to pay out the $35 for that particular affiliate?

I heard its just 10% of all sales. Thats for regular xsells over the submit button. No clue about the hidden ones with no pricing on them and placed on the site bottom. Those surely make much more, as its stealing.

It's ok, I make that misstake from time to time too :upsidedow

Quoting somebody on another board:

We're at a point where pretty much every sponsor with an own merchant account and the bulk of sponsors with enough volume to be allowed to are doing pre-checked cross-sales. While pre-checked cross-sales per se may not be bad, what these people are doing is shady, at best. Oftentimes the price of the cross-sales is hidden in fine print, the boxes are tucked away far below the submit button, the wording is made up so it doesn't clearly imply that you'll get charged for the memberships, etc, etc. Shortly put, pushing the legality of the practice to its limits.

Now, how does this affect the industry? Well, for one, these sites do cross-sales between them on pretty much the same pool of surfers. Much like we trade TGP traffic, passing the same surfers from one site to another. The end result? The surfer gets slapped with anything from $100 to $200 (depending on the sites he joins and his location) in charges for the cross-sales and never trusts a paysite with his creditcard again. In many cases the cross-sales are even for sites they'd actually get access to anyway, by joining the site they want in the first place. And as if that was not enough, if they want to cancel, they often get even more cross-sales thrown at then hidden below the submit button on the cancellation page. So they think they cancelled one or two memberships but end up having signed up for different ones instead. Their credit cards get practically raped.

Now, you'd think bleeding the market dry for potential customers would be bad enough, but as it turns out, that's not the biggest problem. See, being that these people are pushing things to such an extreme degree, can you imagine what would happen if the mainstream media got a whiff of this? Just imagine one single loon with an agenda (remember minusonebit anyone?) starting doing research, putting together names of individuals and companies and sending it to mainstream media channels, while dragging in VISA and MasterCard along with it, as supporters. All it takes is one fairly reputable mainstream media source to run a comprehensive story on this and many others would follow suit. Let's face it, in a time when the consumer is struggling to make ends meet, the economy is darker than it's been in many decades and people are losing their jobs and homes, this would make for an incredibly great story and unbelievably suitable scapegoat for many.

Does anyone remember the big stink caused by dialers 6-7 years ago? That is a piss in the ocean compared to what would happen if the above scenario were to take place. What could happen? Worst-case scenario, the end of this industry as we know it. Processors would go out of business, many sponsors (good and bad) would go out of business and with them the majority of affiliates.

Now going back to the sponsors-shooting-themselves-in-the-foot part, they don't give a fuck. They're leveraging their size to squeeze the industry out of one last fast buck, because the ones doing this could easily retire yesterday since they've already got it made. In fact, it is my belief (and to a certain degree actual knowldge) that it's exactly what some of them are doing, squeezing the last drop of blood from the industry, while they already have mainstream projects lined up, getting ready to move on to greener pastures.

Now, the only reason why no one has tipped off the mainstream media about this yet is because those to whom the idea occured also realized that they'd go down with the ship as well. However, the risk of this happening is getting bigger and bigger and all of you who promote these sponsors are, in fact, also risking your short-term paychecks, not only your long-term ones. Because if the shit hits the fan, the FTC gets involved and VISA and MC pull out, fucked doesn't even begin to describe what you will be.

Does anyone have a list of these sites? If someone does, could you please message me on ICQ. Thanks.

its already under investigation....

look for any program that seems to be paying way to much per signup. ;)

We let our readers know aout xsales such as there was a few cases with Icredible Pass. With our new format we try to point out all the flaws which is a hard pill for most programs to swallow. Sales took a bit of a dip but readers will surely appreciate our site being totally upfront about all sites with them.

Interesting!

Tranza bot 2.0 strikes again .....

Some wms are building up such list on another forum, I cannot post a url here though.

repeat sorry

***** 5 Stars

MUST READ for anybody who cares just a little bit about this business.

what the fuck are you babbling about?
"right place, right time" for what?

I completely disagree with saying that x-sells are worse than the dialers. That just isn't true. I was here when the dialers were in place. That shit was AGGRESSIVE. And incredibly nasty. I'm almost sure that nobody in this thread even remembers them. Because if you did you would be calling this shit out right now and saying "Bullshit"

Dialers were a COMPLETE and total way to trick the surfer and take a fortune from them. You guys are worried about a pre-checked x-sell? Well, that at least gives the surfer a chance to UNcheck it. AND it gives the surfer the opportunity to get their money back AND it gives them a membership to a paysite if they choose to keep it.

The dialer? It installed without you knowing it. Then you were surfing at 5 bucks or more a minute all charged to your phone bill.

Some of those old school guys that made MILLIONS? Guess how they did it. Dialers.

Prechecked x-sells? That ain't shit. And the person who wrote that on another forum is merely expressing his opinion and presenting it as a fact.