Invite Only Programs
 

Who has done them, or used them, in the past?

In my talks with some other webmasters, I will sometimes get a request for us to do this as an option. We would not pay $35/60/75 like many others. It would have to be a rev share or something to that effect.

In the past, I've always fought this. Rather keep all the money for myself. But some companies, and people are looking for good converting programs. Since we do well (see sig nig) I guess that is kind of the motivation.

I would never do a full blown program. Invite only, with a select group of niche, quality, traffic sites/people/companies might be something to consider.

Experiences?
:helpme

I really dig polish chicks.

We do that and it makes some sales. I know for many we aren't their cup of tea. I see it as a 50-50 partnership on the sale. I wont do rss feeds, hosted galleries, hosted movies.I give you content, great sites,great customer service. You bring sales. We both have expenses to do that.

Good to hear you are doing well with it. That is definitely a plus. :thumbsup

I am thinking with the RIGHT sites/people, invite only, and a handful. It may be an advantageous relationship. With the right sources, as you can tell from our stats, we do well.

It's finding those 'gems' that are the tricky part. We can do more with less.

polish_aristocrat chicks?

If you want to keep it all to yourself, keep it. If you think about opening an affiliate program, than open it up for everybody. There's no sense in invite only programs.

Aside from:
Quality affiliates only.
Sales from such affiliates.
Next to no support required.
Little to no tools required.
Not expected to keep up with every other program.
Promoters do not ditch you for someone else, as each program one ups themselves.
Little to no fraud.
Exclusivity to a small number of affiliates.

There are MANY reasons why to keep it invite only.

This man and post cover a lot of them..

Plus you can manage quality traffic, and affiliates better. Take a more personal touch, and add in better bonuses.

:2 cents:

Tell that to Abby Winters.

People who want to protect their brand -- people who HAVE a brand to protect -- sometimes opt for this. It's not what we choose to do, but I can see why people do it.

The main problem with it, I think, is that it takes a lot of time/extra staff to administer and can cause hard feelings/bad pr. There's a network of sites (the beautiful agony, i shot myself sites) that has turned me down as an affiliate because apparently I am too pornographic and hideous for them and I can't tell you how angry it makes me. On the one hand I can relate to people wanting to protect their brand, product, models, etc. from being misrepresented, etc. but on the other . . . it really fucking burns me up when *I* am the one being forced to audition and then am rejected. It's like, who the fuck do these pretentious fucks think they are?

I can see it both ways.

Agreed on brand protection. You want affiliates/partners to effectively and respectfully promote your program. With control of course.

That's how I've been handling mine so far. I want to know who is sending me traffic and using my content, and where the traffic is coming from. The last thing I want to do is compete with my own affiliates on the same traffic source.

I mean I know getting thousands of webmasters all sending you a handful of sales per period is a great business model, but I don't want the headaches.

:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

It really is not a knock against any affiliates, or I do not think so. It just is an alternate yet viable business model that works better for some than other models may.

I could list many more reasons why I am pro invite only programs and why I have ran my personal sites that way as well for the most part. It just is like asking what would the benefits be of running a business almost any other way be.

I guess the real question would be for a niche or micro niche site owner who really knows their niche well to the point of being able to make a living themselves off of just their own traffic and sites. What would affiliates really bring to the table and would it be better to have ten good ones or two thousand mediocre ones be?

Even if those two thousand affiliates forty sales a day while just having ten invited affiliates brought in twenty sales a day. I still would go with the ten, myself. May not make full sense looking at it but it makes complete sense to me business wise.

If you personally know some awesome affiliates, then an invite only program can work without much overhead while increasing sales quite a bit. But even decent sized programs that have been around have a hard time finding more than a small % of quality affiliates.

If you feel you can court some big time affiliates, I can see it working.

Quality affiliates only.
Quality or not, all active affiliates send traffic and sales. If your goal is to increase your bottomline, there's no reason to dump legit affiliates only because they do not meet your standards of quality.

Sales from such affiliates.
Sales are sales, from any affiliate. I do not see any difference between $29.95 (or whatever the price is) brought in by "invite only" or by regular affiliate who subscribed on his own through the open registration from.

Next to no support required.
Support is no biggie anyway, for small and middle sized programs. What's even more important - affiliates are by far the best investment of your precious time. 1 hour spent to support affiliate, answer his questions etc will return thousands of dollars in the long run, I doubt there's something else you can fill your time with instead, that will be more profitable.

Little to no tools required.
The very same tools required. It's not like your "invite only" affiliates do not need stats or magically capable of sending traffic without fhgs, banners etc.

Not expected to keep up with every other program.
You're expected to be better than other programs, in terms of bottomline, if you're invite only.

Promoters do not ditch you for someone else, as each program one ups themselves.
It's not like your affiliates all swear you in blood to send traffic and sales forever, it's "loyalty in exchange of higher bottom line" kind of relationships, if you're invite only. As long as you provide that higher bottom line, they stay loyal. But still there are numerous other risk factors for you, if you depend on several affiliates only, even if times are good and sales are great - one of your affiliates lost traffic, another one found Jesus and left adult biz and here you go with a huge dent in your sales. And at bad times of bad sales, that happen with all programs, you're increasingly exposed to risks of loosing most of your traffic.

Little to no fraud.
Valid point.

Exclusivity to a small number of affiliates.
If your goal is to provide exclusivity to a small number of affiliates, than yes, you will succeed. If your idea is to make more money, I doubt limiting your affiliates base will help.

I'd love to add a banner to our pantyhose members area (if you had a leak free tour for your affiliates). I should do well with it. Plus we're opening up a stockings site soon, and a foot site later. So if you open one.... put me on the "please invite" list. :)

There are and always have been and always will be a few dozen guys in this business who can really make sales as affiliates. If you want to go invite only and if you have a specific niche and know who the guys are that can work traffic AND have traffic that is targeted to your niche...then hell yes. It'll keep your stuff from getting oversaturated. Plus a guy like barefootsies (foot fetish) and tony404 (bbw) don't really have to worry too much. The fans of their niches are VERY loyal and VERY obsessive and will seek them out no matter what.
Affiliates are best for general hardcore programs and teen sites. Specialized niches (where the real money is) have less need of them.

We have around 500 affiliates. About ten of them are money makers for me in the big tit niche.

:2 cents::2 cents:

:thumbsup

I mainly deal with foot fetish, tickling, celebrity/feet.

Tell that to bang bros, tcg, nasty dollars or any other of the big programs. If invite only is such a good idea, why wouldn't they opt for it?

I know there are program that work invite only, but I think it's more of an emotional rather than solid business decision. People love feeling "exclusive", "not for everybody" - money is still not the only value in our world. I'm pretty sure there are people to whom the ability to through in now and then "we're invite only" at GFY is worth a colonial empire.

People who want to protect their brand -- people who HAVE a brand to protect -- sometimes opt for this. It's not what we choose to do, but I can see why people do it.

I take it simple, no traffic = no brand.
The more traffic you get, the stronger your brand will be. There's no reason to deny any legal traffic because you think it may hurt your brand. If you're selling porn (meaning anything people will jerk at, even nn), no porn traffic will hurt your reputation, because reputation of all porn sites is about the same. The difference between porn brands is not "reputation" from societal pov, its quality, customers service etc.

If you want proper brand recognition - shoot great content and make proper promos, that depends on you not on your affiliates. If people will see your great galleries, they'll think better of your brand, even if they'll not subscribe right away, that'll improve your brand's recognition and help with sales later. It doesn't matter where surfers will see your ads - even if you sell nn and someone posted your ad at anal gang bang site.

That's my view of it :)

It's like, who the fuck do these pretentious fucks think they are?

Exactly. Hey its a porn brand we're talking about, not some luxury billionaire resort where you have to be extremely picky with partners and protect brand's reputation.

But is there such thing as a bad promotion?
I always thought that where ever the info appeares is good for the site, 'cose u never know what can come out of it, right?

Do you, or have you, ever dealt with highly specialized and micro niches? If not, none of your 'tips' will apply in dealing with converting traffic. My stuff does not convert on generic porn traffic. You need the right sites/niches/quality.

The days of throwing shit traffic at galleries, or sites and crossing your toes for a conversion are over. I am in the conversions game. Not traffic game.

:2 cents:

Affiliate fraud has gotten out of control this year ... so won't lie and claim I haven't thought about going invite only.

You have to realize a couple of things...they built those programs up a long time ago. AND they are not using the business model that you think that they are. Affiliates and "real" sales are a tiny, tiny fraction of the income for those guys. It's a numbers game for them involving business deals between themselves and other so-called "big programs"

Just like it was back in 1999 when the endless pop up business model was in full effect. Back then the "big programs" were ARS and Maxcash and a couple of others. They made millions of dollars on popping up a never ending stream of consoles that they got paid on. I used to make around 40 grand with each of those two programs every month at that time. And they were basically paying me for my traffic and "crediting" me sales. And if you had ever went into the members areas from that time period you would understand it. There was literally nothing there.

So what I'm saying is that you are thinking of it correctly IF bangbros/nasty dollars, brazzers, TCG were playing the same game as you are. But they aren't, they are doing something completely different than what you are talking about. They are creating massive revenue streams from other sources that are best not discussed on a forum full of surfers.

I used to send on average 50+ sales a day to Nasty Dollars back in 2002, 2003, and 2004. Can't make a sale now to them to save my life. Their sites still kick ass. Hell, they are even better than before. But they have a different business model now. And it's not based on sales to their members areas.

In theory - yes. But in practice, if not reminded constantly about your product (which only affiliates can do), even the most loyal customers will not frequent you as often as you wish.

Also, where it is a core of fans that will find you no matter what, there's always much broader base of casual customers that are not obsessed that much with your stuff or even niche, but they still like it and subscribe and their money smell the same. To reach those casual customers, you need broader advertising network, which only affiliates can provide.

Also, there's a category of curious surfers who do not understand your niche but they will subscribe just to look wtf is going on there. To reach them, you need broader advertising network.

If you're invite only, you deny yourself of a revenue stream from review sites for example, that can sell about anything they promote. If you have open registration form - some one will post galleries with your stuff to the Hun and other tgps. Ratios may not be great, but still those are sales that would't be there if you're invite only. Etc etc.

What you're saying SEEMS to make sense. But trust me, in practice it doesn't. I have some damn good affiliates, and they send me good sales and we all make money. But they aren't even close to the amount of type in and search engine traffic I get.

We only opened up Claudia-Marie.com last May. In the first week we had 100 members with NO affiliate sales (I didn't have anything in the affiliate area for them). I put up a couple of text links on my tgp and by the end of the first week...surfers had posted hundreds of threads in every Big Tit forum on the web. THAT is how it works with niches.

And big tits is not a micro niche like barefootsies and tony404 have. Their shit is even more effective.

In theory.

You are not accounting for the fraud, and back end support costs for dealing with a larger affiliate base. Which is also a business expense. All these supposed new sales do not just go into your pocket. You have increased expenses as well.

:2 cents:

Also, for most programs, 5% of the affiliates make 95% of the sales.
So it makes more sense to zero in on those who will be that converting traffic, and exposure.

:2 cents:

So what if majority of your sales come from other sources, not affiliates? I never said most your sales HAVE to come from affiliates, if you have a program open to everyone. I only meant that if you do not have an open registration form, you're just leaving money on the table. How much money - 10% or 90%, depends on situation. Even if it is only 10%, why not to pick it up, provided that it costs you almost nothing.

Nothing annoys me more than this remark..

It ranks up there with the 'adapt or die'.

:disgust

I understand what you're saying. And I never leave money on the table if I can help it. My affiliate program IS open. I'm always hoping the next baby whale will be born and swim into my ocean.

But I can log into NATS right now and look up my resellers. And here is what I see: 90% of them logged in one time when they first joined...grabbed all the hosted content and have never sent a single hit and never logged back in. That would be surfers signing up. We have since changed it to where we have to approve your account first.

Of the other 10%...I can see where the majority of them do log in. And they might send 10 or 15 hit a day and NO sales. They are the same guys who make up most of GFY. Johnny Come Latelys who think they can build a page or blog their way to fame and fortune.

And then there are a handful of TRUE webmasters with actual free sites of quality that have been in business for years and have developed a trust with their surfers and/or their niche. And that handful of guys are the ONLY ones that send sales.

That is the reality of it.

But yes, I'm open so in case a guy comes in that does have a real site and hasn't signed up yet...I'll be there.

But again, Big Tits is a pretty broad niche. For barefootsies and tony404...the REAL webmasters in that niche will seek them out and write them an email and ASK to promote them. Remember...they are specialized micro-niches.

:winkwink:

Fraud is a legit concern, but there are ways to deal with it.

As to back end support costs - they're next to nothing. Let CCBill handle your affiliate base, traffic tracking, payouts etc, it'll cost you nothing both labor and money wise.

You'll only need to spend your time answering affiliates emails, which is, as I've already said, the best time investment of your life.

Anyway, it's not like you're going to have immense affiliates base the day one you opened up your program. You'll have to fight for every new affiliate, not matter if you invite only or not.

As to paying to your affiliates - yes, you'll need to pay them :) They're not going to work for free just because you have such a great site. Invites only system will not save you from paying to your webmasters.

Usually, I'd say in 99,99% of cases, including niches and microniches, money invested in affiliates payouts pay off through the increased sales.

Paying webmasters is not a concern. Plus it's common sense. Thanks for reiterating it toots.

You are basing all this info you are providing on your OWN program? Which one is it.

Ferrocash. I'm one of his affiliates :)

I thought so. I saw the sig. But best to ask.
:winkwink:

I think there's some miscommunication here about what "invite only" means... The concept is not banning all affiliates, just filtering them slightly as to not waste anyones time.

Exactly.
:thumbsup

Teen Pink has always been invite only - it gives us two main advantages: we control our brand as much as possible and give our affiliates as much personal attention as possible to ensure that they actually produce sales.

Robbie is right, many surfers are savvy enough to sign up as resellers, rip off your content or even request a password and never send a single useful hit.

Well... the poing of our dispute being... what than? If we basically agree on everything :)

It's true that 90% of affiliates who subscribe never send a single click. So what? :) Nothing, if you ask me.

If you choose to fight that it's your business, I'm not going to dispute your program's policy regarding pre-approval of affiliate accounts. I just personally do not see any sense in it, as it's not going to bring you a single sale on top of what you have now.

Btw, not all affiliate accounts that are not sending clicks are surfers. There're lots of webmasters who subscribe just in case. I've seen it many times when accounts that have been dead for years all of a sudden would start sending decent sales.

But again, Big Tits is a pretty broad niche. For barefootsies and tony404...the REAL webmasters in that niche will seek them out and write them an email and ASK to promote them. Remember...they are specialized micro-niches.

Don't hold your breath about all webmasters seeking for your program and e-mailing to you. Those may be micro niches, but still there are plenty of great sites to promote without any headacke of e-mailing for invites and proving you're the "quality" guy. You know the common web rule - every additional step in registration will reduce the number of those willing to signup. Same goes for webmasters. Some will not like the attitude of those "pretentious fucks", some will think they'll e-mail later and never will etc etc.

Heck no Nautilus, I'm not fighting with you. I'm just discussing with you. :) I'm just saying that tony and barefootsies know their stuff pretty well. As I know mine and you know yours. I like real discussions with other people in the business. I learn something every time.

I have never understood this attitude - how hard is it to shoot off an email and speak to the staff at a programme? Don't you WANT to know the people who run the site you promote? don't you WANT to know that they are paying attention and willing to work with you?

Looks like you have made up you mind already and not going to listen for any advise. Good luck than :) I really mean it. I've seen much weirder and less logical (than invite only programs) ventures to succeed, only because their founding farthers believed what they do is right.

Heh-heh...I just realized I'm one of your dead affiliates. Just swamped with shit. Looks like I sent you about 4000 hits a few years ago and made a little over $1600 And then kinda forgot about it. :( Do you guys send out emails with your newest promo tools? Like hosted galleries and such? I have all my CC Bill accounts merged into one big one that has almost 200 cash programs in it. And CC Bill has such a bad admin area...I'd love to get back on the ball with you if you guys send out affiliate emails. :)

Same here :) And thanks for intelligent arguments btw.

Robbie, you make it sound so easy. I have to start picking your brain for some advice on a couple of my new niche projects.

I wouldn't go so far as to say my arguments are "intelligent" :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Jimmy Gunn! What's up!
It is easy when you're Robbie Boyette. LOL :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh
No, you know as well as I do NOTHING is easy. Bro, I'm like you...working 10 to 12 hours a day EVERY DAY including weekends, holidays etc. The only "vacation" I get is going to "broventions" and hanging out with everybody buying drinks and calling everyone "topnotch" :1orglaugh :pimp Hell, I'd pre-check x-sell my own mother if it would make me a dollar lol