OK, be honest...how bad are your sales?
 

I remember you used to just get some SE traffic and you could convert shit all day long...my affiliate stuff is SO BAD this month, if it were to stay this way, I'd just have to close up shop...and I know what I'm doing...I've done this for 10 years!

So, be honest, drop the egos...how far down are your sales from 1 year ago?

sales?

what sales??

I have been on the 1st page for my keyword/phrase in SERPS for years on one of my celebrity sites. I do not think SE means as much in adult as it does in mainstream.

I think adult is more about that cliche where you see the same site 100 times over, and then you click through. Or movement on the banner ads, and some other quirks.

Sales not down. HOW I get the sales has changed a bit however. Especially on sites that are membership, versus clip stores, and DVD...

About 75-80% lower than previous years. The game has definitely changed.
WG

Mo' Money Bitches!

definitely down, but fortunately I expanded my market and reach to compensate for it and it's paying off. Hopefully things will continue to climb up.

Thats a serious drop WG - far too big.. :helpme

god damn man

not long in adult, but i used to have range of sponsors with few sales per month to each, now i have three big sponsors that are making me money, the rest is just few sales monthly. cams goes down 500%. if those three ponsors will drop i am lost :helpme

Whut r these "sales" u guys talk 'bout?

Consider I bought a lot of traffic from Yahoo/Google and cut all those media buys too, so its relative.
WG

the economy has been in free fall for over a year - and there are a couple more years to go at least.

Anyone with enough stable traffic to matter has noticed a drop. It's the most noticeable on the affiliate side for sure.

Im about 50% of what I was last year in adult. I'm still killing it in mainstream though. I know its the common complaint, but as tube sites picked up, my stats went down.

50% drop in just 3 months time. Too many people losing their jobs and the ones who haven't are scared and cutting out some luxuries. My thought is it's temporary. And porn will once again start doing well along with alcohol, movies, live entertainment, etc. Last time I saw this was in the late 1970's and early 1980's when unemployment was even worse than it is now...and the bar business was BOOMING. Just have to get past these first few months of fear that people have and then they will settle back in and figure out a way to afford their vices one way or another.

Our January Twistys sales are up huge over last January.
Our tgps are down year over year. Probably about 35%.
Our tubes are obviously way up year over year.

So overall somehow we are up substantially January 09 vs January 08. That said we have a larger and more talented staff than ever before. We are working harder and more focused than ever before. And we are optimizing more than ever before. So we are up but it's not by sitting around and doing nothing. We are busting it very hard.

Not really down, but I'm grinding out so much more work to bring home the same thing, and I wasn't exactly slacking before. A lot of the work seems to not pay off the same way too, like something which would have for sure had an awesome ROI a few years back is just kinda there now, so it makes choosing projects way harder and ad budgets have to go way farther because it takes ten times as many eyeballs to make the same dollar.

No bullshit, they are much higher. Does have a bit to do with that I actually work now day's LOL

sales come in good.. but it takes so much work now, that if I were to explain it.. I would write exactly what "AmeliaG" just wrote.

20-25% drop

I misread your question and answers...

I put 100% as though you were asking how are they now compared with last year.. Basically the same.

Im about the same to be honest...

granted im not dealing with the traffic as I would like to be... the conversions are still there... for 08-and so far of 09 I still hold about 1/323 conversions....

so traffic is down big time over the last few years... but conversions are still the same

I am up about 25-35% over this time last year. I haven't been in the game as long as many of you have so I can't gauge too far back. I have noticed a decrease in sales for a number of sponsors I push but others have increased to pick up the slack.

Well if I would count only adult paysite sales (without cams, dating, rx, etc..) it would be definitely 50 - 60% lower. But counting all sales, I'm average.

Though February is fucking miserable :(

Interesting question Jay. Being in processing we see the actual numbers, and where they come from.

Not too pretty right now.

My 50% drop started January 2008 - about the same time tube traffic exploded.

My sales ratios are still about equal - it's just my traffic sources are down. Most of my traffic is MGP/TGP generated. Tubes are taking over. A lot of MGP/TGP's that are still alive have switched to hosted galleries. Most paid partner accounts are unprofitable.

I'll be good as long as i can increase my traffic levels, but it's a pretty big challenge so far.

40% down.

I have much more traffic and signups than I had a year ago. But for the past two months, the fucking credits and chargebacks have gone thru the roof.

Glad I have alot of non-adult stuff running to offset the adult crap running on autopilot.

Yep we've had noticeable increase in chargebacks as well :(

happy to say im up about %15-%25 since last year....although working harder and sending a lot more traffic to sponsors its certainly isn't what it was...

Is the CB's you're getting on adult or mainstream too?
WG

Nov and Dec 08 were terrific. Jan 09 was "ok" February has been horrible thus far. It's a bit unsettling.

i'd estimate about 15% down from the same time in '08.

Just on adult.

After almost three years of painful restructuring, Homegrown is showing amazing growth month after month. Much like Twistys, we have far more talent and we're a lot more focused then we have ever been. There are still sales to be had, if you're poised for them correctly. In fact, we just expanded our team by two new members this week. I'm very excited to see where this year takes us.

We had our worst ever chargeback month in December, we hit 0.4%, we average 0.1%. I have noticed that our support department is dealing with a lot more agro users that are threatening to bark at authorities if you don't issue them a credit immediately recently. Never seen those before... Fucking economy, driving everyone batty.

state of this industry should be determined by how google traffic searching for "hot teens" or "hardcore porn" converts and not by how Barefootsies manages to grow his loyal surfers fanbase and implementing innovative techniques

bottom line: it gets worse and worse, but that doesn't mean that people/companies still can't grow

You mean I can make money being something they call "an affiliate"?

Fuck!

I really respect companies that aren't afraid to say "We are down". Gosh, in this economy, how can a lot of people NOT be down.

To me, this is the most relavant answer. An aggregate of everything rather than individuals.

Since I've only been in the business for 1.5 years my answer would not be relavent but this is an informative thread so bump.

Thanks tootsie.

As I have said in other similar threads. HOW I make my nut has changed. It used to be majority memberships, and the rest was gravy. Now it is either shifted for the month, or balances out between clip store, membership, custom work, DVD, and so on. I make my money, but HOW I do it has significantly changed.

Also, traffic patterns have become very unstable and erratic. I typically do not buy traffic unless I am launching something new. So I am not referring to that kind of traffic sources.

Lastly, keep in mind that I have name recognition, and 11 years of brand and trust in my niche. So not only do I know foot fetish to the bone so to speak. I also am known and trusted to the point others are not. I have had members, and customers, for different foot sites, clip stores, etc. that have been with me the whole time! I have interacted with them on forums, or message boards, so they have a feeling they know me. I am easily accessible.

What I am getting at is. I do a lot of things different then some faceless online porn monolith or conglomerate.

:2 cents:

i like sales as much as i like poo

It ain't pretty out there, that's for sure. My situation is like many that posted before. I am working twice as hard as before for the money. My website sales are flat on transactions, but money is up because I raised prices. I try to launch a new income stream every month to help deversify the income and keep building things.

Thanks to XXJay for the real business thread and to the others that seem to have posted honest answers. Everyone hang in there. I believe like Robbie does, it will settle in a few months and the money will start to come back ... slowly ...

What a coincidence.. that's when shit started going downhill for me too

My conversion ratios are down, but my traffic is way up to compensate. Also I started my own paysites exactly a year ago which so far have been pretty good... So yeah 2008 was my biggest year in the last 5, and this year is looking to be better.

We're about 10-15% off where we should be... about 8% down in sales.. but our projected growth would've had us far higher than we are...


Second week in the month is RAPING us.. all other weeks in the month are banging.. and it's been like that since about October.. I think that's when cc statements go out...

and the same time the US went in a recession.

My site started at zero, so it could only improve. Sales have gone up each month, and it still has rebills from last March, when it launched.

As an affiliate, I mostly push webcams. Sales are down, but because of revshare, commissions are about the same.

There has been a huge drop, no doubt. Fortunately, I keep adding stuff to compensate, and it is working.

icicic....tough times.