Non US signups on the rise, Ideas
 

There is no question that the signups from the USA are on a decline and the international signups are up (thank you!)

I think its important to start thinking International for everything you do not just US.

So now more than ever I can see why translation might help.

But in addition what else can be done to make the international surfers feel better?

What billing style do they prefer best?

As far as real products such as toys etc what company is international friendly?

too bad CCbill scrubs most of the international traffic

:(

Oh I didn't know you had a paysite...

He DID have one. Past tense. :)

Most important thinh is to make sure they accept the payment from the international creditcards. CC-bill is the worse for EU traffic. It REALLY kills the posibility of making profit, when most of your clicks to the signup-form get declined. I tried to use Password-by-phone and other alternative payment methods. But the chance of someone signing up drops a lot, each time you take the surfer one step further away from the original site.

The last years I have focused on european traffic, and I have a EPC at around $0,38-0,42 depending on of its penispills, gear or regular subscription services.

I have never been able to get the same profit margin on any US traffic EVER

The $ have droped a lot over the last two years, so as a european surfer, the memberships have become cheaper. But if you cant sign up for the site, you already kicked them halfway over into ThePirateBay territory

When it comes to sextoys, bills and stuff - I have just started to use the program BradM works for (see sig).
IT works for the markets I have tested so far (scandinavia)

http://www.localbilling.com/ <-- go solve your problems and give me a % of the cut.


With CCBill, it's not CCBill doing the scrub. It's the Banks. They aren't allowing MANY high risk transactions that happen out of region. It makes no difference if your with ccbill, epoch, or your own merchant...the 'BANKS' are doing the declines for everyone.

I disagree. The same creditcards dont have any problems buying through programs like Fastsize or sites that use Verotel for that matter

I think Verotel is in the EU Region. And Fastsize is tangible items.

There is lots of good traffic outside the USA.

I have seen may international sales go way up. You guys not in a recession over seas? lol

Yes, and that was my exact point about CCBill :thumbsup

If they want to handle International customers, they have to work harder to accept their payments. It up to companies like CCbill to make sure their anti-fraud dont block customers, just based on the countries

CCbill have a EU section as well, so it shouldent be a problem to handle European customers - but my experiance say it is, and I know other european webmasters with the same problems

Not as bad as the US. We suffer a little because Germany is hurting a lot since the US dont import as much. But in general, its not as bad a s the press wants it to look like here.

Yeah, the CCBill scrubbing is out of control! I just added my Verotel option back to my join page. I know they just went through a weird period with their bank, but they used to bring me lots of non-US joins, so I have no choice.

It's not the anti-fraud system of CCBill that is stopping the transaction. It's the Bank. It makes no difference if you are on ccbill, epoch, or netbilling.

As an example, an American using a Wells Fargo card can't buy high risk transactions through SOME EU banks. It has nothing to do with CCBill, the bank has it blocked.

CCBill US is trying to settle with a high risk Euro Bank. That's a no no.. To help push more through, CCBill setup in Euro. Which DOES help with euro declines.

But that doesn't mean my US company can use the Eu CCBill, it's not allowed.

Whats your thoughts in different tours with different language text.

I haven't ever split tested those.. It would be tough to do, split out just 1 country on site and sales, then test and break it down again. Only on those that saw the translation vs. not too... tough stuff.

Now, member areas wise.. I have 'heard' that translated menus is more than enough. Then I have heard, it makes no difference in retention and I have heard, it makes all the difference in retention.

My theory... euro's rebill longer naturally, so when people 'finally go look' they think the euro members are doing better due to translations but they didn't do a proper split test before, so they really have no idea.

I never experianced the same when pushing sites that used epoch. The epoch admins I have had access to, never gave me a indication that would support that claim either (its 4 years ago I had a epoch access - keep that in mind)

I'm not claiming what you say isent true, I'm just letting you know what my personal experiance is, and what people around me have experianced

Bottom line is, ccbill bases programs simply stopped converting for me during the last half of 2008. I kept CCbill in the loop and belived when they kept telling us "we have something new in the pipeline"

Well, I dont know what pipeline that is, but I havent seen it yet

Sooooo much has changed in the last 4 years with these guys.. 4 years ago, you didn't 'need' alt processors, it was just nice to have them. Today, you need them.

Epoch is the decline masters these days. If your ratios suck, chances are extremly high that epoch is on a decline streak. BUT... they still put SOOOO many good transactions through, that it makes up for in the long run.

Ccbill has less throughput, but the loyalty wise ccbill wins hands down. Members like to join through ccbill, so give them that option and many will use it.

Either way though, the same WF card, gets declined on them both. Just for some reason, epoch "attempts" to processes damn near double the transactions. I don't understand that.

I assume those changes you are talking about is with the join pages. It's bullshit chain pulling... We have been trying to get those join pages changed for 4-5 years now, even gave them new ones, fully ready, and I'm not the only one.

I've noticed my CCB have scrubbers on full blast. Which is odd since I almost never have a charge back on ANY processor. However, they are one piece in the process.

Luckily, I use more than one processor. People getting declined on CCB can still sign up with another. Now before you say something about these people can charge back, or some other fraud. I have watched this over the years for a pattern on those declined by CCB and never came up with that.

They get declined, use Verotel or someone else. I make note of them, and then watch their progress to see if they charge back, or password share, or something else. I have never come across any patterns in that regard.

:2 cents:

Talk to www.dialxs.com (cc, sms, premium phone lines, direct debit in 10 countries, prepaid cards, etc. All multi lingual and they have Live stats available, xml stat feeds, multi lingual stats, custom jobs...)
paul@ is his email
They've been around since 1998 or so.

Something to consider is that "international" is not a fine-enough granularity. If it were, the answer might be "accept international Visa for whatever product you can fulfill, and keep world-class risk Experts on staff" (capital E). Lowest common denominator, in other words, for most of the developed world.

Clearly that's not sufficient (and let's not get into the dearth of risk experts who can circumnavigate the globe). You have to think "what is my strategy in Germany? In the UK? In France? In Norway?" ...and so on. The deeper you mine, the deeper it gets!

Which is great! It means opportunity is afoot! If you have the capital and the time, that is. Think about it this way: for huge brands with a global reach, you don't see the same billboards in the US that you'll see for the same brand in Japan. For that matter, you may not see the same billboards in New York City that you'll see in Topeka.

...you have a global reach too.

Fucking tragedy what is happening at the moment. Fucking tragedy.

i have a feeling this guy is right...

little birdies say banks filter on zip codes too these days to tell the bad from the good

yes good point this is what i have been saying for long time.

And since you mention translations we can help you with that as well also we can help you suggesting you with the right billers for each country since we partner with several companies.

escort... you want ideas??

extreme-board.com... they have 100% of the content you offer in all your sites.. but they offer it for free..

so why would someone pay for it, if they can get it for free??

and extreme board is just ONE site.... I can easily guess that you have no idea how many sites have your content...

if you want me to give you every link on the internet where they have your content for free, then hire me.. and i will do the job.. i don't work for free.. even considering that you earn 50k per month.. paying a guy 3k per month to report stolen content is more than a good idea..

Back when we were with Verotel we would see sales from Scandinavia, Finland, Germany you name it every day. Then Verotel had their little DDEU meltdown and we moved a few sites and now all of those sales have stopped.

I'm at a bit of a loss at what to do short of installing NATS. I hope the various processors are on the job about this. I wonder if they even see these sorts of statistics as they are probably not in a position to do these comparisons.

50k per month lol all you need is a basic calculator to see how often all my sites update and youll figure out that thats what i spend on content a month

but I agree tons of stuff out there for free, removeyourcontent does the best they can do and the site you mentioned I dont think has any of my stuff at least not yet

Spoken from a TRUE SURFER. Im sure your the one stealing the content, then trying to make a buck reporting it,.

I wish there was a processing option for non credit card European that could pay decent.Most seem like they bill the guy 5 bucks a minute and I get 5 cents.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :thumbsup

The traffic is only as versatile as the processors,

maestro - switch - solo.

Those solutions exist. Drop me an email and I'll point you in the right direction. Many solutions have too many agents inbetween or do not have enough volume to get the best payouts (or take too much points).

For example:
Holland (with 16.5 million people) has 80 eurocents per minute in phonebilling (that includes the 19% VAT/TAX) and the payouts are around 50 cents per minute (ex VAT/TAX).
So you'll get around 51,5 cents from the 67,22 (ex vat) that the consumers pays (the difference goes to the phone companies and the billing company. If you do volume you'll get more then the 51,5 cents.

Direct debit:
In Holland this is used by many consumers. 100% no chargebacks and you get paid in one day or a week depending on the biller you use. The costs, depending on your volume, are a fixed price per transaction like around 50 to 75 cents and consumers you can bill anything from 1 cent to thousands. Not recurring only.