Traffic is precious - at what point do you call it quits?
 

Seriously, sorry about the business thread folks... For me, it used to be between 5000 - 10000 quality uniques and I would accept that either I couldn't promote the site and it was a waste of my traffic/time or something was fishy with the program. Don't put the tinfoil hat on and bring up shaving, lets just skip that angle.

1) When it comes to ratios, at what point are you calling it quits for promoting a program?
And
2) At what point do you pull the plug when testing new programs?

I haven't really pulled the plug on too many programs I've promoted, unless I've seen a thread about them not paying several legit people. I'm willing to give about 25k before pulling the plug on a new program I am testing, purely because you have to dial in your pages and the way you promote them. at 0:25,000 something is wrong.

Oh, and to be clear - I don't mean 25k of 404 and scrap chinese traffic, I am referring to traffic that has recently (60 days max) or does currently convert in the 1:1100 to 1:1800 range with other similar programs.

To be honest I never really pulled links from any program i've promoted due to bad ratios. For me if a surfer is actually CLICKING a link to check it out, then it's a potential sale... I never force or skim a surfer to a program (I might skim them to another one of my tgp/freesites, but that's another issue), so it's all clicked traffic.

But I agree, if I look at ratios of my CTR to sponsor as being over 0:10000 then I need to take another look or just remove them completely.

Hmmm, not sure if you keep the links up because "if a surfer is actually CLICKING a link to check it out, then it's a potential sale." To me that says you know how to get the surfer to the sponsor's site but the sponsor is not doing well enough to convert your traffic.

I would ask your rep what the current site wide conversion ratio for the site is. Take that number and double it as they may embellish the number just a tad and see where you stand. If you are way over what they say is average ask them why? If you do not get a good enough answer or one that doesn't make sense move on to another site.

It depends on the niche, but on a per site basis I will quit sending at 0:10,000. What I hate even worse than that is the 1:1000 ratio until you are just below minimum payout and then no more sales regardless of how much traffic you throw at it.

I am more of a "build and move on" sort of guy. I don't pull traffic once it starts. But I do refuse to start sending more. Basically I figure out what my time is worth and whether or not that sponsor has paid me back for that time. If they have paid me back generously for my time, I give them more of it. If I lose money on the time I spent with that sponsor, they get no more traffic.

Very Well Put..

we notice better ratios with webmasters that are updating with our new content. Some affiliates with really low ratios have the highest rebill rates. But to answer your question certain sites might be good but just not good for your traffic source. But I would propose that your doing this because its your business. If you can promote a different site that makes you twice as much money you have to do that. There is also the issue of for example a tgp. If your promoting one site your probably losing the opportunity to sell the surfer if they already joined the site you should be promoting a few sites. I remember reading someone testing and the magic number for a tgp is 6-8 sponsors.

So my point is in some cases,, a site that has a bad ratio, is still going to make you more money because your providing an alternative to the surfer.

But the one thing that comes to mind if you are seeing a 0:10k ratio the site might have a problem with their scripting. Something might not be setup properly and sales are not getting tracked.

Sorry, I should have clarified.

I wouldn't kill galleries to a sponsor no matter how bad the conversions were, I meant more along the lines of pulling banner spots and no longer actively working to send that program traffic.

stick to dating and amateur ;)

trafficers make $$$$

Technical, but very relevant; http://www.buildinganempire.com/poisson2.html

Bottom line (from my simple understanding); If you normally convert 1:1500, you should send at least enough traffic to expect 3 sales; ie. 4500 hits

I think this number is too high. You should stop sending after you send 10k traffic and no sale.

yo you going to phx this year?

The funny thing is, amateur/exgf/selfshot is the current one giving me this grief.

I am comparing apples to apples as well. The sponsor I'm pushing is using NATS and I am able to get consistent 1:1100 ratios with other NATS programs of the same niche. So this most certainly isn't a thread about bashing NATS, though to be honest my ratios are better through direct ccbill tracking.

1 out of 5000 ppl should buy something... actually at least 10 of them should on a bad day. i would actually look at how you're sending them traffic before criticizing the sponsor. are you properly warming them up before you're sending them off or is it just cold leads?

Same here and good point. Sometimes you need to have some "loss leaders" who the surfer loves to visit but who don't convert for shit.

You can't sell everything. It's like a groc store. Some stuff sells. Some doesn't and gets removed or sometimes is left because the consumer wants "choice".

But 0 in 20,000 is pretty much about it. 1 in 10,000 and they prob won't be a top seller.

I've noticed one thing: If a prog is going to be a winner for you it usually will convert fairly quickly for that first signup. Prob no more than 1 in 5000 (but prob not much less) on general clicked traffic now days.

Which is pretty sad and really the bottom line of why things are tough now days but that is another thread.

Oh the good old days. It's funny when people say 1:5000 is good. Or even 1:1000. I remember when if you weren't doing at least below 1:250 you sucked.

Even our new site http://www.teenmodels.com does 1:500 with no trial
I wonder how it would do with a trial :P

Anyways, traffic isn't the same. Surfers are educated and have a million options. Naturally ratios have dropped and will probably continue to drop.

I agree with the warming them up theory too btw

max 5k clicks and if I am going to keep pushing them they better convert under 1:2000 consistently

For me it's not a black and white number of hits... Some sponsor videos I add to my daily updates to pull the same amount of clicks to paysite that other sponsors videos would normally... If I waited around for XXXX amount of clicks I'd just be wasting the traffic. I can usually tell how interested my surfers are in that content by how many visitors arrive to that video from my trades and how many click through to the sponsor... more of a number of sales game than a conversion ratio game.

I really wish you guys would stop coming into threads like these and giving your retarded join form ratios. Yeah yeah... PR and shit, but it's an apples to oranges comparison your making here, but just not clearly explaining what your 1:500 ratio actually means.

And 1:500 on the join form is pretty bad to be honest, i'd be expecting 1:50... :2 cents:

I don't think you get the point of the post. I am comparing apples to apples with my traffic and sponsors. I didn't take MILF traffic, throw it at girlfriend sites and wonder what went wrong.

to me depends on the usual convertion rate, if I'm converting at 1:500 I'm might give a site 2000 or 3000 hits but not more.