I wonder if a shift in the sponsor - affiliate relationship is going to start happening. Thoughts?
 

First Webmaster Checks and now Epassporte. Two big hits sponsors absorbed that were payment options geared to help mid to smaller affiliates.

I really wonder if we are going to start to see a shift in the sponsor - affiliate relationship and what that means for the smaller affiliates. Sponsors are not going to keep taking hits to keep the guys making $100 a month happy.

I see huge potential in sponsors moving away from trying to have 20,000 affiliates and instead moving towards working with a very small group but working extremely closely with that group. Becoming more than just sponsors and affiliates but becoming business partners.

From the affiliate standpoint I see huge potential as well. Right now I am probably receiving 500 checks every week or two. It's crazy. If I stopped working with sponsors that make me less and concentrate on my biggest sponsors only I would probably make more and have more time to work on the sites (rather than be processing payments and tracking down who owes me what). btw I know as an affiliate it helps to have as many options as possible so fewer sponsors is not as easy or $$$ efficient as it sounds.

What do you think?

I think it's time 90% of affiliates start working on their resumes

or affiliates could raise their minimum payout.

Affiliates or sponsors?

I think if an affiliate raises minimum payout they risk getting screwed by the companies closing shop.

oh well.
business is full of pitfalls.

maybe affiliates will chose their sponsors wisely and there won't be as many threads about "noobdollars didn't pay me" or "can anyone contact justStartedYesterdayCash?"

Yah, I focused for years as an affiliate on a few close relationships with a few big programs. One of those screwed me when they stopped paying (while continuing in business), a couple of others dwindled away to nothing due to changes in the business, the best of the remainder is stumbling along (and paid a big chunk of my monthly income into Epassporte VV the day those got frozen, fuck my life).

As an affiliate my focus has been on trying to diversify my income streams for a couple of years. It's not easy; at any given time, only a few things sell well, and it's much easier to focus on selling those things than to keep flogging a wide diversity of stuff that sells much less well.

I would think this would be the intelligent route and would be surprised if most big affiliates weren't already doing this (not including testing new programs and the like). In mainstream this is commonly how things work.

Its a double bladed sword for mid level guys and those just starting in the adult arena for themselves. On one hand, a lot of competition should get cleaned out, on the other, you'll need to have the skill and capital to survive your climb up the ladder and while building your traffic bases up.

At least if you can make it up that ladder, the rewards will be sweeter (bigger % and bigger share of sales, more influence with programs?).

I think this is the best route for the industry to go, to be honest. I just hope in 1-2 years I'm among the affiliates in that position, not with those washed out with the tide. :winkwink:

ive seen a few companies do that in the past

they are all gone now though

but..might be other circumstances that brought them down

if you really have a hold on say 20 guys who can send big joins...then you could pull it off

20,000 affiliates sending 1 sale a week = 1,000,000 sales a year.
20 affiliates sending 1000 sales a week = your balls in their hands.

Do you really want that that?

The numbers are to illustrate the point I making that putting your business into the hands of a few is risky and could prove to be very very expensive and long term a very bad move.

We all know wich sponsors are reliable, not many of course...

Yep exactly my point. Instead of running around looking for the highest paying guy no one ever heard of it's probably better sticking with the tried tested and proven sponsors. I'll take sure money over no money.

Foreign webmasters have limited payment options available to them, and they are the ones who seam to be growing, as American webmasters walk away from the business.

Unfortunately I find that when sponsors start up the whole "invite only" and "send us all these docs and screen shots of your sales" are often the ones to look out for. Consider that it's showing that the sponsor views them allowing you to be an affiliate as some sort of favor to you. Once that happens it typically means a lot of other crap is right around the corner. It's just the same for employees in an organization. If the business starts to view you as a liability or cost rather than an asset, you're better off getting away from them. So why should I become an affiliate with someone prone to viewing me as such right from the start? :2 cents:

I take checks. I prefer 50/50 partnerships. I rarely contact a sponsor for things. I send sign ups. If a sponsor views me as a liability then I'll gladly use another because I'd say they are idiots.

I think that the industry is not solely supported by the big guys and the little guys can't be "kicked out" because even the big guys were small one day...

Yeah you guys think you had problems before, you just fucked yourselves by hurting American affiliates because the explosion in foreign webmasters is happening now. The cost of doing business in America has now reached a threshold that entry level is nearly impossible to live off of.

You fucked yourselves because you voted for Obama, yes thats right the anti-business-monkey in the White House has made companies scared, he has also sicked the legal dogs on tax "evasion" around the world. You thought Clinton/Bush justice departments were bad? You aint seen nothing yet he is sniffing out your money like a dog and he WILL get it, already has.

How many posts/threads do you need to state this opinion in?

I disagree that sponsors will just cut off smaller affiliates, add up a few hundred people sending you 100 or 200 bucks a month and thats a lot of money to lose... i cant see most people saying fuck that 10,000 bucks a month or whatever it is..

Sorry, things don't work that way...

The reason you use the smaller ones is to increase branding and SEO. (well the SEO most of you fucked up long ago with crazy ridiculous external tracking urls that redirect, killing their worth.

Your failure is eminent when you start treating a small potato like nothing.. Its a sign of age and lack of desire.. Remember Scarface, after getting successful says to Manny, "We are not hungry enough anymore chico, we are getting sloppy"....

Means your time has come.. pack it up, cuz its going to start dieing anyway. I worked for a newspaper company selling subscriptions, and got paid .50 cents. Made a fortune, and if they can pay me checks and shit at .50 why you couldnt to it at 10 bucks is beyond me and your just use to gravy train

Anyhow, there will be a few smart affiliates that can take over the industry and make sponsors work for them still, actually its all too easy to do right now.. This is what will happen, and too late for any brainstormers, as i'm about to do just that as my code is near completion

Dont the smaller affiliates help keep cash in the programs owner hands. If you have 20000 affiliates and 5000 cant make the min payout each month doesnt this help keep more cash within the program? Maybe its not enough for the big programs to worry about, but the smaller programs definitely benefit from having some small capitol on hand.

The epassporte thing i can understand, but why not issue checks from within the company? I know webmaster checks made it easier, but sending checks from within the company just seems like the best option.

You have no clue how a country is run do ya :D

Now THIS is something I was just talking about in a report the other day.

Affiliates (that remain) will tend to stick with the most trusted and proven sponsors.

I'm just discussing the idea. I'm an affiliate of a lot of programs as well and not always a big one at that. So I would be impacted as well.

yup. exactly

I was just going to say that. Thats what most probably would happen, so sponsors don't have to cut tons of $50 checks every 2 weeks.

Shap, imagine a world where it's all about big affiliates. They will put you through the wringer if they know you rely too much on them. Even more that they do today. They will demand more money, more support, more free content and what can you say to them?

If you don't jump when they say so they will take their traffic and move it to the next sponsor who will jump for them. And suddenly 5% to !0% of your business goes down the toilet. And probably half your profit.

80-20 rule.

80% of an affiliate managers job is dealing with the 80% of the affiliates who bring in less than 20% of the programs revenue.

you never see or hear from your big affiliates.

the clinger on-ers that love to run to GFY to try to fuck you for shit are going bye bye. Yeah, the ones that pretend to be ballers, but in fact are nobodies.

I love IT!!!!

get back to us next year and let us know how you're doing. :thumbsup

You are not anyone who gets it, so not sure why I am addressing you about running a program.

So let them go. See yah.

Fuck off.

More than ever, this business is becoming about long term, MUTUALLY PROFITABLE relationships. The way the industry is now, no crosses, etc, there is no room for one sided relationships. At a certain point it's not worth having them.

Good riddance.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh
not laughing at anyone's pain, those sponsor names just made me giggle.

and totally agree that in this market/economy it is not the time to roll the dice and put your trust in unknowns

Well a lot of scammer affiliates are going to be scrambling looking for alternate payout methods for sure.

Homegrown Video is here to stay... for affiliates too
 

Shap - sent you an email last week but had not heard back - can you please hit me up when you have a chance, timlake a homegrownvideo d com.

I am speaking from the standpoint of someone that experienced 20 thousand affiliates-open-to-all-program then went to zero-do-it-ourselves then went for the invite-only situation where we had less than 100... and now have opened up again so seeking new affiliates, both whales and minnows alike. At this point, I definitely feel like I have experienced this issue from many angles.

I don't think that the shift will be for fewer affiliates but I do think the relationship dynamics have shifted and the expectations have altered as aresult. I certainly agree the relationship will be closer and exclusivity will be used to gain an advantage -that is only a natural progression. However, that shift has created something similar to the old "which is king or queen, traffic or content" debate - affiliates were once all kings but then programs chose to lord more closely over their own domains. Now affiliates must be courted like princesses to the ball.

What is with your inane off topic bullshit? Did you get fired from your Ann Coulter internship? Couldn't afford a Qu'ran to burn? Rush Limbaugh doesn't want to pop pills with you anymore? All you do is spout inane self serving political crap that proves time and time again that you have zero to contribute in terms of any thing remotely useful to this industry.

This is one of those things that may sound good in theory, but doesn't work in reality.

As anyone here who runs a program knows, more often than not the big affiliate is the one who quietly joins your program and starts sending a ton of sales. The affiliates that make a bunch of noise asking for this and that before sending a single sale usually never pan out.

So how do you only work with the big affiliates? Do you leave your program wide open the when you have the big guys you want, close it off? That won't work. Do you make it invite only? How many potential big affiliates won't test your program if it's a pain to join?

Programs need to be wide open if their business model is affiliate based. It's inefficient but it's the only way. You can still keep your program wide open and work very closely with big affiliates.

I guess it's like saying you are only going to date the perfect woman. Well, you have to date a few regular women if you are going to find the perfect one. There is no one place where all the perfect women hang out just waiting to be picked up..lol.

A few years ago if you'd put all your time/money into the "big programs" like topbucks, tcg, ars, you'd probably be pretty screwed today. Many of those programs took down whole networks of sites, replaced them with others, redirected one blowjob site to another that was converting slightly better, etc.

Similarly if you'd put all your efforts into something like NastyDollars, you'd have encountered huge saturation problems, though still probably done okay because they have a quality product.. However with no rebills, this year would seem especially harsh for that kind of affiliate.

Shap you talk of programs, but I don't promote programs, I promote websites. You of all people understand the big difference there, as you've seen the fruits of your labour ripen from concentrating on one quality product, while not writing off the value of expansion.

The reason I'm not quitting (though trying to diversify) is that there are still many quality sites still to promote, making quality porn and offering a much better experience than free. I just visited the ZTOD sites, they were real nice. 2GB movies, quality members areas, no advertising inside of them, no cross sales, etc. A password there has value.

Look at KinkyDollars, what a success story that is.. Their sites are unbelievable right now, best ever.

I remember you've had the belief that affiliates' days are numbered, however I think you're thinking of it as programs instead of websites. There will always be sites out there to promote, if "programs" go down or don't want to do business with me, what can I do but choose someone else. I'm not going to beg? ;)

I just launched a new review site (would love a link from you shap... puppydog eyes will beg for that) and asked ATK Cash to be part of their discount program. Their rep responded I didn't do enough sales, but that they'd like do me a big favour and give me a week trial.. I sent them a screenshot of my lifetime stats with their program of over $50,000, which means I generated over $100,000 in sales on their 4 sites or whatever they have. They got back to me and said... They'd give me a week trial. Nice pat on the back right there for my many years of service to them. Probably first time I'd contacted them in 6 years to ask for anything.

What can I do? I'll just work harder on their competitors sites. I'm not married to any program or website.

Ideally yes, but saturation is a factor.

Very true. This has definitely been my experience.

it's hard work I know to take a check or a hundred checks down to the bank....

I know my bank allows me to fill out a check deposit form online so I can print it out and deposit it with multiple checks by going in there, validating the envelope at the machine and dropping the envelope in the box. Time taken at the bank: 30 secs maximum, no queues.

Taking care of wire transfers, paypal and checks is hard work, pffft, but I manage to live easily off it.

If someone wanted only to pay me by epass, they were never a client of mine.

Affiliate programmes obviously worked differently, but hey, those that run ccbill AP can ride the waves I suppose....

ccbill isn't the only affiliate amalgamation programme - europe is full of them. It's just that in the US, ccbill seems to be the only playa, so gets all the limelight.
2cents:

A shorter than usual unemployment line left you with some time on your hands?

lol fucking idiots. there sites always had horrible conversion rates.


regarding the OP, no one ever got richer by selling less of something.

every sponsor on this board knows your sites wouldnt exist without all those little 50 clicks a day affiliates. even Twistys.