Rant $ / click and why it isn't the only thing to worry about

[signupdamnit]

I think it's the best metric to use over all based on mathematics besides $ / impression which is slightly better. But I don't believe it is the sole concern. Here are some notes for why. Relentless, I'll view your posts in this topic.

1. It's not just a matter of what they are supposed to pay you. It's also a matter of actually getting paid. Will the sponsor actually pay you?

2. Revshare. Revshare is typically based on a long term relationship with the sponsor. You could have rebill income tied up for years with the sponsor and you are hoping to actually be paid in the future. It is therefore quite relevant whether or not the sponsor seems to be unethical or prone to cheating you. You must ask #1 as well as whether the sponsor might try to shave your rebills in the future. Can you trust this sponsor reasonably to be around two years from now and for them to be fair with you? Here past performance does not guarantee future performance as it relates to $ / click.

3. Collective consequences. If all sponsors start shaving/adding uncredited popup offers/etc that is going to cause your affiliate income to decline as the effect is undoubtedly that your income will be reduced all things being equal. If you only focus on $ / click for the individual sponsor then you miss this part of the big picture and you are still subject to the collective trends within the industry.

4. Volume issues. Not everyone has enough volume for all sponsors or in all niches to have reliable $ / click data immediately or even within X months. And we are all almost always trying something new. Where you just blindly throw the few clicks you have at the sponsor you are potentially losing income. You have to go by other factors and information you do have then and make an intelligent decision. This is a big one which hits many I suspect. If you are sending 100 clicks a month to 500 sponsors then it is going to take a while to gather meaningful data. And it will take even longer to actually see if they will pay you. Many people who are not actual affiliates or who never were do not get this one but it is a big catch!

5. Labor and time. This goes a bit with #4. When the typical affiliate puts up a sponsor it requires a certain amount of time and labor in investment. Your time is not free. If you don't attempt to look ahead and at other factors besides the immediate $ / click then you are potentially making more work for yourself later on down the road. If the sponsor goes bad this means changing links, pulling content, maybe removing domains,etc. Instead of constantly running around putting out fires you probably want to be building instead. Remember $ / click can change fast. It's true that a smart webmaster will try to reduce the burden of making these changes but regardless it can be a hassle and unnecessary stress.

6. Touched on earlier. $ / click does not take into account CTR. ($ / impression does) It matters how clickable the creative or the link is.

[signupdamnit]

Maybe a example would help.

Mr. Bungle has a choice of two sponsors to send to. Both sponsors are rev share 50/50 and offer no other options.

Sponsor A-

Earns 10 cents per click currently. Has been around for 10 years. In that time the owner has never done anything which has seemed unethical in the industry and seems to treat affiliates with respect including on the boards. The sponsor also has a history of condemning unethical people in the industry. This sponsor is completely free of cross sales on affiliate traffic. There are no popups to other offers or leaks.

Sponsor B-

Earns 20 cents per click currently. Has been around for about 3 months. The owner likes to run around calling any affiliates who complain about his program "broke losers" and "burger flippers". Has all sorts of uncredited cross sales, even already checked. Has popups to programs the affiliate gets nothing for. Even redirects mobile traffic to another of his sites affiliates cannot promote.

Mr. Bungle sees that Sponsor B pays more per click so he sends all his traffic there and laughs at sponsor A. Mr. Bungle makes thousands of posts on GFY about how only $ / click matters and how people who do business with Sponsor A are stupid losers. He builds up thousands of rebills. Three months later sponsor B turns up the shave and he starts making 14 cents per click. Mr. Bungle still thinks this is better than Sponsor A so he keeps sending his traffic there. At this point he has 10,000 rebills per month with sponsor B.

Another three months later Sponsor B folds up shop and leaves ripping off every single affiliate and not paying a dime thereafter. Mr. Bungle loses all his income for the last month as well as all future income from the 10,000 rebills he built up on the revshare program. Should Mr. Bungle have went with sponsor A instead?

[Relentless]

This is what a professional hears when someone explains $/click:

"I can earn the most money by sending the traffic where it earns me the most money and ignoring the distractions... my goal is to earn the most money for my clicks, so yeah that makes obvious sense."











This is a visual approximation of what signupdamnit and other GFY 'geniuses' hear when someone explains $/click:




If you can quiet the crowd of nonsense in your mind long enough to actually think about what is being said... it makes perfect sense.

[slapass]

This is what a professional hears when someone explains $/click:

"I can earn the most money by sending the traffic where it earns me the most money and ignoring the distractions... my goal is to earn the most money for my clicks, so yeah that makes obvious sense."

Exactly but it is not as simple as how I did today. That is the key you are missing.

[signupdamnit]

Exactly but it is not as simple as how I did today. That is the key you are missing.

Yes. Whether or not the company will cheat you or radically change things isn't exactly random. Experience shows otherwise. Usually the ones who will screw you in some way have tried to screw others before. The same ones who knowingly steal your traffic also tend to be the same ones who will increase the shave (will impact future $/click) or the leaks or otherwise close down, steal your money, and tell you to go to hell. Over a decade of experience has shown this.

He is also not wise enough to know that not everyone uses the same model as him and that he does not know everything.

[Relentless]

It's not just a matter of what they are supposed to pay you. It's also a matter of actually getting paid. Will the sponsor actually pay you?

If a sponsor does not actually pay you, the Net $/click from that program is $0.00. It is included in the metric being used. No payment is the same as paying 0.00, find a new sponsor and move on.

Revshare. Revshare is typically based on a long term relationship with the sponsor. You could have rebill income tied up for years with the sponsor and you are hoping to actually be paid in the future.

When banks accept deposits of 'could haves' I will begin to track them. Until then, what you "could have" is exactly the same as what you "dont have." Every penny someone could have paid me but didn't pay me reduces the $/click I earn from sending them traffic and increases the likelihood someone else will pay me more for my clicks. Since I am not in the excuse business or the explain why it didn't happen business, I spend 0 resources on wondering what could have been.

Collective consequences. If all sponsors start shaving/adding uncredited popup offers/etc that is going to cause your affiliate income to decline as the effect is undoubtedly that your income will be reduced all things being equal. If you only focus on $ / click for the individual sponsor then you miss this part of the big picture and you are still subject to the collective trends within the industry.

All sponsors DO shave according to your idiotic notion of could haves. Every single one of them. Charging a fee per check reduces $/click (shaving). Having a min payment amount reduces $/click (shaving). Having terrible content or infrequent updates or anything else that reduces $/click is shaving what you 'could have' earned. YOU are trying to differentiate what you "feel" are good reasons for a program to pay you less from what you "feel" are bad reasons for a program to pay you less. That is nonsense. Focus on who pays you the most and send them your clicks to earn the most money.

Volume issues. Not everyone has enough volume for all sponsors or in all niches to have reliable $ / click data immediately or even within X months. And we are all almost always trying something new. Where you just blindly throw the few clicks you have at the sponsor you are potentially losing income. You have to go by other factors and information you do have then and make an intelligent decision. This is a big one which hits many I suspect. If you are sending 100 clicks a month to 500 sponsors then it is going to take a while to gather meaningful data. And it will take even longer to actually see if they will pay you. Many people who are not actual affiliates or who never were do not get this one but it is a big catch!

First, if you are a low volume affiliate, what you need to try and find are higher volume affiliates willing to give you an idea of who the best $/click sponsors are in a particular niche. I get that sort of information constantly from people I have worked with for years. If you are 'throwing clicks at anything blindly' you are a fucking idiot. Even if you send 100 clicks a month, you should know where they went and how much each one earned from each sponsor. If you focused on increasing your volume and $/click INSTEAD of why you could have or should have earned an imaginary amount instead... you will soon have more traffic and more dollars and the the entire could have crowd ever will.

Labor and time. This goes a bit with #4. When the typical affiliate puts up a sponsor it requires a certain amount of time and labor in investment. Your time is not free. If you don't attempt to look ahead and at other factors besides the immediate $ / click then you are potentially making more work for yourself later on down the road. If the sponsor goes bad this means changing links, pulling content, maybe removing domains,etc. Instead of constantly running around putting out fires you probably want to be building instead. Remember $ / click can change fast. It's true that a smart webmaster will try to reduce the burden of making these changes but regardless it can be a hassle and unnecessary stress.

When you put time and effort into promoting a sponsor who is completely 100% honest, ethical and pays you for every click.... before that sponsor goes out of business, closes their affiliate program, takes their program private, sells to someone else, has a heart attack, gets hit by a bus, etc etc etc you are at the exact same risk. Bad things happen to good people... usually more often than bad things happen to bad people unfortunately.

If you send each click where it earns you the most, you will have the most money for your effort. If you try to guess who will be honest in the future and who will be in business in the future and who will pay you in the future... you are mentally masturbating to "feel" better regardless of why you are failing to earn more.

Touched on earlier. $ / click does not take into account CTR. ($ / impression does) It matters how clickable the creative or the link is.

That is an internal matter that has zero to do with any sponsor. /facepalm

Your impressions on your site and CTR on your site are entirely under your control. Why you think that has anything to do with any sponsor program is beyond me, and does make me thing you do not even own a website. You have total control over your own site content if you own a website, you need to get a grip on your own impressions and CTR before sponsors ever enter the equation. When discussing affiliate program payouts, how many clicks you sent them matters... how many impressions it took for you to generate a click has absolutely zero to do with them.

[Relentless]

Exactly but it is not as simple as how I did today. That is the key you are missing.

If you plan to get 1M clicks and to sell them all once in one huge batch with zero advance testing and you never plan to collect or sell any clicks ever again... THEN you would have a point. However, nobody does that.

In the real world, you collect clicks, you send out a small batch to a program and you track how it does to find your $/click. Then you decide if you want to send more to the same sponsor or not. Each time you send a batch, you track it again and you decide what to do next. That limits your exposure to whatever you set your batch amount at (much lower for a new sponsor or higher for one you have a strong long term relationship with) in any case, at no point can anyone ever fuck with more than one batch of your traffic.

As long as you continually track $/click each batch and make wise decisions where to send the next batch, the rest is ALL nonsense.

[arock10]

Hi do we really need another pointless 9 page thread

Oh and I still disagree with relentless but that is what he wants so he can get more attention running up another 9 page thread

[Relentless]

If you think it is pointless:

1 you are contributing to it with your replies, and are making it 9 pages long genius.

And

2 you fail to understand the most important core principle of affiliate marketing.

[slapass]

If you plan to get 1M clicks and to sell them all once in one huge batch with zero advance testing and you never plan to collect or sell any clicks ever again... THEN you would have a point. However, nobody does that.

In the real world, you collect clicks, you send out a small batch to a program and you track how it does to find your $/click. Then you decide if you want to send more to the same sponsor or not. Each time you send a batch, you track it again and you decide what to do next. That limits your exposure to whatever you set your batch amount at (much lower for a new sponsor or higher for one you have a strong long term relationship with) in any case, at no point can anyone ever fuck with more than one batch of your traffic.

As long as you continually track $/click each batch and make wise decisions where to send the next batch, the rest is ALL nonsense.

I see above you changed your tune. Now you get it. It is the long haul and that is why sharing when a sponsor has crossed a line or done something shady is worth sharing.

[Relentless]

I see above you changed your tune. Now you get it. It is the long haul and that is why sharing when a sponsor has crossed a line or done something shady is worth sharing.

My tune is exactly the same and has not changed in any way whatsoever. I have been repeating the $/click chorus for years. If someone pays you the most $/click while running legal websites that do no in any way harm your bookmarkers... send them your traffic. If someone else pays you more, send your traffic to them instead. How is that a difficult thing for someone to understand?!

[Captain Kawaii]

My tune is exactly the same and has not changed in any way whatsoever. I have been repeating the $/click chorus for years. If someone pays you the most $/click while running legal websites that do no in any way harm your bookmarkers... send them your traffic. If someone else pays you more, send your traffic to them instead. How is that a difficult thing for someone to understand?!

Perfectly understood. The only disconnect here is we think RUC is shady and you do not. We understand why. Clients and such. Everyone gets ROI or if not they should.

The only disconnect here is we think RUC is shady and you do not.
The only disconnect here is we think RUC is shady and you do not.
The only disconnect here is we think RUC is shady and you do not.
The only disconnect here is we think RUC is shady and you do not.
The only disconnect here is we think RUC is shady and you do not.

The Horse's mouth himself admitted it and you ignore that fact.
The Horse's mouth himself admitted it and you ignore that fact.
The Horse's mouth himself admitted it and you ignore that fact.
The Horse's mouth himself admitted it and you ignore that fact.
The Horse's mouth himself admitted it and you ignore that fact.

For the majority of affiliates, RUC is a waste of time. Get it, sparky?
1:197,000 is not a great ratio.

[Relentless]

Nonsense

RUC agreed in the other thread that every affiliate should send their traffic where it earns the most $/click. Find me a single instance where I said you should send your traffic to ANY particular sponsor... wow you are thick.

I didn't say send all of your traffic to SponsorX they are the greatest... I said send your traffic to whatever sponsor pays you the most $/click because mathematically they ARE the greatest (even if you feel like maybe someone else is nicer, or has leaks, or loves puppies more, or shaves, or wears a nice hat, or has newer content, or looks good in a bathing suit). You are so distracted by your own nonsense that you can't even identify what I am advocating.

[slapass]

My tune is exactly the same and has not changed in any way whatsoever. I have been repeating the $/click chorus for years. If someone pays you the most $/click while running legal websites that do no in any way harm your bookmarkers... send them your traffic. If someone else pays you more, send your traffic to them instead. How is that a difficult thing for someone to understand?!

You agreed that if you don't get paid then $/click is pointless. So it is not the only thing. Now we are looking at the sponsor as a source of long term income or short term. Yep, it makes a difference.
I understand that you want it to be simple.Once you have been in the business world awhile, you realize relationships have value that usually effects your bottom line.
Everyone gets your point but how we calculate $/click is different is all.

[Relentless]

You agreed that if you don't get paid then $/click is pointless. So it is not the only thing. Now we are looking at the sponsor as a source of long term income or short term. Yep, it makes a difference. I understand that you want it to be simple.Once you have been in the business world awhile, you realize relationships have value that usually effects your bottom line. Everyone gets your point but how we calculate $/click is different is all.

If you don't get paid, $/click is not pointless. That is precisely where you are wrong. If you don't get paid, then $/click = ZERO and that is the single most important point! Whether $/click is low because the content sucks, or there is a leak, or someone shaved or someone didn't pay you or their cat ate their homework doesn't matter at all... what does matter is that the $/click is low. Nobody calculates $/click differently. It is the total value of all revenue received divided by the number of clicks and adjusted for any differentiation in the net cost of acquiring those clicks. It's MATH.

You can not do 2+2 "differently"

[arock10]

If you think it is pointless:

1 you are contributing to it with your replies, and are making it 9 pages long genius.

And

2 you fail to understand the most important core principle of affiliate marketing.

You fail to include time and effort into your equation. Time and effort both add risk to your simplistic $/clicks equation which decrease the value of $/clicks depending on these factors.

[arock10]

If you don't get paid, $/click is not pointless. That is precisely where you are wrong. If you don't get paid, then $/click = ZERO and that is the single most important point! Whether $/click is low because the content sucks, or there is a leak, or someone shaved or someone didn't pay you or their cat ate their homework doesn't matter at all... what does matter is that the $/click is low. Nobody calculates $/click differently. It is the total value of all revenue received divided by the number of clicks and adjusted for any differentiation in the net cost of acquiring those clicks. It's MATH.

You can not do 2+2 "differently"

hindsight is 20/20, unfortunately, we build and market for future earnings, not past earnings. You are expecting the past to be the same as the future, so in this industry the past has been full of scammers and shady fucks, so the future we should expect the same.

[Relentless]

You fail to include time and effort into your equation. Time and effort both add risk to your simplistic $/clicks equation which decrease the value of $/clicks depending on these factors.

No they do not. You are bad at math.

You put time and effort into anywhere you send clicks. If a sponsor requires more time and effort than another sponsor that has to be included in your net $/click. If the sponsor requires the same time and effort, then it becomes moot.

Here is an example you can follow:

SponsorA - great guy and you want to bang his wife. no leaks or shaves
You put up a new blog and the total cost including domain, hosting, content, etc is $100.00. It generates 100 clicks and you send them to SponsorA. Each click cost you $1.00

SponsorB - guy you personally dislike and think might have shaved
You put up a new blog and the total cost including domain, hosting, content, etc is $100.00. It generates 100 clicks and you send them to SponsorA. Each click cost you $1.00

How you feel about it did not change your cost per click one iota. If SponsorA underperforms, you repurpose the traffic from your blog and send it to SponsorB. If SponsorB underperforms you repurpose the traffic and send it to SponsorA. If SponsorC comes along and actually pays more... you send to him instead.

The time and effort is only significant if it is different for SponsorA than it is for SponsorB. meaning for example, if SponsorA has great premade promo materials while SponsorB requires you to make your own. That difference is INCLUDED in your net $/click when you compare one to the other and again... how you feel about it is nonsense.

[Relentless]

hindsight is 20/20, unfortunately, we build and market for future earnings, not past earnings. You are expecting the past to be the same as the future, so in this industry the past has been full of scammers and shady fucks, so the future we should expect the same.

Do you own a website?

I am using the recent past data as a way to track performance and I am using actual impartial objective data that only I control to make business decisions in the present. You are using how you feel about someone and nonsense that didn't affect your $/click as a hope of what they might do in the future while claiming that is a better way to do business.

[arock10]

No they do not. You are bad at math.

You put time and effort into anywhere you send clicks. If a sponsor requires more time and effort than another sponsor that has to be included in your net $/click. If the sponsor requires the same time and effort than it becomes moot.

Here is an example you can follow:

SponsorA - great guy and you want to bang his wife. no leaks or shaves
You put up a new blog and the total cost including domain, hosting, content, etc is $100.00. It generates 100 clicks and you send them to SponsorA. Each click cost you $1.00

SponsorB - guy you personally dislike and think might have shaved
You put up a new blog and the total cost including domain, hosting, content, etc is $100.00. It generates 100 clicks and you send them to SponsorA. Each click cost you $1.00

How you feel about it did not change your cost per click one iota. If SponsorA underperforms, you repurpose the traffic from your blog and send it to SponsorB. If SponsorB underperforms you repurpose the traffic and send it to SponsorA. If SponsorC comes along and actually pays more... you send to him instead.

The time and effort is only significant if it is different for SponsorA than it is for SponsorB. meaning for example, if SponsorA has great premade promo materials while SponsorB requires you to make your own. That difference is INCLUDED in your net $/click when you compare one to the other and again... how you feel about it is nonsense.

Ok so sponsor A is straight, sponsor 2 is gay. You can't easily switch to the new sponsor as the domain won't work.

Ok sponsor B is revshare paying net 30. You send some sales, get a payout, then all your rebills go bye bye. Ok, so you wasted months of time when you could've just sent to sponsor A which is proven to be reliable.

Then there is sponsor 3, which has some awesome $/click exgf sites which make you a bunch of money. Turns out they don't own any of the content and you get tossed in jail for having under 18 girls on your site. Then you get shivved in prison when you keep talking about $/click is all that matters and people are like there are no clicks here


I could keep making up theoretical situations all day but you don't care, you are just here for the attention

[Captain Kawaii]

RUC agreed in the other thread that every affiliate should send their traffic where it earns the most $/click. Find me a single instance where I said you should send your traffic to ANY particular sponsor... wow you are thick.

I didn't say send all of your traffic to SponsorX they are the greatest... I said send your traffic to whatever sponsor pays you the most $/click because mathematically they ARE the greatest (even if you feel like maybe someone else is nicer, or has leaks, or loves puppies more, or shaves, or wears a nice hat, or has newer content, or looks good in a bathing suit). You are so distracted by your own nonsense that you can't even identify what I am advocating.

See a doctor and get on some meds for the multiple psychological issues you have. Seriously.

Anyone who disagrees with your asshat genius is nonsensical. You are a condescending hack. How many of your works of art got banned by Google this week?

You derail threads in some bizarre quest to make your employers not look so bad? This thread and all the others you dump your dimwitted commentary into are not about $ / Clicks. They are about disreputable programs. Period.

Your posts only bury the axe deep into the program in question. Please tell me your mother had the good sense to remove your testicles at an early age so you could not pro-create.

Adios.

There, I broke 4700 jackin' up an asshat. High 5!

[wehateporn]

There are some programs who have been honest for years, bringing you your $0.05 per click, they will probably still be around in 10 years. Invest time in these sponsors! If someone has a bad reputation, there's a good chance history will repeat itself, do not invest too much of your time with such sponsors.

[Relentless]

Ok so sponsor A is straight, sponsor 2 is gay. You can't easily switch to the new sponsor as the domain won't work.

Do you believe there is no other gay sponsor and no other straight sponsor? There is *always* competition in every single niche you can imagine. However, lets take it as a given that you found the one remaining niche with no other sponsors in it. When you choose to get into that niche you should be doing two things.

1 - Watching your stats very closely since you have no SponsorB to compare

2 - Preparing your own paysite in that niche so that if your traffic does perform well you can immediately roll out your own site in what is the last under-saturated porn market on the internet.

The absence of competition is YOUR invitation.

Ok sponsor B is revshare paying net 30. You send some sales, get a payout, then all your rebills go bye bye. Ok, so you wasted months of time when you could've just sent to sponsor A which is proven to be reliable.

If sponsorB was a terrific guy and got hit by a bus so your payments all stopped, or if sponsorB was a terrible person who decided to stop paying because he thinks you are a fucking idiot... which is worse? Here is the math to figure that out:

0 = 0

How you feel about it means spit. Your bank counts both exactly the same.

Then there is sponsor 3, which has some awesome $/click exgf sites which make you a bunch of money. Turns out they don't own any of the content and you get tossed in jail for having under 18 girls on your site. Then you get shivved in prison when you keep talking about $/click is all that matters and people are like there are no clicks here

As I have said dozens of times in the other thread... IF anything a sponsor does is illegal, do not send them a single click ever. More than that, depending on what they did illegally it may be necessary to report them to the authorities. $/click doesn't even start until after you have confirmed their site is legal and that their site does not do anything to harm your bookmarkers.

I could keep making up theoretical situations all day but you don't care, you are just here for the attention

Yes, you can be wrong as often as you like... or you can choose to learn something.

[Relentless]

How many of your works of art got banned by Google this week?

Zero. My work is always whitehat and has been that way since the start. I can generate massive amounts of marketing content in minutes (in case you failed to notice that). So I have the ability to create sites in any niche, mainstream or adult and populate them with high quality content that Google loves. That includes review sites, legal tubes, a massive blog network, work I do for dozens of great clients and more.

You own which site?

You derail threads

The title of this thread is: "Rant $ / click and why it isn't the only thing to worry about" and YOU are the one derailing it with failed attempts at insulting someone.

More Nonsense

If you were a better writer your insults would also be better. If you want help with that let me know and Ill give you a price for the text work you desperately need. All pricing is done per project, so you'll always know the cost before any work begins.

Have Luck!

[Relentless]

There are some programs who have been honest for years, bringing you your $0.05 per click, they will probably still be around in 10 years. Invest time in these sponsors!

No program will "probably be around in 10 years." Look around and ask what happened to all the great programs from 10 years ago? Dozens and dozens of terrific programs run by great people... gone. Some nice people are still here, some are not. What decides who is here is who legally makes the most $/click without harming bookmarkers - not who is the nicest/click.

[wehateporn]

No program will "probably be around in 10 years." Look around and ask what happened to all the great programs from 10 years ago? Dozens and dozens of terrific programs run by great people... gone. Some nice people are still here, some are not. What decides who is here is who legally makes the most $/click without harming bookmarkers - not who is the nicest/click.

If affiliates get to know the sponsor it helps to make a judgement. So far the ones who have let me down have been big operations, whereas the small/medium sponsors have been good to work with

[arock10]

Do you own a website?

I am using the recent past data as a way to track performance and I am using actual impartial objective data that only I control to make business decisions in the present. You are using how you feel about someone and nonsense that didn't affect your $/click as a hope of what they might do in the future while claiming that is a better way to do business.

I own multiple paysite programs, after being an affiliate for a very long time, so thanks for asking. You own a writing service and a "this site is legit" service?

Yea ok I'll stick with my judgement.

[Relentless]

If affiliates get to know the sponsor it helps to make a judgement. So far the ones who have let me down have been big operations, whereas the small/medium sponsors have been good to work with

Define "good to work with"?
You mean, paid you a high NET $/click

If they pay you a low $/click, move your traffic. If they pay you a high $/click send them more. It really is that simple and it has nothing to do with large/medium/small/nonsense.

[Relentless]

I own multiple paysite programs, after being an affiliate for a very long time, so thanks for asking. You own a writing service and a "this site is legit" service? Yea ok I'll stick with my judgement.

I own a paysite affiliate program, review sites, several paysites, mainstream sites, B2B service provider sites and hundreds of other live active sites... not domains... actual live sites.

You were an affiliate, and yet you decided to create a paysite program? Why?

Answer: As an attempt to achieve a higher $/click for yourself.

You agree with me, even if you fail to know that your actions and posts disagree

[wehateporn]

Define "good to work with"?
You mean, paid you a high NET $/click

It's to do with the way they communicate with you, one can find small clues in each communication

[arock10]

I own a paysite affiliate program, review sites, several paysites, mainstream sites, B2B service provider sites and hundreds of other live active sites... not domains... actual live sites.

You were an affiliate, and yet you decided to create a paysite program? Why?

Answer: As an attempt to achieve a higher $/click for yourself.

You agree with me, even if you fail to know that your actions and posts disagree

I got into paysites by buying them. I did the same with affiliate sites before. I don't give a shit about clicks, I care about ROI. When I have to pay a large investment upfront to be made over 6 months - 2 years, I care about longterm results. If a sponsor is going to close up shop (this is buying affiliate sites, typically - but paysites can be huge affiliates too) after 8 months and rip me off for the last 2 months of that, then I have to scramble for replacements which costs time and money.

So while $/click is great for someone who buys traffic instantly and converts it and is paid immediately, if you factor time, effort, risk into the equation it becomes less important. I'd rather hit targets reliably then try to squeeze out 2 more cents every 1000 clicks and lose it all. The ROI in adult is excellent, why make it riskier by associating with shady programs and people.

[signupdamnit]

Another example but without a conclusion this time.

RUC owned by JT. Let us say you are a "standard affiliate" currently make about 10% more EPC with RUC than your next sponsor.

BUUUUT you see in the other thread where the owner, JT, said the following:

ReallyUsefulCash.com is not affiliate friendly and I do not hide this fact. I did not want to have an open affiliate program, but against my better judgement, I did indeed, make it an open program. That is where I went wrong.

...

My business model IS the tubes, not standard affiliates.

My business model SUITS the tubes, not standard affiliates.

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In excess of 70% of my traffic is attributed to the tubes, less than 10% with standard affiliates.

I do EVERYTHING for the tubes, I do NOTHING for the standard affiliate.

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I hope the picture I have painted in this response clearly shows why my company is not standard affiliate friendly.

Proof: http://gfy.com/showpost.php?p=20137781&postcount=354

Now therefore given that RUC owned by JT is a revshare program and you can reasonably have rebills for two years or longer in this industry do you still think it is worth it to send your clicks to RUC for an extra 10% according to the $/click values alone?

I would of course argue, HELL NO. This guy admits he isn't affiliate friendly, has constant issues with affiliates, regrets opening his affiliate program, and brags about how he does everything for tubes and nothing for affiliates. How long should a reasonable person believe that the RUC affiliate program will go on for "standard affiliates"? Do I believe this guy respects me or really needs my business? I wouldn't bet you double payout right now that it will be around in the next 90 days let alone two years from now. That's my opinion and my judgment based on past experience. Sure even the most affiliate friendly, respectful, and honest programs can go out of business suddenly but as a whole it happens far less and when it does those people usually have the integrity to try to be more fair or give good notice.

[Relentless]

It's to do with the way they communicate with you, one can find small clues in each communication

One would be better off ignoring all 'clues' as nonsense and focusing on $/click which is a FACT instead. Most of the programs I promote have spend less than one hour of their time 'on me' in any given year. Wasting time chatting with affiliate managers is almost always time you could earn more money with doing something else except when you start up with a program or when you think you found a problem and want to see if it will be addressed or not privately.

[signupdamnit]

Hi do we really need another pointless 9 page thread

Oh and I still disagree with relentless but that is what he wants so he can get more attention running up another 9 page thread

I know but it's better he says this shit over and over here than in all the other threads where he just hijacks the topic and makes 100+replies all saying the same thing.

[signupdamnit]

One would be better off ignoring all 'clues' as nonsense and focusing on $/click which is a FACT instead. Most of the programs I promote have spend less than one hour of their time 'on me' in any given year. Wasting time chatting with affiliate managers is almost always time you could earn more money with doing something else except when you start up with a program or when you think you found a problem and want to see if it will be addressed or not privately.

Not everyone uses your model though. You have to understand that. Some people are trying to build a good relationship for other reasons. Maybe they want special promo content. Maybe they want to set up a special discounted membership for their review site. No one in this industry knows everything about it. I guarantee it. We may know a little about one thing, a lot about other, and a little of this or that but none of us know everything.

For some people and models your total reliance on $/click values could make sense. But for starters it's almost ridiculous now for long term revshare in a time where sponsors drop like flies.

[wehateporn]

One would be better off ignoring all 'clues' as nonsense and focusing on $/click which is a FACT instead. Most of the programs I promote have spend less than one hour of their time 'on me' in any given year. Wasting time chatting with affiliate managers is almost always time you could earn more money with doing something else except when you start up with a program or when you think you found a problem and want to see if it will be addressed or not privately.

We put our heads together and come up with ideas, I've got info from chatting with sponsors which has helped me hugely increase my sales

[Relentless]

I don't give a shit about clicks, I care about ROI.

As an affiliate those two things are IDENTICAL.

You are describing your total cost per click and your total value.

Total Cost Per Click
Whatever it costs you to generate 1 click is your total cost per click. For example, if you make a new site that costs you $100.00 in the period and sends 100 clicks in that period, your cost per click is $1.00 for that period. Now, 3 years from now you may be updating the site differently and may be working on it less and in a given period it may generate 10,000 clicks while costing you a total of $10.00 in that period. That means your cost per click for that site is now .001 per click. That's on the exact same site in two different periods.

Total Value
You may get $10 for 100 clicks from a sponsor. That same sponsor may also send you $10,000 in writing work each month, or may hire you to design sites for them, or may do members area trades with you, or any number of other things that affect your total value. It is your job to assign an exact number to all of that as your total value from that sponsor during that period.

$ = total value
clicks = total cost of the clicks

$/clicks = the only metric you need to watch

[Relentless]

Not everyone uses your model though. You have to understand that. Some people are trying to build a good relationship for other reasons. Maybe they want special promo content. Maybe they want to set up a special discounted membership for their review site. No one in this industry knows everything about it. I guarantee it. We may know a little about one thing, a lot about other, and a little of this or that but none of know everything. For some people and models your total reliance on $/click values could make sense. But for starters it's almost ridiculous now for long term revshare in a time where sponsors drop like flies.

I thought you 'put me on ignore' ..... Liar

You can assign a value to 'special promo content', 'discounted memberships', or any other thing that a sponsor includes for you. That becomes part of your total value in $/click.

As an easy example, I have sponsors I send traffic to even though the sales are lower than others because they provide me with content for other things. I have assigned a value to that content and included it in their $/click because what we all care about is NET $/click.

It's simple math... and if you can't put me on ignore I have no idea how you can put math on ignore either

[Relentless]

We put our heads together and come up with ideas, I've got info from chatting with sponsors which has helped me hugely increase my sales

Then ask yourself. Exactly how much is that info worth?

$1.00? $100.00? $1M dollars? Add that to your total value.

As an example:
Quiet gave me information I value in the six figures easily. If he ever asked me to send some traffic to a new thing he was launching, Id never have hesitated and I wouldn't even have tracked the clicks. My value from him was Infinity/clicks.

[arock10]

As an affiliate those two things are IDENTICAL.

You are describing your total cost per click and your total value.

Total Cost Per Click
Whatever it costs you to generate 1 click is your total cost per click. For example, if you make a new site that costs you $100.00 in the period and sends 100 clicks in that period, your cost per click is $1.00 for that period. Now, 3 years from now you may be updating the site differently and may be working on it less and in a given period it may generate 10,000 clicks while costing you a total of $10.00 in that period. That means your cost per click for that site is now .001 per click. That's on the exact same site in two different periods.

Total Value
You may get $10 for 100 clicks from a sponsor. That same sponsor may also send you $10,000 in writing work each month, or may hire you to design sites for them, or may do members area trades with you, or any number of other things that affect your total value. It is your job to assign an exact number to all of that as your total value from that sponsor during that period.

$ = total value
clicks = total cost of the clicks

$/clicks = the only metric you need to watch

I disagree that ROI is the same as $/click. But if you say its the same, then you should be calling it ROI, because $/click is dumb as there are plenty of ways to earn without clicking. IMO $/impressions is better then $/click anyway

$/click only works if you start artificially adjusting the $/click based on other factors. If sponsor A is brand new, you could discount it by 20%, which judging by past results gives a better idea of what your actual earnings will be. Or an old sponsor (sponsor B) that is reliable you could increase their value by 10% to put it on even footing with sponsor A.

I am all for using math to evaluate everything, but simply going off $/click is far too simplistic and fails to acknowledge a range of factors that will effect your $/click in the short term and long term. $/click only works in the present when getting paid out instantly for leads sent

$/click + risk, effort, and time....

[signupdamnit]

I thought you 'put me on ignore' ..... Liar

You can assign a value to 'special promo content', 'discounted memberships', or any other thing that a sponsor includes for you. That becomes part of your total value in $/click.

As an easy example, I have sponsors I send traffic to even though the sales are lower than others because they provide me with content for other things. I have assigned a value to that content and included it in their $/click because what we all care about is NET $/click.

It's simple math... and if you can't put me on ignore I have no idea how you can put math on ignore either

I said in the initial post in the topic that I would read your replies in this topic. Didn't you read it? When you ignore someone if you want to view a post by them you only have to hit "view post" and it opens it in another tab.

Yes, Relentless, but again I think you miss the point. Tell me again how you are going to calculate the revenue per click on a discounted membership or new promo content before the sponsor even gives you access to either? That's one reason why you might want to build up a relationship with the owner. Personally it's not my model either. I only hit up sponsors for big issues like missing or late checks over a couple weeks. But I don't know everything just as you don't.

Again no one is saying $/click isn't useful or one of the better mathematical metrics to use. The problem is the real world isn't so easily fit within it. There are also other concerns in some instances.

[Relentless]

I disagree that ROI is the same as $/click. But if you say its the same, then you should be calling it ROI, because $/click is dumb as there are plenty of ways to earn without clicking. IMO $/impressions is better then $/click anyway

If you want to call it ROI or Net $/click that's a mater of semantics. $/impressions is already included in the Net $/click because to figure out your net you need to include the cost of each click. I think you are struggling with the meaning of the word NET.[/quote]

$/click + risk, effort, and time....

The shorthand way to write that equation is: NET $/click

Net revenue - Cost of goods sold - Administrative expenses - income taxes = net income
http://www.accountingtools.com/definition-net-income

[Relentless]

I said in the initial post in the topic that I would read your replies in this topic. Didn't you read it? When you ignore someone if you want to view a post by them you only have to hit "view post" and it opens it in another tab.

You fail to comprehend what ignore means and your signature on this board is even more laughable than most of what you post

Tell me again how you are going to calculate the revenue per click on a discounted membership or new promo content before the sponsor even gives you access to either?

The idiotic threads are about shaving, leaks and conspiracy theories. All of that is automatically counted in your NET $/click. You don't even have to add a line item for any of it. What they paid you already automatically includes all of it every time without any exception.

Now you are trying to EXPAND that to say you are unable to place a value on certain things a sponsor provides. That is a different question entirely. Had someone started a thread saying "How much do you think getting a discounted membership link from a sponsor is really worth?" that would have been a meaningful discussion where people could exchange data and past experience with that sponsor or other similar sponsors. It has nothing to do with leaks or shaving or conspiracy nonsense.

To answer your question more specifically, I have gotten discount link codes from dozens and dozens of sponsors. I know what I usually earn AND roughly how much that number changes when I use a discount link code instead. More importantly, by the 2nd or 3rd period I know exactly how much my Net $/click is with any particular sponsor while using a discounted link code.

Here is a fact that may surprise you, some sponsors pay MORE per click with full price codes than with discounted codes and record more sales with them as well. Now, why would that happen? Do people want to pay more for a site and buy it more often if the price is higher... I DONT GIVE 2 FUCKS. Is the sponsor actually shaving discount links more than non-discount links? Who Cares. Is there some other reason? ZERO FUCKS GIVEN. That is all the sponsor's problem to figure out, not mine as an affiliate. I only need to focus on earning the highest $/click.

I have had site owners tell me "you dont want a discount link, the full price will earn you more." I don't ask twice, I dont ask for an explanation. They are supposed to know what works best for their own program. So I use the full price link. Now what happens if they pay me less as a result and Id have earned more with a discount link? That becomes THEIR problem because if I can sell my clicks to someone else with a better $/click, guess what I am going to do?

It always comes back to $/click. Your ignorance to it or on and off nonsense about ignoring my posts has zero to do with the actual value of the single most important stat in all of affiliate marketing.

[signupdamnit]

Relentless, I'm ignoring your posts outside of this topic. I invited you to this thread so it would not make sense to ignore you here. In other topics you derail or hijack the thread by making 100+ replies talking about $/click. That is why I have you on ignore in general.

I really don't know what more to say if between everything I have written in this topic and everyone else has written you still do not see that sometimes there is more to things than calculating current $/click values.

[Relentless]

Relentless, I'm ignoring your posts outside of this topic. I invited you to this thread so it would not make sense to ignore you here.

I feel honored that you treat me the same way you treat Reason.

You ignore Reason constantly, so I am in very good company.

[JSWENSON]

My tune is exactly the same and has not changed in any way whatsoever. I have been repeating the $/click chorus for years. If someone pays you the most $/click while running legal websites that do no in any way harm your bookmarkers... send them your traffic. If someone else pays you more, send your traffic to them instead. How is that a difficult thing for someone to understand?!

You are a God damned idiot.

[Relentless]

90% of the time when a program owner makes a comment like a few pages back it means the program will be gone within a year or they will otherwise change something so that affiliate income radically drops.

It's more than a little ironic that you use a dummy as your avatar.

It is 90% likely ANY program will be gone in a year. Do you seriously not know how many 'small to medium size programs' are now owned by the same small group of large players? Take a look at GFY and see how often people post. Did you get the idea that maybe the industry is about 1/100th the size it was (in terms of people) that were here 5 years ago?

This industry is very quickly moving toward private affiliate programs for professional webmasters and tiny sandbox websites for part timers and conspiracy theorists. Many of the most lucrative sponsors are already private invite only. Instead of making yourself easy to work with, you are doing your best to convince the rest to go private quickly.

You are cutting the nose off your dummy avatar to spite its face.

[Relentless]

I am a God damned idiot.

Had no idea who you are or what sites you own. Asked two people and they also had no idea. So I looked up all your posts since you joined GFY: http://gfy.com/search.php?searchid=4962361. Couldn't find a single one that was informative or useful in any way. See if you can locate one and link it here in this thread. Good luck, bring a miner's hat... you'll be digging for quite a while.

[freecartoonporn]

[JSWENSON]

Had no idea who you are or what sites you own. Asked two people and they also had no idea. So I looked up all your posts since you joined GFY: http://gfy.com/search.php?searchid=4962361. Couldn't find a single one that was informative or useful in any way. See if you can locate one and link it here in this thread. Good luck, bring a miner's hat... you'll be digging for quite a while.

You're right, I should got make 5,000 posts about $ per click that ignores every single factor that would make the stats meaningless.