Business: To skim or not to skim?
 

I have always been of the opinion that products and services, that cater to the customer's needs and are marketed accordingly, are the best way to accomplish a sale. Not only that, but they're also the best way to have a satisfied customer base. Of course, you can't really please everybody, but then again the wise ones don't try that either.

Now, considering the above we could assume that the products we market, as adult webmasters selling to the surfers, are of prime quality. This is, of course, subject to argument depending on the sponsor, paysite, content therin, membership prices and so on, but let's just assume, for the sake of argument, that the paysites we try to sell memberships to are top-notch and therefore cater to the surfers' needs. This would mean that the product fulfills the criteria connected with satisfying the need which drives the demand.

This puts us in the position of trying to influence the surfers which way to go, once they've landed on our TGP's/MGP's. They want (need) porn and therefore they're browsing our sites. We want them to buy from our sponsors and therefore show them samples (galleries) or plain ads (banners, textlinks, HPA's etc.) of the paysites we want them to join. We also want them to stick around, bookmark, return and buy from (via) us more often, this keeps making us money. Furthermore, we also want to have link exchanges with similar sites, in the hope of getting fresh traffic that way.

While I don't see anything wrong with either of the above, the practical part that I feel doesn't really fit into this equation is the skimming part. Why? Simple, it's deceptive. You promise the customer something, he/she clicks willing to check it out, and gets something else. Imagine walking into a grocery store, looking for various groceries, only to find out that you're actually in a hardware store and you can't really eat the nails they're selling in there... I know, this may be an extreme comparison, but at the end of the day it's very similar to sending the surfer to a trade, instead of the gallery he/she expects to see. What this does is decrease the overall trust factor with the consumer.

This sets a precedent of being fooled into clicking on a link promising something and offering something totally different. I mean, if you click on a link saying "Hot busty babe spreading her pussy" and end up on a page full of text links, or lots of thumbs, none displaying anything similar to the description you just got, what would guarantee you that when you're on a gallery and click the "See more" link, you won't get the same thing? Or even on the paysite tour, when you click the "free preview" link? After all, once a thief, always a thief, and the surfers have no idea which of the links we, as free site owners, are really affiliated with and in control of.

At the end of the day, all skimming does, except for artificially inflate visitor numbers, but not necessarily sales numbers, is lower the trust factor of our potential client base. This regardless of them being inherent freeloaders or not, as I know some would argue they are. :)

My point, as you've surely noticed, is that skimming is bad. At least to me, following the above logic, it's bad. There are lots of different ways you can successfully exchange traffic with other sites, without deceiving the surfer one bit. Those would also bring in other synergy effects, like in the case of hardlink trading, such as more search engine traffic. Are we so set on cutting corners and rushing to have lots of traffic, that we completely forget the fundemental purpose of every single website we create? Which, in case you've forgotten, is to make money.

Great post! I dont get the equation either.

100 vs 100 = 1000 vs 1000. So in the end: If you are not gaining more traffic than you send (assuming you are not cheating/stealing traffic)...why skim if a clean site has 20 times bigger chance of a signup? Well... if your traffic means more than the bankaccount, then I can see the point ..lol

Another point to be made is that, while many people these days use FHG's to make money, few realize that a 10K no skim site can send the same 90K to galleries that a 90K 50% skim site can. Not to mention that the no skim site will be a lot more stable in the long run, since it doesn't rely on jerked traffic too much.

Great post :thumbsup

There is a huge difference in traffic quality between skim and no skim traffic, but there's also a huge difference between 50% skim and 70% skim traffic.

So why not just remove the skim from the sites completely and let the ratios improve? Because I suspect the traffic would disappear faster than the improved ratios would keep the sales constant in most instances.

The rule to have any sort of business succeed is to keep your customers happy. In this case, it may be harder to get customers, but you will have much more loyal customers, which is good for sales.

Did anyone say you should remove skim all at once? :winkwink:

No skim in 2006? Hmm, not many people do that.

I think you should either go all CJ or no skim at all. Stop fucking around with that in between shit.

I have my doubts as to how well that would work. Also the skim on your own site isn't really as important as the skim on the sites you're trading with, and there aren't very many sites at the very lower skim levels to trade with. So at some point you'd still end up having to make a rather harsh jump from some decent amount of skim to nothing at all.

Interesting - Before i knew anything about the adult business I sub-conciously figured out that if I didnt get the gallery link the first time I would just keep on re-clicking it until it came up - im sure a load of other surfers have picked this up too.

Nice post. People should focus on quality instead of high numbers. The whole point is to build a trust relationship with your surfers and get them to buy from you.

It is an adult thing. Few companies emphasis on keeping a customer over aquiring new ones.

I agree with that.. these guys with the 50% skim are killing the traffic pool in TGPs. It sucks ass to find any good quality traffic trades these days, due to all the 50% skim BS sites that are out there. It's almost useless to trade with half the big TGP's out there these days, because half their trades are 50% skim shit sites.

I'd be happy if everyone went back to 70% skim would make a world of difference in the total traffic pool. I'm slowly switching my sites to no skim. It's just a very slow process to do it with out losing traffic.

True... if isolated. But sales depends on so much more than how much or less you skim and the traffic u get thereby. There are many things you can do like optimizing your sponsor portfolio and guide instead of randomly blindlinking, trade with other clean websites with quality traffic, optimize galleries through sales and not 'most clicks' (like the scripts do), stay updated etc..
Lots of things, it all depends on how much time you want to spend..but in the long run you will gain from it and not depend on skim traffic... the ultimate successfull affiliate gets bookmarkers that come back, actively use your portal and signup for another paysite later :)

Webmasters are sheep, like it or not. All it takes is a handful webmasters doing this successfully and telling everyone how easy it is and BAM, you'll have every webmaster follow suit. :winkwink:

I agree with DX, quality wins it from quantity in the long run
But even with skimming it's not easy to grow a site :)
I'am using a 70 or 80% skim at the moment

There were more signups when there were CJs and no skim TGPs. Either be nice to the surfer 100% or not at all.

Unfortunately, I don't think it'll be very easy to go full CJ these days, for several reasons. Which leaves us with no skim TGP's. :winkwink:

Yeah, skimming can be bad as it can turn surfers away.. But then if everyone is skimming, where will they go?? hmmm.. To thehun, worldsex etc. etc. (see my last point). But like most things, there are "good" ways of doing it and "bad" ways. There are pros and cons.

One of the main reason for skimming is to get "fresh" eyes on your ads. It's a way of getting surfers to "find" your site that might not otherwise. i.e. It's a marketing technique that can help brand your sites as well as filter traffic around.

Skimmed sites are also highly useful as "feeder" sites to send traffic to your clean site. But very few people figure this out and so all they do is set up skim sites and don't develop a nice clean site. So.. How many people run skimmed sites and are acting as feeders to other peoples clean sites? If you're one of them, why aren't you feeding your OWN clean site???

No offense, but how fresh are the eyes of jerked-to-death traffic...?

This is a good point, but few people understand how to do this properly. Besides, no skim doesn't mean that the site doesn't trade, and once they master the art of no skim trading, many would give up on skimming sites. If no one skimmed, then it'd be just as easy to grow up a 100K/day no skim TGP as it is to grow a 100K 50% skim CJ these days.

Why? High quantity means you can sell partner account and pre-paid spots to webmasters at a higher rate.:winkwink:

skim I say

skim i agree

Question is, for how long? Webmasters may be sheep, but they're profit-driven sheep, if they can't break even on the cost of a spot what's there to guarantee they'll keep buying?

As long as webmasters think they will be able to "brand" their site(s) and get "exposure", they will continue to buy pre-paid spots.

The only benefit of skimming is as a tool to get fresh traffic. Zero-skimming, without a drop in traffic-levels, would be a better situation. The answer is to cancel out the fresh traffic from skimming with alternatives that have positive effects on the industry.

If you're talking about paysite owners, you have a point. Otherwise, there's nothing to brand about a gallery. :)

Hehe, funny, I've always argued that traffic trading is a zero-sum game. Ironically, few seem to understand that the fresh sources of traffic lie outside of our current circle of trades.

I'm hoping to use your other home (wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say-no-more) to get zero-skim trades for a new project. A network of conventional zero-skim sites, fed by more creative means, is the way to go I think. I love the smell of revolution in the evening. :)

You psychic or something? I was just thinking about this earlier today before I wrote this. Planning a major co-operative project, hopefully launching next week already. :)

You have great timing. I think I have at least an idea of what you have in mind, so count me in. You got me excited. :)

And I ain't no naked chick either. :1orglaugh

Well there are many sponsors out there who doesnt support skimming, and you can understand their point of view too.

You'd have to be a naked asian chick pissing on me to get me this excited :1orglaugh

Me love you long time! :1orglaugh

:pimp good luck mang

Good luck to you too, you'll be involved in it. :winkwink:

many? the only major one I've heard of is ATK, are there others?

:1orglaugh OMG! SINCE WHEN! Ain't nothin' going in my ass buddy :winkwink:

Is this coming from a guy who built skim sites for ppl, and now your saying that the sites are worthless unless they make sales.

not long ago I read a post you said my shitty no skim site is worthless, I got no trades, etc etc.

make up your fucking mind.

you finally saw the other side and now you come here to speak of it.

I know ppl that have sites that get only 1000's of hits from se traffic that make way more than theses 100k sites.

but you and I both know there are hundreds of dumbass webmasters that love paying to be listed on them sites with big numbers, and thats the whole point of growing big ass thumb site with skim, not for the surfers but the dumbass webmasters that pay in hope to make sales from this ohh so big site.

and the reason its so easy to make and sell a site to someone with 100k+ of traffic.

I think the idea is that there will be a never ending supply of noobs to take advantage of with overpriced ad spots. Watch what most of the people selling these spots do:

1. They announce some spots are for sale
2. Some 'third party' (that is more typically someone working for the same person(s) selling the spots) mentions what a great bargain the spots are and that the days of free listings are coming to an end blah blah blah the sky is falling...
3. Someone mentions the low or negative ROI these spots almost invariably produce
4. The person complaining is told:
a) they don't know that they're doing
b) their galleries suck
c) they need new sponsors and should pay for more spots to test the new sponsors on or
d) they should get out of the business
e) a very small % of customers (usually one or two out of hundereds) claims that they had good results and everyone else sucks

It's a pretty tight method of dismissing any valid criticism and considering that there's more noobs looking for an easy way to get listed than there are spots available atm it's unlikely to change anytime soon.

So how long will webmasters still be able to sell this kind of crap? Probably for a very long time.

Most successful webmasters know that "prebuilt paysites" are more of a scam or at best a ploy to sucker in unsuspecting naive webmasters than anything, yet those are still being sold all the time. I don't see this trend as being very different, in fact it seems to be the natural continuation of that very same market; people realize it's easier to get into the biz as an affiliate than as a paysite owner now, so account spots are being sold instead of paysites.

This isn't to say there are no sites worth buying spots on, but the vast majority seem to fall under the above scenarios.