Freeones demands increase % to offset weak $
 

Got this email today:

The reason that I'm writing you today is to discuss the following issue, an increase in our share of revenues for 2008.

As you may or may not have known, we are a European based company. We have been watching the dollar devaluate against the euro for some time now, however, the dramatic drop in the value of the dollar in the recent months has become a growing concern for us (as you can see in this graph; http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=USDE...l=on&z=m&q=l&c). Seven years ago when we earned a thousand in US dollars, we would receive roughly 1250 euro in exchange. Presently for every thousand we earn, we're receiving about 645 euro.

With little relief in sight, we are asking our partners to consider raising our rate of 60% in revenue share to 70% for 2008 so we can remain profitable. If this is not a feasible request for you, we regret to inform you that we will not be able to promote your program at the same level as we have before. Instead, we will be focusing on the programs that are able to meet our needs.

We look forward to discussing the possibilities with you. Our affiliate ID is 921xxx

With kind regards,

www.freeones.com




What about European webmasters who have to bill in dollars how are they supposed to stay profitable?!

Its no big deal to ask your rep for a higher percentage.. :2 cents:
Great idea freeones...:thumbsup

it didn't strike me it was exactly asking

how can you demand another EU company that bills in dollars to bump a rate because of weak dollar?!

70% to partners, 10-15% to billing.. heck.. I see shaving, crosselling and upsells reaching new levels for the programs to remain "profitable"

they can ask for whatever they want and can promote whoever they want.....fair or not its their business decision....

"to remain profitable"

lol

just an excuse to demand more money, not that I blame them though I'd do the same if I was in the same position.

anyone that does not see through this business trick is an idiot though :)

Most companies don't payout a true 60% as billing costs is most of the time included taking your payout % down to 45% :2 cents:

The dollar is at an all time low again this week and it doens't look like its going up anytime soon. It's easy, you don't like to raise us then just don't do it :2 cents:

Lol @ "remain profitable" :P

Greed kills, one way or the other, it will catch up.

Blame the dollar :2 cents:

That's not the point, the dollar being down affects everyone.

You're saying "we want more money so you need to take a pay cut on top of the cut you're already getting from the low dollar".

I don't care, I'll happily give you the 70% cause your traffic is worth it but be straight and ask for more money instead of pretending like you're suffering more then anyone else while in reality you got next to no excuses and are on the up and up unlike anyone else could ever dream about.

:2 cents:

Freeones = The Walmart of adult sites. :1orglaugh

Nothing wrong in that until you read "so we can remain profitable" seriously there was no need for that line people arent idiots and can see through that.

Where is it saying we are the only ones suffering from it or that we think we are the only ones? Seriously though like I said If one doesn't like it just don't do it.

Appreciate the bump though, 1 down 1495 to go ;)))

I agree, wrongly formulated (english = 2nd language of the one who wrote it) :2 cents:

smart move ;) congrats

why would a euro company only bill in dollars? I dunno wich program is being talked about now but at least bill your euro customers in euro..

"to remain profitable"

lol give me a break, you're hosting HTML pages with more traffic and better ratios then anyone else.

I'm not saying anything about you wanting high rates, you and everyone else but that spin comes off as if you're trying to play us like idiots.

see:

Thanks for paying attention!

I'm just being my usual assholiness self ... thanks ;)

seems like an interesting thread... however freeones doesnt seem to be demanding it... just asking? i could be wrong...

Because there are thousands of programs out there, and I bet Freeones have enough traffic for them all.

Simple. The sponsors who raise our payout will get the same amount of traffic or more from us, because they pay better than the rest. The ones who don't raise the payout will lose traffic, because we are sending it to our more interesting partners. So if you don't raise the payout as EU company you will lose our traffic to US partners who do.

In the end you will lose twice as EU company.
1. Suffering from the dollar
2. Suffering of getting less or no traffic anymore.

there we go, straight up answer, that's what I wanted to hear :thumbsup

I'm not giving you a single penny more! :)

I don't see anything wrong with this.

When a sponsor pays a higher % than others, it's more than logic that they receive more traffic than the others.

You push your traffic towards you best converting and highest paying sponsors.
That's simply doing good business in my book.
You're leaving money on the table if you don't.

There you go... The first rule of business! :thumbsup

To be honest, it really surprises me that they are still at minimums with a lot of sponsors. At their level of traffic I would have made the request years ago.

I am sure they send 100 joins a week to many different programs. Many more get 100 joins per month. Any program I send that many too would see an Email like this.

Sad thing for many US sponsors... Watching as your dollar slides and the amount you pay to people that live in third world countries turns to shit. A guy that used to live like a king on his $2000 USD a month in a third world country is now wondering what he is supposed to do with $849 USD equivalent per month.

umm so they need 70% to remain profitable but how on earth would they expect the paysite to be profitable?

There you go. The "remain profitable" was the killer. You want more money, falling dollar has nothing to do with it. Wanting more money = ok, blaming it on falling dollar or "to remain profitable" = weak, and not only you're demanding more from programs, you're playing them for fools.
Blaming english is the sinker. You could have played the raised payout much better.

Who says they would? :)

1.60 dollar =1 euro now :S:S:S

It used to be 1-1 or even better...GRRR hate it

oh boy oh boy I am taking off!!!!!

I probably would have played the "Hey, we send great profitable traffic, how about you give us 10% more?" card... :2 cents:

And i bet many more programs would bump them no problem.

better stop smoking that shit... bro. he's saying the revshare will go to 30% to the affiliates from 40%. how in the fuck could he make more money if he raised affiliate payouts?

Its not so much the big progams but the pornstar and solo girl type sites that makes freeones.com cool that I think will suffer.

I mean if you are in EU you are already taking a hit on the currency. If you are sharing with models and paying sales tax the numbers hardly work at 60% let alone 70!

Freeones thrives off the free content, t-shirt shoots etc from these smaller operators. You go there you can find any girl and probably some free stuff, big and small names.

I sold my sites but I reckon smaller webmasters probably will not be too happy to get that in their inbox, especially EU ones.

How about sponsors that only offer 50% but bill there customers in the customers currency - and i'm not talking about a straight USD conversion.

For example:
US surfer gets charged $25 USD
EU surfer gets charged 25 Euros (approx $40)
UK surfer gets charged £25 Pounds Sterling (approx $49)

Those non US sales you make will earn you more per join/rebill and more programs are doing this now :2 cents:

make memberships in euros and problem solved. We should have left the dollar a long time ago. ( go with the arabs, they dont take dollars anymore. )

You don't see that creating a new problem? ;)

Amount of sales increases. Margin might be less but gross is higher. Part of the costs are variable but general costs can be devided over more sales.:2 cents:

It doesn't seem to be an unreasonable request, if you can't afford to do it, don't. I'm sure there's plenty of programs that will accomodate the request to get Freeones' traffic.
WG

There is also returning customers, upsales and follow up emails etc etc .... definitely not impossible to turn a profit on 30% if you got a good product and FreeOnes traffic is extremely well targeted.

Though should add you need to take another 7-13% out of those 30% for processing fees depending on your setup and if you swallow the fees or share them with the webmaster.

So yeah, the margin becomes significantly lower but at the same time, this is business, if you can't cope with what FreeOnes is asking for you'll just have to move on. Obviously it's a stunt on their side, like if they would go back to 60% once the dollar goes back up lol ... but still, business is business and they are holding the cards so all you can do is play it their way and try to get the best out of the deal.

Then again, if you run solo model sites where you're the sole promoter of the model then you really have nothing to worry about. It would be a bad decision on FreeOnes part to remove your model from their index seeing they got SEO and surfers looking for her whether you pay them 50% or 70% ... this is rather something that will play in for the guys that has the content to get on their main page. Their archive pages I doubt will change or they would be shooting themselves in the foot.

:2 cents:

70% :1orglaugh

I responded to your email regarding this and have not heard back. Can someone hit me up on icq to discuss it.

Can't even get FreeOnes to answer my emails :(

Actually I sent you an email about this few weeks ago. Lmk if I need to resend.

Drop me a line and I will get back to you asap!

QuaShe, as a reasonably sized company I hope you're looking at other ways to offset currency losses and to ensure a stable future income despite currency devaluation, such as EUR/USD options, currency futures contracts or even forward deals with banks.

I responded but did not get one back. Please send again and icq me so I can confirm I received it