Choose sponsors with good reputations, who strike you as honest.

Do the occasional test join, if you like. I know I don't care if an affiliate wants to buy something on his or her refcode and most revshare programs won't mind.

Mostly, do the math on whether what you are doing is profitable and worthwhile.

Edit: Ya know, when you talk about getting back in the game, it is clear that you in fact do have a safe office job. You were name-calling in that other thread and acting like your office job gave you the judgmental right to force other people to live by your rules for them.

Most importantly, regarding this thread and that one, you are not just extremely risk averse, you are unusually loss averse. This means that you would actually rather spend $100,000 to have a $20,000 loss covered. It also probably means that entrepreneurship is not for you. Most successful entrepreneurs are risk neutral. If you view risk neutral as basically risk taking (which you do), then business is not going to be your thing.

Edit 2: 50

i like poo...

My advice is to choose a program that is really established in the biz with a proven track record.

Check us out, been in this game since 1996 .

See Sig

Great point.

Yessssss 60 pages here we go!

A) Getting back into ADULT, mostly hard goods with sending surfers to pay sites as an added bonus. I have been self employed since 2001. I have had 2 businesses prior to the point, each sold at a nice profit.

Mainstream, has been good to me. I work out of home offices in Boca Raton Florida, the Smoky Mountains and Long Island NY and go where ever the weather and fishing is better all year long.

B) I have been burned hard in the past and I am wise enough to cover as many bases as possible. I plan on working for maybe another 10 years and I am done having to work - without scaling back my lifestyle. Could do it sooner, choose not to.

C) People who I have trusted most in the past burned me the hardest. In one case a business partner and best friend of more than 30 years.

D) My risk tolerance lowers each day I am on this Earth as I am in my early 50's. At this point in my life I am more careful and I don't have to take chances.

I don't want a regular office and people under me along with the responsibility any longer, I just want to work at what I enjoy and get paid for what I do. My goal is to build things up now adult in order to flip them.

I do not want to chase people for money nor deal with scumbags who cheat, thus this thread.

It may sound crazy but I would rather make $10k in this with honest people that $100K with scumbags.

In the case of cam sites however, all run own affiliate program, merchant account and custom stuff. So the shaving-detection formula is? :)
What we do in our program it is to display in the affiliate stats all the usernames, free or paid, that are created. This way an affiliate can always make a few usernames himself here and there and see if all are counted.. let's say we shaved 1 every x, there is the risk we shaved the username made by the affiliate for testing, so we would be uncovered.

Won't be much good as the deviation is quite huge in here and you would need a shit load of data anyways (from different programs). Lets say 100 programs and a 1000 conversions per each, or 100 000 unique visitor view per program (landing page).

good thing I have popcorn ready... :):)

So to recap, using a 3rd party like CCbill is safer (not he best convertor though) and Google Analytical is not foolproof.

So let's hear that based upon the fact I am an affiliate, other than CCbill who I should be linking through to have the greatest chance of being paid what is due to me.

All that matters to you is which one gets you most money. Based purely on financial perspective, even a company that shaves is best, if it still produces you most. So, don't focus so much to billing companies, etc.

The only way to be 100% sure you are not shaved is to make your own site, do your own billing.

How to be sure a site you promote won't close it's affiliate program? You can't control other people's businesses or force them to stay in business if they choose not to be. Even if you really, really want to.

Aside from that, all you can do is pretend (like everyone else does) that no one shaves ever, and that everyone will stay in business forever, and test your results from different sources and optimize for the best ROI. Make sure you have control of your outbound links, and if you need to change something you don't have to dig through 1000's of pages of PHP to change links.

The best way is to split test and use $/impression (or secondarily $/click) to compare the performance of sponsors and track it over time. However for this to work you need past experience with them or sufficient volume to get a good data sample quickly. This isn't always possible. Also it tells you little about their longevity or if they will actually pay you in the future.

That said other factors are good too:

1. Pay attention to how the people who own the program act as well as their employees. If they are unprofessional, always defending scumbags and/or seem in a hurry to disparage affiliates then in my experience it's only a matter of time until they screw you. The forums are great for this. Also typically ass kissers are in a desperate financial situation. That is why they need to kiss someone's ass. They are hoping to stay afloat or get thrown a bone.

2. Pay attention to past performance in the industry. Some say you shouldn't look at this but really that is a sign to watch out for whoever is saying this. There is a reason banks use credit checks. Past performance often predicts future performance.

3. This ties in with #1 but it's a great idea these days to introduce yourself to a sponsor you plan on doing significant business with. See how they respond....or these days even if they respond. Non-responders tend to be on auto-pilot or they no longer are treating the affiliate side of the business as a priority. If they blow you off now the chances are great that they will blow you off in the future when times get tougher and payments are due.

4. Simple rule which tends to work very well with everything in my experience: Try to do business with people who actually need you. 9/10 you will be treated far better.

It's a little bit safer but to make any difference you have to know still what to watch out for. The sponsor cannot shave in the traditional way but there are other tricks they can use such as:

1. No credit for a certain biller in the cascade.
2. Affiliate traffic goes to one biller, type-ins to another non affiliate credit sponsor (in this case cookies basically become worthless)
3. Hardcoded In house affiliate IDs in the join form.

Honestly though if you are thinking about being a paysite affiliate the chances are you aren't going to have much choice per niche because conversions are nowhere near where they used to be and so many have left. If you find one sponsor in a niche these days which converts reasonably you would be lucky. Two or three doing so was somewhat rare even 2011ish.

Key thing I learned the hard way.

Switched everything I am doing to database driven link management porting through my own urls (no follow of course).

Nothing is forever. The most I want to be burned by from anyone if for a few weeks revenue.

Great advice signupdamnit.

Watching attitudes on the boards, on the phone and at trade shows is key.

I also want to add, look at employee turnover too.

If you don't have a a phone number, I will not be doing business with you (even though 98% of my communication is email).

A useful tidbit I have used over the years is to "street-view" prospective vendors and clients before I even communicate with them whenever possible.

This is a really good list. I would add to this to avoid companies with people who don't take responsibility for what happens on their watch e.g. people who have covered for previous shavers or thieves or who always say what happened to affiliates was not their fault.

When Globill went under, SpookyCash paid affiliates out of pocket and I was surprised at how many people just said it wasn't their fault and expected affiliates to promote a new program, after not getting paid.

I have no witch hunt going on. I trust to those with who I do business with, unless something comes up.

I have learnt that you can try to secure everything up, whether it's business partners, customers or whoever, but it's just fucking expensive, impractical and sometimes impossible. It is much more profitable to take a hit now and then, than to trying to secure everything, if that can even be done. You gotta have trust and faith.

Companies can't afford to shave anymore. They need your traffic. If you aren't making the money you think your traffic is worth send it elsewhere.

Afraid they will close up shop and not pay? Do research on who you work with. Fly out and tour their office. Get to know who you are doing business with.

CCBill will ensure you get paid for your signups and rebills, but if you are getting 50% of a $29.95 membership versus $40 on free trials, you could be making a lot less in the long run :2 cents:

I don't think so. In the long run nobody pays for the customers more than they are worth of. Unless you manage to milk companies backed by investors with deep pockets, and find new ones when the old ones go out of business or start paying less.

I got excited thinking this was going to be a beard grooming thread!

It's more often the big programs I find :2 cents:

If everybody would be cheating it would be very easy money. I would just need to file a bunch of lawsuits in US, and on the way to courtroom I will spill some mustard from my hotdog and I will sue the clueless hot dog stand owner too.

Many programs earn more than that per acquisition. They aren't basing their payouts on the value of a join, they are basing their payouts on the total value per acquisition. Exactly the same way you should be basing your traffic decisions on total Net $/click (not just the direct payout per pay period). If someone sends you traffic back, provides you other sources of income or brings you new connections worth money that ought to all be factored into the NET $/click equation.

Having said that (and what I said), there is one scenario in where paysite might pay more money for PPS, than they directly earn from that. Having your brand/ site known is very important part of business. In affiliate model initial exposure is free, as affiliates are only paid for customers, those come through their links and order within certain time frame/ session. Like affiliates do calculate the total value, so does paysites. Exposure, that materialises through brand recognition, type in traffic and google traffic, does produce value as well.

I have done basic advertising in magazines and newspapers (mainstream). You pay x-sum for the exposure. You can do it in affiliate model too.

The edit window came and went, so I made a new post. Paysite may also want to pay for PPS more than would be made from revshare, if the revshare doesn't make enough money for affiliates to attract affiliates. And having said that, I have chosen revshare if there have been option, but since I am new in this adult segment, I have no data from long time, but I have good faith for revshare.

Everyone I personally caught was big and very established.

So what indicated about this shaving (proof)?

The initial $29.95 membership is only part of the total lifetime value of the customer. CCBill programs tend to only pay 50-60% of that. Also cheap/free trials convert differently than full monthlies.

Everyone is free to push whoever they want, but I make more sending my traffic to the people that pay a lot for it up front. If worrying about using a third party for payments was an issue, I wouldn't send them any traffic to begin with.

Thank you for your input :error

:2 cents: Fuzebox FTW

I am talking about the total value. And there is also trials for revshare (I am using those), but maybe not from CCBILL. And 50-60 % from the total value is enough for me, from that particular customer.

I have plenty of experience from business and I know that getting customers is more expensive than keeping them. Thus, I focus to the model where the same customers bring value for long time, although I have no control to it as a affiliate.

I would worry more about companies that can't seem to pay on time (like months late) or not at all instead of shaving...if a program doesn't convert for me (whether it's my traffic, their website/tour, shaving, aliens, etc) then I just try out another one.

I already posted. Signed up other people on their computers and shipped goods to their homes and never got paid. 3 pay site programs and 2 selling goods.

I also had inside info from a programmer after I dropped another program about how they shave. Had suspicion at the time but no solid proof.

I hope there is a special hell for programmers who cheat others.

QFT /thread

Send traffic pay-per-click (see sig) - we also bill exclusively through CCBill, not that it matters...we already paid for the click. See stats in real time and try to break it...I dare you.

OK, I just hope that you guys did use your links corretcly, etc. Since you don't get money by just ordering stuff. :)

You never filed any criminal activity or lawsuit? I would have. Filing for a fraud would be easiest thing at least around here, since it won't cost a thing for you. Of course I wouldn't file anything without substantial proof, since I don't file lawsuits for fun or to tease others. But fuck, if I get screwed, I screw back.

Although good start would usually be contacting the company in question. Since not getting credited can occur for multiple of reasons.

If you run your own program. then you will spend all your time in checking for fake/chargeback signups made by cheater affiliates. Only if you run both the program and you are your only affiliate, then you will sleep in peace, not afraid of frauds.

I've setup a few programs in past 10 years (mostly cams) and I can tell that when hired programmer(s), who was into coding adult sites before, they asked me: "and what about the shaving system" - without me ask for it or imply I ever wanted to shave anyone.

I have no idea what this means

a) I understand that too. Maybe sponsors build in shaving counting on cheating affiliates.

b) Anyone willing to steal from affiliates (or be part of it) may be willing to steal form you as well.

Thanks for being honest about it. Many aren't. I've heard others say the same. I've even seen programmers on industry boards admit to being asked "all the time" about adding such features. It's actually fraud but sadly any type of prosecution is rare. But in theory it could be something subject to the RICO (racketeering) act in the US. You can even file such a RICO suit individually.

Just means your clicks won't match ours. Also, due to your other thread crap i'd have a hard time promoting anything you are part of.

I agree with this.

Split testing (and any other types of testing), phone calls, past history, street views, meeting the owners, email response times, reputation etc. won't do you much good.

Like Signupdamnit said above you'd be lucky to find 3 good sponsors that will simply CONVERT in any adult niche these days. I'm surprised you are entering adult at this point.