It's my first time on this forum, bud. Ask the admin to check my IP if it bothers you that much.

As for you...you've posted twice in this thread, neither contributed anything.

The definition of trolling, no?

50 delusional webmasters.

Oh my god. You are right. The OP must be a troll. Who but a troll would dare to discuss real business on GFY? P.S. Looking at the daily crap posted by long term members on GFY, I fail to see where sign-up date signifies intelligence or even an inkling of actual business knowledge.

First off, I never claimed to be a whiz when to comes all things porn...

I'm an IM consultant, and I just started working with adult clients selectively over the last 6 months.

I've implemented these "theories" and it's working for them.

Try them yourself or don't. I care not.

Honestly though...there's no reason to get so riled up.

That's why we don't do it except on special occasions. The last time we did a discount mailer was last summer. It did work very well. But as you just said, it's terrible positioning.

As far as offering other porn sites that I'm an affiliate of (I've been an affiliate in adult since the mid 1990's and made the vast majority of my money that way)....as I said earlier, every program in adult that I am aware of will terminate your affiliate account the very second that they see any traffic or sales coming from a mailer. :(

They want to control that for themselves so they don't end up blacklisted.

Not "riled up". I've just seen these types of posts before by people coming in and thinking they have the answers...when they don't have any track record in this industry.

And it always seems that when someone posts this type of thing..they do what you do: come off condescending.
In your very title you "LOL" at the people in the adult industry.

You literally have no idea of what you are talking about.

YES, there is still SOME money to be made in adult. YES, adult was once a much easier sale because it's so in demand. NO, when thieves give something like porn away for free you will not make anywhere near the same kind of money as you once did.

I still make a lot of money. About the same as I did before with Claudia-Marie.Com
But the paysite wasn't my main source of income. The affiliate work was. And that is damn near completely dead. Not all the way....but what once was 7 figures a year of income in affiliate work for me is now a few grand a month in the affiliate game for me.

Dude, just because someone isn't behind the camera...doesn't mean they can't share their two cents about the industry.

There's many components to a successful adult biz, marketing being a big one. That's something I can tell you don't know very much about. (Forgive me, if that's being condescending.)

And for a guy who's "making a lot of money", you seem pretty stuck in the past and down on the industry.

Look, we can either sit here and reminisce about a bygone era when the streets were paved with gold...OR we can embrace new strategies and and make some dinero.

But when a new guy comes a long and drops some info that could help your sales, I generally like to listen to see if it rings true, instead of jumping all over him. But I am an oddball.:winkwink:

As for piracy (and free content), anybody selling digital products has to deal with that. Yet there are still info marketers making a king's ransom. I work with them daily...not doing too shabby myself.

Saying piracy is killing my business is a lame excuse, and it reflects a poor business model.

And this is just it.

You've been doing this since the 90's and have been very successful. But the fact that you are not now (as an affiliate) puts you in the lazy or unintelligent or non-creative category by those who start threads like this and who lash out at anyone who rants about having a hard time these days.

You've worked hard and made 7 figures ... so if someone with your work ethic and insight is having difficulty selling porn as an affiliate, then what kind of person is needed to sell porn at the moment? Especially porn that is non-exclusive (stolen and uploaded to tubes free)?

These kinds of threads are condescending and I don't mean that the OP intentionally set out to be that way but it's not something I'll believe (that there's still tons to be made selling porn memberships) just because a few people say so.

Say you do this ... and then the surfer buys your pitch and is convinced.

Why would they choose paying for it when they can search for your 'brand' - that you convinced them was valuable - on tubes and torrents and get it free.

Porn surfers know all about tubes. Mainstream surfers have torrents, but no tubes to turn to to get their freebies.

I think I'm a great marketer. It's why I am still successful in an industry that is in steep decline...while you are on a message board claiming to have your ideas "working" for some mysterious "clients".

As for being "stuck in the past"....the "past" was emailing. The present is SOCIAL MEDIA. The future...I don't know, I'm not a fortune teller.

Saying "piracy is killing my business" is EXACTLY what happened to the affiiate business in adult. If you knew half of what you think you know, then you would understand that.

A lot of adult businesses that used to make millions are now gone. And many others have even dropped their affiliate programs.

And as I told you...and IF you were really doing emails as an affiliate you would already KNOW this...there aren't any affiliate programs that will allow you to use emails as a tool for sales anymore.

Go ahead, give it a try. See what happens to your account.

There ARE a couple of guys still making 7 figures a year doing email campaigns. But not as affiliates. They are being paid up front by the big adult companies to run their campaigns. They have huge multi-million double opt-in lists and multiple mail servers.

They are also not very well known among the general population in the adult industry as they do not publicize their service and don't need to.
Which is why you don't know who they are and couldn't afford them if you did.

Look, you don't know me and I don't know you. But I do know this business. And I do know that I have built a very good life with my knowledge of marketing.

And to have you come in here and tell me I don't know what I'm doing is simply a sign of ignorance on your part.

As I said in my first post to you...when you actually DO something in this industry and can show it...come back and tell me all about it.
Until then, you are just being condescending and insulting.

The reason for this is simple, few will pay the price.

Enough customers to pay the price for the good product?

We would all like a Rolls Royce for the price of a Skoda. Rolls Royce can't do it. So we drive Skodas.

I've talked about this for years. In the days when anything would sell, everyone told me I was wrong. Today surfing Pornhub I see great scenes, well shot and girls putting everything into it, with a cameraman better than I ever was.

Being paid less per scene than I got for a solo girl picture set. In 1999.

Now why should anyone pay $30, to get membership to a smaller site, with less variety, less models, less locations and less added daily?

You're off base here.

The "email is dead" slogan is parroted like anthem by people who obviously don't understand the medium. There are fortunes still being made with email, and nothing has yet to replace it.

Social media is not a direct marketing platform. And the guys who cheer lead it...aren't getting that many sales off it. You can have 100K twitter follows and it won't necessarily mean anything for your revenue.

Now, as far as affiliate programs that don't let you use email...boohoo. There are still many many adult products that you can pitch your list. Have a little imagination.

I'm sorry if I come off as condescending -- not my intention

But I have little patience for guys longing after the "good ol' days". It's just not constructive.

As you said, you don't know me...and I don't know you from Adam. So I won't entertain a cyber dick measuring contest. (Though mine is probably bigger).

You can have the last word.

I didn't see any business being discussed in the OP post.

A lot of old school people keep looking at a sale to a paysite as just that, a membership.

Once you have the guy in the door and his creditcard on file there are many ways to up sale them and make more than just your 2 or 3 months worth on the rebill.

I am not talking about banging cards, tripple cross sales or tricking people into paying for stuff they don't want. I am talking about legit offers people will pay for.

Sure, less people are willing to pay for porn the way they once did however the amount of possibilities to make so much more out of the ones who do pay make up for a good amount of money. I am not going to say think out of the box as that's just cheezy but well in the end you should ;)

If you take a look around, which it sounds like you have, the "marketing experts" in the adult industry wouldn't last 10 minutes in mainstream, especially in a competitive niche. They're not savvy enough.

I never said "Email was dead"

But you can't send out email for any affiliate programs without them terminating your ass.
So that is a dead-end street for an affiliate...unless you get special permission from a program to do so.
Don't believe me? Then give it a shot and see what happens.

And as for you not "having patience for guys longing after the good ol' days"
I never said I longed for the "good ol' days". Yeah, it would be nice if piracy hadn't come along and all but decimated the affiliate model for paysites.
That would be real nice to be able to sell $4,000 a day in memberships to other paysites again. Real nice. Instead of having my stats remote loaded up with over 400 programs that can't sell anymore and having to rely on dating and webcams to make any money as an affiliate.

But as for living in the past? That's a lame way to discount someone with far more experience than you.

I've never "lived in the past". I'm always on top of what's happening and always figuring out what the audience wants. I'm an entertainer and a salesman as well as a guy who has a focus and a vision.

That's why our little paysite is still successful while MANY others have fallen to the wayside or been ingested by big companies.

As for making money with marketing and creative vision...I've been making a ton of money on the side creating marketing for one of the biggest mainstream app platform companies in the world the last several months.

They were actually fans of my work with Claudia Marie's site and loved the way I market it and the ideas I implement.
They contacted me. And asked me to come onboard.

I wasn't even searching that out.

So I think my marketing skills are on a pretty high plane despite what some guy on a message board who just got into the business thinks of me.

As I have said earlier...when you actually DO something. Then you will have my respect and I will give full weight to your opinions.

And I'm not attacking you for what you are trying to do.
I'm just saying that you are VERY insulting to myself and many others who have knowledge and skill.

And not only that...but give them a reason to stay a member for far longer than 2 or 3 months. :)

We have loyal members that have been with us since I first opened Claudia Marie's paysite in 2007.
Interaction and knowing what they want is key to that.

Those members you already have are essentially your "fan base". They are golden.

Very good and motivational. Thank you! :thumbsup

Like the 'water' reply as well :)

:thumbsup:thumbsup

There are a lot of smart guys in adult, and I would bet if they had help getting into the mainstream mailer space, they would crush it. A lot of those mainstream mailer guys are only still in those ivory towers because the cost of entry and learning curve is so high. I am honestly surprised some of them stay in business otherwise.

That goes for mainstream as well. You often times have to get permission as a mailer coming in, or have a reference to be able to mail for those networks. They ask you how you're going to promote their offers, and what not upon sign up. That being said, I get contacted by adult companies on a regular basis asking about mailing their offers, so there are still who vest in mailing as a traffic option.

This is ultimately where the disconnect comes on these topics. Where as you do not want to annoy or harass your golden members. I have seen plenty of these threads over my time in adult, and this is the recurring theme.

I email my client base on C4S every time there is an update. If it is every day, than it's every day. Some have complained sure, I just tell them to opt-out then. When I send out newsletters, I get sales. If I don't, I get some sales but less. My job is to stay in business and drive revenue. While I appreciate my fan base, I also have come to realize that email and information is a valuable tool to be used to drive sales.

In the end, people are going to simply agree to disagree the same as they did on tubes. People fought tubes for years before finally giving in and using them to promote their websites as they do today. But if you look back at the post history, I bet you could find many who bitched about tubes and said they would never use them, but do now.

Mainstream marketers tend to do things that piss off adult userbases. For instance, dude is suggesting spamming your members with outside affiliate offers. Sure you'll make more money, every time you hit that button (up to a point) you'll add some sales.

Until you don't. And the members you have paying you $20 or $30 per month get pissed the fuck off at you and never trust another word out of your mouth.

Most mainstream marketing isn't rebilling and even if that was the majority they aren't dealing with the same situation at all due to the different avenues available to promote.

1. When it comes to emailing CURRENT MEMBERS do so very sparingly. These are the people you do NOT want to annoy. C4S updates (adding a new clip) or paysite updates (adding a new scene) are TOTALLY different things. A C4S customer will buy more clips because of that update. A paysite Member will not pay more....they may cancel (pay less).

2. When it comes to EX-Members: hit them and hit them hard. They're gone, they cancelled. Would they come back on their own without emailing them? Maybe. But emailing them is reminding them you are still here and have something new they may want. Once they become Members (again) they immediately go into #1 above (emails slow-to-stop). So go get 'em.

LOL True, but just wanted to make the distinction. This thread needed a dose of obvious. :)

Also: let's look at WHY people are still buying porn at all today in 2015. I believe many paysite owners have their heads up their asses as to why they get any sales at all. WHY are people who can get anything they want for free coming to your site and still paying you?

(This is not directed at Robbie; the man knows this business inside and out and has done an amazing and admirable job of keeping CM's site successful. I would pay close attention to his insights here.)

So WHY do people pay for porn at all in 2015? They certainly don't have to. Is it because the price is attractive? Not compared to 'free' it ain't....is it because of the great content? Nope - you can get it for f-r-e-e. So WTF is it then?

1. Convenience.
2. Impulse (closely tied to #1)
3. Privacy reasons
4. Moral and social reasons (?)
5. Self image

#1,#2 and #3 are pretty easy to understand.

#4: I mean many people view porn as 'bad' and their 'dirty little secret'. That's why they like it - but can never admit to liking it. You have to scratch that immoral itch inside them somehow.

Plus many people WANT to pay. It's true! Sure they can get something for free but just don't feel right about taking something so dirty and wrong for free....porn is one thing but being a thief is another. Which leads to...

#5: It's a psychological Truth that how people view themselves (their 'self-image') greatly determines how they act in life. 'I'm a Liberal so I blindly vote for Democrats...' is but one example. So: 'I'm a collector', 'I'm a connoisseur', 'I'm not a thief' goes a long way in getting people to open their wallets.

So just offering them 'deals' is missing the reasons they payed you in the first place. You can't beat free so don't even try is my point. Many will pay full retail for something they really want NOW.

On my end i actually make more money then i used to from the past (2000-2008), i work like a donkey yes but thats not what changed for me. What changed really is being extremely picky with whom and what i work with and always hunting those gems that sells like hot cakes. Finally, they are still people making loads, selling something you can find for free is a Art and require looking the entire room instead of the picture on the wall ;). Seriously if you got the motivation and time and the will to learn the curves you can sell anything and i mean ANYTHING free or not, Also bigger is the challenge more i love it so i guess my mindset is made for this.

I'm not sure what you made in the past Focus. You could have made $5 and now you make $10. heh-heh

You know what I'm saying.

The important thing is that you have figured out a way to keep going and make what I presume is a good living in adult.

The problem with being an affiliate these days is this: Back in those earlier days the real money was in selling paysite memberships. Hands down. No contest.

These days?
As an affiliate the only money left (and it's not much in comparison) is in dating and cams.

The people who still make money in the outer fringes of adult are people who are selling ad spots on their enormous tube sites.

Like Pornhub and the other Mansef/Manwin/Mindgeek tube properties.
That's where their money is being made these days. The majority of their money isn't coming from their paysites. It's off of their tubes.

How can I prove that? I can't. But it doesn't take a genius to see that.

They are running so many servers just to take care of Pornhub alone (I have very good friends at Swiftwill where they host). They are spending a lot of money to keep those tube sites up and running. And for a very good reason...to sell ad spots to desperate paysite owners who have run out of options.

I'm gonna hazard a guess that you are making more money now than in the past because of one of 2 reasons:
1. You got hired by a company that pays you more.
Or...if you are self-employed with your own company as an affiliate...
2. You are making more money by pushing dating and cams OR you have a tube site with some traffic to sell.

But I don't know anybody who was successful in the time period you stated who is making more money as an affiliate selling paysite memberships for programs.

If you are...then please sign up for our affiliate program and let's make money together. :)

headache alert thread...

Just going to quote this here. OP with no sig is totally a troll because he is all over debating the industry's decline, but he actually has zero interest in discussing actual useful business.

Wall Street pay zillions for industry analyses. Because industries can be growing or declining and that matters for where businesspeople put their resources. Anyone who thinks online adult is not a mature industry in decline doesn't understand the concept of an industry.

That doesn't mean that zero people make anything. Online adult is not an industry which has disappeared, but it has declined and continues to do so.

Also, keep in mind that different people feel differently about the same amounts of money. The few thousand a month Robbie is bummed out about might be vast riches to the fake nick OP's actual self.

Oh, and anyone with a legit mailing list is welcome to promote SpookyCash sites with email

What so I can't generate emails via an opt in list and mail shot my opt in subscribers offers to adult websites?

I'm unaware of any of the big programs that allow email anymore.
As I said...maybe if you had a good relationship with an affiliate manager and convinced them that you wouldn't break any of the rules of the Can Spam Act...then you could conceivably do it.

As I said earlier....the guys who make REAL money (7 figures a year) with emailing are not affiliates.
They get paid a monthly straight up fee for their service.

Now if you saw Amelia G.'s post...she does say that IF you have a legit email list (double opt-in, not breaking ANY Cam Spam Act rules) then she would allow email promotion. So if you have those things and know the rules and have experience...there's one for you right there. :)

But you need to be real careful. Most programs have it in their terms of service that no emailing is allowed.
It can be incredibly detrimental to get in trouble with the Can Spam Act because some affiliate is breaking the rules with email.

I guess I should ask here and now then: IS it ok to email past Members? They didn't 'double opt in'....

See why I don't do this emailing shit? LOL

Is it porn memberships or dating/cams you push?

Maybe the tide will turn soon? ICANN forces owners out into public view. Big players continue suing over the use of their content. File sharing sites get taken down, torrent trackers get blocked in EU, U.S. Etc.

Stranger things have happened :pimp

I'm not a lawyer...and I'm sure they would give you all kinds of gobbledy-gook advice that doesn't mean much. lol

But since a person signs up and then HAS to receive a sign-up email from you with their receipt and the ability to email you for support...then I would THINK it's just fine.

Having said that...I'll probably end up in prison for sending an email to my members and ex-members. lol

I didn't see your earlier post...so I'm a troll? Nice logical reasoning there, sweetheart.

To answer your question, it's very hard to say without seeing your campaigns. I imagine you've got some bad links in there setting off spam filters.

Run your emails through SpamAssasin...should tell you the cause.

As for porn industry being a mature industry...sure it's not growing as fast as it once was. But what's your point?

It's a $12 billion industry in the U.S alone. You don't need a big a slice of that to do very very well for yourself.

I'll take a look at SpamAssassin, but, if the trigger links are my sites or trigger words are my site names , what can I do?

Re: industry size, he is my deconstruction of that $14B number being bandied about some years back. Zak Sabbath Did Porn, Fun Insight, Shifting Ground | Blue Blood Magazine Gothic Punk Photos The people who were saying $14B then, are saying $3B now. Still some dough on the table. But a heck of a lot less.

Nobody knows how much the adult industry makes online.

But one thing is for sure...the majority of that money used to be paysite sales. These days it's mostly money made from selling ad spots on big tube sites full of stolen content.
And that's why the industry is nowhere near the size it once was.

A lot of times it is the site name. Claudia Marie's name alone sets them off. And when I put a .com behind it things get even worse.

It's even worse for long standing cam and dating sites.
But the OP will learn about that and Can Spam Act the hard way.

It's not growing at all. It's contracting. That's why you hear so many people talking about it.

100% true.

When you look @ who is behind theses ad companies, are they local businesses? I don't know much about that side of the industry.

The main company selling ad spots right now is "Traffic Junky". Owned my Mindgeek and responsible for all the ad spots on all the Mindgeek myriad of mammoth tube sites (full of stolen content).

My very name - The PORN Nerd - causes emails not to go through, so now what? PORN Nerd Network, PORN Nerd Cash, and so on.

As for the Adult Biz rising or falling....it is contracting. When I started back in 2007 ALL my friends who were into tech, the Internet, ecommerce etc said to stay away from Adult because it was a "race to zero". They were right then and they are right now.

But you can still build something even in this dwindling sales environment. You just have to have a different approach these days. Robbie does a golden job with CM but he HAS CM. Not everyone has such a willing (and tasty) partner to keep the updates and fan base coming. Regardless, you can still do VERY well for yourself in Adult. But massive new companies making millions? Fewer and fewer.

Traffick junky is the main one? Wow a lot of room for improvement on that interface. I thought there was Exoclick in Spain and some big flashy Canadian ad company too? And isn't all of our stolen content hosted in Spain, the Netherlands, Latvia and Columbia?

Which is why I don't envy you and what you are trying to do. You are literally selling ice cream to Eskimos.

Social media and lots of interaction in the members area is what keeps us from going backwards. And it's a lot of work.

It's a lot harder for thieves too, take solice in that. A lot less unique fresh content to steal and make money on. It's all about balance, and the criminal organization making less money off the few of us left, have no sense of balace and it will be their demise. Hang in there.

I would assume that the companies you are talking about are probably working with non-Mindgeek pirate tube sites for traffic.

That's the main problem for traffic these days. It's all in a few big pirate tube sites. So any traffic broker or ad seller is basically getting most of their traffic from the same sources. And it's all shitty quality.

Some people make money with it by feeding a free site to jack up their numbers and then basically re-selling that traffic.

And then some of that gets bought by people doing the same thing. lol

Huge circle jerk of shit.

That's why I was saying that at the present time...if you can figure out the correct way to use social media (NOT posting xxx pics on Twitter...but actual interaction that draws interest) it's the best traffic source out there.

And that social media traffic you get is by it's very nature 100% TARGETED traffic. It's people who are coming to you because they are actually interested in what you have.

It's the difference between being rich...and just getting by. But you have to be very smart about it and really know your audience and how to interest them. As I said...I see people posting up xxx pics all over Twitter and I can only shake my head over it.

The completely wrong way to generate traffic for anyone except Twitter itself. :(
No, you want to make real posts that interest the reader and get them to click a link within the post to see any kind of picture. And that page that the picture is on is where you make your sales pitch.

I just gave you some really, really great advice by the way. Use it. :)

Is phpList a good server side email sotware? If anyone has experience with it could you reply with pros and cons?