Oh if Visa pulls out of adult it doesn't affect you? To think that is impossible to happen with our industries history is very short sighted. It's like your dealership story. If a dealer is fucking customer, the outcome only effects that dealer not the whole auto industry. In adult enough people are fucking the customer it effects all of us. As paypal and amex and the 1% cb ratio effects us all not only the people fucking people. We are down to 1 percent do you think its going to go up?

Ha! I still think your Claudia-Maries alter ego and do not really exist. We shall see. I think I am 0-3 so far this year.

tony and Taass...I'm telling you, car dealerships ALL do backend "product" on you. And it didn't hurt anything. It's a multi-BILLION dollar business. They aren't "cheating" or "shady" or any of those terms you guys are attempting to put on it. It is the way business is done and how profits are made. I don't want to argue with y'all about it. Either you realize it or not. I have a very different experience in my life than perhaps you have had so we see things differently. As does everyone. But the bottom line is...x-sells and/or backend product as it is in retail...has always been a huge way to make money. And Taass, you can repeat that paying for something 3 times as much all day long...but the fact is they are only paying for a ONE DOLLAR trial. Or even a FREE one. It's their choice to keep it or not. When you bought a car...please believe me you paid 4 to 10 thousand dollars (depending on the price range of the car) in b.s. "product" that you did NOT need. If a member forgot all about a x-sell and was billed for a solid year...he still would only be out less that a fraction of what that car dealer did to you. Doesn't that make any sense to you? It's common business practice. But...having said that...if any industry can get burnt for doing what others do with no problem...it's us in adult. :(

Isn't this thread about CLEARLY MARKED cross sales?
I am pretty sure I have seen a few of 12clicks cross sale options on other peoples join pages. They were mind numbingly obvious. Like wham in your face style. Honestly what I expect in a cross sale and have no problem with.

There is nothing hide on the paper work you sign when you buy a car. They can try whatever they like but you go over the contract and can say no. if they wont take it off you can get up and walk out.They dont have below the line you sign more things you weren't aware of and dont find out about til you get your payment book.

You can no to anything they throw at you.
Also this had nothing to do with 12 clicks and I commended him. This started when someone said something about saying most.

When I went to meet Claudia and Robbie. I never saw him she kept saying he was in the shower. lol

That's what you think, because that's how they "whack" you. They take you into the finance managers office and sit you down and I am telling you the honest to god truth. You do say "yes" to stuff that they mislead you into thinking you have to have. That is their job. It's acheived a different way is the only difference. Using some of the "drama logic" of GFY, that finance manager is nothing more than a slick talking con artist who convinced you that you needed extended warranty, oil changes, etc. etc And each charge is only "X" amount extra per month on your payments. And then of course when you add them up, they are THOUSANDS of dollars. And then when you add in the fact that they just charged you interest when they added them to your car payment...you just got screwed.

Bro, it's a running joke in high dollar retail.

We are talking about x-sells that cost ONE DOLLAR and sometimes are FREE. And then if a surfer really is dumb enough that he didn't want it and missed it...well, I defy you to show me ONE program owner that will not refund their money no questions asked. Wiseman told me he would not only refund their money, but then would give them a free 6 month membership after that just to make things right.

How do you think the big boys stay in business? Everybody can scream all this drama all day long. But numbers and money do the real talking. If it wasn't profitable then nobody would do it. And it couldn't BE profitable if the customers really hated it like everyone says. They would ALL chargeback and that would be the end of it all.

Damn guys...

I'm really just a bot who does as tony404 commands. He has programmed me to argue points with him on GFY to keep things interesting around here.

Well said bot lol

Ron's implementation of cross sales is very smart and consumer friendly. Perhaps we should compile a list of programs that do them with consent and without.

Brad

Robbie I hope your right and Im wrong.

<Robot voice> No tony404, I hope I'm wrong and you're right</Robot voice>

I really can't follow your logic here..
..on one hand you are talking about car dealers assraping, playing tricks and cheat you for THOUSANDS of dollars in bullshit charges, heck you even bring your brother to make sure they don't cheat you, so it aparently pisses you off.
..now on the other hand you use those excact same car dealers for justifying crosssales, except now it's okay ????

I'll agree with you that "When you bought a car...please believe me you paid xx?$ in b.s. "product" that you did NOT need" ..sure if your a smoker you want an ashtray, if you don't smoke, you'll have payed for an ashtray that you don't need etc..
If anyway related to porn, this would compare to you joining for the main movie content, but not being interested in the photos or the bonus feeds.. But can't really see it comparing to crosssales in any way.

Crosssales imo. compares better to you buying a trailer with your new car..
Eigther because you didn't notice a trailer sale added to the contract.. or because you forgot to tell the car seller that you didn't want a trailer (depending on the type of crosssale)

A very well written post with a lot of truth to it. My review sites label each reviewed paysite as CrossSales "None" "Unchecked" "PreChecked" with a simple Faq ? explaining in very basic terms what a surfer might understand. I have been very careful to avoid saying one is "bad" or another is "good", each is shown in black text not red warning text. The purpose is to inform the surfer not to convince or dissuade the surfer from making a purchase based on the xsell alone.

I welcome input from program owners regarding the wording of the FAQ. I am also in the process of manually checking join pages on every program reviewed by WebmasterScore.com Each is being properly tagged with "None" "Unchecked" or "PreChecked" so that affiliates can sort through programs and find the right program to match their particular traffic. Again, I am neither for nor against honest xsells and I fully understand an xsell can be both prechecked AND honest or "none" and criminally dishonest.

If any program owner feels the 'tag' assigned to their program review is incorrect I welcome your feedback. I am manually updating 100s of reviews, xsells change often and an unintentional inaccuracy is possible. Everything that can be done will be done to ensure the accuracy of all of my reviews as quickly as possible.

For the record, 12clickscash is one of the programs I have checked and everything in the post above appears to be absolutely true.

As a side note, I do find it hard to understand why an affiliate RevShare link code would have xsells on it or why an affiliate would choose to send traffic on a RevShare basis to a program that does not offer a percentage of that revenue or an xsell-free link... or the very least a PPS alternative. Hopefully someone can explain to me what I'm missing and how doing so would make sense?

One thing I have seen and I can't for the life of me figure out why more programs don't do it... is an xsell "package discount" where a site costs 30 to join and offers another site that is usually 30 to join for $25 instead. In that way you'd be selling 2 sites, the surfer is saving $5 vs having bought each of them separately and the xsell becomes an added value rather than a potential scam. A program that had package discount xsells and gave affiliates a 50% cut of the main sale along with a smaller % of any xsells on their traffic could actually create added value for their own program, the xsell program, the affiliate and the surfer.

A win/win/win/win no ?

Great post Relentless :thumbsup

..and definetly a great point too with package discount.. if the customer was actually offered a choice of getting a good deal and all benefitted from it that would be quite something else.

you're welcome princess

shut up mike no one wants to hear your opinions.. stupid affiliate

I think there is two camps.

1. Affiliates are already over paid and site owners really are getting shafted when you look at what they do and what affiliates do. Yet everyone should want to increase retention anyways and most would put more money into their sites anyways with better content, more shoots, etc.

2. Those that think that camp 1 is full of shit and without affiliates they would not have sales anyways. Affiliates always equal free money and they are sick and tired of people fucking them. They also want better retention as long as it does not effect their paycheck.


Ok I may have injected some humor and or sarcasm into this post.

Bro, I can't make you see what I'm trying to say, and it doesn't really matter. I never said that what car dealers do: "pisses me off" I said it's business as usual. And I have an inroad to save me thousands of dollars when I buy vehicles. Car dealerships are the ones who get pissed when I do that. LOL!

And my point was...in case you're still misunderstanding me...ALL businesses have "backend" A x-sell is just a ONE DOLLAR charge for god's sake, a full membership to a website is about the cost of half a tank of gas for 30 days of 24/7 access. This whole thing is nothing but fucking drama.

The real players could give two shits what any of us think. And the few guys who are both affiliate (for over 10 years) and paysite owner (a little over one year) who DO give our opinions are told we must be idiots because we don't comprehend how a one dollar x-sell with an email and a way to cancel and a way to get your money refunded is assraping.

I don't see that at all. And I don't see how all these smart guys on here can say that they didn't even realize they have been promoting x-sell sites for a decade and it's just now a problem?

We have to agree to disagree my friend. As I said earlier, your experiences in this business have led you to a firm belief in one way. Mine in another. :)

very well thought out post ron, good thread

Great job making a well-needed distinction clear for everyone

bravo, hope you get some biz out of it ;)

Great thread

Interesting read.

:eyecrazy

I think your posts are pretty awesome. :thumbsup

Obviously most surfers aren't like that. But I'm just saying...this isn't 1994 anymore and people ARE a lot more savvy than they were back then. They aren't dumbasses who don't bother to read. And even if they are in a hurry and don't read, they do have the ability to cancel and even get their money back.

There are two sides to every coin is all I'm trying to say.

Cross selling has been present in non-adult forever, even on TV through infomercial product ordering, even on your own credit card when you're a current customer.

As for this talk about porn site cross sales - I don't support deceptive cross sales.

On the other hand... seeing a prechecked cross sale on the join form above the signup button doesn't bother me if an affiliate program is PPS or paying 50-60&#37; revshare per sale. Of course I want more money, but the reality of the situation is the affiliate program is paying a lot more. There are processing fees, content costs, technical costs, etc etc etc. If I'm getting 60%, and the affiliate program is getting 40%, well, they pay 10-15% for processing (let's say 15 for easy math) and that leaves them with 25% to use for other expenses before they see the profit.

Promoting a site through revshare, leaving the affiliate program with 25% of the sale to use on expenses before they see their profit, doesn't that make you wonder how long they might stay in business, or how long they'll keep updating the members area consistantly so your customers will continue to rebill?

seriously one of the funniest threads ever - a douche chill a minute - congrats to all who made it possible :thumbsup

What's a "douche chill"? :1orglaugh Never heard that before.

Well said Steve:

What the hell are you talking about, cross sales are "accepted" in mainstream too. It is a common thing to screw someone over so stop whining

Thread filled with the same "screw the surfer" attitude people again, who would have thought :1orglaugh

Great post!

stick to your own thread. This one is for business people not jumped up TGPers

That's it? Didn't we used to have all this fun years ago (AWI I guess)? When we always attacked you and you were so much more fun.

Preach on "Bro"

Anyone knows where I can get this bumper sticker: I support cross sales.

?

yup, and it's still the same old song from you. Trying to limit the money your submitters make by either telling them what links they can use, stopping they're exits, setting up bogus warnings against their sponsors.
You must spend your nights dreaming of ways to screw affiliates.
Sad really.

stopping they're exits? Whats that "bro"?

no bogus warnings either, they are actually telling the truth and just a waring for our surfers.

You're the man!!!

lol 12clicks writing about ethics

Arent cross sales in fact screwing affiliates since all that money goes to the program owner? Not like you are splitting the money with them

Are you serious?

sexy time 12clicks

Yes? Again I'm only talking about 50% revshare links