once companies stop providing affiliate support you will know that it is not feasible for them to do so any more.

the issues you bring up have nothing to do with affiliates. you might want to look at an economy which has been shedding half a million plus jobs per month with foreclosure rates going up ten percent every month for some insight into their failure.

You know I read this a lot on GFY, but most the affiliates that are interested in promoting my sites contact me requesting PPS on trials. I'm going to have to implement it to be competitive.

Then you shouldnt have opened a program :2 cents:

To many programs are opening up without the owners being able to subsidize their own traffic/sales thinking that they can just throw a tour and a members area together and affiliates will make the money for them.

If you cant generate sales to your own sites then dont open a program because you are basically screwing your affiliates over for your own ends and in the process diluting the profits of the rest of the industry, there is a reason traffic is down at many of the largest programs that have been around for years, that reason is it became far to easy for people to launch thier own program with no knowledge of how to generate traffic or sales of their own.

Pure affiliate marketing without self generation is certainly too expensive. I agree, if you can't market a high percentage of your own sales, you are not going to be profitable. Food for thought:

:2 cents::2 cents:

Thurbs 100% on the money :thumbsup

well i am just one affiliate so speaking for myself. i'm taken what i'm given. i don't gravitate towards any program based on PPS vs. revshare. for me it's all about the content & niche. so i have a mix of revshares and PPS.

if a company offers PPS most times i take it so that I can feel out the initial conversion ratio without having to lose a lot of $/click on sites that don't retain. if it converts, and offers revshare, i will go rev for a least a short period of time so that i can see what their retention is like. there's quite a few programs that are ONLY pps and ONLY revshare. and i'm not the kind of whale that could/would call up a program that was rev only, demanding PPS.

again there are two sides to the story. assuming that most / all programs would prefer to be all rev share... how do i know that they're going to retain? the only way i'm going to know if it does is when i start throwing traffic at it, and it'll be months before i get an idea of a sites' retention rate. every program swears they convert and retain up the wazoo and that you'll make the most money with them and on and on. so while i'm not that webmaster that's gonna ask for crazy PPS numbers, the ones that are might have reason to want PPS for "trying you out". but again, this is not me.

if every program went revshare tomorrow you'd hear me crying the least of all people. but if a company wants to be revshare only then the primary focus should be on keeping members for as long as possible, not generating insane traffic numbers.

:2 cents: literally cuz i know quite little on running a program. just my observation. correct me where wrong

Has anyone said anything about how affiliates help with branding?

Interesting point. How do they help? Branding is a decision made by the program owners I would think.

Exactly right.

This is a business. It would be nice to see more business minded folk in this thread. The facts are the facts in 2009 and it is clear in the trades, and on the boards....

Programs can't keep afford to pay these affiliate ransoms for PPS. Period.

They are gouging their content budgets for traffic and crossing their toes for sales. It is not working. No new content. Rotating the old. Not rebilling for shit. Over reliance on cross sales and other tactics. Programs are teetering on collapse. Any good business owner would find a more reliable, stable, way of controlling costs and remaining in business especially in an ever competitive market place.

The time has come for change, and many of the affiliates are being squeezed out. It should be interesting to see who is left in this industry come Vegas show in January.

:2 cents:

so ..if programs target to skip the affiliates in the equation.... should affiliates with traffic start their own programs?

Easier said then done. Here's two words for them.

"Good luck".

:2 cents:

that also goes for 99% of programs trying to build their own traffic and seo.

"good luck."

Agreed.

Except they have the advantage. They can, and have, watched and monitored or questioned affiliates where their traffic comes from for years. So they may not be able to duplicate it exactly, but they can easily enough reverse engineer it to get some decent results chief.

Information is power.
:2 cents:

So PPS hurts.. you're still paying for not just LEADS but SALES.. A new customer can be worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars long term. A new customer can be sold off and kept.

They flock in for the illusion of big PPS bucks.. right..
So they'll flock in to be employees for a tiny fraction of the bucks, like the average american employee... right?
Or you'll hire indians.. why not, they speak english better than us, now..

Seems like the PPS is unsustainable by a 100% honest program.. it's too much.. and trying to con traffic gurus into becoming employees .. it's too little for them .. and too much extra cost for you

Will it save you alot of money?
I don't have the experience to say.. I do know that you take on alot of liability having employees rather than having affiliates. Any time one of the mindless little turds fucks something up guess who they're (f_i, mom&dad, some big service they spammed) coming screaming and crying and throwing lawsuits at... It's YOU.
Employees are going to expect more of you, too- alot more. They're NOT employees because they DON'T need their hands held.

Hiring people based on this would make sense, yeah?.. Come in and be self employed, do ____ all day for us and go home. Don't let them smell the money.. I guess... like the other guy said if they know they're making YOU the bucks they're out the door.. why not.

I BET THAT YOU COULD TEACH PEOPLE TO DO WHAT YOU NEED DONE WITHOUT LETTING THEM LEARN HOW.. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS BREAK IT DOWN INTO DIFFERENT STEPS HANDLED BY DIFFERENT BODIES.. I LOVE THAT IDEA.

I just don't understand throwing away 100+ people or even 1000 people who are actively and self sufficiently promoting YOU .. All you have to do is provide promo material and they run with it.
Like being motherfucking SYNDICATED. Publish it once and these guys all go out and use it to promote you.
I don't understand how that happens in house. All of these people out there promoting and working around the fucking clock without you being ONE BIT LIABLE for what they manage to fuck up (unless they invite alot of fraud.. but you have your eyes on thigs and you take care of potential problems anyway)

Plus.. who ever said that affiliates get half?
90% of the time, where the FUCK is my credit for your upsells in your members area if you give me 50%? What about the sales I somehow don't get credited for, for a plethora of reasons.. it happens.. to all of us.. period.. What about the e-mails you send 2-3 months later, all of those people who sign up again .. my customers you decide to keep..

60% can become 25% real fucking quick.

PPS I believe really does hurt.. but you all have checked sales.. and I don't believe any program is crediting me 100% of my PPS sales, anyway... miss one here, miss one there, an upsell here, another leak there, some spam later on to steal a customer I brought in, it all evens out..... right?!

THIS IS NOT DIRECTED AT ANY PARTICULAR PROGRAM OR MEANT TO BE OVERLY CRITICAL. AND I HAVE NOT SLEPT FOR 2 DAYS. SO IF I SOUND OVERLY CRITICAL, I'M SORRY.. FEEL FREE TO EXPAND ON WHAT I HAVE SAID.. LIKE I SAID, I'VE NOT GOT THE EXPERIENCE, MEANING I'VE NEVER OWNED OR RAN A PROGRAM.

And another thing.
Bonuses and incentives should be for numbers

once a month some nice shit to these people:

Most real unique hits gets this
best conversion ratio gets that
best overall improvement for affiliates sending at least 5 sales a day


also should be a 3 month holdback

If you're screaming about not getting a piece of members area upsells, you'd definitely be screaming about a 3 month holdback. Plus, those bonuses would be real easy to fraud up, especially most unique hits. Unless you asterisk it and say that Chinese traffic doesn't count, and yada yada ...which would make affiliates scream.

Just look at $ per unique hits and you'll know which sponsors to use, it doesn't matter if they pay you for upsells or if they have traffic leaks or if they shave. Most $ per unique hits is the best sponsor for your traffic.

I have been a affilate for almost 10 years and in those 10 years i have asked for a creative or what not maybe 5 times. Most people who do this day in and day out make their own ads and do the work themselfs. If i had the choise of being paid 60% rev with a affialte manager or 70% rev with no affialte manager i would take the 70% any day of the week. As far as affialtes pulling traffic to a sponsor, simple solution convert my traffic. You make me money why would i leave? I have had some of the same sposors since i started and still to this day promote them just as hard if not harder then i did when i started.

I don't scream about the one month holdback at a sponsor I've worked with for years now.. Because they're honest people. And they know better than to make exceptions or fuck with a well oiled machine.

Of course you're going to asterisk it but don't use the asterisk.
Most US hits this months gets:
Most this gets:
Give them what a cash percentage bonus (maybe based on next months payout.. ) I don't know.
Your concerns are valid, I like the idea.

This, of course, is indisputable..
it doesn't matter if they pay you for upsells or if they have traffic leaks or if they shave. Most $ per unique hits is the best sponsor for your traffic.
So long as they're on the level and don't give YOU a bad rep for your promoting.

I don't understand what affmans do.. Maybe I'm not a big enough account to have ever put one to full use? I get ftp logins from them when I'm sponsor hosting..

if pps was not economically viable it would not be offered. just because you do not know how to profitably monetize those joins does not mean they cannot.

That is a lot of creative, and capitalized, misdirection of the fundamental driving advantage.

Control.

Whether it costs more, or not. Liability, or not. They know next month when they refuse to pay your affiliate $75/150/250 PPS ransom. They know when they have traffic in-house and control that they still have sales, and traffic in the hopper for next month.

That is a more stable, long term, business model then any affiliate PPS model is going to provide in the 2009 economy. Sorry.

Also, I am not just 'spit balling' these ideas and concepts. These points I have been making have been discussed at almost every conference this year that I have been to. Whether on a panel, seminars, or over drinks with BROS. They have also been mentioned in the trades in 2 of the past three months.

The industry is already moving in this direction. You need to get on the same page if you are planning to stay in it.

:2 cents:

It's worth what your competitors can offer. Supply/demand. :2 cents:

I am not sure how long large payout pps will last. Something has to give in the next year.

Sure and it goes both ways... oh but, hey can you compete with 500 active affiliates? Say each has 5 websites throwing traffic your way... you telling me you can handle all that all by yourself chief? Hardly.

If were talking about saving money by doing it yourself.. good luck with that, you will NEVER EVER get the results you can without having to pay someone. Might as well be honest affiliates - you pay them and that's about it... nothing else required. In house staff have overhead. :)

I don't think a lot of you guys understand how pps works, or what the numbers are or where they come from. For starters, $75-100-200 promo days are marketing expenses to get people interested in the program... That $200 PPS does not come from "fucking over the surfer".

It's getting late, so I'll make this brief.

1. I doubt there are 500 affiliates left in adult sending the numbers in your example.

2. I do not run a big program, so I am not doing anything like that sport. No need to worry about it.

3. Programs have support staff. As I said before. They are not going to do it to the level of supposed success as affiliates in regards to potential, and ASSuming non-fraud sales.

However, they will also be consistent money from month to month, and not be held ransom. Also can keep more of their initial $29.95 sale, as well as all cross and up sale money for themselves.

Less fraud. More money for themselves. More stability. More control.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :thumbsup

How much sense does it make for a program to pay "advertising expenses" to an affiliate by offering $200 PPS just to have all that newly gained traffic yanked when they get paid out? You seriously telling me that the affiliate is going to hang around and your going to recoup your costs on the residual traffic?

Hell no.

And hidden cross sales on the join form? Why would programs who offer insane PPS do something like that? Tommorow the surfer gets hit for $100+ in charges from multiple other sites? You telling me that's a honest way of doing business?

This is the reasons why I don't promote PPS sponsors... I can list more, but i'm tired and need to get some sleep here.... for me, I can sleep a lot better at nights, knowing my surfers are getting a fair deal for a good price on 50-60% revshare plans. :thumbsup

Bah! Hardly.. you seriously telling me that the entire adult industry has less than 500 affiliates? Maybe in the micro niche you operate in... but seriously.. there's probably tens of thousands of "affiliates" (and i'll use the term VERY loosely here, meaning anyone who's ever used an affiliate link to send traffic to a site).

It doesn't need to be 500 affiliates sending big numbers... yeah you can have one whale or yourself getting traffic from a few sources, or you could be getting trickles from hundreds of sources. No one person can with 100% certainty predict what gets the surfer to finally whip out their credit card at the join form, but the odds are a hell of a lot better when it's coming from hundreds of sources and methods.

Let's agree to disagree on these points then :) Your a program owner, and I understand where your coming from.

It is much more complicated then I care to type out for the sake of debate.

Getting back on point, regardless of the board bantering, programs are already moving in this direction. So regardless of what I do, or say. They have already made it clear in statements at the conferences, as well as in the trades, and some on different industry boards.

Regardless if it makes sense or not to the affiliates. Whales or not. The industry is already moving in that direction. So it is only a matter of time now.

Agreed. :)

Why do you need to choose between the two? If you can create your own traffic network - do it, while still keeping your affiliate backend.

LOL. Also, good luck with that.

It's all about areas of relative expertise. Take mine, which is blogs. I've been porn blogging for nigh on seven years now, and in all that time, I haven't seen a single sponsor-run blog that's worth a bucket of warm spit.* Oh, sure, they're beautiful by the standards of porn sites, but that's what they look like -- acres of sterile pornsite updates. Which is to say, dull as dirt. Nothing that compels the readers to come back day after day ... for years.

The skill set of "can run a pay site" and "can write a decent blog" don't overlap very often -- and when they do, the guy running the porn site doesn't have the bloody time. Could he hire a decent blogger? Sure. Does he? Never. Or, if he does, he insists on sterile pornsite update posts instead of real blogging, with diversity, humor, and unexpected quirks.

Years ago I tried to talk Kink.com (before they were kink.com) into hiring Violet Blue to write a blog for them. Was she willing? Yes. Did they do it? No. Why not? God only knows. Instead, she got a job with Gawker Media putting Fleshbot on the map (along with a few other people, it wasn't a one-woman job by any means). She could have done Fleshbot, only better, with the Kink.com brand all over it. (Note well, when Gawker Media laid off her and Jonno, Fleshbot went completely to crap. To make this work you have to both hire and retain.)

I guess what I'm saying -- and I'm pretty sure every serious long-time affiliate here will back me up on this -- is "Reverse engineer this, mutherfucker!" :321GFY

I could run down similar arguments with regard to SEO or any of the other ways that affiliates generate traffic.

You can't "reverse engineer" specialized expertise. All you can do is hire it, and to do that, you've got to pay it more than it's getting now. So there's no financial win there.

*Footnote: In truth I have actually seen a few decent sponsor blogs. They mostly exist in the world of sex toy sales, where the programs seem to have a much more realistic view of what a marketing budget should look like. There are also one or two decent ones in the BDSM world, from producers who are so tiny and micro-niched that the program owner really can find the time to do a "real" blog while running his business. But, for every half-way decent program-run blog, I can point you to a couple dozen crap ones.

Here's and interesting question. A lot of talk about whales in this thread. What is a whale nowadays? I am sure there are a lot of people existing on a few joins a day, but how many does it take to influence a program? How many joins does it take to be an influential "whale"?

They are not going to be able to clone you, or get the exact same results you can. That is correct toots. However they CAN reverse engineer to a certain degree when they see where your traffic is coming from.

As I have said a half dozen times before. They are not going to mirror your affiliate efforts. But they can duplicate it to a lesser degree and get what they are ultimately after.

Control of the traffic.

I asked a couple of processors that very question in Florida, since they see the back end of the transactions and would know better what is actually true about this industry, and claims. Here is there responses.

1. The only whales sending 100-200 joins a day are mailers. A lot via Yahoo.

2. A whale, in 2009 terms, sends 2-20 joins a day. If you can consistently do that. You are a whale in 2009.

3. If cross sales were eliminated tomorrow. 50-75% of the programs would close. They stay alive on cross sales, and some up sells.

So there you have it.

I think a lot of you guys are missing the point of "in house traffic"... Obviously no program is going to give up their current affiliate base. The real issue is how much time/money they are going to put into acquiring new affiliates versus building their own traffic.

Also please stop throwing around numbers like 500 and 1000 active affiliates. A lot of smaller programs here on gfy would kill to have even 50 affiliates who send regular sales.

That's debatable. If a single program loses it's ability to buy and sell xsales, they might go out of business almost instantly. If all programs had to remove xsales at once, the playing field would still be even... Payouts would have to be dropped across the industry, and each program would still have an active affiliate base to build on.

Xsales are popular because they are legal and make lots of money. If they disappeared, the programs that rely on them will just make less money.

My sentiments exactly.