No problem.

If you know how to SELL your niche and make conversions, then even at 20%, you should make more money.

Exhibit A.
http://www.gfy.com/sell-and-buy-forum/928357-est-feet-tickling-tube-pay-site.html

On 400-600 UV barely pushed to the site it had kick ass ratios over 3 months, and conversions. However, I know how to SELL the niche. So for me, I am not buying traffic to push a billion hits, nor ad spots, so my expenses are labor, and minimal promotion and support. But I am converting like a mofo.

Not everyone knows how to SELL a niche and make conversions. But those who do can capitalize on good content that sells well instead of chasing the same tail with over saturated content, and the 10,000 other desperado's trying to outspend each other on the same traffic, chasing the same customers.

A little tip for you. You will never outspend the programs.

:2 cents:

Um, hello? I'm ccbill based. They cut the checks and mail them out... your saying they are not dependable?

Just going by these two statements, wouldn't it be better to eliminate those costs before you took the percentage out of the affiliate?.....Why are you renting an affiliate script? Just use the one ccbill has that's free.....Why allow 1.5 gigs of content to be downloaded?.....I've ALWAYS made it so that an affiliate has to email me before I make his galleries....

It's always more diplomatic to cut unnecessary costs before you start taking profit and running affiliates off....I want EVERY SALE that an affiliate can give me...I don't care if it's once a month...It all adds up for ME.

Another thing you could do is raise your price by $5...That is if you're not charging more than 30 bucks now....Also you can add geo pricing....That's put a nice extra chunk of change in my pocket since day one...

Let's be honest....you were pissed off when you wrote that email and were basically saying in a professional way, "Shit is bad so fuck you affiliate...I gotta take it out of your end"....

See NOW you are making perfect sense.

Approve all affiliates on sign up.

You could have done that without dropping your existing guys rebills down to 20% :2 cents:

See, I like how you break things down and I tend to agree with you. In the past I had allowed some (very few) affiliates to just go into the site and grab what they wanted to use. While it was good for them, it turned out bad in some respects cause it meant quite a bit of stuff got out there unmarked. Which I'm dealing with now.

It's funny you say to raise my prices, I this month, in fact lowered them. I had been running 34.95 for 6 years but just dropped the price down to 19.95. going by the figures, this has greatly increased signups... to the point where on a daily average the sites actually bringing in more revenue than at the old higher price. I can only guess that this should help some as to rebills also.

See, I'm not hiding anything here. I'm more than happy to share my numbers stats and anything else, really why wouldn't I? Want some screen shots from CCbill showing ratios?

Done.
http://extremehole.net/GFY/screenshot.png

Believe me this is not something that I just woke up this morning and said to myself "Damn I think I'll go and piss everyone off today" It's something that I have sat and worked the numbers and just don't see any other way at this moment in time.

Just start telling all new webmasters that you have a sliding scale. They will start out at 20% recurring (up to 2 sales per month)....for people with 3+ sales a month you will offer 30%, for 4-5+ sales per month 40% & for all webmasters sending you at least 6 sales a month, back to 50%.

Renting the affiliate script was the killler no doubt. To your bottom line. Especially when you already pay 13% to a company that offers it free.

By the way, i hope i haven't been too harsh/or sounded like a dick. I respect everyone's business model (for the most part). And i actually really like your site, giant dildos shoved up vagina's & 30 candles stuffed into one chick, i love it!. I just didn't really understand your logic based on the actual "issues" you've encountered, as to why you're going to pay your webmasters less.

I don't really understand what exactly it is that you expect to gain by dropping your affiliate payouts to 20%. By paying affiliates, you are essentially paying people to market for you. So while on the short-term you may pick up the additional 30% that you were not getting before, in the long term you're going to have less and less people promoting you. Meaning less traffic. Meaning even fewer sales.

So unless you have the traffic and the resources to swoop in and recover all of the lost affiliate traffic, your 30% gain is going to hurt you more than benefit you.

Now if you really don't have any affiliates or affiliate sales to begin with, the whole subject is pretty much moot. Do what you feel is right either way.

He said his sales were 70% self generated. 30% Affiliate.

Which we all know means 40% affiliate....since 10% of all traffic is lost affiliate cookies & type-in's from affiliate promo's.

Anyways I wish this guy the best. The good news is, his site looks decent & it loads EXTREMELY fast.

I love how people come up with these wild ratios! I do between 1:300 and 1:500 on more than one large "saturated" program. I mean christ, my BangBros ratio this period is 1:463. I do even better on extreme niched stuff, although the volume tends to be much lower.

So how long does a customer have to rebill at 20% revshare for me to compete with $35 per signup? Way longer than they're going to.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Nice spam for yourself................................

I tend to agree. He's capped his upside at 30%. In the short term, he will see gains, but in the long term, his site will suffer from lack of affiliate promotion. Essentially, he's only catering to whales now, but whales don't give a shit about 50% revshare. They get way more than that with other programs anyway. Oh well, whatever, he's free to run his business however he feels is best.

I agree with you. If your making bank supporting someone, continue to do so. I'm not making up numbers or pulling them out of thin air, I'm going by what I see other people post on how they are doing.

By my numbers at a 19.95 rebill you would make 9.98 for the sale and 9.98 each rebill. which would mean they would have to rebill 2.5 times. 3 times and your up 5 bucks. More... and your gravy...

But I'm not going to sit here and blow smoke up some ones ass.. While I have enjoyed very high retention for years, like everyone else it's slipping. Sure lots of my customers rebill... some for years... literally. But more and more you are seeing people signup and cancel the same day... I guess from the members getting wary... So like anything else it's a crap shoot. I honestly can even tell you what the average current customer rebill on my site is as that report is down on ccbills admin at the moment.

fuck Another Program then.They are thousand of aff programs out there.More better maybe.

I think in the end it comes down to this.

Gerco has to stay in business. That is a higher priority they some affiliate(s). If he is generating the bulk of the sales himself. Then he has that freedom.

Many programs, myself included, generate a lot of the sales themselves and affiliates make up a increasingly smaller piece of the pie. The smaller that pie gets, the more marginalized non-producing affiliates become.

Back end, content, promo material, time, labor, and other expenses of supporting affiliates start gobbling up revenue in no time if you do not find a way to throttle it. In Gerco's case, he said he is a smaller company. So I doubt he wants to spending 10 man hours a week to support an affiliate who just signed up and has yet to send a sale, or one that sends a single sale once a month. It simply is not cost effective.

You are missing the point. I would never fuck with my affiliates rebills or sales. It will always be 60% of sales and 60% of rebills. If they are not active right now so what, maybe the next site I put out the non-active affiliates will jump on it and do great.

I am cool with you giving affiliates even 10%. Only problem I do and would have is dropping your old affiliates down in precentage from when they signed up.

I would highly suggest that you look through all of your affiliates and any that have sent you at least a sale in the last year be allowed to keep their percentage. Then either remove the rest from your system or switch them to the 20%.

Otherwise you very well may be fucking some people that did put some hard work into your partnership with them and out of the blue you rip the rug out from under them and say screw it I am taking away 30% of your paycheck, by the way stick around and trust me.

None of my business, just wondering - how lowering affiliate payouts is going to save your stuff from being posted at tubes and torrents?

My only question is...since none of us have 1/10th the traffic that we had 4 years ago (it's all at pornhub now lol ) , then who are these affiliates that can make all these big sales? I see Warchild posting about his great ratios...and yet I remember him very concerned about losing his links on pichunter :) I've never had to have links on anybody elses site as an affiliate because I have my own traffic...not search engines, not spam mail, not links on other people's sites, but honest to god freesites with real people on them.

How many are left like that out there? Not many.

If I were you I'd go in and eliminate all the affiliates that haven't done anything, not even one click, in the last year. That alone is going to thin it down. Then take a close look at who you got left.

Where is the traffic they are sending you coming from? Do they actually have a site and are really promoting you?

And then I'd go out after the last few guys who really do promote sites. Is Shemp an affiliate? Is Greenguy an affiliate? Is Worldsex an affiliate? Is Sleazy an affiliate? Get the guys who will REALLY promote you and bring NEW eyes to your site.

Even the SEO guys aren't gonna bring anybody to your site who wasn't going to come there anyway. They are just kicking your ass on placement on Google. You need real webmasters with real sites doing what the entire affiliate model was originally intended to do.

Those guys are worth every penny you pay them.

In the meantime I would NOT drop your existing guys who do send sales down in percentage. That's just not gonna fly with anybody.

And then start picking your new affiliates very carefully.

You get the right 5 or 6 guys onboard and you won't need the rest.

I agree that you have every right to run your business as you see fit but your strategy seems doomed. :2 cents:

Rememer, there are some affils who promote with very little content taken.

Also, I find that when ever I have to email, or be approved, well.. I have got some clunkers (not all)

case in point.. I signed up for a prog by a vet who has other progs and recently started a new prog. (I hate to name names) But it was designed to get me in the door and promoting NOW. the whole process was the best signup process I ever seen designed to get me going.

That told me this guy knows what he is doing.

That told me... winner!

Gerco, limiting the number of affiliate is not a bad idea. But 20% payout could be fatal.

After shock and get naughty great posts.. ya just don't cut an established wm from 50 - 20. I would pull links and take recurrings. Who wouldn't. 20% in porn today is laughable.

I'm not jumping on the OP but they should consider that ya just don't do that. You will lose your affils, And why would anyone today want to give up their affils.

Anyhow 20-50 plus you are with that you know who processer...

Keep your affils :)

Now I gotta get some fuckin work done.

After thinking about it and taking to heart all the comments on GFY and other places, I have changed my view on the changes I implemented today. No current affiliate whether they bring in 1 sale or 10 will be taken down to the new default 20% rev-share but, will remain at the originally agreed upon 50% rev-share.

Ccbill has informed me that the affiliate program will be moved over to the new ccbill WMS in the next few weeks, it that time I will make the promo content available again from within their system.

All new affiliates will start out at a default 20% and will require direct approval from me before they will be allowed access to the program, or the content.

Sorry for my short earlier shortsightedness in this matter.

Missing the point? seriously, so you think people can't tell your just trying to spam your program? What you do in your business is just that... your business try and respect mine.

I agreed with you. so I changed it... see above post.

I make sales from over 30 different programs every month and almost all my conversions are around 1:500. Your doing something wrong and dropping to %20 is just going to make things worse. I think you would do better to expand your sites or just sell off to a larger program.

I think you made the right decision for sure. Good luck.

Dude, how many fhg's do you have for that site? I will see if I can help you out.

Really now? and what larger programs going to buy me out? What price do you put on a 10 year old site, that owns all it own content (about 400 hours of video and 150k in pictures) all exclusive and all directly fitted to the site? Someone going to offer me what, like 1 year of sales? LOL. Not a chance. I'll sit on it till hell freezes over for that.

Like I stated above, all current affiliates will maintain that 50%, the 20% will be the new default... prove to me you are worth more and we can talk.

But back to the larger program thing... You know, I shot this site. I personally created from the ground up and I have been able to keep it online and make a great living off it for over ten years. Even if I didn't touch it again for another 5 years, it's still going to bring me in something and when it does reach the point where it actually cost me more to run it that it's making that will be of course the day it''s turned off.

It's true, I look around and see what's going on. There is no market left for the one pony show anymore. I can face that. people that want to promote will those that do won't.

The funniest thing about this thread is that it just about the most attention my sites gotten since I joined GFY in 2002 (Samantha Luvcox) and that almost all the responders to the thread have never push even a single click to me in all that time.

Currently? Zero as I pulled all the affiliate content today. Keep in mind I have never offered fhg and was only just recently going to try that path with ccbtools/nats neither of which I really got off the ground.

I should be up on ccbill new system in a few weeks and if they support fhg (not sure) then I will add some back up.

I would listen to this man. He knows what he is fucking doing. :thumbsup

I have to agree with 100% of your post. (where were you at 9am this morning before all this? LOL)

But none of the names you mention push me, never have (That I'm aware of). I have been here long enough that if they wanted to have they would have by now. I doubt anyone here would recognize a single bigger (for me) affiliate that currently or has ever pushed me.

I've been to 6-7 shows over the years, Vegas and FLA, and not one of the people I have ever talked to at any of them has ever pushed anything to me. so, that's kind of pointless...

My content is nitch. A bulk of the people are not going to push it. Corse when I started there where maybe 3 good fisting sites and 1 or 2 Large insertion sites... now they are popping up all around.

The anotherprogram.com domain name is now for sale.

You need to write each of them personally. Pierre owns Worldsex, AL4A, and a bunch of other sites. Shemp posts here all the time. Mark is Greenguy and very easy to talk to. Start with an email or icq. Then a phone call. Make a personal relationship with them and give them the tools they need. You have a great niche that is still under serviced. They could use galleries with that kind of content to fill that void. You just gotta reach out. Cut those kind of guys a special deal percentage wise. And then make it a point to see them at the conventions (if there are any left in a year lol )

"if there are any left in a year" LOL after being in FLA this summer I doubt it.

I love what your saying, really I do, but from my experiences in the past no "bigger" affiliates going to give me the time of day. Let's face it, I have been posting here with some regularity for 7 years and none have yet. I've just never been a part of the circle or bro club as it where lol. No, I highly doubt anyone ever thought I would be around to even be worrying about these issues ten years later, but I'm still here and still pushing.

My biggest issue, and it has always been the main issue is personal resources. people want fhg great! So, how does a smaller site go about doing that aside from spending thousands on scripts and skinning and affiliate backends and the adding hosting costs etc... a small sites gets so far in the negative that they can recoup the layout.

Why do you think I have ran using ccbill built in affiliate software for years? it's not for lack of trying mind you. I tried back in 2004-5 to build an affiliate program NATS based, then MPA based... both times, failed to even get the scripts actually running. At a loss of over 10k... Just didn't have the tech knowhow to do it. Tried again this year with ccbtools... had it getting pretty close to where I wanted it, but again... the tech side was my down fall. Another 2k down... I can't keep paying out 500 here and there every-time I need something fixed in my design to fit the script or change a layout. I even had TMM reinstall NATs again last month...300 bucks, but was going to cost me another 500-800 to have my current design skinned from ccbtools to nats.... so I pulled it. I'll wait for WMS to get me moved over, at least they support it.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think the Nats and ccbtools scripts are fine. I'm just an idiot. So I kind of sit here now wondering what my next step should be.

Lets take the members area. It was done in 2004 I believe and needs to be done fresh. I own MAS, and no one seems to have a clue how to skin it. quotes I have been getting 2-3k

I want to take all my members area content to streaming, using the wowza media server I'm running on my tours currently. you know how long it takes to recapture 400 Mini dv tapes edit them and then figure out how to encode them to reupload them? Well, I have been finding out and it's been a big stopping point for me. (Currently about half way there)

I've even offered the site to others. basically with this deal, you use todays revenue as the zero point and we split everything the site does above that since anything above what it's currently making today would be a direct result of the new work being done. So far... no takers.

So I know it's seems that I have gotten off track but what I'm trying to say is I have really tried all that I personally know.

Totally agree ..

Blonda is great .. ;)

Thank you Jake



Gerco I was going to ask you about rebills. What happens with those?
Also how much trust should have affiliates in your program if you are changing your minds daily? If you want to stay on 20% Rev for new affiliates is ok I guess but to cut the existing affiliates revshare from 50% to 20% than is not so great.
Anyway the GFY magic happened. At least you changed your decision.

What do you mean? Unless I were to manually go in and remove each affiliate by hand nothing would happen to rebills. I can change my mind every 5 minutes, still nothing happens... Everything is done though CCbill. They handle the money, send out the checks, pay me etc. Course if the site folded then rebills would be gone.

i don`t understand how is going to be with rebills. Are they going to be 50% as before or 20% from now on?

Hi Gerco,

I'm one of those people you talked to, and I'd be glad to reopen our conversation again if you'd like. To be honest, I don't even remember where we left off or why.

My biggest concern is that you want to use "today's revenue" as a starting point, but that revenue is (apparently) dropping every month.

Perhaps there are other ways, though... let me know if you'd like to have another phone conversation.

Adam