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Thread: (potentially?) controversial topic - Sponsors vs Affiliates

  1. #166
    Always Learning - Please teach me! tigermom's Avatar
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    Let me ask you then, Shaun, why do you take on affiliates in the first place? Sounds to me like you're doing the marketing very well, why bother with affiliates at all? I think it's perfectly legitimate not to have affiliates working for you. Just because other paysites are doing it, does not mean it's a good model for every paysite.
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  2. #167
    the queerest straight girl in the world...
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    Quote Originally Posted by tigermom View Post
    Let me ask you then, Shaun, why do you take on affiliates in the first place? Sounds to me like you're doing the marketing very well, why bother with affiliates at all? I think it's perfectly legitimate not to have affiliates working for you. Just because other paysites are doing it, does not mean it's a good model for every paysite.
    Because we are very very secure at the top of OUR niche. However, we would like a bit further spread into the mainstream.

    Furthermore, it has now come to a pass where people will not exchange links with a pay site - nor will they review a paysite - nor will they even SELL you banner space without an affiliate program.

    So, you could say we were forced to do it.

    That said, the review sites (Banana Guide, Gay Demon, Banana Links etc) do really really well by us, and a couple of our affiliates do great by using our content the way I would be using it if I had the time!


  3. #168
    How long have you been gay?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Carrie View Post
    (Actually they should be "closed" from the get-go and develop their own traffic sources, but that's another thread. Becky's post on the future of ARS and her focus on developing internal traffic was quite eye-opening. Could be we'll see ARS making a move like this sometime in the next year or two?)
    ARS won't be going to private only, kicking out thousands of affiliates ever. That isn't the business model for that product at all. After all, ARS has led the way in offering more and more to affiliates over the years, first with $35 payouts, first with tons of niche sites, first with bonus payout days, first with rewards, first with BYOT, etc, etc. I do provide all of these still, and more, because I have to stay competitive in the affiliate market. As I said before, ARS is nearly 100% reliant on webmaster traffic and always has been. But, it's getting to the point where offering all of these tools required to get the attention of new affiliates is not working to attract new affiliates, or even retain current affiliates. That is why I have to consider my own internal promotions of my sites to balance this out. That definitely does not mean that I will be getting rid of affiliates. Just adding my own layer of traffic so that affiliate traffic/signup waves of activity don't adversely affect my bottom line.

    Quote Originally Posted by tigermom
    My advice to program owners would be this. Get real good paysites, something unique, something exclusive, something that actually converts well. Get good ratios. Promote your sites with no affiliates to begin with, polish your tours and get good convertions and good retention. Then, when you know you have a good product, and only then, start bringing in affilaites, slowly and gradually. Don't spoon feed them anything. Take serious affiliates, ones that know how to build their own sites, write their own blogs, create their own galleries, and lo and behold, maybe even create their own banners! The point should be to get affiliates joining you because -
    1. Your site retains and converts.
    2. You're honest and don't shave.
    It seems as if you are reading my business plans with this post I do plan on opening up a program, and it will be open only to those that can pass strict acceptance criteria. I'm doing this because I plan on investing a lot of time and money on development of the sites. I don't want to offer all the tools that are required to get the attention of affiliates. I don't want to lower the value of my content, which in turn will lower the overall income of my content to both me and my affiliates. The sites are going to be tested extensively with my own traffic before I ever let an affiliate send traffic to it. That way I know they are going to retain and convert and are worth the affiliates time and efforts to promote. And with strict acceptance criteria, I know that the affiliates that are sending traffic will do so because they believe in the product, because they understand it and will know how to promote it. It's definitely a win-win situation for us both.


  4. #169
    CorbinFisher.com CorbinFisher_BD's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by shaun View Post
    Ok - here is the bottom line for me.

    I do not want to run an affiliate program. I want to run a pay site. I want to focus on developing brilliant content, on hiring the hottest models, on being at the top of google in my niche (I am, by the way....)

    If I want to give away 50% of a sale to an affiliate, I would like them to be doing the work to make the sale. Sure, I will give them some content they can use - they can raid my cookie jar for movie clips and pictures, and I will give them banners and stuff...

    But - why would an affiliate WANT me to dilute my time and concentration away from running my SITE???? It is the SITE that they are selling! If I am spending oodles of time building FHG's, free sites, new tours, etc... well - heck, I can list em on green guy myself! If I build galleries, I can submit em myself! It takes me HOURS to create a gallery, but only minutes to submit it!

    The idea behind affiliate marketing, behind franchising is this: I give you a terrific product to sell. It is YOUR job to sell it. EVERY MINUTE and EVERY DOLLAR I spend on helping you learn to sell the product is a minute and dollar that isn't being spent on giving YOU a great product.

    I KNOW how much marketing I do. I know how much money my marketing makes. So, if someone wants to resell my product, work regular office type hours, and to be serious about it - I would venture a guess that he or she could make a decent living - even if my sites were the ONLY product they were selling!

    So - WHY should an affilate - a good affiliate who KNOWS how to work in this industry - even WANT me to spend that much time running an affiliate program rather than running a site? It is in every good affiliates best interest that I do what I do best - making a gret site, and in thier best interest to do THEIR job - letting everyone know about my great site and why they should join!
    The reason why many would expect you to do all of that for them, rather than pay attention to your site, is because they (those particular affiliates) see themselves as the end user. They see themselves as the consumer you're after. They see themselves as the people to be marketed to and won over.

    They don't care about the customers. They don't see the process as ever even getting that far.

    That's why they'll gladly send people to a misleading site with misleading tours and upsells and cross sells and popups and loads of consoles and content that's not updated in exchange for a big chunk of PPS money.

    Fortunately, there are many affiliates who do recognize the value of the customers in the equation from whom all money that floats around in this industry and between webmasters comes. They want the sites they promote to be fair, honest, of high quality, and so on because they realize that sending their traffic to good sites reflects upon them and benefits them in the long run. They have no desire to alienate their own surfers.

    It's the affiliates that think sponsor programs exist solely for the affiliates sake and fail to even acknowledge the consumers in all of this that are the problem, in tandem with the sponsor programs that care about nothing more than appealing to affiliates and are not the least bit concerned with surfers or the quality of their own sites.

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