(potentially?) controversial topic - Sponsors vs Affiliates

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Originally Posted by Matt 26z

BD, how about telling us what % of your 1 month no rebill members that are referred by affiliates sign right back up? Fratmen admitted right on this very board that "most" sign right back up. In a way isn't that taking rebills away from affiliates, thus in effect paying them less than 50% overall?

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See that's an interesting point, because I see some interesting contradictions on the part of affiliates there as well.

- Affiliates demanding higher price points from sponsors so that their commission amounts are greater
- Affiliates demanding surfers not be given the option to select non-recurring price points
- Affiliates being frustrated it's too easy for surfers to cancel a membership to some sites
- Affiliates believing it is entirely the responsibilty of a sponsor to retain members in to rebills, yet then claiming entitlement to the rebills.
- Affiliates demanding the installation of cookies on a surfer's computer that'd raise red flags with their security software

I don't feel it fair one surfer be led to believe recurring is the only option when others (such as type-in traffic) are given the non-recurring option. And I think that when a surfer invariably finds out they were given different options than others, that leads to skepticism and resentment. Affiliates won't get anything at all when a sale they refer charges back or demands a refund (a refund a sponsor should be more than willing to give in many situations because it's the sponsor that assumes all risk and liability from chargebacks, not the affiliate).

I also feel there are plenty of surfers out there that would not sign up for a site at all unless they saw non-recurring as an option (precisely because of skepticism having been instilled in them before). Affiliates might benefit from non-recurring being an option more than they actually think.

I look at many of our top affiliates and see they shouldn't have a problem at all with rebills much less surfers that join, cancel, then rejoin later. For example, JustUsBoys.com. Their site is a destination unto itself. It is way more than just a site that sends traffic to sponsors. Their surfers keep coming back to them and eagerly use their site as a hub to venture out to sponsor sites. They can send a surfer to CorbinFisher.com who takes advantage of a non-recurring option that puts them at ease and encourages them to conduct a transaction in the first place, enjoy the content, cancel, and then come back later on through a JUB link once again because they are enthusiastic about earning JUB commissions and JUB is where they keep returning to again and again, to keep clicking thru from again and again. They don't go to CorbinFisher.com. They go to JUB to find the link to CorbinFisher.com they know is there and click thru it when they want to look at our site. JUB deserves 50%!

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Originally Posted by CorbinFisher_BD

That's all well and good and of course happens. Certainly affiliates would have sponsors that perform much differently for them then others.

I have zero problem whatsoever paying out 50% to our best performing affiliates (in fact, many earn commissions even higher than that). But I'm having a little trouble believing any and all affiliates are worthy of 50% commissions with any and all sponsors.

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Brian:

Here's a question - what specific behavior does this "grunge affiliate" do which deems him a fractional commission? Describe the behavior of, as you put it, an unworthy affiliate, as opposed to a properly performing affiliate.

Steve

This is a very funny thread. You guys are basically talking about reversing the bidding process. Bids go up, not down. Traffic goes to the highest bidder. However much that is, you'll end up getting more traffic if you pay what people are selling at.

This thread is sort of like complaining that there's more well-funded, and higher quality competitors. That's the way an unregulated market is supposed to work. Competition fuels better deals, and better quality. This is what brings all the technological innovation well all see around us.

If you feel like you're getting the short end of the stick as a program, you have two options. You can either work your asses off on providing a better product for your surfers. Or you can pay more for your traffic. Paying less for your traffic is NOT an option, unless you simply don't want traffic. In this case, your business will simply die. Unless you can sustain yourself on your own traffic.

If you're upset that you're not getting enough traffic for your money, maybe you should work on increasing the quality of your content.

Get competitive. Don't try to reverse the process. That won't help anyone, not even yourselves.

And if anyone wants help with their quality, I'll shoot your content.

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Originally Posted by desslock

Brian:

Here's a question - what specific behavior does this "grunge affiliate" do which you do not want to pay him the full commission for? Describe the behavior of, as you put it, an unworthy affiliate, as opposed to a properly performing affiliate.

Steve

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Let's say... an affiliate that does nothing but put up banners and FHGs provided to them by a sponsor. They don't write their own copy. They don't even have much invested in the way of hosting.

They have little to no bookmark or type-in traffic. Their traffic comes from, instead, submitting a FHG provided to them by a sponsor to a directory or TGP, getting traffic filtered through them for the duration of that gallery's posting, and then repeating that process over and over again with each of their sponsors' FHGs they can get their hands on.

Or even a blog site that does nothing but post free content provided to them by the sponsor and copy and paste the sponsor's update descriptions on to their blog with referral codes spread throughout. None of their own copy added to the blog at all. Traffic to their site comes from reciprocal links and directory submissions almost entirely (again, little to no bookmarked or type-in traffic by surfers inspired to return to that site on their own).

A TGP operator, even, who has nothing more to their site than FHGs and other galleries created by others, and traffic that is all from recips (many of which are often misleading, as with recips and trades between TGPs where a surfer clicks on a thumb to see a gallery but is instead redirected to another TGP).

There are people who submit great sites to directories and link lists and use them to build up dedicated and devoted traffic bases of their own. There are blog operators whose sites might very well be more interesting and fascinating than even the sites of the sponsors they promote. There are TGPs out there that have personality and unique elements that make them cool and fun. But they are far outnumbered by the former examples, I think.

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Originally Posted by xenigo

This is a very funny thread. You guys are basically talking about reversing the bidding process. Bids go up, not down. Traffic goes to the highest bidder. However much that is, you'll end up getting more traffic if you pay what people are selling at.

This thread is sort of like complaining that there's more well-funded, and higher quality competitors. That's the way an unregulated market is supposed to work. Competition fuels better deals, and better quality. This is what brings all the technological innovation well all see around us.

If you feel like you're getting the short end of the stick as a program, you have two options. You can either work your asses off on providing a better product for your surfers. Or you can pay more for your traffic. Paying less for your traffic is NOT an option, unless you simply don't want traffic. In this case, your business will simply die. Unless you can sustain yourself on your own traffic.

If you're upset that you're not getting enough traffic for your money, maybe you should work on increasing the quality of your content.

Get competitive. Don't try to reverse the process. That won't help anyone, not even yourselves.

And if anyone wants help with their quality, I'll shoot your content.

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See, that's precisely the problem though.

You acknowledge that the quality of content has value.

But how many affiliates line up to eagerly send traffic to a site with crappy content, simply because it offers huge PPS payouts and webmaster incentives? Thereby turning surfers in to disgruntled, disenchanted people... and the affiliate not realizing they very well are breeding among their traffic base surfers who will never again trust one of their outbound links.

Competition fuels better deals and better quality, but not necessarily better for surfers. Just better for webmasters at the expense of the industry as a whole when we come out of it all 10 years from now with a market unwilling and unable to trust what we're putting in front of them all because there was pressure to make a quick buck off them many times over in the past.

Our top affiliates know we produce quality, which is why they send their surfers to us. We don't use 75% revshare of $80PPS to try and get traffic. We use high quality content - consistently high quality content well-regarded in the marketplace. They gladly send us traffic, we gladly pay them 50% commissions.

Look at sites like SeanCody, CorbinFisher, and Fratmen - sites with very simple (often entirely CCBill based) affiliate programs yet still with countless affiliates sending traffic to them because they can see it's quality that will convert for them. There are many, many sponsors like that.

Look at other programs like RandyBlue and Pridebucks, armed with both elaborate affiliate programs and high quality content sites. There are a number of sponsors like them.

But there are also sponsors who cater almost solely to webmasters instead of their paying customers - almost encouraging affiliates to mislead and deceive so that they can each make money off of the surfers.

All because of an affiliate-pressured market instead of a customer-pressured market.

Re: {{ ---- CorbinFisher_BD's list of examples from above --- }}

Ok --- well that was what I was trying to smoke out.

All those things you specify are differences in methods. Obviously there will be differences in creativity and imagination.

I don't understand what difference it makes to you. You are paying on performance. If affiliate A is crappy, then it will show in poor commissions. Are you trying to wag the dog here?

If there are certain behaviors performed by grunge affiliates where you feel they are getting something for nothing, then disallow it in your program terms.

I don't happen to feel these alternate explorations you are suggesting to be elitist. However my personal suggestion would be to pay everyone the same rate. If you have super affiliates, then pay them bonuses. Expire affiliates who don't send sales after a reasonable amount of time.

Steve

I see your point, and I've always agreed that these huge monster programs that build a huge image aimed at affiliates probably don't provide the best products for consumers.

I think ultimately that programs are accountable to the customer, and not the affiliates. This means content will ultimately prevail.

Brian, did you used to be BD_Bionic?

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Originally Posted by CorbinFisher_BD

See, that's precisely the problem though.

You acknowledge that the quality of content has value.

But how many affiliates line up to eagerly send traffic to a site with crappy content, simply because it offers huge PPS payouts and webmaster incentives? Thereby turning surfers in to disgruntled, disenchanted people... and the affiliate not realizing they very well are breeding among their traffic base surfers who will never again trust one of their outbound links.

Competition fuels better deals and better quality, but not necessarily better for surfers. Just better for webmasters at the expense of the industry as a whole when we come out of it all 10 years from now with a market unwilling and unable to trust what we're putting in front of them all because there was pressure to make a quick buck off them many times over in the past.

Our top affiliates know we produce quality, which is why they send their surfers to us. We don't use 75% revshare of $80PPS to try and get traffic. We use high quality content - consistently high quality content well-regarded in the marketplace. They gladly send us traffic, we gladly pay them 50% commissions.

Look at sites like SeanCody, CorbinFisher, and Fratmen - sites with very simple (often entirely CCBill based) affiliate programs yet still with countless affiliates sending traffic to them because they can see it's quality that will convert for them. There are many, many sponsors like that.

Look at other programs like RandyBlue and Pridebucks, armed with both elaborate affiliate programs and high quality content sites. There are a number of sponsors like them.

But there are also sponsors who cater almost solely to webmasters instead of their paying customers - almost encouraging affiliates to mislead and deceive so that they can each make money off of the surfers.

All because of an affiliate-pressured market instead of a customer-pressured market.

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Originally Posted by desslock

If there are certain behaviors performed by grunge affiliates where you feel they are getting something for nothing, then disallow it in your program terms.

I don't happen to feel these alternate explorations you are suggesting to be elitist. However my personal suggestion would be to pay everyone the same rate. If you have super affiliates, then pay them bonuses. Expire affiliates who don't send sales after a reasonable amount of time.

Steve

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See, that's precisely what we're doing :)

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Originally Posted by xenigo

Brian, did you used to be BD_Bionic?

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Yup!

... unless I owe you money.

Then... BDBionic who?! :maxpower:

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Originally Posted by desslock

PocoLoco - Right on! "traffic" is part of the weird jargon that still puzzles me in the adult industry. When I worked for Dell sales, the company would place back cover ads in PCWorld. When that made the phones ring, we didn't call that "traffic"

"Hey Steve, there's traffic coming in.... answer the phone please!"

That was never uttered. Ads generated leads. And sales reps turned them into customers. Customers is another seldom spoken word. In the dehumanized jargon we send conversions, not create customers.

Steve

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So true Steve! I have worked as a sales person for a shipping line and we never used the word "traffic". Indeed potential customers are leads. I use the word traffic since I have been in the adult industry.

At my former job the word traffic did came back every day... as in TRAFFIC jam. :)

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Originally Posted by CorbinFisher_BD

I look at many of our top affiliates and see they shouldn't have a problem at all with rebills much less surfers that join, cancel, then rejoin later. For example, JustUsBoys.com. Their site is a destination unto itself. It is way more than just a site that sends traffic to sponsors. Their surfers keep coming back to them and eagerly use their site as a hub to venture out to sponsor sites. They can send a surfer to CorbinFisher.com who takes advantage of a non-recurring option that puts them at ease and encourages them to conduct a transaction in the first place, enjoy the content, cancel, and then come back later on through a JUB link once again because they are enthusiastic about earning JUB commissions and JUB is where they keep returning to again and again, to keep clicking thru from again and again. They don't go to CorbinFisher.com. They go to JUB to find the link to CorbinFisher.com they know is there and click thru it when they want to look at our site. JUB deserves 50%!

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I agree with the above, but on the other hand: If other affiliates put is less effort... it is their loss. At the end of the month JUB is smiling, while looking at his bank statement, while the other is complaining about the small number of sales. An affiliate needs to promote their own products in order to generate sales for the sponsor. If they fail to do so, they are happy with their current earnings or they do not want to put in more time and work. Once again; it is their loss.

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Originally Posted by pocoloco78

So true Steve! I have worked as a sales person for a shipping line and we never used the word "traffic". Indeed potential customers are leads. I use the word traffic since I have been in the adult industry.

At my former job the word traffic did came back every day... as in TRAFFIC jam. :)

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Traffic in the adult industry doesnt specifically relate to 'consumers' or 'customers' though depending on the programs / paysites business model.

Some programs would rather have 'traffic' (meaning hits to their site) than sales because those hits can be a lot more profitable for the site owners if they dont join the paysite.

Traffic also doesnt have any significant bearing on whether or not an affiliate is 'good' in terms of sales, just because someone can throw thousands of hits and hour to a tour, that doesnt mean they are any more valuable to the site owner than the guy only being able to send 100 hits to the same tour.

Reading through the 5 pages in this thread ive actually realized that a lot of people simply dont 'get' the adult industry, meaning the terminology being used and the mechanics behind running a profitable business.

Again im also reminded that many look at being an adult webmaster as one that provides entertainment to the surfers, we dont, we sell them memberships to make a commission, just like a salesman would at your local electroics store or car dealership, the only difference is the product being sold.

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by CorbinFisher_BD

I don't feel it fair one surfer be led to believe recurring is the only option when others (such as type-in traffic) are given the non-recurring option.

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I never said anything about offering affiliate referrals different pricing options than what typeins see. I don't have a problem with affiliate traffic being offered one month non-recurring.

What bugs me is that the affiliate compensation for these one month transactions is usually either 50/50 or an extra $5 is thrown in. I know you won't admit it, but the sponsor makes out better in those deals (due to the rejoin aspect) than being tied to affiliates in long term recurring.

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Originally Posted by CorbinFisher_BD

They can send a surfer to CorbinFisher.com who takes advantage of a non-recurring option that puts them at ease and encourages them to conduct a transaction in the first place, enjoy the content, cancel, and then come back later on through a JUB link once again because they are enthusiastic about earning JUB commissions

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Nice spin, but I'm not affiliate swine enough to buy it. We both know that surfers don't understand the business of affiliate referrals. After a month on the paysite what are the chances they even remember where they first saw the affiliate ad from? Especially if it was a gallery banner, blog posting or any page in general where traffic generally flows through only once.

I like how you used JUB for your example. A site that does over a mil a year in affiliate sales. A site that is very sticky, thus making some—not all, some—coincidental monthly rejoin credit possible for them. Your example does not work with the average site.

Of course it sounds like the average site is who you are looking to boot out of your program. The people who don't send the traffic you'd like even though they may have all sorts of CF promo materials out there floating around sending the occasional sale. Stuff they worked hard to create. But that's alright, piss on em. You are big enough now to not need such lowly affiliates anymore. Right?

And when the day comes for you to kick out the stated 95% of your affiliates, what will become of their existing link codes that for various reasons aren't taken down? I certainly hope they go 404. It would look mighty strange to accept and profit off of affiliate traffic from the very affiliates you just shit all over.

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Originally Posted by Matt 26z

Nice spin, but I'm not affiliate swine enough to buy it. We both know that surfers don't understand the business of affiliate referrals. After a month on the paysite what are the chances they even remember where they first saw the affiliate ad from? Especially if it was a gallery banner, blog posting or any page in general where traffic generally flows through only once.

I like how you used JUB for your example. A site that does over a mil a year in affiliate sales. A site that is very sticky, thus making some—not all, some—coincidental monthly rejoin credit possible for them. Your example does not work with the average site.

Of course it sounds like the average site is who you are looking to boot out of your program. The people who don't send the traffic you'd like even though they may have all sorts of CF promo materials out there floating around sending the occasional sale. Stuff they worked hard to create. But that's alright, piss on em. You are big enough now to not need such lowly affiliates anymore. Right?

And when the day comes for you to kick out the stated 95% of your affiliates, what will become of their existing link codes that for various reasons aren't taken down? I certainly hope they go 404. It would look mighty strange to accept and profit off of affiliate traffic from the very affiliates you just shit all over.

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This whole thread seems to be spin after spin after spin for a couple sponsors to make an extra buck off shitting on people with one lame excuse after another. It's the typical mentality of spnsors that shave, redirect, etc. etc.

I think Brian and Lee just need to say it out in the open and stop beating around the bush like a couple of pansies... just admit it.. you're greedy and it doesn't matter how you have to twist it, you want more money from your partners. All this trumped up bullshit is just that.. bullshit.

At least Lee had the balls to say he thinks affiliates are overpaid and lazy :wrench:

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Originally Posted by Matt 26z

Nice spin, but I'm not affiliate swine enough to buy it. We both know that surfers don't understand the business of affiliate referrals. After a month on the paysite what are the chances they even remember where they first saw the affiliate ad from? Especially if it was a gallery banner, blog posting or any page in general where traffic generally flows through only once.

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Which is exactly my point.

Perhaps that average site needs to stop being so average in order to justify wanting 50%.

If all they're doing is posting gallery banners, blog postings that don't make any impression upon the surfer, and are dealing with traffic that flows through only once without coming back to them, they're not worth 50%.

JUB and other affiliates like them, that have sticky sites, lots of bookmark and typein traffic, and offer something more than just a space someone would accidentally find themselves clicking through do deserve the 50%. The sites that send surfers that are already eager and enthusiastic before arriving at a sponsors site deserve 50%. The sites that put some real individual and original effort and energy in to generating not just a willingness but an eagerness to buy and develop loyalty among their own traffic deserve 50%.

Those that just hope someone manages to click through a gallery banner or effortless blog posting do not.