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I was wondering how many gay webmasters and potential affilates are still left out there. It occurs to me that even the larger aen's have just a handful of active webmasters making sites, judging from the linklists.
If the pool is shrinking, is anyone turning to unconventional forms of marketing or even trying to recruit from the non adult side ?
I am very surprised at the comparatively small number of webmasters using affiliate programs.... compared to the non adult side. Over there webmasters are a dime a dozen. It is even more strange in that the adult side is so much more lucrative and less competitive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Huskyhunks
Or maybe there are a lot more then it seems. I do not know, because I've never been on the operations side of an affiliate program... Or maybe there's tons doing straight adult, but not gay.
Of course, maybe I shouldn't complain too much....
Steve
don't worry, Charles, there is a new webmaster starting up every day :wtf:
cheers,
Luke
Hi Desslock and Chilihost. thanks for responding.
Chilihost, I'm sure there's newbies every day, but not sure that helps out many webmasters, there's so much to learn at first, they're productivity would probably be alot less than an established webmaster.
Desslock, maybe webmasters don't have affiliate programs because there's just not enough affiliates out there to make an impact on sales. With the big affiliate programs, the sites are secondary to the program. They work more like pyramid schemes than adult sites but hey, wave enough money and the webmasters will come.
most gay programs don't even try to get affiliates from the str8 side. and there are plenty of str8 webmasters out there, many with gay traffic.
there are also new review sites popping up every day, plus established review sites that may not have your site. and review traffic is beautiful. and don't forget blog webmasters! they have plenty of search engine traffic, so if a program makes a good connection with a gay porn blog, there is traffic to be had!
i don't like working with mainstream webmasters. almost all the really creepy problems we had were with non adult affiliates. they break more laws, break more rules, and just plain don't get marketing adult. but that may be just me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Huskyhunks
As a potential affiliate, it'd be nice to have some more central places to find new program announcements rather than sifting through directories and overactive forums.
Either I'm too lazy to find them, or they're not advertising enough. I'm not sure which. :) I'm not very involved in networking, though. Most new folks aren't. ARE there good places to find new gay program announcements? I'm always on the market for more.
Hi Basschick and HotMaleVideos,
Basschick, I always wondered why gay webmasters don't go after straight webmasters as affiliates. The lines are so blurred in sexuality, there's got to be alot of curious people on both sides. I've always kept my adult business seperate from my non adult life. It seems to work better for me like that. Review sites are great sources of long term traffic. They are very consistent traffic wise.
HotMaleVideos,
I know what you mean about sifting through multiple sources to find good solid information on adult. There are great resources sites and forums like GWW and a couple of other magazine type sites, but by and large, there still isn't an xbiz or avn type site for the gay side. I tried one last year, then the 2257 bombed dropped and I didn't have a clue as how to proceed with such uncertainty in the business. I'd like to bring it together again, news, press releases, announcements, webmaster and business profiles, stuff like that on the gay side without a forum. Sometimes subjective opinions aren't needed, just good business information and that's it.
I would like to add that the new Gayvn.com looks very promising.
I have only done adult for 3-4 months now, and gay adult for under a month, and here's my take on things so far, for what it's worth.
It does look like there are a lot more smaller scale paysites in the gay adult market. What I'm seeing is fewer large networks and more smaller networks with 1-5 sites on their portfolio. The good thing is that most of them us CCBill so signing up isn't much of a hassle, but I do feel they will be harder to promote in terms of their money worth to the end client. Let me try and explain.
When I sell a subscription to MILF Hunter of the College Fuck Tour, I am telling my visitor that for $30-$40 a month (usually with cheap trials too), he'll be getting access to about 20 quality sites with original content and lots of it. Pushing a smaller site or network means I'll be selling them a subscription that costs $15-$20 a month for 1-3 sites. They pay half, but get about one fifth, at best. Also, for me as a revshare affiliate, the money per sale is less than it is with the big program (say, 50% of $20 as opposed to 50%-65% of $40). This is why I prefer to sign up with larger programs, altough I do make exceptions for niches.
Bottom line is, it feels to me like the gay paysites are more dispersed, and hence less webmasters would rush out to promote them. When I ask for references to good sponsors for my sites, I get a long list of small sponsors that sell relatively cheap subscriptions. My effort at bringing visitors to the page is the same, and my traffic is top quality SE traffic, so I would rather work with larger sponsors, more expensive subscriptions that also provide more worth for the user's money.
The end result is that if webmasters start a new program for a niche, I won't hurry to sign up. If others do the same maths, it might be one reason why the smaller programs don't get that many affiliates promoting them.
On another note, it's possible that str8 male webmasters (and I assume about 80% of adult webmasters, and webmasters in general, are male), may be too homophobic (openly or subconsciously to promote gay sites). I think some of them might have an issue with coming up with erotic/sexy text for a gay site. I know my husband would have that problem, as would other guys I talked to, so I assume others share a similar problem.
tigermom - there are plenty of small, hard to find str8 programs. and sometimes that's where i find the best sites to promote within a niche, just like with gay sites.
a webmaster who has devoted his life to a single niche will know MUCH more about that niche and his site will often offer more than just pics or vids of an activity or lifestyle. i've seen spanking sites that tell the history of corporal punishment in the military, in school, they include newspaper clippings and other stuff. when you join a site like that, it has a wonderfully personal feel to it to help keep enthusiasts involved.
but a webmaster like that - having devoted his time to finding models, shooting the content, editing the video, correcting the pics, making and updating his site probably doesn't have the time to really get to know the webmaster side of things nor will he have the best ideas for promotion of his site. he has no idea what kinds of tours sell, nor what to include in the tours. even so, these sites usually sell pretty well.
i spend hours every week looking for sites like that to review and to promote myself. i check with google, i check with link lists, i check at the bottom of other obscure websites in the same niche.
the catch with these smaller programs is that they have a tendancy to have a lot more traffic leaks or to pay a percentage that's too small for me to bother with. on the other hand, if they see you make them some sales, they are often ready to listen when you suggest a higher percentage and a leak-free tour for affiliates.
That's true of course. Though, such one-site sponsors may lack the expertise of the bigger players in getting good converting tours. Also, as I said, it's a matter of how much they can charge for the program.Quote:
Originally Posted by basschick
Point in case, I am about to start a black gay site and still thinking about which sites to promote. I have signed up with with several smaller niche sites, but when I see they charge $10 a month, I'm thinking, maybe I should go with some major sponsor like Platinum Bucks or Top Bucks. Sure, their sites may not be the product of real niche fans, but they are professional, they sell a package of gay sites to the end user and charge accordingly. Hence, I will be making $20 per sale, instead of $5 per sale... That counts...
I have just opened an affiliate program for my new site twinkguy.com, its a 50% deal I use verotel right now. Its only been open a few days, but I think a few major gay directories are going to pick it up. But its really allot harder now days, most gay directories have gone to listing 50-80% of their own sites
yeah, but guess what - if the site from the big program converts 1/3 as well or worse, and then doesn't pay you for joins from most countries (many bigger programs don't) AND if the smaller site has good content and lots of updates, you could make more even if they charge only $14.95.
even if you only make $5 per month on that site, if it rebills an average of 2 times (for a total of $15 per member to you) and it sells twice as well, you break even with platinumbucks. if it sells a little better, or retains better, you will actually make more.
and you can ask them to make a second tour and charge more.
or you could ask for recommendations to other black sites where the prices are higher so you can share more money on the revshare. http://diesellive.com comes to mind...
nomad0023, what makes you think gay directories will "pick it up"? you don't have recips up - have you been asking them to promote your revshare program?
Quote:
Originally Posted by tigermom
Well really just for them to join my affiliate program and promote the site. I have been working with most of them for over 5 years now you know. My program is really brand new less than 5 days old now, so I am sure I will get better at presenting it as I go along. I really did work along time to create my site and have most of the top content now, I only have around 5 more content service on my list I wanted to add. Did you not like the site, really to tell the truth I don’t get to take to other webmasters very much
i don't like the site, but that doesn't matter. what does matter is all i see in the tour seems to be plugins - if you DO have content, the tour certainly doesn't make that clear.
do you have movies and pics on your own server?
Quote:
Originally Posted by nomad0023
I do have quite a few movies on my own server its about 20gigs, but I don’t make my own movies you know. Really I wanted to get all the big feed companies out of the way first, I get allot more bang for my buck to start off with. Most people want Live content and full-length movies, I am just about done with that now and will be moving to get more “in house content” but really I need more members first
i wasn't speaking of exclusive movies but of movies that your members can watch that are not plugins. how many movie scenes total do you currently have hosted on your site for your members?
500 or so right now, but I have to grow before I can pay out 20,000$ for movies that do not update.
you offer your member 500 scenes - not clips, but full scenes?
What is it you think I am doing so wrong? I have run almost every affiliate program at one time or another and my site is doing better than any I have used. Most sites are only 5 pages and really I don’t see too many people getting rich off of gay traffic now days. Even your Fav. site gay demon only has 2 people. I am always trying to improve my site, but the biggest site badpuppy promotes 90% feeds like I do. Not really sure I have seen to many that promote their own content very much. Only a few and normally they are kinda small sites.
i have seen over 700 adult paysite member areas as a site reviews and very few have only 5 pages. the ones that do have few pages are generally reality sites, and they have 50 scenes with pics and videos listed on those 5 pages - and they generally have a theme like sk8r boyz or college dropouts or something to tie it all together.
if you have 500 scenes for your members, your site is huge and with a better tour and smarter marketing would probably do quite well - as long as the videos aren't small or bad quality.
Scenes you mean full movies, sorry I really don’t know all the lingo man, I only work alone some times I make up my own words for thing LOL. Videos over 20 min. on my own server I would say its around 100+, but yes that is my weakest point right now. I really needed to have movies that update to start with. Really soon I will be expanding that but like I said I need members to do that, I have to have a profitable site
700 is all? I was thinking I could get up in to the thousands. That really kinda sucks I have about 200 and my site is really new, and around ½ done. 90% of members do not know the difference between a feed and in house content for the out side before they join, and I would bet the 10% that do change sites all the time anyway.
scenes are movie scenes - it's not a technical term ;) a scene ends with a cumshot mostly. most scenes are between 8 and 20 minutes long. 100 scenes is pretty respectable, and way over what most sites start with. if those videos are pretty good quality, i'd focus my tour FAR more on them and far less on the plugins.
Thanks for all the advice, Patti! Much appreciated! Your advice is sound of course, and I guess only time will tell which sponsors will do well with which site. I am willing to give quite a few a shot.
I have actually signed up with LiveDiesel as well. I'm on dial-up this weekend (:turtle: :turtle: :turtle: ) so can't really dive into work. Diesel's site isn't built for dial-up, lol. The only thing I think I did note was that he had a semi-nude female around in the promo... I need to look into it again, just to make sure this is indeed a gay site ;)
OK I will really try that, soon I will be moving out of the plug-in thing, but its necessary right now. Not to sure how long people would stay around just to see 500 videos though. People are really fickle now days, normally they care about live stuff above all else.
tigermom - i've been in the member area. diesel is definitely marketed for men ;) it's mostly solo with lots of muscle and masturbation.
nomad0023, you've only been up a few days. maybe it's time to rethink your member area - sounds like you don't really know much about what sites do out there or what retains.
if you have 500 videos, start the site with 200 videos - which is more than most sites have - and then update every day. you'll have months of updates, and members will stay for daily updates as long as the videos are watchable quality. what's more, being able to tell your surfers you have daily updates is going to get their juices flowing. many sites update maybe 1 time per week.
if you have 100, start the site with 75 videos and update 2 times per week. does your site offer screen caps of the movies or actual pics?
Tigermom did you look at my site? can you let know what you think?
In the next stage I will be adding all kinds of in house new videos, and I will remember to rotate them. BTW you know a good content provider for that that will not cost me a arm and a leg?
Semi Nude Female on the promo????? Yikes. Time to get the glasses checked. LOL Its definitely a site for gay men.Quote:
Originally Posted by tigermom
Thanks for mentioning Diesel, Patti.
As far as small programs and pricing, one thing that we've done recently is to increase the one time cost to $34.95, which encourages the recurring memberships at $24.95. Either way, the affiliate makes more.
While a small single site program is at a disadvantage as far as huge ad budgets, flashy graphics and hosted galleries and a stable of sites to promote, single site programs are worth a look. Most are not over-exposed, most sell well if given a shot, and a surfer doesn't know the difference between a small affiliate program and a big one. The surfer wants something they haven't seen before-- small programs offer that.
I've always done better with smaller programs than the big ones, personally. Conversions of 1/300 are pretty common, as opposed to 1/1000 (or worse) for the bigger ones.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MWCren
Thats really true man, my new “small affiliate program” is making about 3 to 1 over any of the larger programs I have been running with it. Not sure how long this will last, but if it slows I will change the look of my site
I was surprise to hear that there was a semi nude woman on my tour page.
Maybe you might have accidently seen a picture of me wearing a wig lol I have no idea where you saw that but it's all good Tigermom
My site is a gay site. Most members are bi/gay and some str8 ( if that makes any sense. I guess they are purely muscle lovers.)
I think diesellive.com has all the stuff webcam sites have to offer, but I also want members to feel that they've entered a kind of secret underground mens club where they arent afraid to be open. I like receiving e-mails from members or hearing comment from dudes who tell me they've never done anything like that before and had a blast ( no pun intended!)
Simply put, I try and keep my site fun and entertaining.
I encourage webmasters to consider joining my affiliate program.
Happy belated new year and I wish you all continued success in 2006
http://www.diesellive.com/affiliates/index.htm
Diesel
p.s. I don't wear wigs!