Affiliate Programs... Invite Only?

Hey y'all

i heared the rumors of the long gone days of about 2000/2002 where there were sponsor programs one had to pay to promote the site.

Now in the days where virtually anybody can market a site and where you see one site at almost every corner of the internet, "your" content on virtually every TGP out there, freesites blowing away vast amounts of the same recycled stuff... would it be wise to turn back time a little bit?

Would it be wise to build an affiliate program which is invite only, where the Sponsor itself goes out to webmasters telling them "hey, this is my site, I will only accept X affiliates for that, I will bend backwards for you".
An affiliate program where webmasters apply to promote the site, show proof that they have the traffic (quality traffic: what good would bear-traffic do for twinks and vice versa?). "proof" would have to be defined, though and can vary...

What'cha thinkin? Would you want to promote such a site? What must the site be like in order for you to promote the program?

DEVELISH

Why?

When Condom Cash was in beta i invited a few people to join the program to help me test it out before its full launch in October last year, of the 20 or so people that joined up to help with beta testing, very few of them had productive traffic, if they sent traffic at all.

You have to remember, if you run an invite only program, you dont want traffic, traffic itself is useless, you want sales, thats what pays the bills.

If you only invite the people you know (or think you know) that have traffic, the chances are, you are losing out on a lot of sales its best to have a public program where affiliates can choose to promote you based on what they know they can send you traffic and sales wise for your sites niches.

I have potential affiliates contacting me on an almost daily basis telling me they can send millions of hits to my sites in a month and they dont seem to understand that it isnt about how much traffic they can send but, how many sales they send.

Traffic doesnt pay the bills... Sales do.

Regards,

Lee

See this is where I disagree with Lee, its the job of the program to convert the traffic not the other way around. If you are sending gay traffic in that niche as a promoter you are doing your job, the program should convert it or I would find a program that will. If you have to send the traffic and make the sales what do you need the program for at all? :penny:

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Originally Posted by maxpower

See this is where I disagree with Lee, its the job of the program to convert the traffic not the other way around. If you are sending gay traffic in that niche as a promoter you are doing your job, the program should convert it or I would find a program that will. If you have to send the traffic and make the sales what do you need the program for at all? :penny:

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Cool,

When does your paysite launch?

Please do let me know and ill be sure to send you thousands of hits from 404 pages.

Im looking forward to making millions from your site when it launches.

Regards,

Lee

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...y20Pissing.jpg

I wouldnt do invite only unless, like lee says, your testing the system. You dont really want to turn down affiliates unless there dody as you dont know if they will send sales or not.

I dont run an affiliate program so i can only guess but as a guess id say its probably about getting as many affiliates as you can too join, knowing that some will send sales but many will either send nothing or just waste bandwidth.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Squirt

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...y20Pissing.jpg

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Hmm, the intention is somewhat unbeknownst to me, but for some reason, I suddenly feel I have to relieve myself.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lee

Cool,

When does your paysite launch?

Please do let me know and ill be sure to send you thousands of hits from 404 pages.

Im looking forward to making millions from your site when it launches.

Regards,

Lee

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I did say “If you are sending gay traffic in that niche” not sure I would call 404 that. I am sure their are exceptions for every thing but its not the job of the promoter to convert the traffic. That is the programs job if you ask me.

BTW I will start testing on my new members site at the start on next month, but it might be 2-3 months before I offer it to affiliates. I want to prefect its conversion ration before I allow more than just a few to use it. I am sure in the future when I have many more sites to promote I will not do all this, and offer it to them as soon as its open, but right now it is VERY important that this site converts the best it possibly can.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Paco

Hmm, the intention is somewhat unbeknownst to me, but for some reason, I suddenly feel I have to relieve myself.

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It symbolizes a pissing contest :high:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lee

When does your paysite launch?
Please do let me know and ill be sure to send you thousands of hits from 404 pages.
Im looking forward to making millions from your site when it launches.

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DAMN YOU!
I just bump my head, 'cause I was ROTFLMAO (it's quite the booty, so it took sometime)! Now I am going to have to scour the building, looking for my lumps, my lovely olive lumps <-- go on ... sing it like you mean it!

Actually, it's okay, I forgive you, Lee - the bump is well worth the extra years that I've gained from the amount you made me laugh.
[still wiping away the tears]

Not sure I agree Lee. I think an invite only is a way for the sponsor to work better with the few to make the sales than to just open the door and let all the flies inside. A nice screen door helps keep them at bay and given too that it appears the prudes are going ot go after affiliates, gives the sponsor more control.

Yes the sponsor has the obligation of closing the sale, though its the affiliate who makes the contact and gets the customer inside. So for me, I'd rather have 10 or 20 good salesmen than every Tom Dick & Max running around stealing content, scamming people with unwanted emails and just generally giving my site a shit name.

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But affiliates are also responsible for some of the things that frustrate Internet users. Because competition is fierce and affiliates get paid only when they get a user to click through to a porn site, affiliates often use aggressive tactics. Some have been behind massive spam campaigns, while others design Web sites that "trap" visitors with a never-ending stream of popup windows. Many porn sellers have policies officially prohibiting things like spamming, though enforcement is difficult. (source)

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When everyone has access to the same product, its market viability suffers which reflects in lower individual sales. I would think that if you had 100 affiliates who each sent you 1 sale you would be happy but if you had 10 who each sent you 11 sales, it would not only be more economic, but easier too. You have 10 to work with instead of 100 so can better promote your work and concentrate on doing the closing.

It also costs you less. Less cheques to sent out, less stats to keep track of, I mean the list is endless. Sure shit traffic won't mean crap, but if you have 10 qualified sellers, the traffic they send isn't going to be 404 traffic, but eager buyers.. making the sponsor job a lot easier to convert.

my 2 cents :coffee:

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Originally Posted by gaystoryman

Not sure I agree Lee. I think an invite only is a way for the sponsor to work better with the few to make the sales than to just open the door and let all the flies inside.

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To a point i would say that is true but, what happens when you have exhausted your list of people to invite in to the program?

What happens if the people you have invited, dont make as many sales as you initially thought they would?

Pop quiz time...

Id also like to mention a sponsor that launched, a couple of years ago, it was invite only, does anyone here know its name or, what sites it ran or, how long after it launched did it close down?

Regards,

Lee

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What happens if the people you have invited, dont make as many sales as you initially thought they would?

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You can be a hard ass and turf them and if you exhaust the supply, you find a new source... if you never make new friends or associates your business is gonna die, but it doesn't just rest with them, but with you too. If you don't experiment with new ideas and new techniques, your affiliates won't generate the sales. Then too if they don't generate the sales, what is the cause? Them or your product?

Too often we look at others and point the blame finger, when we should maybe look at our own product first...

Thing is, with 10 qualified sellers, it is easier to work with them to find those problems and then correct them. With a 100 you might never even know there is a problem... and you are actually missing out on way more sales than if you had fewer sellers.

added nickle's worth.. :coffee:

I am all for letting anyone with-in reason promote a site, and would only hold back a site to prefect it and maybe to let a few webmasters get a jump on the rest. After all the first 3 months are the best for most sites, but I would not hold it back at all for more than just a few months if that.

All this said it is the reasonability of the program to convert good/normal traffic to sales, that’s about the most important job of any site. :thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by gaystoryman

Thing is, with 10 qualified sellers, it is easier to work with them to find those problems and then correct them. With a 100 you might never even know there is a problem... and you are actually missing out on way more sales than if you had fewer sellers.

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That is true also however, with 10 qualified sellers, you stand a much bigger chance of losing all of them to a newer program than you would 100 affiliates.

For example, lets say you have 10 affiliates making you 100 sales a month, and you are paying them, for arguments sake, $50 per signup.

Now i come along, and offer those 10 affiliates making you 100 sales a month $60 per signup, do you think they are going to still promote your sites or, my sites that convert the same where they earn and additional $10 per sale?

Lets be honest, 99% of affiliates in the industry today are after the quick money and will switch without giving it a second thought sure, they will switch back if you offer then $70 PPS but then, they'll switch again when they get a better deal.

Also, its going to be MUCH easier for me to actively approach your 10 affiliates and get them to switch than it is for me to actively approach all 100 of your affiliates and get them to switch.

As with anything in the industry, its a numbers game, probability and chance play a much higher role in the adult industry where affiliates are concerned than anywhere else.

Regards,

Lee

Well, I'll fly in the face of criticism, I contend that it's a stupid idea.

I'd rather help affiliates better target their traffic and increase conversions then tell them 'you aren't good enough to join my program.' That just does not seem like a good business model to me.

Furthermore, I think that article is just a classic marketing strategy using a soft sell to get more affiliates. I see no proof this guy is making a million dollars. I will say it's a clever marketing gimmick.

Cheers,
DannyZ

i've seen some very large programs that worked with "invite only" affiliates that did extremely well. twisty's was invite only for years and it is way up there in quality and as a success story.

the big catch as i see it with invite only is that it's going to be much harder to find affiliates. the biggest advantage i see is that you will not risk having your program closed or legal action for spamming affiliates. but there can be other advantages.

i worked with one program that got over 100,000 hits per day of exit traffic. that traffic produced around 2 sales per day as it was often blind traffic or traffic from sites in niches other than the site it was sending to. it used masses of bandwidth and produced what would, if lucky, be $45 to the program. a site that doesn't have it's own multi niche exit console can't hope to monetize such traffic - and even so, since many of these people were sent forceably from a second or third exit console, it's just hard to convert.

programs like allamericanguys make potential affiliates write to them with info. although they partly do it to keep adult sites from sending them traffic, it's not a bad idea. that way program owners can check each potential affiliate's sites to make sure they are comfortable with it.

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Originally Posted by basschick

i worked with one program that got over 100,000 hits per day of exit traffic. that traffic produced around 2 sales per day as it was often blind traffic or traffic from sites in niches other than the site it was sending to. it used masses of bandwidth and produced what would, if lucky, be $45 to the program. a site that doesn't have it's own multi niche exit console can't hope to monetize such traffic - and even so, since many of these people were sent forceably from a second or third exit console, it's just hard to convert.

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I do not see why anyone would waist that much traffic, I could make a very good living off of just filtering that. I take it, it has already been highly filtered but still I would love to get those kinda of numbers a day and might even change the members site or ask them to change the exit link URL to better convert that. Both sides of this are a mess, but I am sure you help them out with this I hope with out dumping the traffic.

Hmmm, I suppose I shuld post here since our new site is "invite only".

We just opened our doors 5 weeks ago. And we just want to keep things subdued until we think the site is ready for the big-time. Developing an all-exclusive site from scratch is very difficult. You honestly don't know how well a site will convert and retain until you test it. In the few short weeks since our soft-launch, we have tweaked the tour considerably, added CCbill as a processor, changed our pricing and toyed with the idea of adding leased feeds.

A second reason to restrict the number of affiliates is to reward those affiliates that really want to promote your program. They have an advantage in promoting the site because it hasn't been seen all over the internet.

To me, overexposure can cause the death of a site. I prefer a more natural growth cycle and I think many of the best sites have used that approach. We don't want to be Topbucks, Condomcash or Pridebucks. We would rather emulate some of the smaller sites. They are more passionate and genuine about their sites. You can tell that the site is honestly a labor of love for the owners. And members and potential members can see that too.

In my opinion as an affiliate, I avoid "invite only" programs.

It just doesn't seem above board to me. As an affiliate, I have to rely on proper reporting and I have countless times been able to find problems by talking to other affiliates in the program. So it is one of those self-protection guidelines for me.

If they are an "exclusive club" it just seems to me like they are potentially hiding things.

That's one of my general rules, like avoid programs that tier their commissions.

Steve

Xst8guy,

Congratulations on your new site! I do totally understand what you mean about smaller sites having more passion, and trying to keep that passion as the site gets larger and business grows can be difficult.

However, there is a difference between offering a new tour as 'invite only' to test it and saying you are never going to allow affiliates to promote unless they are invited. We do that as well, as we did with only allowing certain affiliates to promote Boykakke for the the first month. It also gave our top affiliates a chance to make more money by being the first to promote the new sites.

I also dont think heavily promoted sites have to spell 'death.' Look at Randy Blue. There are countless other examples. It's up to the webmasters to constantly keep their sites fresh and keep the members happy.

yes, but there are other issues. a couple large programs got stung with HUGE fines because their affiliates misbehaved and they were held responsible. also ccbill has previously turned off a couple programs where the affiliates linking to the site were using questionable language or models.

and then there's fraud. the larger a program is, the more fraud they risk encountering. we've had a couple people who used huge databases of credit cards that were not their own to sign up for a few new memberships per day.

Why an Invite Only feature?

Simple answer, to avoid having webmaster's like me sign up or worse, like Maxpower. As a sponsor you want dedicated sellers not the part time hobbyist or schmuk who things they have a right to snatch all the free content and that's it.

In my case, I join, look around and 9 out of 10 times do nothing else. I am not a benefit so why should I garner access to the free content? I shouldn't and if you listen to all those who harp about Free Porn killing the industry, perhaps an Invite Only option would help reduce that. It would in essence separate a lot of the part timers from the working webmasters, increasing the revenues for those who work for it, not for people who simply surf, sign up, enjoy, then move on.

By limiting the affiliates you also help place a standard out there and avoid some of the shady types. Yeah I know, its a dream but doable under this type of program. There are many online who have certain shady reputations, that odds are, wouldn't get any invites, and so we police our industry to cut that crap down, by simply making affiliates invite only.

In the grand scheme of things it might not make a huge difference, but it could make some difference, and huge changes happen when a bunch of little one's happen. This is one of those changes.

As to the notion that person B can easily access your sponsors and lure them away, yes it is possible but it won't just be about money with Invite Only, but quality of the product and support. If person B is a scammer, odds are he won't make a dent in your preferred affiliates. And when does anyone selling limit themselves exclusively? So they sign up with Person B, in the long term it won't hurt and could even help as they market site B gaining more relevent traffic.

The odds of someone being lured and dumping Site A would not be in the interest of the affiliate, after all they didn't get the invite because they turned on their computer. They got it for a reason and part of that reason is that they had some professionalism. A Pro isn't going to turn down what they already are earning, just for a bigger slice. They would want Proof they would make the same sales first and even then, being a Pro, they would seek ways to have both programs operating.

That is just plain good business sense.

you got me up to a dime's worth Lee... :honest:

think companies can't be held responsible if their affiliates spam? from an article about marketing porn on the internet in the wall street journal:

"Last summer, the Federal Trade Commission accused seven online porn companies of violating the federal Can-Spam Act of 2003, which governs commercial email. The government said that affiliates of the porn companies violated a rule requiring the subject lines of emails with adult content to include the phrase "sexually explicit." The spam messages also failed to include a postal address and a means for recipients to block future e-mails, also required under the law.

The government reached settlements with four of the companies for a total of about $1.2 million in penalties. Three other cases are pending in federal district courts. Under Can-Spam, the government argued, the companies are liable for spam sent by their affiliates because they are essentially paying affiliates to send messages on their behalf.

Jon Kraden, an attorney with the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said the cases let adult companies "know they can't just set up an online affiliate program, tell them not to break the law, stick their head in the sand and let the money roll in."

full story here