To FHG on not to FHG?

UKnakedmen just had it's first birthday. And boy has our baby grown up! We are truly proud at how much we've grown in the past year and are making plans for our second year of growth.

We have quite a few CCbill affiliates and we credit them with much of our success. We also have Epoch on a separate tour but just a handful of affiliates. And we haven't had much success trying to convert CCbill affiliates over to Epoch. But then again, we haven't really tried too hard.

So anyways, we are kicking around the idea of offering FHGs through Epoch's MPA3. Would that entice anyone to switch?

And what kind of hosting package would we need? I know that depends on the size of a program. But what would be a good estimate? Are FHG's really prductive enough to pay the bandwidth bill anymore?

For me, FHG's are a huge advantage as I will not host sponsor-provided explicit free content without a copy of the model's 2257 documentation in my local database (which sponsors almost never provide). So, the simplest way for me to showcase a sponsor's explicit free content is in a FHG.

It totally depends on why you want to use FHGs in the first place, branding, sales, to attract more affiliates, etc.

That being said, if you are only going to offer FHGs on one of your processors, it would make sense to offer them on the processor that more of your affiliates use, otherwise, you'll have to end up creating them twice ;)

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by Lee

It totally depends on why you want to use FHGs in the first place, branding, sales, to attract more affiliates, etc.

That being said, if you are only going to offer FHGs on one of your processors, it would make sense to offer them on the processor that more of your affiliates use, otherwise, you'll have to end up creating them twice ;)

Regards,

Lee

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We are not interested in cutting checks ourselves. So going the route of buying/leasing NATS/MPA3 is out of the question. Unless CCbill starts offering NATS then this is going to have to be an Epoch-only program.

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Originally Posted by Fister

For me, FHG's are a huge advantage as I will not host sponsor-provided explicit free content without a copy of the model's 2257 documentation in my local database (which sponsors almost never provide). So, the simplest way for me to showcase a sponsor's explicit free content is in a FHG.

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You know, I never even considered that angle in this particular discussion. Thanks for bring that up. I have had a couple of potential affiliates ask me for freehosting but refused their requests.

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

We are not interested in cutting checks ourselves. So going the route of buying/leasing NATS/MPA3 is out of the question. Unless CCbill starts offering NATS then this is going to have to be an Epoch-only program.

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Which would mean you should go with CCBill instead of Epoch for your FHGs, otherwise you are only creating work for yourself that isnt going to maximized to its potential, as you already stated, you have more CCBill affiliates than Epoch ones, why would you do something that is going to ostracize your biggest group of affiliates? :eek:

I mean, they chose CCBill over Epoch for a reason.

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by Lee

Which would mean you should go with CCBill instead of Epoch for your FHGs, otherwise you are only creating work for yourself that isnt going to maximized to its potential, as you already stated, you have more CCBill affiliates than Epoch ones, why would you do something that is going to ostracize your biggest group of affiliates? :eek:

I mean, they chose CCBill over Epoch for a reason.

Regards,

Lee

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And how do you propose I do FHGs with CCbill without NATS, MPA3 or some other affiliate management software?

But again, why are you wanting to have FHGs? For what purpose, are you wanting them to say to potential affiliates 'look we have FHGs'? Are you wanting FHGs for TGP owners to generate sales? Are you wanting them to further brand your sites name, etc?

Why are you considering launching FHGs, regardless of which processor you'll use for them?

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

And how do you propose I do FHGs with CCbill without NATS, MPA3 or some other affiliate management software?

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The same way i do maybe on Condom Cash?

Regards,

Lee

it's very VERY easy to do fhg's through ccbill - you can either -

1. activate multiple linking urls and have the affiliates link to
http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clic.../fhg/gal1.html

or

2. use a follow me script, which is so easy even i did it right the first time.

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Originally Posted by Lee

But again, why are you wanting to have FHGs? For what purpose, are you wanting them to say to potential affiliates 'look we have FHGs'? Are you wanting FHGs for TGP owners to generate sales? Are you wanting them to further brand your sites name, etc?

Why are you considering launching FHGs, regardless of which processor you'll use for them?

Regards,

Lee

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I didn't answer your question because I didn't think it needed an answer. ;)

We wouldn't it be for all of the above stated reasons? I did mention in the original post that our intention was to grow the site.

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Originally Posted by basschick

it's very VERY easy to do fhg's through ccbill - you can either -

1. activate multiple linking urls and have the affiliates link to
http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clic.../fhg/gal1.html

or

2. use a follow me script, which is so easy even i did it right the first time.

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Ah, I see! Cool thanks! See how easy that was Lee? Just ask a simple question and get a simple answer. ;)

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

Ah, I see! Cool thanks! See how easy that was Lee? Just ask a simple question and get a simple answer. ;)

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Because thats just told you how to pass through the affiliate id and hasnt taken in to account the other variables.

If you want FHGs to grow the site for your affiliates, then go with CCBill, if you want FHGs to attract affiliates, then it doesnt matter which processor you use, if you want FHGs to brand your site, it doesnt matter which processor you use, if you want FHGs for TGP owners to use, go with CCBill, if you want FHGs that only you will be using, then go with whichever processor put through more sales for you.

Of course, using one processor over the other is going to cause you problems anyway because inevitably, you are going to have to create 2 FHGs for every gallery you create, one for affiliates using Epoch and one for affiliates using CCBill, you might not have to do it right away, but eventually the grief you are going to get will mean that you need to duplicate the galleries for both processors... which is actually going to help you with getting the sites name out there because you are going to have double the exposure, from CCBill affiliates using the CCBill fhgs and from Epoch affiliates using the Epoch fhgs.

Again, so far you only have the way to offer FHGs through CCBill, if you decide you want to offer FHGs through Epoch, the php coding is going to be different.

Regards,

Lee

Jim,

I dunno about MPA3, but NATS can seamlessly handle CCBill affiliate codes.

It's very slightly more work, but if you've got someone in the US that can set up a US-based business bank account, even simpler is to set up an account with myezbills.com, and then you can take the payout report generated by NATS (and presumably MPA3), import it into myezbills, and they will automatically cut and mail checks to your affiliates for you. The service costs about $13/month for 25 payments, and 50 cents or so per payment after that. It will also receive, scan, and store (and autopay, if you wish) any invoices that you currently receive in the mail.

Bank of America offers a similar service that interfaces with Quickbooks, which would allow you to do the same thing, and i think that service is free.

It's still more work than having CCBill do everything, but the ability to use a sophisticated tool like NATS or MPA3 might make it worthwhile.

I am still nervous about MPA3 provided for free with Epoch because I don't like the notion of being locked into one biller in first position, it sort of defeats the purposes of cascading billing and spreading your risk.


Hope that helps.

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Originally Posted by Lee

Because thats just told you how to pass through the affiliate id and hasnt taken in to account the other variables.

If you want FHGs to grow the site for your affiliates, then go with CCBill, if you want FHGs to attract affiliates, then it doesnt matter which processor you use, if you want FHGs to brand your site, it doesnt matter which processor you use, if you want FHGs for TGP owners to use, go with CCBill, if you want FHGs that only you will be using, then go with whichever processor put through more sales for you.

Of course, using one processor over the other is going to cause you problems anyway because inevitably, you are going to have to create 2 FHGs for every gallery you create, one for affiliates using Epoch and one for affiliates using CCBill, you might not have to do it right away, but eventually the grief you are going to get will mean that you need to duplicate the galleries for both processors... which is actually going to help you with getting the sites name out there because you are going to have double the exposure, from CCBill affiliates using the CCBill fhgs and from Epoch affiliates using the Epoch fhgs.

Again, so far you only have the way to offer FHGs through CCBill, if you decide you want to offer FHGs through Epoch, the php coding is going to be different.

Regards,

Lee

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Well, I can see your point now. Thanks for clarifying... that's very helpful.

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Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip

Jim,

I dunno about MPA3, but NATS can seamlessly handle CCBill affiliate codes.

It's very slightly more work, but if you've got someone in the US that can set up a US-based business bank account, even simpler is to set up an account with myezbills.com, and then you can take the payout report generated by NATS (and presumably MPA3), import it into myezbills, and they will automatically cut and mail checks to your affiliates for you. The service costs about $13/month for 25 payments, and 50 cents or so per payment after that. It will also receive, scan, and store (and autopay, if you wish) any invoices that you currently receive in the mail.

Bank of America offers a similar service that interfaces with Quickbooks, which would allow you to do the same thing, and i think that service is free.

It's still more work than having CCBill do everything, but the ability to use a sophisticated tool like NATS or MPA3 might make it worthwhile.

I am still nervous about MPA3 provided for free with Epoch because I don't like the notion of being locked into one biller in first position, it sort of defeats the purposes of cascading billing and spreading your risk.


Hope that helps.

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Thanks Chip! I didn't even know that was an option to have someone handle the accounts payable for you. That is something definitely worth investigating.

Now, how about the other part of the question. What kind of bandwidth would I need to serve these FHGs. I certainly would need another dedicated box for the FHGs, right? Right now UKNM is running on a 30mbps box and it seems like we will need to keep upgrading that every month or 2 as the site grows. Are FHGs (movie and photo) going to need a second box in that Mbps range?

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

Are FHGs (movie and photo) going to need a second box in that Mbps range?

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Again, its going to depend on WHO is using your FHGs.

TGP owners putting your FHGs in a rotation is going to use a lot more bandwidth than a regular affiliate linking to them on their directories or free sites.

Also its going to depend on how graphically intense your FHGs are, what size images, movies, banners, etc you use.

Id start out with a basic dedicated hosting plan for a few months and go from there, no point in getting a bigger box/pipe if you arent going to realize its potential.

In addition, are FHGs actually going to be a benefit to you? I know people who have launched FHGs for their program and the bandwidth costs of having them far outweighed the sales revenues they generated, you also have to look at branding and over-exposure by having FHGs as part of a program in addition to design concepts.

Regards,

Lee