What do you guys think would be considered a good retention rate? just wondering where i stand and what i should be aiming for.
cheers dears.
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What do you guys think would be considered a good retention rate? just wondering where i stand and what i should be aiming for.
cheers dears.
Good question and, to be honest, i think there are so many factors that take play in working out what a 'good' retention rate is its going to be virtually impossible to figure out.
That being said, given the industry today id say that anything over 3 months is 'good' and anything longer than that is exceptional.
However, you also need to be aware that just because a site retains, it doesnt make it a 'good' site and that is the most important thing overall.
For example, i know programs who have surfers rebilling month after month for going on 6-12 months purely because the members didnt check their credit card statements :eek:
The answer is going to be different for everyone ultimately but, in my opinion, if im on a revshare program and the site retains for 3 months whilst im making 50+% of every rebill, im happy :)
Regards,
Lee
Many members cancel after 1 month, some hang around for a year or more.
Are you looking for a percentage of members that rebill? Just a guess here, but somewhere between 50-75%. I rebill about 65% on my DeluxePass sites which are like mini-paysites.
hey cheers... yes a rebill percentage is the kind of guide i was looking for. I see that your deluxe sites do offer access to a network of over 700 sites so its not really the same thing... 50-70% rebills sounds like a huuuuge figure. i would be rich beyond my wildest dreams!
I wonder what normal single paysites average.
Ade,
I would think a niche site like Men at Play would retain well. It's like Bearbound, once a member finds a site like that, he doesn't want to let it go because there's nothing else out there.
Cheers
dzinerbear
Your site is hardly normal... exceptional yes, normal no.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ade
I have been a member of menatplay for a couple months ;) and a few suggestions for you...
Make you navigation more obvious. It's a little confusing trying to get to the vids and pictures and the site opens too many windows. I'm never sure where I'm at on the site.
Encode your Flash videos with higher frame rates. The videos look great at small resolutions but when you make the vids bigger, they get grainy and/or blurry.
Offer videos encoded for Windows Media Player, too. .Wmv's would be a good alternative.
Get a few high quality leased feeds (plug-ins). I remember you asking for suitable feeds in the past. Well, I don't think there is anything out there that would be perfect for MAP, but anything is better than nothing. The traffic that I'm sending you is very interested in masculine men but I think your site has much broader appeal. Sexgaymes and Rear Stable from hardgayfeeds.com might be a good match for your site.
I love MAP and I want you to continue growing, but don't forget the things that make the site so great... the men! The men and the suits are perfect! Don't ever change that formula!
if you offer a trial, i'd say 35% converting to monthly and 50% rebill is okay, but not exciting. i see around 70% rebilling on some sites i promote - usually the sites with the obvious navigation and high quality videos in the niche of the site.
if you don't offer a trial, 40 - 45% for the first month, and then 55% or better after is okay, but more is quite attainable.
if all your video is flash, you're going to lose the guys who save their favorite videos to their harddrives, or who like seeing videos in their own player. and ya gotta have both low and high quality videos - i see a lot of use on both in our sites.
hmmm some very interesting points there boys and girls. funny you should both mention navigation as im redoing that at the moment.. i know what you mean, it worked at the beginning but as the sites grown its become a bit confusing and ive just been lazy.....but no more.
Ade, i'm curious about why your program doesn't supply promo content to the average affiliate.
how would it harm you to give out 16 pic sets with only 2 nude shots, no masturbation, sex or cumshots? your site would develop recognition factor outside of your normal traffic sources, and no sexually explicit pics would be exposed on those avs sites and tgp galleries for you to worry about legality.
some programs spend the big bucks on branding...
Ade, I hope you don't think my criticism was too harsh. It was done with :love:.
I would protect your content as if it were the cure for the plague. You start giving out your content today and it's hot; tomorrow, it's alright; but next Friday, it's on every TGP on the planet a hundred times over; and by June, your hot man becomes, "Oh, not him again."
Always leave them wanting more.
Cheers,
Dzinerbear
how would having 5 sets of guys totally dressed, not full sized, and not masturbating or nude not leave them wanting more?
Some of the numbers mentioned in here strike me as a bit high.
I'd say you'd be doing well to convert a quarter of trial memberships to full monthly, and doing extremely well to be converting half of full memberships to another month.
he asked about good retention, not average...
i promote one program where conversion from trial to montly is 55% for me - and retention is off the hook. it's the tv sites from fetish affiliates. and they're not the only ones. i can't tell you what retention is on oldgrandmothers - because i didn't make that many sales, and virtually no one has cancelled after five months.
i used to see a healthily over 55% monthly retention at bfcollection. my friend has a pornstar site doing 35% conversion to monthly and 70% retention, and another pal is doing 65% rebills on his sites - and 70% on his best retaining one. none of those sites have exclusive.
it surely can be done - with good quality pics and movies, simple navigation, regular updates, and plenty of content.
I'm talking about good, as well. It's why I said "doing well" and "doing extremely well" as opposed to saying anything about average.
It's no secret that first transaction to second transaction retention isn't going to be a massive number. If someone's retaining FT to ST at an extremely high number I'd be concerned they're not making it easy enough for their members to cancel.
No matter how great your navigation is, how great the content is, how often it's updated, so on so forth, there's just plain and simple a big chunk of new joins who have no intention whatsoever of rebilling and there's nothing you can do to get them to rebill. So even all those great retention tools, offerings and elements still only subject a minority of new joins to being influenced to rebill.
Further, it's important to not let your perception of rebills be distorted by multiple (2+) transaction members. Which is to say, if you look at your stats and have 1000 signups and 800 rebills... you do not necessarily have an 80% retention rate. What if, of those 800 rebills, there are 20 members who've each remained members for 5 months each? You're down below 70% eligible FT to ST retention, now. And of the remaining, what if 10 of those members have been your member for over a year? Now you're down to well below 60% eligible for FT - ST retention. But you're still doing pretty damn good to have 1000/800 joins /rebills.
What else is there worth considering? What about the quality of traffic you're being sent? If you're getting low volumes of high quality traffic - for instance you have a very particular niche site and you're getting trickles of traffic from other sites within that particular niche - then you'll get low volumes of signups but improve your chances of conversion to rebill.
If you're a very popular site promoted by tons of different people, you'll get a crapload more initial signups but because of the variety of traffic you're receiving, you could see significantly lower retention rates but still be doing extremely well for both you and your affiliates.
Which is why I say that lower numbers can still suggest someone's doing extremely well, and using someone's best examples doesn't paint a fair picture.
most people i talk with consider 25% to be industry standard. it isn't doing well, it's doing okay.
sorry. edited my post after you replied hehe.
But I do think that having the industry standard means you're doing well. Especially if you're a relative newcomer with a new site. And then you can work to improve upon that.
There's a wide range of percentages you could be at between average and extremely well that would put you at very good. Know what I mean?
what's a good retention?....anything longer than 1.5 months! :thumbsup:
sincerely ~ jim :francais:
Wow BD, you sure made this complicated with all the extra stuff! A rebill is a rebill, whether it is the first or second transaction. To me, a member that stays for a long time is golden.
The formula that I use is... Month #2 rebills/Month #1 new sales+rebills... for example; In February you had 300 rebills and in January you had 200 new sales and 300 rebills... 300/500=60%
It seem like I am missing something in this formula? I hope I'm not a total dumbass, lol.
wow i didnt mean to start a full on webmaster war. lol All the info has been really useful but i do have to say thanks to BDBionic who put it all into perspective by weighing different factors we have to take into account. (i was beginning to get worried before reading all the 50-75% fuigures)
Like someone said yes MAP is a niche site but we dont advertise just to that niche audience. At the beginning we used to promote only to suit & tie yahoo groups etc and our retention rate was astronomical... low signups though due to the limited size of the niche. But now we promote to a maintstream audience with a lower retention rate but MUCH higher signup numbers. So even with a lower retention rate than a year ago i would say my site is doing 200% better. my conversion rate is great (as Xstr8guy will be able to tell you), and volume of sales is growing every month.. so im definitely happy. id rather be doing 30% on 100 signups, than 70% on 20.
Like you said most people have absolutely no intention of paying a recurring subscription on a website, period. no matter how good the site is. Ive only just introduced a 27.95 non recurring option, alongside the 24.95/22.95 monthly recurring, and im very surprised at the number going for the higher price. it definitely paints a better picture of my traffic profile.
yes but does your formula take into account any of the rebills in february possibly coming from previous months sales? i.e december or earlier. maybe the 300 rebilling in february are the same 300 that rebilled in January.. so infact your retention for january sales is 0. (unlikely i know... but just stating a point) I use CCBill and you enter e.g Jan 1 - 31 and you will see the retention percentages for sales made only within those dates.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xstr8guy
me again.. lol.
i just worked out my retention using your formula and it gives me 55%, but i know using the CCBill stats that my monthly average is 30%.. food for thought
Moneywise, 1 member rebilling for 6 months is the same as 6 members rebilling for 1 month, right?
Ade, did you get my PM on the board?
I'm a total newbie and I haven't launched my site yet, but it seems logical to me to look at conversion in two ways (please let me know if I'm way off here!!! :-) )
(1) Xstr8guy's formula looks good in order to figure out conversion on a month by month basis (to get a general idea of how initial signups are converting)
(2) Then I'd look at the signups in two categories (one for initial signups for each month and one for rebills). Essentially, I'd treat them as two different business goals and try to reach new targets each month in each category. So, using a previous example in this thread:
MONTH 1 --> 1000 initials + 800 rebills
MONTH 2 --> Aim to increase each category by, say, 10%. So:
1100 initials + 880 rebilss
And so on, growing each category progressively each month.
Brian
i look at the overall. a site with trials should have better than 50% retention from full month 1 to month 2. the people who didn't like the site initially - or had trouble with the content, for any reason - quit during the trial. what is left are people who
1. liked the niche of the content
2. liked the site enough to bill for a full month
3. are able to see the content
4. found the content that was there when they joined to be good enough for them to convert to monthly.
so if you have enough updates, enough content to keep your members busy between updates, and the updates are the same quality and theme as the rest of the content, you should be able to have at least 50%.
it's different with no-trial sites, but most i promote do 50% or better from month one to month two. i promote sites with tours that i like, niches that i like, and if i don 't see the member area, i only send a few joins and wait to see how many rebill.
Hey Ade,
I've joined menatplay.net twice and I've sent you comments (you might remember me -- I was the guy frustrated with flash streaming and wished you had Windows Media downloads) LOL!
I really like your concept -- you're onto something really good. I agree with what was said in this thread... Totally stick with the hotties in suits (don't change that formula), keep on showing hot sex vids, and totally consider Windows Media because it's true -- we seriously like to download vids for our hard drives... You've also disabled right-click for your pictures... Unfortunately, I think that would just annoy members because if they really want to save your pics, they totally can still save them despite your efforts. I'm concerend about his too, for my upcoming site, because I don't want to see all my hot guys all over TGPs, but what can one do? People save anyways!!!
Regarding rebills, I've got to say, I just can't rebill (for any site, really). Even if the site's hot. That doesn't mean I don't visit often and keep track of updates. When there have been a lot of updates and then when a really hot new guy shows up, then I get the urge to join. So, I think this is an important factor to consider.... It is hard to measure, though, as these re-joins can't be distinguished from authentic, new joins...
I'm at the stage where I'm considering pricing structures. High prices (extremely high), I believe, are a deterrant. Like straightcollegemen.com. I think it's a damn hot site. But, I can't bring my self to join. I think it's too expensive (even for their trial, which is $31.95 for only 7 days!!!).
Billing and retention is something of an art!
Overall, good job on the site.... Just keep it hot! :cycle:
i see good rebills at $24.95. some sites rebill well for me over $30, but usually they are tight niches (like tranny feet) with masses of content. i think $24.95 or even $29.95 are good monthly prices.
aha so it was you brian!!!!! and you didnt even reply after i politely told you to piss off .lol. I wasnt sure if it was some regular user being cheeky or a genuine fellow webmaster giving constructive advice... or maybe a bit of both. ;)
The flash comment you made was a very fair point actually, were working on improving the flash streaming, and will soon be looking into offering a second format. maybe even DRM.
im so regretting starting this topic now... my 'to do' list is just growing by the minute thanks to you guys. i need to recruit a beautiful and beefy assistant in some tight white pants to help me out.
Haha, Ade... Too funny (assistant thing)... Yeah, it seems like there's always a million things to take care of. And, just when you get those done, a million more pop up. But, at he end of the day, I think it's a good business!!
No worries about the polite piss off :-)
Cheers,
Brian