Cross Sales?

[Lee]

I was just wondering about cross-sales, i see the option there in the CCBill Webadmin system but im wondering just how profitable they actually are?

I can see from a couple of examples that they arent pre-checked which i think is a good thing but, how many potential members actually select the cross-sale if it is offered in your experience?

Also, do you think the price point of the x-sell makes a difference in the amount of potential members that would select that as an added benefit of buying a membership?

Im thinking about adding them to the join pages on Condom Cash for 30 days to see how well they work for the programs overall profitability in addition to the extra revenues they would generate my affiliates if a surfer did select it as an option.

I havent really used x-sales before so any help and/or advice you folks could give would be greatly received

Regards,

Lee

[abostonboy]

Lee,

I will post to this thread but I would rather talk to you in private about it. There are many variables that affect it. I have done both to my own sites and to other sites. It's tricky. Did you check with CCbill and make sure you have the sales volume and chargeback/refund ratio they want? They were fussy about it a couple years back.

Just one potential bump I didnt like was how CCbill manages cancels. When the customer eneters the info, then ALL their membership pop up under that C/C. So lets say, they join boyforeskin and you crossell another site you have and they wanna cancel the other site u crosselled, its damn tempting to cancel both.

It worked in my case because I had an personal asian site with webcam and pics and I crossold an asian site with just videos. It was like an upgrade.

To be honest though, some of the big pay persignup programs make a lot of money on this.

[i-Affiliate.com]

Whats a cross-sale?

[basschick]

a year ago epoch was much better for cross sales as they had a large number of pay per cross sale sponsors and ccbill only offered revshare at that time.

i found that the price on the cross sale made a very noticeable difference and so did the recurring price since it is so plainly stated.

[Paco]

Whats a cross-sale?

! ! ! Easy money (aka: gravy) ! ! !

In short: a sponsor or pay site operator sells other sites from their billing page.

From/on the billing page; an offer is presented to the new join/subscriber/member, for access to another site at a discounted rate.

The typical Cross-sale (aka: xsale) looks something like this:
(the following is usually located at the bottom of the billing page)
Special Offer to All New Members!!!
Click here to signup for a 3 day trial Membership to WEB SITE - $1.00 Three Day Trial Membership for $1.00. After 3 days, Membership renews automatically at $39.73 every 1 month. Terms and Conditions

Click here to signup for a 5 day trial Membership to WEB SITE or 'C' - Five Day Trial Membership for $1.00. After 5 days, Membership renews automatically at $14.95 every 1 month. Terms and Conditions

Currently, the average payout per sign-up is $15. Some offer low payouts ($10) and some offer high ($20).

[i-Affiliate.com]

! ! ! Easy money (aka: gravy) ! ! !

In short: a sponsor or pay site operator sells other sites from their billing page.

From/on the billing page; an offer is presented to the new join/subscriber/member, for access to another site at a discounted rate.

The typical Cross-sale (aka: xsale) looks something like this:
(the following is usually located at the bottom of the billing page)
Special Offer to All New Members!!!
Click here to signup for a 3 day trial Membership to WEB SITE - $1.00 Three Day Trial Membership for $1.00. After 3 days, Membership renews automatically at $39.73 every 1 month. Terms and Conditions

Click here to signup for a 5 day trial Membership to WEB SITE or 'C' - Five Day Trial Membership for $1.00. After 5 days, Membership renews automatically at $14.95 every 1 month. Terms and Conditions

Currently, the average payout per sign-up is $15. Some offer low payouts ($10) and some offer high ($20).

But isn't that sending your surfers to the competition ?

[Lee]

But isn't that sending your surfers to the competition ?

Not if you send them to sites in your own affiliate program

Regards,

Lee

[abostonboy]

Lee,

The whole money making idea behind crossels is you don't want it to be with a site in your program. First off, the crossell has to be a trial. no one in their right mind is going to pay $30 for a website and then another $30 as a crossell.

So, if you offer a trial and make say 4.95 and then the customer goes and cancels the membership to either your site or the cross sold site all their active memberships come up and they can cancel BOTH! What have you gotten off the cross sell? $5! But, if you cross sold a persignup program outside yours and they cancel and you got $10-$20 per signup on the crosell (think Epoch) you dont give a rats ass if they cancel that site or not. You made your $10-$20.

[abostonboy]

I-affiliate, yes it is sending to someone else. That's also why you try and pick a crossell not in your niche. If you have an asian site you may do a crossell to an uncut site. Or if you have a strboy site you may do a crossell to a live cam site or a mega site etc. That's the idea. That's why some sites do not do it.

A crossell does not really work well in a rev share business model.

The whole idea with crossells is part of a plan that many per signup programs use to determine the payout they can offer.

Many factors are involved to make a site profitable.

1. What is the actual membership to the site worth. (Conversion from trial and length of membership determine this)
2. The email address on a two part signup form is woth $x.xx
3. The email address off a customer that joined is worth $x.xx
4. The discount offered after a member cancels is worth $x.xx
5. The Exit traffic is worth $x.xx
6. The crossell is worth $x.xx

ALL of these combined determine the true value of a member to a persignup operator.

I know of some persignup programs a couple years back that had 2 cross sells checked and when you got an email saying thanks for joining, if you clicked the link to another offer in the email you were offered another site (a celeb site).

The whole business model is such that you try and make as much money off your site without relying on actual conversions and retention to your own site, that you can still be profitable.

Offering a crossell if you are doing a lot of signups a day gives you and opportunity to goto a big site thats generating a lot of signups a swell and say i will put your site as a cross sell if you put my site. If you are both generating about the same amount of signups a day, then its a fair deal, you will get equal signups from each other. Plus from regular webmasters who market your site you will make additional one shot revenue and not worry if they cancel.

Used in a revshare model you are forced to pretty much send it to a site in your own program. If i send my traffic to a rev share and they cross promote a site i dont nmake money on I will stop sending traffic. But if its a per signup I send traffic to i dont give a rats ass if they sell another membership. Its usually the sites that do heavy cross promoting that pay the most.

I believed it was Intense cash that dropped payouts from 40 to 30 when they stopped cross promoting.

Trust me in a Rev Share business model it makes no sense to cross sell to your own sites. the chance that the surfer may go in and cancel one and see both pop up and decide to cancel both far outweighs the advantage of the small traial price you get. It just doesn't work.

It tried it on both my paysites. The only time it worked was on my asian one which was a personal cam site. I cross sold the asian video site I created as the cam site just had pics and a webcam. The vidoe site complimented it as it just had videos. I really wanted to maintain a high retention on the cam site and felt that by offering the right price I could. If they wanted the videos it was extra.

On the other paysite I did it on it was a disaster. When they canceled the trial site I sold, they canceled the site they joined in the first place and vice versa. It lasted two weeks.

Just my experience, yours may differ.

[Lee]

no one in their right mind is going to pay $30 for a website and then another $30 as a crossell.

By the same reasoning, no one in their right mind is going to join a site for $30 then pay another $30 for a live cam show as an upsell inside the members area. Yet, we all know this happens.

So, if you offer a trial and make say 4.95 and then the customer goes and cancels the membership to either your site or the cross sold site all their active memberships come up and they can cancel BOTH! What have you gotten off the cross sell? $5! But, if you cross sold a persignup program outside yours and they cancel and you got $10-$20 per signup on the crosell (think Epoch) you dont give a rats ass if they cancel that site or not. You made your $10-$20.

But, what if you dont offer a trial and offer them a membership in a complementary niche site at full price?

Even if they cancell, you (the program owner) and the affiliate, has made a full $29.95 on what would have been a $15 sale. Thats a 100% increase in profit if the surfer opts to choose the cross sell as an option.

Knowing what current retention rates are on various sites, that original $15 sale without a cross sell could quite easily turn in to a $75+ sale for both the program owner and the affiliate.

Even if only 1 in 100 members opt for the cross/up sell, thats still a good chunk of change for affiliates and the program owner each month.

Regards,

Lee

[abostonboy]

Crossell need to be trials.

When I mentioned cross sell a cam site, I meant one at 1.95 for 3 days, where you make get $10-$20 a signup on the signup form, not in the members area. Hell years ago I made over $1,000 of oneguy with videosecrets. Upsells in the members area are different. Someone may go and buy $300 worth of videos (dvds) or drop $50 or more w/ Aebn. That's common.

IF your goal is to get a crossell to a full price membership at 1:100 then you will probably do it at full price. Just keep in mind you are pushing through an initial $60 charge under your account, NOT spread out over 2 accounts and the chargebacks on crossell is MUCH higher than regular.

So what may have been a $30 (or NO chargeback) is now a $60 because the guy wasnt paying attention. And we know how savy consumers are about getting chargebacks.

But at a $3 price point to a trial w/ a crossell you will do much much much much better. And make much more money.

I guess the main beef I have with cross selling to your own program is most programs give you access to all the sites they have anyways. And the ones that don't are just offer slightly different feeds from the same companies in their members areas. Anyone who has joined a site like tyler's room (and there are lots) have seen all the feeds before anyways. Not much extra value for them.

If your business model thinking is I can make an extra 1 sale in 100 signups, is that really worth the risk of the extra chargebacks and the fact that when the guy goes into to cancel the crossold site, there is the initial site he joined waiting to him to hit cancel as well.

Cross sales w/ a low price trial checked to another sponsor not yours do way better than 1:100. WAY BETTER! WAY BETTER! As Paco said it's easy gravy.

When I did my cross sale to the video site, anything over $10 just did not sell at all. I could imagine that maybe 1:100 signups could generate another sale to another cookie cutter site. Yea, it happens. But if you think that member is going to stay a member longer than a month to both sites, 1:1000 chance. If I think he would cancel BOTH sites within a month, 99% chance. If i think he wasn't offered the other site and realized he wasn't paying $60 a month for two cookie cutters, but $30 a month for 1 cookie cutter, then he will probably rebill based on your conversion ratio.

[abostonboy]

Actually, I really want to stress something about upsells in member areas.

They do it for one of two reasons.
1. they like your site, you have earned their trust. You recommend something, they will buy. TIP: If you have an Asian site add Island Caprice DVD's. Their multi pack DVD special sell like hot cakes and I believe you still get 30%.
2. They hate your site and just wanna get off on something good.

In either case, the member has bought in a two transaction process. It's not like they are "trusting you" with $60 of their cash in one transaction.

IMHO even a 30 day membership is a TRIAL to your site if that is the lowest you offer. And for me $30 is about as high as you can go for 30 days unless you are like 2scm and charge $31 for 7 days, but then to see a bunch of str8 guys flown to Hawii to compete for a new truck, it's worth it just to see that. You know the site is good.

With the model you are saying, you are asking the conumer to trust you that they are getting $60 worth of porn from you for a 30 day time period with it blatantly stating rebilled at $60 a month. Without them even getting to test drive the content before shelling out $60. You better have a damn good site with excusve content.

And in all hoesty Epoch does a mych better job of cross selling than Ccbil. Its just the way it appears to the consumer on the signup form.