Trials or no trials?

[marcjacob]

Ive taken everyones advice and started working harder on rev share programs (thanks everyone!). One program is offering a choice of trials on or trials off.

I know that trials off makes more if the surfer doesnt retain, but do trials on get better ratios to the degree needed to make more money with trials?

Im guessing it depends on how well the site retains which im unsure of yet and also about the traffic im sending, wich is 90% avs and the rest freesite.

Hard to tell i guess but worth asking for your advice!

[d@sexinc]

We've always been a rev share program, and have done both trials and no trials. After switching back and forth over the years, it's safe to say that the ratio of conversion is about the same and the ratio of retention is better with no trial.


Dave

[basschick]

another vote for no trials.

[Xstr8guy]

Trials... yuck! The only sites that seem to use trials are those with crappy member's areas with tons of upsells.

[IntenseCash.com]

Trials... yuck! The only sites that seem to use trials are those with crappy member's areas with tons of upsells.

We use trials and actually I think in order you have trials you need to have good members areas but I do see what you are saying. There is alot of sites with trials that have crappy members area. I think we have a really nice member area with very few upsells. We have tried both and it seems like people want to try out the site before whipping out 20-30 bucks for something they may not enjoy. Btw if anyone promoting us wants trials turned off just let us know.

Mark

[Lee]

For the most part, trials are used by sponsors offering PPS (pay per signup) as a method to off-set the fact that they heavily load their members area and tour pages with upsells or consoles, afterall, if they are going to be paying $30+ for a $2.95 trial, they need to make that money back somewhere, right?

Ive spoken to a lot of program owners over the years and the one thing pretty much all of them tell me is that when offering trials, its a traffic game, not a retention game when it comes to making money on their sites. They dont want the surfer to retain, they want the surfer to leave their site via a console that pops on the tour, which leads to another sponsor offering $35-$40 for a trial signup.

If they cant make a sale from the console, they want the surfer to get inside the members area and leave the site as quickly as possible, via a liveshow upsell, dating upsell, free trial upsell or whatever.

The idea is to get the traffic to the tour and offset the $35-$40 the sponsor is paying YOU by sending your traffic to a sponsor that is paying THEM $35-$40 per trial. If they cant do that, let the surfer join and send them to an upsell from inside the members area.

I have also found that offering a trial or a full monthly membership doesnt really affect the amount of joins all that much, the main reason a surfer becomes a member of a site is because they have seen a model on the sites tour that they think is hot, nothing more.

Regards,

Lee

[IntenseCash.com]

For the most part, trials are used by sponsors offering PPS (pay per signup) as a method to off-set the fact that they heavily load their members area and tour pages with upsells or consoles, afterall, if they are going to be paying $30+ for a $2.95 trial, they need to make that money back somewhere, right?

Ive spoken to a lot of program owners over the years and the one thing pretty much all of them tell me is that when offering trials, its a traffic game, not a retention game when it comes to making money on their sites. They dont want the surfer to retain, they want the surfer to leave their site via a console that pops on the tour, which leads to another sponsor offering $35-$40 for a trial signup.

If they cant make a sale from the console, they want the surfer to get inside the members area and leave the site as quickly as possible, via a liveshow upsell, dating upsell, free trial upsell or whatever.

The idea is to get the traffic to the tour and offset the $35-$40 the sponsor is paying YOU by sending your traffic to a sponsor that is paying THEM $35-$40 per trial. If they cant do that, let the surfer join and send them to an upsell from inside the members area.

I have also found that offering a trial or a full monthly membership doesnt really affect the amount of joins all that much, the main reason a surfer becomes a member of a site is because they have seen a model on the sites tour that they think is hot, nothing more.

Regards,

Lee

I have to disagree with you. It all about retention with us. We want our members become members and not go to our exits. We want them to signup and we want them to retain and stay members. We don't have a crazy amount of upsells or anything like that in our members area. I'm still not sure how the big sites do it but I know they make up the difference with cross sells and exits but I would still think they would want them to stay members. Why send the surfer to another site and make $35 - 40 bucks when you can make a couple hundred dollars and have them stay a member? We have members that have been with us for over 3 years and that is over a thousand dollars compared to sending them to another site for $30-40.

Mark

[tigermom]

I prefer no trials for revshare. I guess I just hate to see a sale on my unified stats, only to find out I made a buck and a half .

[Xstr8guy]

We use trials and actually I think in order you have trials you need to have good members areas but I do see what you are saying. There is alot of sites with trials that have crappy members area. I think we have a really nice member area with very few upsells. We have tried both and it seems like people want to try out the site before whipping out 20-30 bucks for something they may not enjoy. Btw if anyone promoting us wants trials turned off just let us know.

Mark

Ack! I'm forever putting my foot in my mouth. Lol. I certainly wasn't thinking of Intense Cash when I made those comments.

[IntenseCash.com]

Ack! I'm forever putting my foot in my mouth. Lol. I certainly wasn't thinking of Intense Cash when I made those comments.

I'm glad you weren't thinking of us hehe.

Mark

[d@sexinc]

I prefer no trials for revshare. I guess I just hate to see a sale on my unified stats, only to find out I made a buck and a half .

Exactly. When we were deciding on our new pricing, we did a lot of asking around and alot of research. The general consesus regarding what the best price point was for a 70% lifetime recurring rev share program was $26.95.
This price point seems to be agreeable with the surfers we're seeing join the sites, and with webmasters signing up to the program. It's a decent payout for them, not "a buck and a half". Lol.

Dave

[GayGravy-JJ]

If your member sections are good then trials are a good way to expose more people to them. If the member sections arent very god than you might wanna just do full joins..

[Laurenn]

No trials...

[MyNameIsNobody]

Good read.. but imo trials work great..

But that depends on the program of course. I'm doing great with mine