Program Owners - What Methods Of In-House Traffic Generation Are You Using Right Now?

[Lee]

I know a lot of people i have been speaking to over the past few months that own their own paysites or affiliate programs are looking more and more at generating their own 'in-house' traffic instead of relying on affiliates as much as they used to because of how the industry is headed right now.

I was wondering, what methods are you currently using to generate your own in-house traffic, are you buying traffic or are you concentrating on generating more higher quality, longer lasting sources of inhouse traffic such as TGP sites, Link Lists, Search Engines, or maybe you are just submitting to exiting sites like your affiliates normally would?

Im just curious to see how program owners are starting to build their own sources of traffic above and beyond that of affiliates.

Right now, im working on several new PPC campaigns based on profit/loss reports ive been running for the past week or so that is looking like it could be a potetial boom of additional in-house revenue although to be fair, it doesnt leave room for long lasting traffic on the 'build it, submit it, forget it' theory that i am so used to using.

Regards,

Lee

[d@sexinc]

We'll be working on our SEO, making sure it's all tickety boo as one of our upcoming projects, but for now, we're relying on type in traffic based on our names/sites being "out there" since 1996.
We also own gaylinks.com, and use that to geneate as much traffic to our own sites as we can.

We do very well with the affiliate traffic we get (could always use a little more, of course...), but the majority of our sign ups come from "type in" traffic.

D.

[markwolff]

About 50% of my traffic comes from affiliates, the rest comes in-house from buying banner placement on various sites, several blogs (www.jockblog.com TGP submissions as well as print ads in various National and international magazines

[FriskyMatt]

generating their own 'in-house' traffic instead of relying on affiliates as much as they used to because of how the industry is headed right now

How is the industry heading now? Are affiliate programs no longer the way to go?

[desslock]

How is the industry heading now? Are affiliate programs no longer the way to go?

There are still enough good affiliates and good publishers to go around.

In the mainstream world, the two biggest alternatives to standard affiliate marketing has been paid search engine placement, or programs dumping their affiliate programs to instead pay website owners Pay-Per-Click to run their banners.

I don't really see things like that happening with adult, for several reasons. One that comes to mind is that mainstream companies have a lot more leeway and ease to advertise their paid ads than adult companies. So that's one marketing area eliminated.

In general, Web 2.0 still hasn't figured out affiliate marketing.

Steve

[Lee]

There are still enough good affiliates and good publishers to go around.

I disagree and, so do many other program owners, ones who have been around 10+ years are now starting to generate their own in-house traffic because the quality of affiliates has dropped well below the bar.

Also, on the subject of pay per click advertising, we did that 10+ years ago, it was good for a while, then it got abused, hitbots, fake clicks, you name it, the dishonest affiliates basically killed that business model. Just as the lazy webmasters are slowly making it harder and harder for everyone to make money online with the influx of free porn over the past 2 years from just about every program going.

Regards,

Lee

[desslock]

Well any speculation as to why the quality of affiliates may have slipped?

Is it due to the change of seasons? Or perhaps something else?

Steve

[padabum]

I disagree and, so do many other program owners, ones who have been around 10+ years are now starting to generate their own in-house traffic because the quality of affiliates has dropped well below the bar.

well if they make shitloads full of traffic... they´ll run their own paysites. thats the bloody truth and its as easy as that. as soon as they make you lots of dough they figure out, that content doesnt cost a fortune AND they don´t have to split the pot with anyone else.

and Lee its not a one way thing with dishonest affiliates. lots of program owners started to get greedy and shaved a bit here and there in the past.

[Bec]

I was wondering, what methods are you currently using to generate your own in-house traffic, are you buying traffic or are you concentrating on generating more higher quality, longer lasting sources of inhouse traffic such as TGP sites, Link Lists, Search Engines, or maybe you are just submitting to exiting sites like your affiliates normally would?

Lee

Program owned general and niche specific tgp sites hooked up to trader scripts, blogs, link and feedlist directories, hubsites with multiple items like a blog and a gallery feature and using blog sidebars for inhouse links to other items like freesites we own/built, free sites that go into owned hubsites and submitted to other LL's, galleries that can be submitted to tgps, occasional forays to various link dump sites, fake and real top lists, program owned review site(s). Link and traffic trades with other program owners. Plus some stuff I'm probably forgetting at the moment.

[desslock]

well if they make shitloads full of traffic... they´ll run their own paysites. thats the bloody truth and its as easy as that. as soon as they make you lots of dough they figure out, that content doesnt cost a fortune AND they don´t have to split the pot with anyone else.

Well maybe I just haven't seen the light. But I emphatically disagree with that assertion. As a matter of fact, one of my two guiding rules happens to state: "Do not handle money"

Doing so would wildly increase my costs of doing business.

This is an advantage whose benefit cannot be overemphasized.

Over in the mainstream world, affiliates who are the most creative are the ones doing the best. In many ways, the adult side of things is still stuck several years in the past, and they are wondering why the things that used to work in 2001 are no longer doing so.

Steve

[xenigo]

and Lee its not a one way thing with dishonest affiliates. lots of program owners started to get greedy and shaved a bit here and there in the past.

This is the most accurate statement in this entire thread. Dishonest affiliate programs who don't credit affiliates sales are the defacto reason why more people are running their own paysites, and generating their own traffic for their paysites.

But as far as content production is concerned, it's not cheap. It hasn't ever been cheap. Maybe in Cambodia...

[xenigo]

Doing so would wildly increase my costs of doing business.

And increase your profits, etc. Who would want that? Heh...

[LavenderLounge]

Lee,

When you started this thread, you left out ideas for marketing directly to consumers. Maybe that's your missing component.

I recently decided to step back a bit from the tgp/link exchange/SE dance for a little while and work on more "conventional" real world marketing:

-press releases
-print ads
-posters/flyers
-event sponsorship

At some point, you gotta reach out to the end consumer. If all you do is market to other webmasters, they're not the ones buying your product.

[padabum]

@deslock: please!!! i didnt mean you personally. i never said that YOU shave anything. BUT there are a lot of black sheep out there who cheat...both on the affilliate AND the webmaster side.

and i know producing content is expensive. but leasing and buying content doesnt cost much (ever buy at a ounique buyout??). and thats how affiliates start their own programs. and they made the money with you to start it off... thats the normal course of things and no need to cry about it.

[desslock]

Mark - By the way, I want to exclaim my enjoyment over your blog last week.

This photo here:



Is this going to be referred to historically as Fyerfli's "Gargoyle Period" ?

By the way, my friend Javi_Licious was over last weekend, and i was on my laptop. I was looking at my newsreader, and he said "oh I've been to Lavender Lounge" This illustrates one issue I've wrestled with - how to make my website more sticky, and create returning readers.

The challenge is to figure out what to do in order to make people like Javi_Licious come back for more.

Steve