From An Affiliates Standpoint....

[Lee]

What would you consider the absolute minimum a program should launch with these days are in terms of sites, content, promo tools, etc, etc?

Do you feel there are certain products and features that a program must have from the off-set in order to be taken seriously by affiliate webmasters looking to join new programs?

Hosted promo tools, galleries, free sites, rss feeds, etc, are these a must have for a new program just launching or is simply offering their paysites with banners, buttons and free content enough do you think?

Regards,

Lee

[sunfunbill]

I'll go and give ya my 2 cents. There are some payment processors I will not touch, Verotel is one of them. So I make sure they have ccbill or nats. I look to see if they have more than just 5 movies done if they are new. Even when your new, you've got to have at least bonus feeds or something.

I love FHG, that's a big thing. I almost never use a sponsors pre-made banners, I always make my own out of a FHG pic or free content. I also will not push a sponsor that does pre-checked up-sells, unless it's very clear.

The rest of it I just go with my gut feeling of how the site looks and if the damn English writing makes sense. I swear most designers use Japanese writers! :crazy:

[StunnerJesse]

Some of my favorite sites do not offer anything but banners.

I do not promote them.

I'd love to, but nobody is going to sign up for a site because I say they should. They want content examples before handing over their credit card number.

Also, if a sponsor isn't using CCBill or NATS then it is very likely that I am not even going to bother with them.

Also, as a blogger, I get frustrated when the only FHG material I can get is via an export. I just want to click a link, get the content with the tracking code built into the URL, post it and move on.

[gaybucks_chip]

Interesting to me that two different people mention ccbill and NATS but nobody mentions Epoch/MPA.

I've come to believe that CCBill is the more "together" processor (not to mention their service is outstanding) but I'm somewhat surprised at how much Epoch has fallen out of favor -- probably rightfully so -- in the past year or so.

[StunnerJesse]

LOL, it's interesting that you said that, as I just signed up for my first Epoch program today.

[Maryflixxx]

I've heard so many affiliates say they don't really care about the material in the sponsor program, just give them access to the members area and let them pull from it to promote the site.

Especially with smaller programs, I've heard that again and again.

[StunnerJesse]

I've heard that, too.

From a sponsor standpoint, I think that is a dumb business move.

The thing about providing content as a sponsor is that you get to pick and choose what's out there.

Give access to enough affiliates and they are all going to eventually gobble up your content. There will be no need to subscribe if affiliates have all of your wares out there. Or, worse yet, an affiliate that downloads everything and then pirates it or does other nefarious things with it.

If you're going to have to give away your content to shady people, at least get a one month membership out of them. :groovy:

Edit: I am not saying that affiliates are shady. I am talking about pirates. If they are going to leak your content all over the net, at least get a membership fee out of them for it. Otherwise, a pirate will just join as an affiliate and get it all for free.

[MiamiB]

I've heard so many affiliates say they don't really care about the material in the sponsor program, just give them access to the members area and let them pull from it to promote the site.

Especially with smaller programs, I've heard that again and again.

THANK YOU!!

That is what we do...certainly an affiliate knows what he/she can use so why not give them access to the RAW material and let them do what they do best with it for their traffic!!??

Lee

[Lee]

just give them access to the members area and let them pull from it to promote the site.

The problem with that is, a lot of programs are not allowed to do that because they use content that is only licenses for use on their domain names.

Im always getting affiliates asking if they can login to the Condom Cash websites to get promo content and i tell them no, then they get shitty with me... Even after i have explained that the content licenses i have DO NOT allow me to just arbitrarily give the pics to anyone to use for whatever purpose they want.

It seems when it comes to logging in to members area to grab images and videos, affiliates really dont care about content theft, just so long as it makes their job easier to make a sale.

I cant even count the amount of affiliates i have had to terminate because they were stealing licensed content and not removing it when asked to do so because it was a violation of MY content license when i purchased the sets they stole these pics from.

Regards,

Lee