recurring vs non-recurring

[CorbinFisher_BD]

It's one of those areas that is always going to be difficult to keep everyone happy in. As someone who is very involved in both ends of the affiliate/sponsor relationship - I run big free site that promote lots of affiliates, along with a number of paysites - I can see both sides of the issue. For example, that many people choose non-recurring memberships shows that customers like them, are comfortable with them, and demand them. Logically it is therefore fair to customers to have that option there. Paysites should be obliged to their customers and surfers just as much as they would be to anyone else, if not more so. But then of course there are the obligations to the affiliates sending the traffic, without whom it could reasonably be argued some particular surfers/customers wouldn't even be there in the first place.

When faced with such a decision, who do you go with? The surfers, or the affiliates?

At CorbinFisher.com we've attempted to address the issue with more prominently placed recurring options on the join page, as well as offering up a preview area that mirrors the members area.

And this has worked for us.

Not only are the secure majority of all joins to our site recurring joins, but almost half of all non-recurring joins are at the multiple-month level ($64.95 for 90 days).

Let's also not forget how the type of referring site can play in to how things convert. For example, we see more recurring joins come from websites that have written reviews and include some images from our site along with the reviews. Same goes for the multiple-month, higher dollar joins. We'll see a greater number of non-recurring, 1-month joins from affiliates who only use buttons with no accompanying text, or that are TGP sites and such. Just as an affiliate might not have bear or jock or ethnic or twink traffic, an affiliate might not have recurring-committal traffic.

So, webnet, maybe we can both figure out a way to show off CorbinFisher.com on your site that'll make more people comfortable joining it at a recurring level. Do you write up site reviews? Have room for a few free photos? Hit me up at affiliates >>at<< corbinfisher.com if you want to give that a shot.

[webnet]

maybe a good solution is active the CCBILL cookies to about 40 days, so, when a non-recurring membership is expired (30 days) and the member join again, refer the sale to the affiliate ;-)

[CorbinFisher_BD]

maybe a good solution is active the CCBILL cookies to about 40 days, so, when a non-recurring membership is expired (30 days) and the member join again, refer the sale to the affiliate ;-)

Actually that is definitely something we've considered. Upping the cookie duration to beyond the 30-day non-recurring period so that if the person joined again after, say, a week or so of their initial join expiring the original referring affiliate would get credit.

We were in the process of clarifying with CCBill what would happen if someone were to visit the site, get a 40 day or 2 month cookie, but not join (or join and then expire) but then get referred by another affiliate in the interim and join that same session. Which of the referring affiliates would get the sale? I'm not sure of the answer we got but will have to check in to it again.

As we expand upon our affiliate program and prepare to launch our new sponsor site, another thing we're looking in to is whether it's possible to incorporate bouncebacks or something that remembers the information someone used to join and then ties it to an original referring affiliate, if any (such as email address or even CC#, though the latter of those two probably won't be an option since that's not information we ever get or that the processors are too willing to fiddle around with). So if someone joins using the same email address, it'll give credit to whatever affiliate was associated with that email address the first time around.

In the next month or so, as a part of some other stuff we have planned, we will be permanently upping our cookie duration. So I'll keep folks posted on when that happens. Can't really go in to detail on why or how right now, though, but it will certainly be happening.