View Full Version : 2008 turned out quite interesting so far for stats
Tubes, credit crunch etc etc all fucking sales, selling porn is officially dead. It must be, everyone is saying it.
I have just compared the last months stats with this time last year, for my sites and all my sponsors. So are they interesting?
My sales are slightly up on this time last year, my personal traffic to my own sites is down, affiliate traffic is up . Traffic over all to my sites is about the same as last year, but ratios slightly better. I have added regional billing and put prices up as well
What is down is traffic to free hosted galleries, I am doing less than 1/2 the bandwith that I was doing last year.
My sales to other sponsors.
CCBill. My traffic to ccbill sponsors over 1/3 down on this time last year. But believe it or not ratios are way way better over all though. So with a lot less traffic I am only doing a few less sales.
None ccbill sponsors. This varies as sponsors I use comes and goes. So to see any trends I am going to pick a sponsor who I have promoted a lot over the years and know his sites well and have the traffic for them. Real Sex Cash.
I am making almost 1/2 the sales as I did last year. At first you think ouch, and indeed ouch. But I have sent 1/2 the traffic as this time last year. His ratios have not fallen at all and his prices have gone up.
So whats the conclusion, is there a conclusion to be had at all?
My traffic is down, but actual ratios are still the same for me over all. In my opinion this is because surfers are not surfing. But the ones who are, are still buying.
Like I thought and said at the begining of the year, tubes dont effect or compete with paysites, they compete with the sources of traffic paysites use to drive traffic to pay sites.
Pre checked cross sales and the like are probably playing their part in making surfers not trust pay sites and so made them stop looking as much. But when they are looking they are buying.
Credit crunch, not effecting sales to much over all, but on "bad news" days, sales fall and on "not so bad news" days sales rise, Im seeing much much bigger swings in sales over all.
One conclusion: Traffic is going to be harder and harder to generate and those webmasters without a decent network or a very good brand or very good affiliate program are going to start struggling. Or dare I say an original idea :noway2:
Cardinal_Sin
10-19-08, 11:33 AM
Traffic is getting harder to come by - for certain. You findings match mine to a t. Except traffic - My traffic this year is slightly up on last year - Traffic to fhg's are down, but I have been working much harder than previous years at creating my own traffic and am also fortunate to have a couple of guys working for me that put in a good days work every day -
It has also helped working with several webmasters (you included) building up a lot of x links to many top sites etc - Creating this sort of network is a must going forward, not forgetting other traffic chanels, of course.
Traffic generation is bloody hard work nowadays but it is a must to keep going - A good network of partner webmasters is, too -
redwhiteandblue
10-19-08, 01:23 PM
Do you guys think that traffic is harder to come by because there are more webmasters out there competing for the same amount of surfers, or that there are more forms of online entertainment competing with porn such as Facebook etc, or some other reason?
Do you guys think that traffic is harder to come by because there are more webmasters out there competing for the same amount of surfers, or that there are more forms of online entertainment competing with porn such as Facebook etc, or some other reason?
There is only a fraction of the webmasters out there than even 5 years ago. The world and the web have changed but very few now want to either work or try something different.
Do you guys think that traffic is harder to come by because there are more webmasters out there competing for the same amount of surfers, or that there are more forms of online entertainment competing with porn such as Facebook etc, or some other reason?
Bit of both, but more the latter.
Look at TV, 25 years ago there were 3 channels and programmes would regulalry get 20-30 million viewers, look at the choice now.
BritBomb
10-19-08, 04:59 PM
Success depends on your own set of goals.
I have seen too many people try to take over the whole bloody internet instead of just concentrating on making and marketing a good site or two.
It's almost as it they are playing 'internet Monopoly' ("the family board game for ages 18 and up").
You see it here on B&B - people trying to outdo each other and losing the bloody plot in the meantime.
Nottslad
10-20-08, 04:04 AM
Interesting stuff, decided to look back on my own stats from Sept 2007 and compare. I'm a lot newer than most with only 2 years in so there will be additional factors involved in my stats, but this is what I found:
- Overall traffic ever so slightly down (approx 2%) this despite me building more sites.
- Overall ratios well up from 1:1006 last year to 1:662 this
- No of monthly rebills over 300% up and no of monthly sales 50% up
- Overall income more than double that of the same period last year.
My main emphasis this year has been to focus in on my British stuff and less on sites in other niches that have a more widespread appeal. More reliance on ccbill sites, concentrating on sending a larger proportion of traffic to the sites I seem to do well with and less emphasis on higher volume relatively poorly performing traffic sources.
Similar findings, though traffic & sales are up - uniques to sponsors up by 700k with of course a couple of months yet (not hard considering I'm only at 5 years come December), plus whatever I've sent to my own site, as mentioned elsewhere I don't keep track of those. Ratios are almost identical to last year, last year overall was 1:569, this year so far it sits at 1:627 so no complaints there either.
What I have noticed though, and was in fact just talking to someone the other day about, is trends for the year regarding ccbill & non-ccbill sponsors.
My top sponsor goes like this;
Jan 1:350
Feb 1:312
Mar 1:313
Apr 1:258
May 1:307
Jun 1:379
Jul 1:560
Aug 1:686
Sep 1:661
Oct 1:508
so a worsening conversion rate throughout the year as a whole.
2nd top sponsor (and these are quite a big jump);
Jan 1:470
Feb 1:592
Mar 1:766
Apr 1:540
May 1:657
Jun 1:713
Jul 1:1038
Aug 1:1067
Sep 1:1259
Oct 1:1586
However ccbill shows an almost exact reversal of those, and I was quite surprised... basically Jan 1:1336, and Oct 1:502
Aside from those trends which as I say were a bit surprising, I haven't really seen anything to suggest that tubes impact sales (at least at my level) as much as people claim/suggest. IMO they are the same freebie hunters as before, just that they now go to the big tubes instead of eg the hun et al. I agree with JT that those who do/have buy/bought porn are still doing so, and like anything, you get more freebie hunters as the amount of users expand, but you get the same-ish growth rate of paying surfers.
Oh, and my point of posting the stats was to ask if anyone else was seeing the same sort of rate of higher/lower ratios with ccbill & non-ccbill sponsors?
Paul Markham
10-21-08, 07:51 AM
Traffic is way down, FHGs are starting to become a question of whether we continue to build them, the surfer is simply not hitting them and not converting off them. Building new ones is a drain on finances. I recently spoke to one of the biggest sites on the Net and he has banned many countries from accessing them. He is also cutting back on building them. The business is changing.
Sign ups are down but not too much, we have increased the amount of content in the site to 570 videos and retention and conversions are actually up. Sign up on trials have doubled and the conversion off them is good.
I think the market has changed and the balance has tipped in favor of the surfer. The number of sites available is vast, the surfer is now more experienced and better armed to spot a bad site. He knows most of the tricks or he knows to avoid us. The biggest difference is Tube sites. Many offer a better experience than a lot of paysites.
The biggest dip in our sales over the last few months has been the content stores. Also custom shooters are having their budgets cut or not getting the work. At a time when the surfer is demanding more, many still think the solution is in traffic. No wonder Tubes do so well.
The future will not be good for many. Sites churning out the same exclusive content that thousands of other sites have, sites with a few scenes charging what mega sites offer and sites full of crap content will struggle. Because the surfer is not as easily fooled as he was.
If you still think the answer is to send more traffic I suggest you look for a new trade.
Paul Markham
10-21-08, 08:09 AM
In general we've had 10 years of sponsors building sites to suit themselves, the affiliates, then surfers and finally members. Add to this many of the bad practices we as an industry employed. Now it seems many members who used to be buying porn are not buying porn.
Shock and horror. Who would of expected that?
Pushcube
10-21-08, 09:48 AM
I think the market has changed and the balance has tipped in favor of the surfer. The number of sites available is vast, the surfer is now more experienced and better armed to spot a bad site. He knows most of the tricks or he knows to avoid us. The biggest difference is Tube sites. Many offer a better experience than a lot of paysites.
Bingo. :cheers:
Paul Markham
10-21-08, 01:21 PM
This is of course generalising and there are many exceptions, but they are exceptions and sadly not the rule.
Most sponsors understand the Internet, computers, programing, traffic and affiliates. Porn to them is anything to do with nudity, sex or similar. Most think the members are silly signing up as there is so much free porn around. Very few understand why a surfer becomes a member and stays a member. The solution to most ratio problems is to send more traffic, target traffic better, change the method of generating traffic or change the design.
They do not think an extra hour or two and a few hundred dollars spent getting the content right will improve anything. In fact most of them think the extra time and money is better spent on getting more traffic.
After ten years of this attitude some surfers are voting with their feet. And the solution to the problem for many in the business is to whine that the surfer should not be allowed any options. Few see any other solution than forcing the surfer to buy.
Yes Tubes stealing content is a problem. A bigger problem is the way we have pissed off our customers for the last ten years.
Who here would buy from an industry that treated their clients as badly as we do?
strictlybroadband
10-21-08, 01:31 PM
Our sales fell rapidly from last October to February, after the launch of the big tube sites. We then flattened out, and started growing again in August.
I'm hearing that some big affiliates are seeing a downturn in conversion ratios, and are looking at moving their traffic around. This means that some sponsors will begin gaining at the expense of others, which I think is good news.
BTW we recently put up some of our prices and our sales volume stayed the same. People are still prepared to pay so long as they like the content and service.
Our sales fell rapidly from last October to February, after the launch of the big tube sites. We then flattened out, and started growing again in August.
I'm hearing that some big affiliates are seeing a downturn in conversion ratios, and are looking at moving their traffic around. This means that some sponsors will begin gaining at the expense of others, which I think is good news.
BTW we recently put up some of our prices and our sales volume stayed the same. People are still prepared to pay so long as they like the content and service.
Have I mentioned that our sales have been going up and up and up ?
If not our sales are going up and up :cheer:
Feel free to start promoting us :geek:
A bigger problem is the way we have pissed off our customers for the last ten years.
You shouldn't have done it then
Have I mentioned that our sales have been going up and up and up ?
If not our sales are going up and up
You said up and up and up but now you say up and up, so are sales down then?
You said up and up and up but now you say up and up, so are sales down then?
Fair point, and up :cheer:
Fair point, and up :cheer:
Ahhh ok then, where do I sign?
Ahhh ok then, where do I sign?
Oh the joy of having you as an affiliate :catfight:
BTW we recently put up some of our prices and our sales volume stayed the same. People are still prepared to pay so long as they like the content and service.
Capitalist
strictlybroadband
10-21-08, 03:35 PM
Have I mentioned that our sales have been going up and up and up ?
If not our sales are going up and up :cheer:
Feel free to start promoting us :geek:
This is a porn discussion. Take your stinkin' dating site and promote it somewhere else.
This is a porn discussion. Take your stinkin' dating site and promote it somewhere else.
Ohh so sorry didn't mean to interrupt you with talk of making money :P
strictlybroadband
10-21-08, 04:20 PM
Ohh so sorry didn't mean to interrupt you with talk of making money :P
Growth is soooo 2006.
Growth is soooo 2006.
:jesuslol:
my domains are making less money in parking than they were last year
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