View Full Version : Im thinking of opening a new site and not opening it to affiliates.
What you guys think?
Just buying spots on the relevant TGP's and not giving 50% to affiliates. A very bad idea?
mellenig
12-13-05, 12:23 PM
If it's exclusive content and if you have enough of a advertising budget then if it was me I would keep it to myself for the first few months then open it to affiliates.
Or just maybe open it to selected affiliates :kissass:
If it's exclusive content and if you have enough of a advertising budget then if it was me I would keep it to myself for the first few months then open it to affiliates.
Or just maybe open it to selected affiliates :kissass:
'Zactly what I've done. I work way too hard at this game to give 50% to any passing idiot. It has to be a very special kind of idiot to get an invite to our program.
'Zactly what I've done. I work way too hard at this game to give 50% to any passing idiot. It has to be a very special kind of idiot to get an invite to our program.
That was my plan, I did have it set up so that webmasters could E-mail me some samples of their work before accepting them.
It makes them feel like they are elite :)
Only problem is will they bother e-mailing, well if not then fuck em :lmao2:
I have now opened it up to anyone, so if you want to promote E-mail me :lmao2:
Jup bloody brilliant idea mate. I've got a micro niche site only open to myself and working on a few more to be launched this week only for myself as well. Fuck the affiliates and just buy traffic to the site/s yourself. Less hassles.
Note. Having affiliates has many bennifits I do reliase, I just don't want or need them. :)
-N
Cardinal_Sin
12-13-05, 02:39 PM
What you guys think?
Just buying spots on the relevant TGP's and not giving 50% to affiliates. A very bad idea?
Why?
If the site is related someway to the sites you already have, then ok - Simply X sell and upsell to the new site - But, at the end of the day, 50% to an affiliate is not 50% lost, it's 50% gained.
Why?
If the site is related someway to the sites you already have, then ok - Simply X sell and upsell to the new site - But, at the end of the day, 50% to an affiliate is not 50% lost, it's 50% gained.
Yeah that's a good way of looking at it.
Also why not do the paid spots and stuff as well as have affiliates, even more money ;)
xcite-tv
12-13-05, 03:23 PM
You are all being very shortsighted if your doing this to make money
xcite-tv
12-13-05, 03:24 PM
But, at the end of the day, 50% to an affiliate is not 50% lost, it's 50% gained.
Exactly :cheers2:
Why?
If the site is related someway to the sites you already have, then ok - Simply X sell and upsell to the new site - But, at the end of the day, 50% to an affiliate is not 50% lost, it's 50% gained.
Thats what Ive always thought and now have well over 1200 affiliates. So one option is to give it to affiliates.
But the other option is to maybe keep all the content and pay for marketing the old fashioned way, buying spots on all the relevant niche sites etc and not compete with my own affiliates for sales.
Ive always thought the affiliate route was the one to go for. But maybe for smaller micro niches it may not be
Why?
If the site is related someway to the sites you already have, then ok - Simply X sell and upsell to the new site - But, at the end of the day, 50% to an affiliate is not 50% lost, it's 50% gained.
Also, I know you you have at least three sites that you dont open to affiliates :)
dvtimes
12-13-05, 03:48 PM
I have heard this argument before.
In truth if your a one man band operator I can see the sense of not wanting affiliates, simply as it cuts down on the hassle. An example being is that you have to set up fhg for webmasters, which is added cost (cost of someone making them, hosting, and badwidth, hosts) and so on. Plus if you bought the content then you may simply be putting out content surfers may have seen. While if you do not have affiliates you can concentrate on doing your own thing.
But if you plan on doing your own content, andyou have a few working on the site, such as one person taking the content, another working on the design of the site, another doing the technical stuff, such as working on the server and maybe working on clever scripts to make the site more exciting and so on, having affiliates makes more sense. No point having a product if no one knows about it.
It makes me giggle when I see webmasters moan about giving 50% of sales away. To me its the best form (and cheapest) of advertising. You have someone who is working for you for free, advertising your site to thousands of people, then you moan if he gets $5 for every sale. Often these people are working extremely hard, and doing a good job. If you paid them min wage to do what they are doing I bet it would cost you far more.
Yes, you have put time and money into your site, but many of those promoting your site will but putting the same amount of time and money into promoting your site.
I often get sales for my own sites via affiliates, clearly they are doing a better job of promoting my own sites than I am. So if they get some money from m,e for doingso, good.
My mate (a model) runs who own site (using ccbill). I said to her she would make more money having an affiliate scheme as it was easy to set up. But she feels its like giving away her money. Her site (Its not faire to name it) has 98 members. She seems happy with that. Yet she paid out £3000 to have the site designed, money on hosting and so on.
You are all being very shortsighted if your doing this to make money
Not all big programs use the affiliate model. I can name some fucking huge sites that dont have affiliate programs. But instead market the old fashioned way.
The affiliate model isnt the only one. Its just the easiest in many ways.
Ive been running my affiliate program since 99 and have a decent amount of affiliates, all with vairying degrees of success. But I dont relly on affiliates and certainly would keep it that way, all the time I'm using CCBill. Because if they went tommorow and you had built your business on CCBill. Tommorow you would have no business.
dvtimes
12-13-05, 03:59 PM
Not all big programs use the affiliate model. I can name some fucking huge sites that dont have affiliate programs. But instead market the old fashioned way.
The affiliate model isnt the only one. Its just the easiest in many ways.
Ive been running my affiliate program since 99 and have a decent amount of affiliates, all with vairying degrees of success. But I dont relly on affiliates and certainly would keep it that way, all the time I'm using CCBill. Because if they went tommorow and you had built your business on CCBill. Tommorow you would have no business.
I suspect if you started off with a lot of cash, and maybe people who were happy to work for you fore free to start things off, then you can afford to not bother with affiliates.
I would also argue that it helps if your US based, simply as its easer to promote adult sites. I know one US site that is huge. It does not have an affiliate scheme, but because of what the site is, they are constantly on usa TV and radio.
I'd say it is worth it initially. Besides, the very fact that affiliates cannot promote it may help it become popular later on when you do open it up to affiliates. Elitism sells.
In truth if your a one man band operator I can see the sense of not wanting affiliates, simply as it cuts down on the hassle. An example being is that you have to set up fhg for webmasters, which is added cost (cost of someone making them, hosting, and badwidth, hosts) and so on.
not necessarily. the other day i imported some FHGs from a sponsor i signed up newly. one of the FHGs sported a recip to one of our TGPs. now we can assume they love our TGP as much to force everyone listing that gallery to have a recip to us, or we can think of it as a gallery they built for submitting themselves and recycled as FHG lateron. which could be done by any smallish affiliate program.
dvtimes
12-13-05, 05:53 PM
not necessarily. the other day i imported some FHGs from a sponsor i signed up newly. one of the FHGs sported a recip to one of our TGPs. now we can assume they love our TGP as much to force everyone listing that gallery to have a recip to us, or we can think of it as a gallery they built for submitting themselves and recycled as FHG lateron. which could be done by any smallish affiliate program.
I think if your going to have affiliates it makes sense to get someone to make them for you.
Its so cheap to pay someone in the USA.
I would suggest no less than 10 fhg.
I have seen some absolutely terrible fhg, as such did not bother to promote them.
I emailed one webmaster that his fhg were very very slow to load. He told me to host them myself. So never bothered to promote him.
Its funny how some webmasters think thatI am so desperate to promote them, that they expect me to mess about making my own galleries and hosting them. Just far too many fish in the sea.
I not a big player, but I have got many sales for websites and sent them thousands of hits. But that's a few more sales they have got that they would not if I was not promoting them.
I think if your going to have affiliates it makes sense to get someone to make them for you.
Its so cheap to pay someone in the USA.
so why was it a problem in your previous post? :confused:
dvtimes
12-13-05, 06:20 PM
so why was it a problem in your previous post? :confused:
What I mean, is that if your starting off with a small amount of cash and experience, you could find you end up paying out far more than your making.
An example, paying someone to do your FHG , then hosting is a big expense to a new site. Also if the person is new he may host on the wrong type of server (as it cost him a lot in bandwidth) or host on a cheap but rubbish one (slow).
Experience can get over a lot of problems. And also having others involved to help.
What I mean, is that if your starting off with a small amount of cash and experience, you could find you end up paying out far more than your making.
An example, paying someone to do your FHG , then hosting is a big expense to a new site. Also if the person is new he may host on the wrong type of server (as it cost him a lot in bandwidth) or host on a cheap but rubbish one (slow).
Experience can get over a lot of problems. And also having others involved to help.
so what you are saying is that an average Netpond - to name just one newbie board - surfer would crash and burn. yes, i agree with that. i do however fail to see what this has to do with this thread.
also, first you say setting up FHGs is a problem, i point out that your own galleries can be recycled and used as FHGs, so you come up with outsourcing it. which you then declare too expensive.
do you actually have a point or are you just arguing against whatever is said?
dvtimes
12-13-05, 06:31 PM
so what you are saying is that an average Netpond - to name just one newbie board - surfer would crash and burn. yes, i agree with that. i do however fail to see what this has to do with this thread.
also, first you say setting up FHGs is a problem, i point out that your own galleries can be recycled and used as FHGs, so you come up with outsourcing it. which you then declare too expensive.
do you actually have a point or are you just arguing against whatever is said?
I am simply pointing out that for someone new, inexperienced it can make more since not to start off with affiliates until one gains experience.
But if you intend on making it big affiliates are a cheap way of promoting your site.
There are exceptions, and ways to get sales without affiliates, but this depends on what your site is. But as this entails a bit of clever marketing that I picked up, I am hardly likely to tell people this for free, however I have in the past done a few tricks for the odd site (that I thought I could help) and get them grate sales, but I did charge for this.
Cardinal_Sin
12-13-05, 06:40 PM
Also, I know you you have at least three sites that you dont open to affiliates :)
A couple I have are micro niche and I have a pretty good hold on the market - New surfers come to the sites because they knew the name often long before they had a computer -
The other sites I had, I actually put into another programme which already had a much larger affiliate base for those fetishes than I had - This not only saved me a load of work, but also made me more cash in the long run -
mellenig
12-13-05, 06:43 PM
I am simply pointing out that for someone new, inexperienced it can make more since not to start off with affiliates until one gains experience.
You should gain experince before starting an affiliate program just my :twocents:
You should gain experince before starting an affiliate program just my :twocents:
You took the word right out of my mouth, it must have been while you were kissing me :)
Yes it can work just fine but you have to already have a lot of your own traffic because just relying on submits and paid spots would be a non-starter now if you wanted to make *good* money as all of the good spots are either way over priced or booked many months in advance.
If a program was to reach the million dollar payout to affiliates by say September in the year it would be easy to think that you could use that money to pay good staff, premises, big advertising budget, etc to be able to generate those sales in house but in reality do you need to take the risk? Do you really think you could find the right people? Do you really need an ulcer that bad?
There are other ways of looking at the situation and looking at the affiliates percentage is just one very small part of a very complex business.
If you bought paid spots, would you send that traffic to a completely leak free design, or to a design with links on so as to generate additional traffic in the assumption of if the surfer does not convert, use him at least as a trade?
dvtimes
12-13-05, 10:31 PM
If you bought paid spots, would you send that traffic to a completely leak free design, or to a design with links on so as to generate additional traffic in the assumption of if the surfer does not convert, use him at least as a trade?
Surly if you pay for a spot, its going to cost you more than if you have to pay affiliates?????
With affiliates they do all the work, you could just sit back and do nothing.
If you pay for spots, you may not even make a sale.
Surly if you pay for a spot, its going to cost you more than if you have to pay affiliates?????
With affiliates they do all the work, you could just sit back and do nothing.
If you pay for spots, you may not even make a sale.
Bingo. But if you cant make a spot on a site pay, then how can you expect an affiliate whos spot it is make it pay?
Bingo. But if you cant make a spot on a site pay, then how can you expect an affiliate whos spot it is make it pay?
that's not your worry though, is it? if the affiliate burns money without any sales, you lost nothing but bandwith.
mellenig
12-13-05, 10:39 PM
With affiliates they do all the work, you could just sit back and do nothing.
:) I wouldnt think program owners would agree with you on that
dvtimes
12-13-05, 10:40 PM
To me affiliates are sales reps.
They do a great job of selling as no sales means no money.
I used to do sales (door to door as well as business to business). And its a good way to sell a product or service.
It works out better than an advert on TV for many products.
I used to sell OnDigital, and belive me, we got better sales than the TV ads. Shops were lucky to get a sale a day (I used to ask the big stores). We used to each sell around 20 boxes a day (well the service as the box was free).
In fact there are very few products that are sold without an affiliate acting in some form or other. Basicly your supermarket is one huge affiliate. OK they may buy the goods, but there aim is to sell and make a profit.
Could you imagine voda phone in the begining that they did not want the phone shops to sell the phones as they wanted all the cash. They would not exsist now, or if they did still exsist would have only a few customers.
Affiliates = Multi level marketing = big £'s
dvtimes
12-13-05, 10:42 PM
:) I wouldnt think program owners would agree with you on that
By this I mean they do the work of getting customers, you can consentrate on doing the site.
mellenig
12-13-05, 10:43 PM
that's not your worry though, is it? if the affiliate burns money without any sales, you lost nothing but bandwith.
As a program owner would you release a site that doesnt convert? Id want to know that I was giving my affiliates something that i had at least tested and that converted.
As a program owner would you release a site that doesnt convert? Id want to know that I was giving my affiliates something that i had at least tested and that converted.
Very true, but you have to factor in that your affiliate would still know how to sell it.
I am sure help pages may advise them, but do they really read all that stuff?
Who here educates their affiliates?
dvtimes
12-13-05, 10:51 PM
Very true, but you have to factor in that your affiliate would still know how to sell it.
I am sure help pages may advise them, but do they really read all that stuff?
Who here educates their affiliates?
From reading posts on GFY some of those chaps seem to know a HUGE amount. Some talk like they pull in 60k a day. OK it could be all talk, but I still would be happy if they would promoting your site.
As a program owner would you release a site that doesnt convert?
where did i suggest anything like that?
As a program owner would you release a site that doesnt convert? Id want to know that I was giving my affiliates something that i had at least tested and that converted.
I would guess that at least 95% don't.
dvtimes
12-13-05, 11:21 PM
As a program owner would you release a site that doesnt convert? Id want to know that I was giving my affiliates something that i had at least tested and that converted.
It depends where the fhg is placed.
an example being thehun. It gets a million or so hits. But people seem to only be getting 20 or so sign ups (I may be wrong, but I am going by what webmasters post). To me thats not a good ratio.
This is becase people go to thehun for free porn.
But place your links where people are not looking for free porn, then you should get a better ratio, and cost you far less in badwidth.
Also if your fighting for the same customers as everybody else then its harder. Much better to get customers where others are not.
One reason nich or fetish sites do better is that as long as only a few sites are doing there fetish, then they have a lot less competition, and in fact peoiple may find you much easer. ie, if you site is girls sitting on 1989 London phone books (just made it up, but it will be a turn on I bet to some) then, if they type in london 1989 porn, with luck your site will be in the top of google.
The Hun doesn't accept fhgs
It depends where the fhg is placed.
an example being thehun. It gets a million or so hits. But people seem to only be getting 20 or so sign ups (I may be wrong, but I am going by what webmasters post). To me thats not a good ratio.
This is becase people go to thehun for free porn.
But place your links where people are not looking for free porn, then you should get a better ratio, and cost you far less in badwidth.
Also if your fighting for the same customers as everybody else then its harder. Much better to get customers where others are not.
One reason nich or fetish sites do better is that as long as only a few sites are doing there fetish, then they have a lot less competition, and in fact peoiple may find you much easer. ie, if you site is girls sitting on 1989 London phone books (just made it up, but it will be a turn on I bet to some) then, if they type in london 1989 porn, with luck your site will be in the top of google.
That is a complete misunderstanding of how to convert traffic into money but your thoughts are in tune with most webmasters now it seems.
mellenig
12-14-05, 08:56 AM
where did i suggest anything like that?.
Originally Posted by Johny Traffic
Bingo. But if you cant make a spot on a site pay, then how can you expect an affiliate whos spot it is make it pay?
that's not your worry though, is it? if the affiliate burns money without any sales, you lost nothing but bandwith.
Maybe I read it wrong but you seemed to suggest that here
mellenig
12-14-05, 09:26 AM
I would guess that at least 95% don't.
I agree 100% that you can see from a lot of programs that the owners have not tested them on traffic but what I was trying to say wouldnt it be better for him to test it first.
I just thought it would be better to give a site to his affilites that he knew sold rather than one that didnt very well.
I know from experince that you can more or less sell any site, and all sites convert different on different sources of traffic. But i'd rather have affiliates saying for example "look at my ratio's im 1 in 500" rather than "look at my ratio's I'm in 3000" I know you will say you will always have affiliates doing high numbers but testing a site first may help avoid that to an extent.
I'm speaking from personal opinion rather than experince
mellenig
12-14-05, 10:01 AM
It depends where the fhg is placed.
an example being thehun. It gets a million or so hits. But people seem to only be getting 20 or so sign ups (I may be wrong, but I am going by what webmasters post). To me thats not a good ratio.
This is becase people go to thehun for free porn.
Yes but those million of so hits are all from horny surfers looking to get off and yes they are looking for free porn but the trick is knowing how convert them with the right site and gallery.
But place your links where people are not looking for free porn, then you should get a better ratio, and cost you far less in badwidth.
The only place to target then is surfers who are not looking for porn? I'd think that if a surfer was looking for porn he would be looking for free porn stands to sense you look for something free first. So they end up somewhere like the Hun
Also if your fighting for the same customers as everybody else then its harder. Much better to get customers where others are not..
Yes id agree with that
There is positives and negatives to this
If you were to open the site mate and just do self promo would you upsell your other sites from the members area ?( this would create extra reveune instead of getting 1 sign up out of the user you might get 2 and rebills) or would you add the other sites as extra like you do now to help the rebills of this new site?
It can also get you good affiliates by just doing self promo biggy that runs melissmidwest bought spots on alot of the teen tgps ( this is just an example i know your site isn't teen) but affiliates had to e-mail him with what sites they run etc before he would allowed then to sign up and promote the site. People look at tgp's to see whats being promoted and usally follow suit.
The 50% of something is better then 50% of nothing
There is alot of way's to promote a site DVT
http://www.dvtimes.com/fporn172.htm i can't belive how much se traffic you lose out on by just putting a girls name instead of descriptions :lmao2:
Originally Posted by Johny Traffic
Bingo. But if you cant make a spot on a site pay, then how can you expect an affiliate whos spot it is make it pay?
Maybe I read it wrong but you seemed to suggest that here
nah, i was merely pointing out that if the worst case scenario of no sales occurs, the loss for him would be less hurtful, as he didn't invest in the spot. :)
mellenig
12-14-05, 06:35 PM
nah, i was merely pointing out that if the worst case scenario of no sales occurs, the loss for him would be less hurtful, as he didn't invest in the spot. :)
Ah right sorry read it wrong then :)
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