What %age of joins did affiliates send 5 years ago?

[Head Boy]

Why do affiliate programmes want out traffic if it's so bad? and if they want it so badly, why do they abuse it when they get it?

[Jel]

Originally Posted by Head Boy

It's a pain in the arse for me to see the increase in email harvesters on tours, the support of Zango and other traffic thieves, the unaffiliated popups and other leaks. I don't have to post names, they're on blatant display because some sponsors have no respect for their affilates, or their intelligence.

Of course there are honest sponsors, but the old saying that you shouldn't run with thieves if you want to be considered an honest man, is still true. I don't know how a sponsor can project an honest image at a time when many sponsors don't give a fuck. I'd really like to know, because I want to go forward with the honest sponsors.

The problem is newbies read your posts and assume that's the norm, when it isn't. I don't encourage zango et al, I don't have an email box on my affiliate's tour, I set the maximum cookie length possible with ccbill, I pay unlimited rebills. The majority of revshare programs are the same.

Email boxes on PPS programs are not 'stealing' your traffic, and are not dishonest. As for the circa 10 sponsors that run with zango, that's obviously a minority, so please don't accuse me of 'running with thieves' just because I run a paysite. That's exactly the same as me accusing you of running with thieves because some affiliates install the zango toolbar. Should I say most affiliates are cheats? Of course I shouldn't, and nor would I

[Jel]

Originally Posted by Head Boy

Why do affiliate programmes want out traffic if it's so bad? and if they want it so badly, why do they abuse it when they get it?

Who says it is so bad?

Who abuses it?

[Head Boy]

Unfortunately it has become the norm, and I haven't looked at your programme Jel (which is probably a mistake on my part), so no comments are addressed to you directly.

Ane email box on a tour is theft in my opinion, as the sponsor hasn't paid anything for that traffic. There is a defence known as "tacit permission", and this means that if you see someone taking money out of your wallet, and you don't say anything, then you are giving him permission. Affiliates may give tacit permission to sponsors, but I still think it is wrong, and that it shows disrespect for the affiliate.

Who says affiliate traffic is bad? - The sponsors posting in these types of thread, or have I misunderstood their posts?

[LezGeri]

I'm sure the aff.signup/non aff.signup ratio varies a great deal from sponsor to sponsor.

Some sponsors are very temperamental & frankly duplicitous as well, in regards to their aff.progs. - I've had a sponsor complain that her aff.prog was more trouble than it was worth & that she got 90%+ of her sales through her own efforts. Then she got a professional into manage her program & it swiftly became evident than in fact that she relied very heavily on affiliate generated sales.

Other sponsors however are far more appreciative.

This is a quote from an email I received about this time last year.

Hello Geri,

We noticed your sales for ****** have been well up this past week and wanted to express our thanks and admiration. Is there anything we can do to help you? We had set you up with access to the member's areas so you could select content for your site[s] -- is that still working? We have been trying to revamp and expand our affiliate support but we're also trying to redesign and recode some of the network and it's been very slow going. But if there is anything that would help you, please don't hesitate to ask. Your support has been a bright spot in an otherwise somewhat challenging year.

Thanks so much,
Robin

This was from sponsor for whom I now generate sales on a daily basis I don't think they rely on my work to keep them in business, but I'm sure my contribution is much appreciated.

[_LB_]

Originally Posted by Head Boy

Why do affiliate programmes want out traffic if it's so bad? and if they want it so badly, why do they abuse it when they get it?

Who says they do ?

I haven't seen any proof that would lead me to believe that sponsors have done anything but improve over the years.

I'm interested in where you get your information.

[LezGeri]

Originally Posted by Player Rob

90% of your affiliates are pure shit, most have day jobs and are just trying to make some extra beer money but are so pathetic that they cant even make that and that stand for every affiliate program I have work for.

I'm sure some of my sponsors make assumptions like that about me. As I said in the epiccash for sale thread I never made a $ with them.

The truth is when you start up in this biz as an affiliate you tend to signup with a lot of progs. and if you keep at it you end up working on the sponsors you find you can get results for & others get neglected That's so in my case.

Originally Posted by Player Rob

Ibill must have made a fortune by not allowing merged accounts and setting the minimum payment to $50. That way they would have thousands, if not over a million accounts with less than $50 in never getting paid out.

Ibill is no longer operating. CCBill is.

Maybe ibill made so much money they shut up shop and retired to the Bahamas. And maybe they just went out of business.

[Jel]

Originally Posted by Head Boy

Who says affiliate traffic is bad? - The sponsors posting in these types of thread, or have I misunderstood their posts?

I think you've misunderstood

It's not that the traffic bad per se, it's that only a few affiliates send any traffic. The less affiliates that send traffic, the more you rely on inhouse sales. That's why sponsors are crying out for affiliates, and that's why the vast, vast, majority of sponsors will not fuck with your traffic.

[Jel]

Originally Posted by LezGeri

The truth is when you start up in this biz as an affiliate you tend to signup with a lot of progs. and if you keep at it you end up working on the sponsors you find you can get results for & others get neglected That's so in my case.

Exactly so, and once you have those programs you make the $ with, you are far less likely to sign up for new programs, and as more programs open, the more the shift from 80|20 to 90|10 or more. In my first year I signed up to about 80 sponsors. This year I think I've signed up to 3.

[Head Boy]

Originally Posted by Jel

I think you've misunderstood

It's not that the traffic bad per se, it's that only a few affiliates send any traffic. The less affiliates that send traffic, the more you rely on inhouse sales. That's why sponsors are crying out for affiliates, and that's why the vast, vast, majority of sponsors will not fuck with your traffic.

I've probably got 3 or 4 hundred domain names that i haven't bothered to host. I haven't done much to promote sponsors for the last couple of years because I question the rewards. I don't have the same business as most affiliates, and I don't want to build the usual types of sites - not because their isn't money in doing it, but because it isn't my type of challenge.

I start these types of thread to try to discover if I should be pushing traffic directly to sponsors, or if I should run it through aggregators instead. To a certain extent it's the sponsors job to convince me that I should send my traffic to them, and right now they aren't doing a very good job.

[Head Boy]

Jel - I've looked at your programme, and I'm not sure why you take exception to my posts. You're using ccbill with revshare payments, and you seem to have leak free tours. Isn't that exactly the type of sponsor I class as honest, and the ones that I suggest that we should be promoting. I would have thought it was in your interest to support me in encouraging affiliates to move away from sponsors with "black hole" sites that suck in our surfers.

[Jel]

Originally Posted by Head Boy

Jel - I've looked at your programme, and I'm not sure why you take exception to my posts. You're using ccbill with revshare payments, and you seem to have leak free tours. Isn't that exactly the type of sponsor I class as honest, and the ones that I suggest that we should be promoting. I would have thought it was in your interest to support me in encouraging affiliates to move away from sponsors with "black hole" sites that suck in our surfers.

Heh, yes I do, but it wasn't until just now now that you looked. Now, a newbie reading your posts, in which you often say/state sponsors are in the shyster business, may not even bother to look at my sig, or for that matter a number of reputable people who post here sigs. With 3 lines of text per sig, or numerous unlimited lines per post to 'slag off' (for want of a better phrase) paysites, just because they aren't your revenue stream of choice, is what kinda grates me

Similarly, as I've been saying, most revshare programs aren't these 'black hole' sites/tours that you seem to think are the 'norm'.

[Tuula]

Originally Posted by Head Boy

Any chance I can get some opinions on this. I need to decide if I should send my traffic to parking programmes plus a small selection of sponsors, or if I should put some effort into increasing the amount of traffic I send to a broader range of sponsors.

Head Boy honestly I think you should go with option 1, I've said this before in other threads, I think the way things are changing in our industry, people should really stay focused on a few niches that they know well and that they can sell well. Send more traffic etc. if ain't broke don't fix it.

[Head Boy]

I've been around a while Tuula, and I reckon I can sell most niches - even balloons, sissies and shaved teens. I've even got traffic for them.

For me, the real question is if I drop the big sponsors with pps, and focus on the smaller sites run by enthusiasts. I reckon it's more important that the sponsor understands the niche than I do.

[Head Boy]

Originally Posted by Jel

Heh, yes I do, but it wasn't until just now now that you looked. Now, a newbie reading your posts, in which you often say/state sponsors are in the shyster business, may not even bother to look at my sig, or for that matter a number of reputable people who post here sigs. With 3 lines of text per sig, or numerous unlimited lines per post to 'slag off' (for want of a better phrase) paysites, just because they aren't your revenue stream of choice, is what kinda grates me

Similarly, as I've been saying, most revshare programs aren't these 'black hole' sites/tours that you seem to think are the 'norm'.

I hope that newbies do read my posts, and that they make them sit back and think. Also, I hope that they reflect on the rsponses to my posts that attempt to trash me rather than to rationalise other diffences in opinion. pps is on a downward drift at the moment, with unsustainable increases in payments.
Sponsors don't ask themselves "how much can I afford?", but they now ask "how much must I promise to get your traffic?". Where is the money coming from to pay the difference between what they can afford, and that which they promise?

[AmeliaG]

When I first started doing paysites in like 1999, my affiliate program was only open to contributors i.e. models, photographers, writers, and such. Eventually, I opened the program up to like $4 per sign up for the general public and 50% recurring for contributors. I think I probably left a lot of money on the table there. I had assumed that offering bigger payouts would just mean people who wanted memberships would sign up for the affiliate program to get a discount on their own membership. (The sound you hear is me smacking myself in the forehead.)

Affiliates definitely got me some sales when I started offering a proper 50/50 affiliate program. When Globill went under, I paid all my affiliates out of pocket and gave a special percentage to those who came with me over to CCBill. I got serious about the affiliate side then and the SpookyCash program really took off from there. At this point, we've got more affiliates than all but the very top tier programs . . . and I'm still my own best affiliate.

I was very optimistic when I started going to shows more regularly and found the boards and all. I've been kind of disappointed by how many of the guys who tell me over beer that they can effortlessly send 30 signups a day, who never do getting around to putting those links or whatever up. I'm not sure what I could do to make things easier or more attractive for affiliates, although I'd certainly welcome feedback, as I believe there are more affiliates out there with serious traffic who could be promoting my stuff.

I've got leak-free affiliate tours where affiliates get paid on all exit. I've also got nonaffiliate tours where I can trade exit with other programs. I offer, not only hosted free sites and free hosted galleries, but a full hosted TGP where affiliates get paid on every link. I've got a hosted blog and I'm pretty sure SpookyCash rolled out the first affiliate coded RSS feed. I've brought hot girls to shows and exhibited and given out some T-shirts which were pretty bitchin, if I do say so myself.

I have some really great affiliates who I am very grateful to have on board, but more would be better. So what else could I (or any sponsor) do to make affiliate traffic and sales bring in bigger revenue?

[Head Boy]

I really like your sites Amelia, and I signed up quite a while ago. I'm afraid that I'm one of the affiliates that hasn't come across with the traffic though, and I'm not really sure why. I think I got seduced into promoting the larger multi-site sponsors because of the ease of chucking together quick mini sites to put on domains.

I don't know how you can get more traffic, but one idea was to try promoting your girls on the boring cooking teen pages. I thought that may create a bit of interest, but I'm not really a promoter of teens.

As a personal view, I think going to pps is the wrong thing for you, especially if your sites retain and get cross sales with credits. I can't really rationalise that view as I've not had any informative responses to my comments on the decline of the affilate role. Reading behind the comments I've seen, I think it's time for me to move away from the multi-site sponsors, and to focus more on sites like yours and Jels. I'm also going to try to avoid pps sponsors in favour of revshare with good rebillers like Linda Might.

I gather I'm not a typical affiliate though.