non-recurring trials :(

Webmaster Discussion
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#13

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

i’ve noticed you don’t know much about working as an affiliate. affiliates very very VERY rarely give surfers tons of info about the site or the advantages of which option to buy. we talk about the niche, or even more often in a gallery situation, we show them a few pics or 1 minute of video and tell them that they can see the models inside the site.

i work with several large review sites, and i explain in the reviews twice - once in the body and once in the summary - when sites have limited trials that don’t even allow a member to see one full movie, or that ONLY allow members to see one full movie. but guess what - surfers join the low cost trial anyway. seeing a $1 or $2.95 option just gets some of them all excited, and others don’t “get it”.

in most situations, it’s the site itself that dictates which membership the surfers are going to buy. it doesn’t matter if i expect on my pages that the $24.95 membership is truly the best deal and why if the site i send the traffic to screams about how they offer a $1 for thousands of videos. also if a ccbill page dropdown uses a low cost trial that shows on the page, some guys don’t even realize it’s a dropdown and assume it’s their only choice.

[quote=fetishlad;19084]If a member finds a site and is NOT convinced by an affiliate to take a recurring membership - then the affiliate is responsible for that.

If the member after the trial decides to take out another membership (trial or recurring) then the site itself convinced the member and therefore should get the credit.

Affiliates think they “own” the surfer indefinite - but in this case that is not true - anyway - they “own” a surfer for as long as cookies are valid anyway …[/quote]

#14

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

I am NOT an affiliate…

#15

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

true, but without knowing how it works, you did say:

[quote=fetishlad;19084]If a member finds a site and is NOT convinced by an affiliate to take a recurring membership - then the affiliate is responsible for that.

If the member after the trial decides to take out another membership (trial or recurring) then the site itself convinced the member and therefore should get the credit.

Affiliates think they “own” the surfer indefinite - but in this case that is not true - anyway - they “own” a surfer for as long as cookies are valid anyway …[/quote]

look at all the people on amazon who buy a 1/10 of a carat diamond ring, then feel ripped off that the diamond is small. when people think they have a deal, seems like all sense goes out the window. affiliates can’t keep that from happening.

people join sites after reading reviews that say a site is small, the content isn’t downloadable and the tour is extremely misleading - then write to the review site owners to complain about the very things the review said. i wrote a review of a site with 24 non-exclusive niche pic sets and nothing else. the review said what was in the site very frankly several times - the pics were old, could be seen in many other sites in the same niche that also offered videos. yet even having read this, people joined.

btw, many paysite owners have never been affiliates, but that doesn’t keep them from figuring out how affiliates send traffic and what the site can do to help the affiliates make the paysite owner the most money.

#16

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

true, but without knowing how it works, you did say:

[quote=fetishlad;19084]If a member finds a site and is NOT convinced by an affiliate to take a recurring membership - then the affiliate is responsible for that.

If the member after the trial decides to take out another membership (trial or recurring) then the site itself convinced the member and therefore should get the credit.

Affiliates think they “own” the surfer indefinite - but in this case that is not true - anyway - they “own” a surfer for as long as cookies are valid anyway …[/quote]

look at all the people on amazon who buy a 1/10 of a carat diamond ring, then post angrily that they feel ripped off that the diamond is small - even though the title of the item included “.10 carat” in it AND amazon offers a pic of how the earing will look on the average ear. when people think they have a deal, seems like all sense goes out the window. affiliates can’t keep that from happening.

people join sites after reading reviews that say a site is small, the content isn’t downloadable and the tour is extremely misleading - then write to the review site owners to complain about the very things the review said. i wrote a review of a site with 24 non-exclusive niche pic sets and nothing else. the review said what was in the site very frankly several times - the pics were old, could be seen in many other sites in the same niche that also offered videos. yet even having read this, people joined.

btw, many paysite owners have never been affiliates, but that doesn’t keep them from figuring out how affiliates send traffic and what the site can do to help the affiliates make the paysite owner the most money.

#17

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

I actually DO know how affiliates work.

I know that there are some really good ones (niche dedicated blogs do well, some reviewers too) and some really bad ones …( like with the dis-honest reviews - that actually ALSO looks bad on the membership site owner)

But I stick with my statement on non-recurring memberships.

Affiliates do not own a surfer forever. A “sponsor” website also runs itself - also advertises itself - also tries to make money itself. So they have the right to show a surfer that their site is worth coming back. Well- unless you as an affilate disagree with that and want to diktat (= Russian for dictate) what can and can not be done in a members area …

If every sponsor site owner only relied on affiliates for income then a lot of them would not have the money to do more shoots …

Nor should affiliates tell a sponsor how to run its business - on the “other” board - sponsors were hounded because; “how dare they?” sponsors would have a link page somewhere on their site (and no - not on the tour pages) - OR a sponsor would have a mailing list for updates - now what good is paying commission to an affiliate if they don’t use the update and your first picture can be found on page 59 of a blog???

Or a link to VOD - is another no-no - however sponsors that film - they can do whatever they want and however they want it with their material … even though affiliates are riddled with many links to about every VOD program going - by the way: the sponsors content at that affiliate site has to compete with that too. example - sponsors pictures DO appear next to VOD ads in blogs - the blog has 1 subject (1 shoot) for that picture and the VOD ad offers 1,000s of clips.

Or how well does it work to be on one of those ftp (or whatever they are called) with about 600 pictures on 1 page and 1 of these pictures is yours?
Some affiliates spend about 30 seconds putting a couple of pictures (of a particular sponsor) on a crappy page … pages that look unprofessional - so it also looks bad onthe sponsor.
Oh and sponsors have to be content with review sites doing similar sites and rating the other better …

Oh and then there are affiliates that insist on hosted galleries - and embedded video clips - so a sponsor has to make these galleries and has to host the videos on its on server … and all the affiliate then does is put 1 or 2 lines of html on a page (and I bet that is also automated nowadays) - and they won’t even have to pay for the bandwidth …

So all I am saying - some affiliates have a disproportionate view on how much a sponsor owes them …

By the way - I am not saying all affiliates are bad - but affiliates are a middleman (just to be posh: intermediate) - and sometimes forget that they never produced anything - so they don’t appreciate how sponsors need to pay for all that.

On the other hand there are also affiliates that do a very good job and deserve every penny .

But, I am also playing a little bit of devils advocate now … just to get this interesting thread to be more interesting.

#18

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

in my book, an affiliate does own a surfer till the affiliate is paid fairly for that surfer. after all, i could get paid up to $40 for each member i refer and i do this for a living, so i try to send traffic only to programs that are fair and treat their affiliates as the traffic partners that they are.

#19

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

On the other side, 30 days ago, we started offering a non-recurring standard membership with an additional cost attached ($34.95) and it is selling really really well. Our cancelations have gone way down and revenue has increased. This plays the same for the affiliate. If a surfer joins at the standard rate and then rejoins 1 year later, the affiliate will not get the credit for the sale. But if a surfer is going to join and then cancel before they even hit the member’s area (as many do) then why not offer them the option to avoid canceling and make the one time payment. This actually puts more money in the affiliates pocket. This is done to increase revenue and make the sale easier for surfers to buy since I never find surfers that say “Yes I would prefer to have to cancel” We have members that rejoin every other month, NEVER getting the loyalty discount (which makes zero sense to me).

We will continue to run this experiment for 60 days to see how it plays out.

I can’t follow the logic, since I would like to believe that a member would come back to us in the future simply because they remembered the site, but many members will return via a different affiliate link. Not all of them by any means, but a pretty good number of them.

#20

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

oh, don’t get me wrong - i can live with a non-recurring full month, and they do sell better, which can make up for it not recurring. it’s a non-recurring revshare trial that annoys me. alex, years ago i promoted a site that offered a 1.95 trial for a while. it converted my traffic at 1:13, which meant that for most sales i was being paid under a buck each. i can live with $12 if the site sells well and some of the members do rebill.

what started this thread is that i’m seeing long term programs adding a non-recurring trial of under $10 where most of their affiliates had been splitting $24.95 or $29.95 memberships with them, and they added those trials without telling affiliates. of course, if a program i’m just thinking of signing up for has a $4.95 non recurring trial, it doesn’t annoy me - i just don’t send them any traffic :wink:

[quote=AlexManifestMan;19098]On the other side, 30 days ago, we started offering a non-recurring standard membership with an additional cost attached ($34.95) and it is selling really really well. Our cancelations have gone way down and revenue has increased. This plays the same for the affiliate. If a surfer joins at the standard rate and then rejoins 1 year later, the affiliate will not get the credit for the sale. But if a surfer is going to join and then cancel before they even hit the member’s area (as many do) then why not offer them the option to avoid canceling and make the one time payment. This actually puts more money in the affiliates pocket. This is done to increase revenue and make the sale easier for surfers to buy since I never find surfers that say “Yes I would prefer to have to cancel” We have members that rejoin every other month, NEVER getting the loyalty discount (which makes zero sense to me).

We will continue to run this experiment for 60 days to see how it plays out.

I can’t follow the logic, since I would like to believe that a member would come back to us in the future simply because they remembered the site, but many members will return via a different affiliate link. Not all of them by any means, but a pretty good number of them.[/quote]

#21

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

I totally agree with you on fairness … but if you (read an affiliate) can’t get your surfers to sign up for recurring - but only for a trial - then it is fair that you only get paid for that trial.

I you can entice surfers to go for recurring (and there are many ways to do that - good examples are review sites) - then you should get paid for that too if the program offers that.

But - without me being nasty now (really) - just a question to Basschick.

I had a look at musclebucks - the site manofmuscle.com looks very, very good - the whole tour looks great … very nice for affiliates … no leaks etc - the join page looks good too! (- but it does NOT tell the surfer it is recurring billing - nor that they have to cancel 7 days in advance before they get billed again - I find that a tiny bit of a let down - and not really fair …)

ALSO - if a surfer decides not to join today - but comes back in 4 days - only remembers menofmuscle.com and goes there … and sees a link for muscle porn …
Who exactly gets paid for this code? the affiliate or someone else?

http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=927596-0000&PA=1354005

Is that link fair to affiliates - or am I asking something wrong?

#22

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

as i understand it, my surfers can cancel the same day and not be rebilled - or at least that’s what i was told. also i see some cancelling on the day before who don’t get billed. i believe - and i could be wrong, so i hope that ccbill can shed some light here - that the 7 day thing is to cover asses.

i could go on for days about ways that program owners and affiliates are unfair to each other - after over 12 years in the industry, and several years closely reviewing literally thousands of paysites, i’d have quite a list, but this thread was about one issue that imo is both unusual and unfair from sites that got affiliates to send traffic by NOT offering non recurring trials, then added them after they got all their affiliates to send traffic.

this wasn’t a thread about fairness to affiliates - it was a thread about a single issue, and i feel that you’re trying to change the focus. but i believe the answer is no, affiliates won’t get credit. considering that over 75% of our sales are from affiliates, and almost every sale we make ourselves is from pages we can track outside the tour, my best theory about how this works out is that anyone sending steady traffic to a site will end up losing some sales from guys they send who sign up 5 days later but they’ll also gain some sales from surfers interested in the niche who had originally gone to the site 5 days before from a different affiliate. btw, as an affiliate i have sent traffic to hundreds of ccbill sites that use the standard 3 day cookie and it doesn’t bother me or seem to affect my bottom line. but maybe that’s just me. if it bothers you - and since you don’t send traffic as an affiliate, i can’t see why it would except perhaps very abstractly - please start a new thread about it or join these threads
http://www.gaydemon.biz/search.php?searchid=17761
which have already discussed the issue.

#23

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

[QUOTE=AlexManifestMan;19098]

I can’t follow the logic, since I would like to believe that a member would come back to us in the future simply because they remembered the site, but many members will return via a different affiliate link. Not all of them by any means, but a pretty good number of them.[/QUOTE]

Wait to you have about 120 days of data. You may change your mind. I would say the vast majority return because they liked your site the first time and have it bookmarked. You should be seeing a huge amount of members returning within a week after their membership expired. If you have a transparent tour, then ex-members will be bookmarking the site and returning after each update. When they find one they like, they will join another one month non recur and the loops continues.

#24

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

Sorry I went a bit off-topic …

To go back to the non-recurring …

I do think it is really bad form when a sponsor adds non-recurring without telling existing affiliates.

I am afraid however that affiliates will indeed see this happen more - and will have to put up with it … simply stopping promoting websites will not work - you end up with none - and as we speak - every day new affiliates join the web -ready to take your place.

I wonder if the sponsors are scared of the credit crunch and have done preemptive moves to still get revenue … “it is better to get $10 for a non-recurring, than not getting $20 recurring members”

Could it also be that sponsors saw memberships grow, but revenue fall because the $ devalued that much last year? And want to give more options for Americans who wouldn’t want to pay the "expensive Euros and Pounds? (I can remember getting £1 for $1.40 - now I get £1 for almost $2) - i.e. giving them a non-recurring option.

How about webmasters feeling they are just more fair to surfers? Transparency when it comes to billing - no hidden charges … I think we have all been stung by $1 memberships - which actually ended up being $99 - and being so difficult to get rid of - that you ended up canceling your credit card. That has put so many people off porn … with non-recurring the surfers have no worries.

Also some webmasters know surfers come back when they want - and pay again. They might see the list of updates and only want to join when they see a guy they like - again good for non-recurring.

The adult business on the net is changing - sponsors have to compete very hard with lots of sites that cost them revenue (torrent and tube sites). Imho - some affiliates AND sponsors have helped getting these tube sites off the ground … and now we all have to pay for it …

So that are a few reasons why I think non-recurring will be on the rise.

#25

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

I think it’s important to remember that the affiliate/sponsor relationship is a symbiotic one with great benefits to both sides.

Tube sites and torrents are taking money out of everyones pockets and hurting the diversity of content available in the long run. Remember the boring 90’s porn with the same few big studios charging up the bum for just one video? I see us headed that direction as the big players are the only ones that can afford to sue those stealing from them.

The types of affiliates are just as diverse as the types of sponsors currently so you should be able to find people willing to play by your rules and make money with you.

#26

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

What is a transparent tour?

As for $1.95 trials, I will have to defer to others. I would never whip it out* for $1.95.

There was a very tense exchange at an InterNext seminar on affiliates regarding the ways in which sponsors do or do not use the huge PPS. I thought they were gonna knock each other out.

*my credit card.

#27

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

[QUOTE=AlexManifestMan;19149]What is a transparent tour?

[/QUOTE]

A transparent tour is one that shows what is on the inside of the members area.

Look at this site -
http://polish-boys.com/

This is a transparent tour + pictures. Think about it for a sec. I send a surfer to the site. There is a 3 day cookie. Now go surfing through the tour. There are 1,000s of FREE pics. What will a surfer do? Bookmark it and probably join long after the cookie has expired.

BlakeMason has a transparent tour. What you see on our tour is what you get in the member’s area. I believe you do as well. If http://manifestmen.com/preview-men-of-manifest.cfm updates as your site updates, then you are transparent.

Transparent tours get bookmarked as they have content that is changing. So, someone with little interest in joining the site when he first hits it, may bookmark as he knows he will see something new.

BTW, I agree with the 1.95 model. To make that work you need to do sneaky X-sells and many big companies have 10+ merchant accounts just to manage the risk.

#28

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

Got it. This is were we show what is inside. http://ManifestMen.com/preview-manifestmen-videos-updates.cfm We try to give them a pretty clear idea, but 1000’s of pictures? I don’t know that I could do that. But that is kind of like sites that say “20 NEW CLIPS ADDED THIS WEEK” when really it is one video that has been cut up into five 2 minute parts in two formats. Hell if that was acceptable we could say 24 new clips added EACH WEEK.

But to bring that back, if they don’t want Mom or BF or Wifey to know where they have been, they delete EVERYTHING after each viewing session hence bye bye cookie

#29

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

okay, fetishlad - i pm’ed dean from ccbill this question:

and he responded:

so there you have it - i’m not tricking or misleading my members nor is anyone else using ccbill. it appears that the terms are just there to cover everyone’s ass just in case something goes wrong.

#30

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

from ccbill terms:

[LEFT][SIZE=2][SIZE=2] 5. Automatic Recurring Billing (If Selected By You On The Sign Up Page) [/SIZE] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][SIZE=2] As determined by the content provider of the site, subscription fees may be automatically renewed at the end of the original term selected, for a similar period of time, unless notice is received from the subscriber seven (7) days before renewal. All special introductory offer Members shall be exempt from the 7 day notification requirement, but subscriber must notify CCBill directly 24 hours prior to the end of the trial/special offer period in order to cancel automatic renewal. All trial/special offer memberships shall renew at the stated membership rate. The maximum term of this agreement is 100 months.
Unless and until this agreement is cancelled in accordance with the terms hereof, subscriber hereby authorizes CCBill to charge subscriber’s chosen payment method to pay for the ongoing cost of membership. Subscriber hereby further authorizes CCBill to charge subscriber’s chosen payment method for any and all additional purchases of services and entertainment provided by the site.[/SIZE] [/SIZE][/LEFT]

So he does not know what is in their terms page … or he does and will use it for - well what exactly?

And Bass … you are bound by their rules - so you can’t help it of course … I don’t think you would make a problem out of anyone wanting to cancel when they decide to …

#31

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

fetishlad, those terms are there to cover their ass - and ours. i’ve talked to several people from ccbill about it AND i’ve seen many of my members cancel the day before they were due to rebill and not be rebilled.

#32

Re: non-recurring trials :frowning:

Actually I wouldn’t mind a customer canceling at 3 weeks instead of the day before expiration, though I prefer they renew of course :smiley:

I don’t think most customers even read those long terms before signing up anyway.