After so much time away from the biz watching these conversion rates is almost comical!

i hear lots of trash on all the boards about how great a lot of these programs convert.....but have yet to see even ONE program break 1:800 at BEST!

On just about 100% TARGETED SE traffic...

this industry definitely has one foot in the grave and the other on loose dirt!

glad i came back.



:blink:

Jim - I'll say what most are afraid to

This has been one of the worst weeks ever (which is really odd as I had one of the best weeks of the year just 2 weeks ago)

On line porn as we knew it is all but dead*



*Hopefully that will be subject to change one day in the future
But honestly I think there will have to be a total collapse of the on line porn industry with many closing up shop, sites getting taken down due to non payment of (hosting) bills or what have you
and all the beer money fucks gone
the pain is only starting AND I CAN'T WAIT!!!

If I didn't have a loyal customer base things would be more painful for me
But after 7 years of great service I have a loyal customer base

Vick....i agree with you 100%

from what i see there is NO WAY in hell these folks are going to survive!

glad i will be approaching this from a different angle.......

it seems nothing for a program to be shaving upwards of 60% nowadays....
(maybe more!)

the only thing doing joins from my traffic is my own sites!

nothing from sponsors....and i mean nothing.....

0:2000
0:850
0:1280

etc....etc.....etc.......


glad i also have a nice customer base that i have kept up with over the last year and a half.....

PMB is still doing ok...nothing like the conversions/sales of yesteryear, but still ok nonetheless.

We still have a minimum of 5 sites each week doing under 1:500 overall on all traffic (couple of sites consistently, the rest shuffle around a bit).

And that's non-shaved, first page uniques, no fucking around with hit counting. :)

Lisa...tell you what....i will run whatever sites you suggest....as long as i can post results here on oprano......

I will even target the traffic for the specific niche.......if you convert 1:500 you will be my main sponsor for what we are rolling out....deal? :)

I open this challenge to any sponsors out there willing to make their stats public.....

Just checking with the boss, but I can't see a problem with it.

I'll let you know soon as I hear from Bill. :)

Jim , Vick,

As I have posted , I found the exact same results.
I send little to no traffic to adult , 5k clicks tops from old pages sites etc

However if you find a non adult program and send the traffic looking for "hot college sluts" there , its like they have a 15 second memory and change there minds and you find the nonadult converts better.

Weird , huh.

Not at all :D

NP Lisa.....i am sure Bill would wanna step up to the plate.....
:)


i may have to test some non-adult stuff....i do have a shitload of emails coming in now......i will start a sending soon....

If you are converting so poorly with all this traffic, on so many different sites and programs, maybe its your traffic?

Traffic is not what it used to be. All traffic has suffered from the TGPization. In the old days SEs were a place for newbies to find their porn. They would whip out their credit cards. Now they know they can find free porn everywhere.

Don't even get me started on third party processors.

I can still do good conversions with my targeted traffic with right sites, but those sites are getting rare.

You may be right Mike....I also understand that traffic is not what it used to be...surfers are smarter..more picky....but even if you throw enough SHIT at a wall...something is bound to stick right?

that is what i am searching for.....the sticky stuff....




I agree 100%

Here is my take: The best traffic, the stuff that actually will buy something, is getting filtered off more and more by toolbars, redirectors, and BS. Counters that redirect, modified hosts files, etc are all out there taking away your hard earned clicks.

What you are left working with is BS foreign traffic that isn't intending to buy anything.

Every so often I turn on a simple tracker that looks at the default browser languages of surfers... less and less US english as a percentage.

The answer is in there somewhere.

Alex

this is...sadly true

pardon the spam, but try Evil Genius Cash

I posted on GFY last month for everyone to send their traffic to us and if anyone had a minimum of 1 signup and worse than 1:600 conversion ratio, I would pay them extra for the signups they did recieve...

we had 3 affiliates who emailed me and were able to get a little extra, one of which was sending circle jerk traffic...and he was still around 1:1000...granted I hated paying extra for the fact they're ratios weren't as good as others, but I ad to be a person of my word regarding the challenge

the other 2? well, we just can't convert everyone's traffic I guess....

Sign up for Evil Genius Cash, send traffic to both our big tit site and our monster cock site and if the conversions are bullshit, feel free to come here and calla bullshit on me.

A few things that help conversions that we helped some affiliates with who were hovering dangerously close to the 1:600 were to send to specific girls on the tour (based upon who pics they were using for advertising. We also advised those with TGP traffic to send to the no-trial option to cut down on the trial leeches (out trial is only that anyways, they get only partial access to our members area and have to upgrade to access our full members area. We've also added some interactivity to our members area to engage the surfer.

So, take the EGC challenge and if the ratios suck, than by all means feel free to come here and call bullshit. This is Oprano, no one will let me get away with bullshit.

well what has happened is over all adult traffic is falling off, and i'n not talking about summer slowdown here.
there has been some growth of foreign traffic, europe/asia
but not enough to off set the critical US/North American traffic that has fallen off dramaticly.

now thats a fact, based on hard data going back well over a year.

However Alex toolbars, spyware havent had any effect on our conversions yet. If they have, its pretty insignificant at less than 1% and would only effect a small % of sites.


It might sound funny, but from my point of view it seems Americans stopped looking at porn

what do you guys think ??

After I came back from London,
I predicted exactly that and for the reasons you mentioned.
MOST of the programs getting shaved on the surfer level,
even before surfer reaches the designated site, due to "tool bars", zombies, etc redirects,
whatever is left is for grabs, but this is very small portion nowadays.

The Mach3 Razor is out in force right now me thinks too.

I cant prove it, but i convert at least 3 times as well when I send to my own sites than I do when I send the exact same traffic to a very similar sponsor based site.

After I came back from London,
I predicted exactly that and for the reasons you mentioned.
MOST of the programs getting shaved on the surfer level,
even before surfer reaches the designated site, due to "tool bars", zombies, etc redirects,
whatever is left is for grabs, but this is very small portion nowadays.[/b][/quote]
can anyone say "viva la dialers...."

:salute:

US traffic is still producing some of the best overall numbers for us - it has stayed the same the last 1½ year, however we do see changes in content/tours US traffic want to go to.

The ratio from: front page -> join page -> billing input -> successful signups varies a lot based on country and traffic source, and there have been an increase in international traffic, and some traffic sources are getting more dirty, so this can make the total overall numbers look worse.

Rolo, i agree with you that pure US traffic still produces the same results it did 2 years ago, sign up wise at least.

But whats bothering me is slow decline in the overall US porn traffic.

I went from Catholic to Methodist, back to Catholic again... does that count :D

there's 4 pearl threads currently active on the front page ... everyone seems to be really thinking hard this week about serious stuff after the san diego gathering!??!

Jim ... for all of the reasons mentioned here, "traffic" in general is just bored with the same old shit and the same deceptive practices. the surfer is smart, they won't be tricked by $49.95 auto rebilling in the numbers there were previous ... value for money is what shoppers look for in the real world and its now stretching to us.

the most successful experiments for us so far have been the things I've always done with purve ... 6 monthly subscriptions for heavily discounted rate, presenting a 'discount' for taking month upfront with no trial etc ... but no matter what we do with the pricing points, there is a portion of webmasters that are just NOT converting, but others who notice a huge difference every time we change ... we have enough doing well to not be totally disappointed but like you said, you can't just throw shit at the wall any more like you could before.

I'd be keen to give a public test a try on Celebrity Bling if you would like to work together on a search engine experiment ... our content is very text rich, so it makes a great search engine option. Our retention is not impressive currently for most webmasters, and we are rev share so its extremely important!! We've got some major new mainstream style features coming in july and a few new billing 'ideas' which will help this.

As opposed to the porn programs, we aren't interested in giving out free content and so on - our stuff is valuable, if a surfer wants to access it they have to sign up. We have no intention of giving away much content ... so far i've provided opti & gonzo with 100 pics each of various page 3 girls and uk glamour models for their team bling webmasters - they are in charge of who gets to use them.

So we intend to try to not make the same mistakes as was made with adult, and by sitting on the 'edge' of adult and mainstream there are a lot more options for where you can advertise this. Our most 'hardcore' photo on any of our tours is an upskirt with a wet patch LOL

http://www.celebritybling.com/sites.html has a list of mini tours with some basic keywords next to them ... we are trying to average 1 new tour per week so we can build a good archive of search engine keyworded sites.

A good niche to focus on for search engine traffic is movies/actors, our next tour to be launched soon is the most content rich site i've built so far ... its male celebrities ... 'hollywood hunks' ... every page is full of text. here's a sneak peek ;-)

http://www.hunkycelebs.com/hollywood_hunks/
http://www.hunkycelebs.com/hollywood_hunks/tour.html
2 of the 'hunk' pages are done - brad pitt and orlando bloom, the rest of the links won't work yet

btw, welcome back, the water is FINE!!! *shiver chatter shiver*
LOL

shit sorry everyone

i just finished writing an article so my fingers were on a roll :biglaugh: :nyanya:

do you think this is because some americans may just be starting to get disgusted with all the deceptive marketing going on?


CJ....i am already in the works with OPTI on this very thing :D

Sykk......will do!
i am actually looking for smaller programs to start new relationships with.......

my traffic is growing every day and i am way too stubborn to think that it is ALL crap....

I think I would have to study the numbers much more closly to see if there is a slow decline in our US traffic... could it be the traffic source? Maybe US surfers are starting to change how they surf the web and use the content?

Ex. with faster connections, bigger harddrives and more downloadable content on the net, then I could think that the amount of downloadable content on people´s harddrives must grow everyday, prehaps to a point where they don´t feel they have to find new content on the web daily, but just watch content they collected days, weeks, months before?

I have also noticed that when there is breaking news in the US media, then US signups drop, until there is either a resolution, or people get tired and need a break from the news, then signups increases to more than before. My theory is that people use the net more in a more target way, and not for so much random surfing as we have been used too.

Hey Jim,

I've told Lisa to go ahead. We've got nothing to hide.

Oh, and hello everyone. :)

On a side note, if anyone is interested in our new stats
tracking program to actually RUN your program, shoot
me an email. It plugs into any MikeAI despised processor
and gives you more numbers than difficult chinese
arithmetic. We've got a bunch of programs running now
for over a year (ones we don't own that were "testers".

No problems. $100 / month minimum base rate. 50 cents
per sale tracked after minimum sliding down to 30 cents
per sale at volume. :D

Fear and Loathing of the Processors.

Great Bill...i will get all signed up....under Lisa,of course....
:)

Lisa...if you get a chance PM me and i will give you my addie so we can work on it!

Bill,
what have you done with my penis????
;-)))

Jim, I'm about to head to bed, 11pm here for me and my baby turns 10 tomorrow so I have to be up early to do the birthday thing. (How can that be...my baby in double figures!)

If you want to drop me an email to lisa@pornmegabucks.com I'll get on it first thing in my morning. :)

You got it Lisa! Have fun with your young one first!
:okthumb:

I think they've stopped, or are stopping. looking at it on the internet.

When you can get it on your 60 inch HDTV with the click of a button, why settle for it on a 20 inch monitor? :(

Great topic and good posts! Cj is on the ball as normal. This topic has been discussed from time to time since the adult Internet started. It just seems that declining ratios are a natural progression of more programs (and sites) increasing at a greater rate than paid users. Also, traffic if somewhat ambiguous. A user used to create just a few clicks. Now, the same user can create 100's. For example when we were doing SE stuff we would forward the user directly to the paysite creating almost no clicks from the time that user entered the Internet until they signed up. Now, with CJ, TGP, Pop Ups, toolbars, downloads, etc. that user is now creating a lot of clicks and this skews the ratios. I am not saying this is good or bad, just part of the evolution.

It is good to keep discussing these things. I think the more we understand the better we will be able to predict. However, I feel that in many ways this industry is like the stock market. That any public information that we share on the boards really doesn't do any good. By the time we figure something out publicly, the industry evolves to change.



Last edited by Jesse_DD at Jun 22 2004, 05:01 AM

Hey Serge! :D

I still have my model release that you signed and was witnessed by Lady Law. Your penis is safe on http://www.sergenaked.com

Check this python out.

http://www.sergenaked.com/6content2/serge2.jpg

;)

Why search the web for porn? Between all the TGPs, processors selling
subscriber lists to other programs, and the no fooling 1000 spams per
day I get for porn on just 1 email address what's the point? =)

You do the best you can in crappy circumstances and try to hold on to
the rope basically.

:okthumb:

I love Team Bling - look at how well that worked ... I'll go back to building tours & content features and you guys can do the rest :inlove: i'll be in photoshop if anyone needs me!!! :P

DAMN, I could have swore I saw Billpmb ;)

I'm just taking a shot in the dark here cj..... but don't you think offering CHECKS as a payment option would help??? ;-)))

The only way you don't convert is because either you or someone else doesn't want you to convert.

Gotta do a bit of investigatin' and it'll turn up who wasn't paying attention.

Get 'fan' traffic. That traffic is loyal to the bone and they sell by word of email to their friends which is better than opt-in. THEN you hit em' with affiliates that you KNOW are honorable. Don't gypp your fans, they're better than friends, they PAY.

A verified Bill sighting!!

Good stuff, CJ. Let your fingers wander any ol' time.

I think processors should all carry the "MikeAI despised" seal of disapproval. :D

alot of sponsors start shaving in june and blame the summer months for the lower conversions.

I haven't noticed any huge differences. Don't forget, warm weather makes people hornier, and if you are a loser with no game, after you fail out at the bar, your next stop is your pc, where you are loaded and horny and will pull out that cc.

Drunk & struck out = a good conversion. If you stay up late like me, you'll notice the conversions go up during the summer at 1-4am unless the sponsor is shaving you.