.SPONSOR PROGRAM STRATEGIES PART 3
The Importance Of Recurring Memberships :
By Mark Conrad of SponsorCash
Recurring sales are defined as membership sales that are automatically
made when an adult site subscriber’s credit card is re-billed monthly to
renew their adult site subscription.
It is the central core of the profit that is made in the adult site
business, and one of the reasons why many large sponsorship
programs do not offer Recurring Billing as a part of their payout
structure to adult webmasters who participate as partners in their
affiliate programs.
They would rather pay you a larger sum of money to pay you
off at the outset, to keep you quiet and happy with the few
extra dollars you’ve made, and keep the lion’s share of the
gold for themselves.
There is nothing wrong with that, it’s a business. But make sure you
know the score while you are playing the game.
In the short term, the sponsor loses money on this method,
but in the long term, he profits far more. Large well-capitalized
companies know that if the stats show you are making a lot of
sales, you are going to work harder for them.
Why do most adult webmasters overlook recurring sales when
looking for a sponsor? It’s the old short-term vs. long -term
thinking that gets us into trouble every time.
Most adult memberships don’t result in recurring sales, but for the
percentage that do, are the major source of profit.
When we’re on this subject, a lot of webmasters ask me, well,
how about pay-per-click?
If you look at the math, you will see that most pay-per-click programs
really only pay you about as much as you would get if you were getting
paid per sign up.
However, with most affiliate programs, neither the pay-per-
signup or pay-per-click model will pay you the most important revenue
generator of all:
Recurring Sales.
Recurring sales are the true goldmine in the adult paysite business, and
smart pay adult site owners know it, especially those who offer affiliate
programs.
That is also why most of the big sponsor programs will never offer you
a piece of the recurring sales action, because that is where the real
money gets made. This is not a criticism, it is a statement of fact.
I won’t go into the math here, but if you want to see how it all breaks
down, check out this excellent article by Andy over at Andy’s Trix:
http://trix.sexswap.com/SWAP138.HTM
As the Guru O Gif concludes, the pay-per-click model is built on
the pay-per-sign up model. Never think you are getting a good
deal on pay-per-click, and don’t let the pay-per-click numbers
fool you into a sense of false security.
I think it’s also worth mentioning here that if you play the
TNG posting game, and think you will make out better
with a pay-per-click program because the sponsor won’t
know the difference in the quality of the hits you are sending,
think again.
Most pay per click programs will drop you from their program
if your hits don’t convert to sales at a decent ratio.
Getting paid per sign up, with the additional benefit of sharing
in the recurring sales revenue stream, is the best deal of all
for webmasters seeking the most profitable long term
sponsor program.
Our sponsor program, Sponsorcash, offers recurring sales on
all seven of our affiliate programs. That means that webmasters
getting sales for us make 50% of all sales, both initial and
recurring. It’s a fair way to keep our sales force happy, because
without our webmaster-partners, we are dead.
Another thing to watch is the 50/60 Shuffle.
Many programs offer 60%, but be careful and read the fine print.
You may find that many of the programs that claim to pay 60%
or more, are only paying 50%, because they are charging you a
10%-15% credit card processing fees.
Some of them will even penalize you for charge-backs and holdback
fees. Deducting them from your hard earned checks. Chargebacks
are a fact of adult paysite business, just make sure you are not getting
double dipped at the accounting office.
To quote an old prison veteran, “watch yer asses in the showers, men,
and don’t drop that soap!”
Since I am also a webmaster, I participate in other affiliate
programs too. I find a mixture of high-converting pay per
sign up sponsors, and recurring programs work best.
For instance, I have Maxcash and Webquest’s great programs
on many of my feeder sites, in addition to recurring member-
ship programs. This mix works great as I get the best of both
worlds.
Use the benefit of recurring memberships when selecting your sponsors as
a good long-term sponsor program strategy.
Don’t miss my next article, “Sponsor Strategies Part 4: The Importance Of
Marketing and Sales Support. “
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Mark Conrad is a veteran adult webmaster and director of sales and
marketing at SponsorCash, an adult partner program that features seven
fetish paysites. He is also publisher of TrafficTips, a free monthly
newsletter for adult webmasters.
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