Where have all the affiliates gone?

[Cyndalie]

Serious question...

Where have all the affiliates gone that aren't: a) another company, b) actually run active web sites - not just 'a blog'. and c) that can send one sale a MONTH

Have they all left adult?

[Itchy]

You have to wake up old webmasters :)
Its all blog and tube shit now :P

[Evil Chris]

Cyn, many of those kinds of affiliates are very sold in their ways and aren't likely to try an new sponsors these days. They need to be convinced that the effor they make to add new links or try someone new is really going to be worth their while.

[Magnus3x]

The Affi market has been on a long decline and more recently a very sharp decline. You would have to put in 500% the effort to get 1% of the desired results that programs used to get just a couple of years ago.
Any program relying on affiliates to make up the majority of their traffic with no in-house traffic or a substantial monthly traffic budget will be in for a world of hurt, if they are not already. Of course exclusive, rare, new or unique content will get you a whack of new affi's wanting to dip their toe in the pool.

[Rochard]

I think Magnus there hit the nail on the head.

In 2000 you could launch a TGP, get 50k hits to it the next day, and everything was converting at 1/200. It was easy money.

Now.... If I get 1k to a blog in it's first few days I'm lucky, and stuff is converting at 1/2000. At this point, it's not really profitable.

The one thing I'm kicking myself about is that I didn't have any sites of my own - TGPs or Blogs. I have one main blog that gets a fair amount of traffic and continues to grow, but that's mostly because it's like four or five years old. I wish I had launched thirty of these at the same time; I could have retired by now.

[lulu]

its all true guys. the affiliate program model as we know or knew it is a tough racket.

[Cyndalie]

Cyn, many of those kinds of affiliates are very sold in their ways and aren't likely to try an new sponsors these days. They need to be convinced that the effor they make to add new links or try someone new is really going to be worth their while.

Both you and I know the same old sponsors promoted on sites have to be rotated out after awhile or you lose visitors interest - if you are dependant upon repeat traffic.

[Cyndalie]

The Affi market has been on a long decline and more recently a very sharp decline. You would have to put in 500% the effort to get 1% of the desired results that programs used to get just a couple of years ago.
Any program relying on affiliates to make up the majority of their traffic with no in-house traffic or a substantial monthly traffic budget will be in for a world of hurt, if they are not already. Of course exclusive, rare, new or unique content will get you a whack of new affi's wanting to dip their toe in the pool.

I've observed this as well. I do in-house marketing for our program and know how important having such department is to maintaining the balance.

However the pool of affiliates is very small now, and it's just just beached whales that are left over. Little fish have swum to other revenue streams.

You mention "exclusive, rare, new or unique content will get you a whack of new affi's wanting to dip their toe in the pool" but considering the cost of production is the ROI in the current market even worth offering to affiliates on a broad scale?

[the New Shemp]

many affiliates work too many sponsors..they spread themselves way too thin...and they dont send enough traffic to any one sponsor to get results

[Magnus3x]

I've observed this as well. I do in-house marketing for our program and know how important having such department is to maintaining the balance.

However the pool of affiliates is very small now, and it's just just beached whales that are left over. Little fish have swum to other revenue streams.

You mention "exclusive, rare, new or unique content will get you a whack of new affi's wanting to dip their toe in the pool" but considering the cost of production is the ROI in the current market even worth offering to affiliates on a broad scale?

Look at Brazzers/Mofo and Fuckyou Cash.... they have exclusive content/niches with an extremely high production value... when they say $100 PPS for a certain site.. webmasters listen, I see the ad sales to prove it.
Higher pay per join gets them in the door, then the stats do the talking after that to see if they are going to be promoted regularly or if just during the big pay days.

[bluemoney]

There is a perception among a lot of affiliates that many (but not all) of the larger multi-site programs are shady in there stats, payouts and billing practices.
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I for one love the “Mom & Pop” sites through CCBill that shoot their own content as opposed to the overly distributed “Walmart Porn”

[Rochard]

many affiliates work too many sponsors..they spread themselves way too thin...and they dont send enough traffic to any one sponsor to get results

This is very true. I send out a fair amount of traffic to sponsors, but because each one is on it's own I don't send enough to one sponsor to always qualify for a payout.

A good example of is Melissa's Money (Melissa Midwest). I usually don't qualify the minimum payout every month, but instead it takes two or three months. On the other hand, there are so many CCBill sites that I always get large checks from CCBill.

[Cyndalie]

We offer payouts and sites using ccbill, and we offer our 16 site range under nats. We'll even waive minimum payout amounts as requested. I think our program is great for directory style sites and free sites that cover a range of niches. We even offer to create promo material as needed on the fly.