When do you decide to stop promoting a sponsor?

[cheeks]

Hi,

I know a sponsor might work really well for some while it does really really bad for others.

When you guys notice that a sponsor is doing shit, do you stop promotiong him immediatly or do you do some changes such as:
-change gallery design
-change scene/thumb selection in tgp/mgp gallery
-some other thing..

I know finding a winning sponsor is difficult and I'd like to know if you guys persever in making the sponsor you choose work,
or do you simply change sponsor once you see it dont work with what you are currently promoting it with.

thanks alot.

[pornJester]

I think it's important to experiment and see what works best for any sponsor. But overall if a sponsor just isn't converting, even after making changes, it is time to move on.

[Feynman]

I once promoted a sponsor, and opted for the per-signup program.

They did not pay on trials, they said.

Only, they did not have any trial (remember that).

I had a CTR of about 1:40 from my gallery.

I had one conversion immediately, on the first day, in the few first uniques sent.

Then, I sent them 7000+ uniques and got zip conversion.

I was sweet-talked into switching into the recurring program, which paid less, because alledgedly, "people" were obtaining better results then. Mind you, (do you remember?) there were NO trial subscription, so I could not fathom what could have explained the better performance... IMO, it was BS, but in for a penny, in for a buck I told myself...

So I sent them another 4500 uniques, for fuck-all, zip, nada, zilch conversion.

As far as I can remember, I ended up never getting a check from them, because I did not exceed the minimum payout amount.

Now, these people were running their own billling software, undoubtedly written by Gilette... :D

All odds are, they are swindlers...

This outfit is still in business, doing good, apparently paying their salaries, placing their paid-for advertisement on boards, etc...

The other outfit I promoted was 1000facials.com, and they converted at 1:600 to 1:1000, day in day out, and I was always very happy with them.

If the swindlers above were truly converting at 1:600, then, applying the Poisson statistical distribution, the odds that I had simply been victim of bad luck, sending them 10000+ uniques and getting only one conversion, at the frequency we were submitting, was 1 in 17 million years, if I remember my computation correctly.

Should we give them the benefit of the doubt on a 1:17,000,000 odds that they are honest ? How far can you stretch the benefit of the doubt?

Very unfortunately, their rep was an esteemed acquaintance of mine. He probably knew, and thus probably lied to me.

During later conversation, it became clear, almost admitted, that they screwed me.

I'm a good sport.

I understand that he gets paid good money for doing a thieving job, but in this world, it's often par for the course. I don't hate him any more for that, I'm not in his shoes, having to pay house and family expenses...

It was nevertheless a brutal first experience.

Live and learn.

Hence, I cut my losses, notified all the galleries owners that I'd pull out the gallery, and pulled the plug on everything. The cost to me was enormous in time and efforts, and the damage to my credibility as a serious TGP submitter was certainly not improved.

It also disgusted me forever of TGPs.

I will never do promotion again for a sponsor who runs it's own billing system, unless I am verifiably convinced that they are honest.

If ever I get into MLM shit (affiliate program participation) again, I'll go only with outfits that use third party billing like CCBill et al. for then, there is a higher likeliness of getting paid.

[Feynman]

Originally posted by pornJester
I think it's important to experiment and see what works best for any sponsor. But overall if a sponsor just isn't converting, even after making changes, it is time to move on.

First, there is a big distinction between the Click-Through Ratio (CTR) and the conversion ratio.

Once the surfer lands on the sponsor's page, I made my job. It's then up to him to make the sale. Of course, the gallery must reflect the style of the site to avoid cognitive dissonances. You don't advertise chicken for a store that sells only fish... But my galleries where designed within the spirit of the main site, and had an excellent CTR


Then, another big point:

There are hidden costs of promoting a cheating or poorly performing sponsor, and in that case, the best your CTR is, the more a liability it becomes.


Never mind that the sponsor does not convert, tou have to keep the galleries up. If you choose not to , you have to notify every TGP you've ever posted to, usually under the penalty of loosing your partner status and/or getting banned completely or at least having a lot of 'splainin' to do.

That's a large hidden cost in terms of credibility, time, etc.

Heck, in the situation where your galleries are popular, the TGP owner might even be displeased by you pulling the plug on the gallery (ies) for while you're loosing blood with every click, he makes money with it. In that situation, no matter what happens, you loose.

Conclusion: for submitting galleries to TGPs, choose your sponsors VERY VERY carefully...

[dokk]

Nothing left unchanged will convert the same forever, it's hard to say as nothing applies in every case but there are so many reasons things can drop, whether it's the processor having issues, maybe the content is getting a little stale, sometimes the traffic changes source and quality. If they've been treating you right it's always worth a go to freshen up the sales pitch, give it another look, maybe not take off but move to a different position on the page, try in combination with other sponsor program(s), watch your stats and check the trend.. if it picks back up, so much the better and if an additional sponsor is making mo' money that you added.. nothing wrong with that!

;-)

[facialfreak]

Knowing how your traffic performs in general is a big part of the answer to that question. Look at how well other sponsors have done for you, and decide on both a ratio as well as timeframe, and as soon as you reach one or the other, it is time to clean house.

Back several years ago before I had any idea what I was doing, I remember being 0:13,000 with an outfit called Spice Cash. :(

Now I rarely let a sponsor go past 0:4000 unless they have preformed well for me in the past, I might let them go to 6K, and usually if I don't see any results in a month I know it is time to find a new one.

[IDL]

imho
convert only

[suesheboy]

Watch stats closely and react to changes.

I have to dump one and I am hanging on way to long. Not smart biz to get attached to a sponser.

[monaro]

Originally posted by suesheboy
Watch stats closely and react to changes.

I have to dump one and I am hanging on way to long. Not smart biz to get attached to a sponser.

I would have to disagree with you with that one. I have been with one for years and still feel that they out perform alot of them.