I think I’m all bright and shiny again. I was under a foul cloud for a few days there. You know what I mean… when it’s Fuck you, Fuck you, and Fuck You, and Fuck you Too! Course some of the Fuck-youers probably had it coming, but that’s another post.

Not sure why really, the brats haven’t been any more annoying that usual, the wife hasn’t been nagging any more than normal, well, maybe just a  slight increase. Guess was just one of those things.

So I try to go to sleep tonight, pretty tired actually, but shit keeps running through my head, mainly this post. Keeping me from slipping into pornland with the naked porn star rubbing her big boobs on me and massaging my dick, about ready to climb on top… she prefers it on top.

So shit, I gotta get up and type or I’ll just be restless at less half the night. Carmella hang on, I’ll be back shortly and for gods sake, don’t put any clothes on!

I got to thinking how crappy adult affiliate programs conversion really are, I don’t think many realize. For most any real business, increasing conversions is your number one goal. So why do they keep declining and why do they not seem to do what is needed to improve it? Well, there are a few reasons for the declining part, more on that in just a minute. i also have a theory why they don’t improve it, a couple actually.

But first…

When you hear conversion numbers from most any adult sponsor, you’ll hear numbers like 1:400 and some try to be sneaky bastards and use the join page ratio to calculate conversions, pure crap! They don’t count and should be taken out back and flogged with recently used butt plug.

The thing is, when you hear a number like the above, 1:400, it doesn’t really mean much, probably because your not hearing how most real businesses think in terms of conversions. The real world usually figures it based on a percentage, in essence, what percentage converts to buyers.

You following me here?

Here’s the kicker, if your lucky enough to have a program that converts at 1:100 (only if you go back in time), that is a 1% conversion rate. So what if you sponsor converts at 1:400? Are you thinking, less that crap? In reality it is .25% … did you see the decimal point in front of the 25? A conversion rate of 1/4%. That means 99.75% of the traffic your sending is NOT spending a dime! Least as far as you know.

I am not trying to be a black cloud here. I just don’t think people realize what the numbers really mean. It’s funny how the media portrays the online porn business as this “what ever the latest number is” billion dollar industry, when the sad fact is, most of the people in the business are making crap because the traffic they work so hard for is converting like hooker in church on sunday.

My problem with this whole situation is that the programs seem to do little about increasing or improving their conversions.

Lets step back a minute and indulge me for a minute okay?

For the most part an adult affiliate program is a membership based service, right. Yes, there are many porn businesses, like dvd sales, pay-per-view, ect, ect. Lets just stick with a the membership model so i can get to sleep tonight.

So they are selling a membership to porn. How do they sell that membership? The tour, of course. In reality, what is the tour? It’s a sales page. It might be multi pages, but it’s still a sales letter. For any one serious about their business, they test every possible part of the sales letter. Why wouldn’t you? A simple headline change can make a dramatic difference, a simple image change or addition could increase conversion, even the join links can make a difference.

So why don’t they test? First off, I can’t say they all don’t, but I have yet to hear of one that does. Usually you’ll just here, our tour is converting at such-in-such and that’s about it. Okay… thanks for test results sparky.

I really don’t know why they don’t, and since i don’t know, I can only make some guesstimations. For most, they don’t know how? Others may get so much traffic in a day, even a .25% conversion makes a good bankroll.  I’m sure some just don’t care. Long as they can pay for their pimped out lifestyle, why mess with a good thing?

You could get even more diabolical and say they don’t want the traffic to convert, then they would have to pay webmasters more money. They could be making their bank from collecting e-mail addresses on the tour where they can sell over and over to porn surfer joe and no one gets a cut on the deal except the house. You could even go so far as to say they don’t want it to convert, because they end up making more money on exit consoles, no cut for johnny webmaster and no one is the wiser or says anything.

Naturally, not every program is the evil villain robbing the stage coach, but it sure does make you wonder, and times have changed, you can’t hang a cow rustler any more.

You could say it’s because of all the free porn and the tube sites giving away the video, and you’d be partial right. Then again, how do you know if you don’t test to find out? hhmm…

So what do you do?

You can’t make a program do anything, it’s their business, their way of doing things. So it’s all on your shoulders buckaroo.

You could keep a closer eye on your ratio’s with your sponsors and dump the ones that are crap (you shouldn’t have to send 5,000 hits before they are a bad memory, as some say). You could do what most webmasters do not do, test your own sales process so at least your sending more and the paycheck makes the crap ratio’s look just a little better?

You could start your own paysite, then again, if the big boy’s don’t do it right, will you? Or maybe you will do it right because you know better
Then again , you can take what you get with a big smile on your face and be happy-happy joy-joy. Or just bitch and moan like me. At the very least maybe this has at least opened your eyes. That you don’t have to take what your given and bend over again.

Or maybe some big program owner can enlighten me?