If you are CCBill you can include that in the CCBill email that the affiliate gets when he signs up I think? Or you can just let that be known on your program site?

Both good comments. Firstly I have slapped my own wrists for not changing the Lay Sonia banner and text to match the new positioning. My bad and I will correct asap.

Very interesting insight into affiliate costs versus employing experts to generate in-house traffic. Like where does this traffic come from? Google etc?. I "advertise" on Tumblr and get some traffic from it, and we still have some banner exchanges. It's just all small beer compared with what we get from our affiliate scheme. I guess my issue has always been taking on the cost (increasingly difficult) before the results kick in, or even worse, don't kick in!

I am not sure if I am an affiliate of yours nyllover, I would have to look that up. If I am I don't receive your newsletter emails. I get your point though. We always say "get in touch if you need anything" but the only requests we get are for things which the affiliate should easily be able to do themselves. Selecting and prepping specific galleries is one thing but creating a new banner is entirely another.

Truth is I am finding this feedback excellent and is what a good forum is for!

Our biggest source of in-house sales by a long way is our newsletter mailer now. Don't think we have found anything since 1998 that has converted any better than our mailings. Twitter was ok (diminishing returns I think as it seems to be full of prostitutes and freeloaders now) but we have a strict policy of zero customer interaction now and I am too busy with family and things now to push anything like that too hard. Twitter used with Tumblr and FB to steer people towards a newsletter would be the best bet.

Our newsletter is golden. Since we have been around since the last century it huge and valuable.
Back in the dark ages, we would interact with customers but found that those who took the most time and effort, were cheapskates. The silent ones were paying customers. Our only interaction really is problem solving issues. Good honest business.

Very true.

Tha's very true indeed, we could add the same thing on the CCBill email. As of the site, we already have the classic "For more questions or peculiar needs, don't hesitate to contact us.".
To be honest, considering also normal users visit that page from time to time, i wouldn't like to suggest them that they can try to ask a free password... fake webmaster joins would increase, and that would just be a waste of time for us. :)

@cots
We don't send emails as often as we should, tried to do it once a month...last one is in february as i've been terribly busy with family and stuff (wish there was a blushing smile...)

It's easy enough to vet and once you have an affiliate that actually wants to come in and look you have a far greater chance of having an affiliate that really wants to sell.

On another note, if you have time on a Friday or Saturday night offer to give a free 24 hour pass on twitter to a promo pic (we used pics of Gill with a card s saying "retweet to win a 24 hour pass to Lady-Sonia.com" linked through Tumblr) and the traffic we got was HUGE! The pic or pics would go viral in minutes and get thousands of views. We had one Tumblr alone get over 5 million page views in just a few weeks! Sometimes free access can be very good business.

Thanks for all the insights. Very much appreciated!

I have to agree with this.

Long time ago my only intention was to build traffic, build build build, trade traffic build SEO etc, didn't care how I displayed contents or pushed certain sites to sell, I wanted to push ALL sites actually (I was always inspired by the way Freeones did things, have been full aware of their site since it first began in late 90's early 00's)

Anyways, now my traffic is mostly gone from Google killing everyones sites, it trickles into traffic trades dying, from my own sites and from other ppls sites losing SE traffic too.

So anyways yes, with the traffic we do have, must really know what to sell and how to sell it. Things a lot more difficult now than before, we were all pretty damn spoiled for many years!

The problem was that far too many thought this was a career when it was just a stage in time. Photos, magazines, VHS, DVD then online. Things constantly change. :)

lol
This isn't a career. I had one of those and it was great. This is a job, but its still fun.
I mean how many careers can you get paid so much for crawling around under girl's skirts?

Definitely not a career lol! Careers come complete with a salary and a ladder to climb. It's a business though for sure.

I think SGS's comment about constantly changing is spot on. Ironically, as a strategic planner in my past (the web was just a hobby initially), I haven't employed the tools at my disposal to plan ahead with these changes in mind. Like many during the really good days, I thought they would never end and didn't adapt quickly enough or at all in some cases.

JS I hear you on traffic/google and I think it merits a separate thread?

The big limit for most unfortunately is the affiliate program as that is really the thing that limits what you can do. Affiliates are great and all sales are welcome but you have to be careful not to put the handbrake on your business.

One of the big changes I guess was that in 1998 pricing wasn't a big issue to conversions but in 2013 it is possibly the single biggest single issue after sorting out that you have content that customers actually want.

Now that's something to test indeed...did you post on twitter when the promo started, or built things up a few days before as well, to let them spread the message?

Just do it over the course of an hour. No warning. Post a few pics to Tumblr linked to twitter then post a couple of pics onto Tumblr with a model holding a fansign card telling them to re-tweet to possibly win free 24 hour access. Doing it like that you get re-tweets on twitter plus re-blogs on Tumblr too.

You gain twitter followers and Tumblr followers plus real time site promo too. We used to spend twenty minutes after a shoot putting together the shots just for this. Solid gold and how social media works well for adult.

When we used twitter heavily to promo Lady-Sonia we would have a draw for free 24 hour access picked from newsletter subscribers too. Give away 5 to the most "tweet active" followers and they go on to celebrate their lucky win long enough online to get even more promo too.

We put a bit of work into it and it worked very well for us.