Quote:
Originally Posted by deejay
One factor you may have overlooked is price. Numerous sponsors have been offering half-price memberships to their in-house traffic for a couple of years or more. Word gets around and this market is like every other at the moment, i.e. price sensitive.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigD
A lot of sponsors now give half price membership to their followers on Twitter / Tumblr by giving out a direct link to a joint page missing out the sponsor completely. Price is now a key factor why pay $30 per month when by being a bit clued up you can get it for $15 or even less.
One thing I've started doing recently to actually join some of the sites I promote. This has been quite an eye opener. The members areas in most are still stuck in the 1990's and make it as difficult as possible for the customer to download the material.
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I see the point here. After all (as a sponsor myself) we give a 50% commission to affiliates, so giving the surfer the benefit of coming direct is a reasonable strategy. However there is a chance that you can kill the golden goose. We have seen the number of active affiliates we have go down by 40% or so, and sites are closing all the time. Pricing may be sensitive as you say, but if you only get the same from a direct sale, but in the process create a traffic void because TGP/Directory sites close, then there is no net gain. Not a clever way of doing things if the overall objective is to increase revenues and profits.
I also think it misses the point I was trying to make. Conversion rates, on the whole, are holding up even with some paysites in decline. Others are up and down like a yoyo whilst others just don't seem to sell at all for me. Yet, despite that, these sites appear on other TGPs almost on a daily basis.