What does "doing well" mean?

[cots]

I have been following a thread on XBiz and it has made me think.

Most of us work in our own personal bubbles. We think we may be doing well or we may think we are struggling. The simple fact is we have no idea. A lot of people say "we are doing well" but compared to what? As no one seems prepared to actually quote numbers I have no idea.

It has always been a surprise to me when I chat privately with some owners of sites I admire, how little they turn over relatively. I know quite a few models/webmasters where I have thought "is that all?" - surely not? I question their calculations/sums etc to find out exactly what they mean.

The same goes for the "god things are great" group. More often than not they quote gross revenues and then seem reluctant to mention net figures e.g. after deducting affiliate commissions, CCBill (or other) processing costs, model fees etc.

A famous phrase is "sales are vanity - profit is sanity" and this goes for the latter group..

So what is good nowadays? Anyone prepared to put a marker down? In the pantyhoseaddict thread they mentioned $2200 a week (not sure if net or gross) is that good? Is it terrible?

What do others think?

[Toby]

Yeah, no one ever mentions overhead, just gross revenue. In the case of PantyhoseAddict you have to wonder how much of that goes to affiliates, ccbill fees, hosting, etc. Then how many people split what's left?

My overhead is less than 10% of my gross, and I don't have to split my net with anyone, but I'm not doing $2200 a week either.

"Doing well" means something different to almost everyone that says it. I've held steady or increased my gross and net revenue every year since I got back into the biz in the Fall of '03. With other affiliate webmasters crying about 25% to 70% declines over the last few years I'd have to consider that doing quite well.

[jscott]

The pantyhose addicts thread, mentions per week, and also mentions how many customers in his prime, so I guess they think they are not doing well at all., but most of us looking in, think t hey are doing fine if still making $2200/week

For me myself, i make about 40% less now per month, compared to March/April this year So even though if i say my monthly income i'm sure 99% ppl would say "jscott you're doing well", but me personally, dont think that way, cuz my ratios have sky rocketed, and sales down, rebills scarce, etc etc :

[cots]

Originally Posted by Toby

Yeah, no one ever mentions overhead, just gross revenue. In the case of PantyhoseAddict you have to wonder how much of that goes to affiliates, ccbill fees, hosting, etc. Then how many people split what's left?

My overhead is less than 10% of my gross, and I don't have to split my net with anyone, but I'm not doing $2200 a week either.

"Doing well" means something different to almost everyone that says it. I've held steady or increased my gross and net revenue every year since I got back into the biz in the Fall of '03. With other affiliate webmasters crying about 25% to 70% declines over the last few years I'd have to consider that doing quite well.

Good answer as always Toby.

I agree with everything you say. We are about 40% down from our peak in 2007. Most of that happened in 08/09. The decline slowed last year and this year we are about level with 2010. Whilst I can point to the general economic situation as a major reason, I can also point to some personal responsibilities too. Some of that has been ill health (me in 2009 and Astrid in 2010/11) but there may also have been a touch of complacency.

I think we all have to accept that we have to work harder to stay at the same levels, plus it takes more sites to do what one used to do.

I am still intrigued though. I know I will never get an answer, based on hard numbers, but are we doing really well in net revenue terms or not?

OK I will start the ball rolling. Amazing Astrid, at it's peak in 2007, was netting $7000 per month. Few if any model costs, no partners, but a large "clothing/accessory" budget.

We thought that was good but was it great or crap?

Comments anyone?

[Eddi]

you should not believe everything you read.
2400 recurring monthly members ?! thats highly unlikely for a niche paysite without affiliate program, even at
the beginning of the internets and even with an affiliateprogram behind.
a huge well known paysite with a rabbit in their logo (you all know of which brand we are talking of) made aprox 1800
online sales a month in 2008 (pls. dont ask me the source)
so , a bit common sense here...you really think that a huge brand, known for decades with a worldwide distribution
of magazines and movies has only 6 times more online sales than a small, privately runned paysite...common..!!

i even highly doubt the paysite makes 2k a week (no matter if gross or net). given the traffic they have (around 500 dailyvisits a day, source:
public whois sites) means they would convert with a ratio of 1:56 (with 29,99 gross per sale) !! you believe that ?!! of course not...

even if it is true, why would the owner sell then ?!! if runned privately by a couple, this is an income of 8k a month (no matter if net or gross)

bottomline: yes, the site has definately potential, yes it needs redesign and an affiliate program behind it. based on more realistic ratios like 1:500
(still optimistic) the real income of that paysite is around 30-50 sales a month or 900-1500 $ gross revenue, times 6 month and we have a maximum
value of 9000 $ for the paysite. which is the maximum realistic bid they can ask for.

but again, i can be wrong, after all we are all millionaire webmasters posting from the bench of our yachts , right

[cots]

Originally Posted by Eddi

you should not believe everything you read.
2400 recurring monthly members ?! thats highly unlikely for a niche paysite without affiliate program, even at
the beginning of the internets and even with an affiliateprogram behind.
a huge well known paysite with a rabbit in their logo (you all know of which brand we are talking of) made aprox 1800
online sales a month in 2008 (pls. dont ask me the source)
so , a bit common sense here...you really think that a huge brand, known for decades with a worldwide distribution
of magazines and movies has only 6 times more online sales than a small, privately runned paysite...common..!!

i even highly doubt the paysite makes 2k a week (no matter if gross or net). given the traffic they have (around 500 dailyvisits a day, source:
public whois sites) means they would convert with a ratio of 1:56 (with 29,99 gross per sale) !! you believe that ?!! of course not...

even if it is true, why would the owner sell then ?!! if runned privately by a couple, this is an income of 8k a month (no matter if net or gross)

bottomline: yes, the site has definately potential, yes it needs redesign and an affiliate program behind it. based on more realistic ratios like 1:500
(still optimistic) the real income of that paysite is around 30-50 sales a month or 900-1500 $ gross revenue, times 6 month and we have a maximum
value of 9000 $ for the paysite. which is the maximum realistic bid they can ask for.

but again, i can be wrong, after all we are all millionaire webmasters posting from the bench of our yachts , right

I am not sure where all this data comes from but there are a couple of distinct errors. PHA Bucks has been going for years supporting all their sites and I have been an affiliate for most of that time.

We do not have one site that has less than 1,000 visits a day, and our main site has many more than that. Despite that, we think of ourselves as smallish - that was the whole point of starting this thread.

Although it is in all respects a multi girl site, pantyhoseaddict.com was, for most of it's history, the home of Izzy, one of the best know pantyhose models on the web. She ranked up there with Kryztal Red, Roni and others as the "Queens" of the nylon/leg models. They had all kinds of tgps, toplists, forums and other traffic generating vehicles to add to their affiliate scheme. So I can well believe that 2400 members (for the whole group of sites maybe) at it's peak is feasible.

I have no idea what your sites do but if you think 1:500 conversion is optimistic then we all may as well give in. Every site (and I promote most of yours at www.glamourimages.net) ) has it's ups and downs. Some months conversion is fantastic, then a site can go 5-7 weeks without a sign up. None of us will ever know why. My Top 10 sites at GI, on average, all convert at below 1:350 with one or two converting at 1:200 or better.

I repeat something I said in an earlier post. We are 40% or so down on 2007/8 but that still leaves us way over $1500 a month.

No I am not sat on my yacht, or in any kind of luxurious holiday home, but we make a very reasonable living still, even it is way below a few years ago.

Why would Chris want to sell? Why not? if he can get a good price, especially if his personal circumstances have changed, which he does allude to, then go for it. He has been doing it since 1996 so maybe he just wants a change.

Whether you believe him or not there is one fact that is 100% true.

From the heady days of the late 90's and early 2000's this business is now really, really hard work. My first site (launched 2000) earned over $1000 per week from 500-750 unique visitors and I can honestly say that I had no idea what I was doing. Oh and we had no affiliate scheme as they didn't exist way back then.

[Dyker]

Originally Posted by Eddi

you should not believe everything you read.
2400 recurring monthly members ?! thats highly unlikely for a niche paysite without affiliate program...

That figure was easly surpassed by me in the non nude niche.

Originally Posted by Eddi

a huge well known paysite with a rabbit in their logo (you all know of which brand we are talking of) made aprox 1800
online sales a month in 2008 (pls. dont ask me the source)
so , a bit common sense here...you really think that a huge brand, known for decades with a worldwide distribution
of magazines and movies has only 6 times more online sales than a small, privately runned paysite...common..!!

1800 sales a month... Then X amount rebill... (at least 3Xmonthly new sales = 7200 monthly sales - Probably many X's more.

Originally Posted by Eddi

you really think that a huge brand, known for decades with a worldwide distribution
of magazines and movies has only 6 times more online sales than a small, privately runned paysite

I can name you many "small" sites without that kind of marketing that understand the web much better than playboy and pull ina huge amount more cash.

Originally Posted by Eddi

i even highly doubt the paysite makes 2k a week (no matter if gross or net). given the traffic they have (around 500 dailyvisits a day, source:
public whois sites) means they would convert with a ratio of 1:56 (with 29,99 gross per sale) !! you believe that ?!! of course not...

Take rebills into account and most likely, a lot of there traffic is pure gold typin.

[Eddi]

sorry, i made a typo, of course its 18000 sales a month and not 1800.