Thread: Freeones - Major Drama

Originally Posted by AmateurFlix

I was merely giving an example. No matter how you slice it, an affiliate using nothing more than a hardlink - be it from a review site, link list, SE landing page or whatever - is going to incur less overhead to the sponsor than someone using the sponsor's b/w for galleries, the sponsor's resources and money to pay designers to make the galleries, to pay someone else to handle the affiliate backend and list and sort the galleries, etc.

Most of these costs are realy small. For example a Gallery Template, last time i asked for one the price was btw. 15 US$ and 35 US$, again divided by let's say 500 webmasters using it, makes 7 cents cost per webmaster that used it.
About bandwith, last time i checked cheap bandwith for galleries was available for US$ 6 - US$ 10 per Mbps, 1 Mbps = ~320 GB (x 1024) = 327.680MB, so if a gallery is let's say 10MB big it would make 32.768 loads of this given gallery for just as low as 6 or 10 bucks or in other words 0.0003 US$ per load, lol. Having in mind that every gallery load is a part of branding i would say it's mega cheap so far. Every view more is a chance more for a sale, a cross sale, branding and whatever not and as said already every sale more made decreases the average costs. Too tiered to make an example for and employee as well, but again, with many millions/billions of views per month, they are just nothing, or simply, sponsors wouldn't use FHG's and other such promo material if it wasn't profitable.

Originally Posted by AmateurFlix

Of course those costs might be minimized if the sales volume is high enough; and due to the extra type-ins generated from branding and the nature of promoting via videos, it is conceivable that it might be even more profitable, but that would be due to flaws in affiliate tracking, seems unlikely, and anyway would be impossible to track.

Just because it's not trackable doesn't mean it doesn't excist. I bet that sponsors that used over the years a lot of promo material for their sites get shitload of typein sales as well. Makes me think about another very important factor, providing the product as fast to the client as possible, bevor the competition did or befor the content gets somehow "old". Again a factor that speaks just for mass doing things, like through FHGs. Reaching as many potential visitors as possible in a as much as possible short time.

Originally Posted by AmateurFlix

So back to your example, the cost per sale for a hardlink-only affiliate should not include the same overhead costs as that to determine the cost per sale of someone using all of the above mentioned resources for free content. To determine the correct cost per sale, using your example, you wouldn't divide the total costs by 600, you would divide the costs incurred for the one affiliate group by 100 and for the other affiliate group by 500, to tell you which promotional method is more profitable.

IF someone takes all factors into account which are many more as the here mentioned i'am pretty sure a FHG using webmaster for example is much more profitable/cheaper in "average" than a not promotional using webmaster. As said, in average as theire are always exclusions due other factors. Which now again makes me think of another factor, lol, the value of the program/site itself. It just raises, the more galleries you have, the more FHGs are used, the more webmasters use it, the more traffic it gets, the more sales it makes, it just raises multiple times. So the costs can be viewed as an investement as well

Originally Posted by AmateurFlix

By combining them all together, you may find that some other third group is running at a loss, but when combined with the others you would not see that.

Too tiered to check that out now, lol. Anyway, enough Philosophy for me and for today, lol, no others can continue the mathematic lessons, lol.

By the way, this is just an example to view things from the other side of the coin, from the affilate programs point of view for example of long time based as i think that things aren't that easy as it may sound when you say for example "I don't use promo material, i make the sponsor more profit" or similars...

'nada, you're making the assumption that the fhg model is always profitable in the first place. of course for many sponsors it is, for some it is not, and for many others it is barely profitable. to determine what their case is, they need to break down the overhead vs the sales generated via that method, not make wild assumptions without any specific data pertaining to their situation.

Originally Posted by Pornonada

Makes me think about another very important factor, providing the product as fast to the client as possible, bevor the competition did or befor the content gets somehow "old". Again a factor that speaks just for mass doing things, like through FHGs.

If they're concerned about the product getting old, especially for something like a solo-girl site, the best way to help it get old fast is to have free content available everywhere, lol. How many people sign up to a solo-girl site from a 4 year old FHG? Now how many more might continue to sign up to that same site via a hardlink, having not seen the girl for free everywhere for the past several years?

I'm not saying that it doesn't usually make sense to promote via FHG, certainly a program will find more webmasters overall to promote them by using that method than by excluding it, my point is only that on a cost per affiliate basis, an affiliate using more of the sponsor's resources to generate the exact same $ per sale will be less profitable than one who does not use sponsor resources.

Originally Posted by Pornonada

IF someone takes all factors into account which are many more as the here mentioned i'am pretty sure a FHG using webmaster for example is much more profitable/cheaper in "average" than a not promotional using webmaster.

That makes no sense at all, unless uncredited affiliate sales (type-ins) are generating that many more sales. However since they are uncredited, it is impossible to know whether a type-in is the result of a free content affiliate, a review site, some other affiliate type, or from the sponsor's own promotion. So they should not all be attributed to the free content affiliates by default.

If every webmaster costs a sponsor at least $X in overhead and the free content, galleries, etc cost the sponsor $Y per webmaster, $Y might shrink to a very very small amount over time, but $X will always be less than $X+$Y. Which brings me back to my original point, that affiliates who generate less overhead costs have more of a reason to request a higher payout

Unless, as I said earlier, uncredited type-ins make up the difference.

Originally Posted by Pornonada

As said, in average as theire are always exclusions due other factors. Which now again makes me think of another factor, lol, the value of the program/site itself. It just raises, the more galleries you have, the more FHGs are used, the more webmasters use it, the more traffic it gets, the more sales it makes, it just raises multiple times. So the costs can be viewed as an investement as well

You're correct, but that is beside the point of breaking down cost per affiliate

so i went thru all of the pages, and there is really NO DRAMA to find, its only fair & good that affiliates which send more sales getting paid higher cause it does really pay off for the program owners

the only remaining question for a "maybe drama" how much they asked
as a matter of fact it doesnt work for program owners if they ask for tooooo much, since the sites are still billed in US$

I really don't know what the deal is... For non-us businesses that make most of their money from the US, they've all taken a big hit with the drop in the dollar.. I was talking to a content producer in hungary last night and she was complaining that the US customers are wanting video content for the same price as they've always paid.. But at those prices, paying the talent, location fees etc. etc. etc. makes it a losing proposition.. So they need to raise their prices. This is no different.. Freeones (like every one of us affiliates) "sells" traffic.. It shouldn't come as a suprise that they need to raise their prices (by asking for higher payouts) when their profit margins start to go down.. Don't want to pay it? Then don't.. someone else will... It's just pure business.

"Everything" in this business is about making sales from customers that get to your sites via "traffic".. So those that have the traffic can make the rules if you want some of it.. I have a site that's one of the main sources of quality and quantity traffic for one particular niche... Based on that plus my almost years of doing this, I have some "rules"... If some new or small program wants me to promote them, then I have some guidelines.. If it's a NATs (I say NATs only because I rarely see a small program use MPA) program (i.e. they pay out themselves), then I need to see exclusive content and get 60% (post fees) before I'll even consider signing up.. Far too many of these types of programs go under or don't convert and so I end up wasting time and with money stuck in there... If it's a ccbill program then I need to get 60% (which is 50% after fees)... I might sign up if it's 50% but they'll get nothing more than maybe a text link or 2 and I'll list their FHGs IF they have 30+ for each of the site(s). The sites that pay me 60% or more get better listings and some prime promo spots as well... Don't like my guidlines? Oh well, you're welcome to submit your galleries on your own and/or buy pure ad space. I have something like 100 programs I promote so for me it comes down to putting the time into the ones that make me the most money.

End of the day, it's supply and demand.. you need traffic? then you need to pay the rate that the suppliers are asking for. This is why traffic is king and NOT content.

And for those that still think content is king... I recently put a bunch of pages on one site with graphics that simply said "placeholder"... Surprise! I'm making money from those pages without any content.. why? cause I've got the traffic.