Why does mainstream pay less than Adult?

THe age old question in the adult industry is why mainstream pays less than adult....

Anyone care to discuss what they think about this?

Lower overhead?
Shady tactics on the adult end of things when it comes to processing?

Mainstream just hasn't cought up to adult??

personally - i run an adult/mainstream program ( www.oainternet.com Penis enlargement products ) and We pay out 50% on the pills / patches / sprays and 200$ on our traction device and our products can and are listed on many mainstream sites successfully ..... but when i promote 100% mainstream programs i seem to be only getting 10-30% of the sale ...



Discuss ...

 

The law of supply and demand applies to porn too.

 

Well, it is a wellknown fact that "the Internet is for pron" Just kidding (but watch the video if didn't already )

I think adult industry has a greater productivity, lower operational costs and so they can give more to aff. just my opinion

 

Porn and gambling sites are some of the most profitable sites on the net. Naturally, they'll be able pay more.

 

Regarding mainstream and small payouts - it depends from niche and services. Instant download ebook of 20 pages can cost easily 30 to 50$ with 50-60% payout compared to 20$ hard copy on amazon with 7-15% payout.

 

That has nothing to do with it. Mainstream affiliate programs are

a) Greedy
b) Not very smart marketing wise

Regarding a) there are many mainstream programs that could pay as much commission as adult sites do. They choose not to out of pure greed and the fact that there are noobs that will promote them and be happy with 10%. What they fail to realize is that by paying out more their affiliate base grows to a much larger size and profits go up even though the payouts are higher to affiliates. Yes it is obvious that some mainstream products (actual items like amazon) can't pay 50% etc. but there are many sites that could but don't.

Regarding b) adult program owners are some of the smartest business people on earth. They understand the concept of paying out $50,000 up front before seeing a dime for themselves but making more money in the long run. They understand the benefits of good support and recruiting huge affiliates that send enough sales to buy a small island by themselves. They are always ahead of the curve in marketing material, tools, payouts, innovation, etc. This is changing a bit but it is still true for now.

If anyone ran a mainstream affiliate program like adult sites they would be filthy rich. Amazingly it's hard to find a program that is decent which is why half the online world thinks adsense it Gods gift to webmasters when it should be the lowest earner of all on most sites.

 

Same reason why libraries give out books (or old crappy documentaries) for free, and hollywood and porn rent you videos for $$$...

 

Well, probably because mainstream is more accessible offline than adult niches.

Btw, the Proactol (weight loss product) from MoreNiche will be paying up to 160$ per sale. I wouldn't say it's little.

Product launch is this January 2007 http://www.moreniche.com/proactol.html

so there is plenty of time to get in the very beginning

 

I was with ya till the "lower operational costs" part. Alot of us load up to 2 megs per page view... if I get 120k page views a day, the cost can get high!

 

Hey there Chris,

Long time no see man!

I think there are a couple of factors involved in what you are speaking of…
I can speak for us (LeadFlash.com), which is mainstream and specializes in the sub-prime niche of payday loans. The conversions I have seen with this company in the last 1 year 1/2 blow away anything away I have seen in adult in the last 5 years.

So what’s the point of this? The point is "it" should be mainly about EPC and Conversion ratios...Not payout. Don't get me wrong... a good payout is important, but should not be the deciding factor. Too many publishers are blinded by high payouts (just like in adult). Just because someone pays 40.00 a join, does not mean you will have great conversions or more money in your account at the end of the day.

Also in my opinion, another reason you see "Larger" payouts in Adult is because the profit margins are much greater due to the structuring (internal up-sells, recurring memberships etc). For the most part, the Adult we have today was built for the net in the first place, unlike many mainstream programs which ported over their brick and mortar businesses to the net and then adapted.

Just my 2 cents...

-=Chipmunk=-

 

I very much agree with part of your comment.

Most Smart people won't get into a very targeted niche unless they have a good idea of what they're doing. So the fact that you're seeing way better epc with your programs than say ringtones doesn't mean anything.

But overall yes, ROI is all that should matter. How ever you may get there..

 

Great post, I agree 100%. I've always had more fun and more money when working with adult websites.

 

They pay more because their conversions suck and they have to attract affiliates somehow. Most of them still can't convert. You can send 300 targeted visitors to a flower site and make a killing, and you can send 300 targeted visitors to an Adult site and make 0.00.

In my oppinion, they need to look at some of StomperNet's conversion improvement videos.

Also, I think that availability of TGPs, MGPs, and P2Ps is hurting Adult business. For most of adult surfers, 20 second clips are good enough to do the job. TGPs/MGPs make huge amounts of money from advertising and pay sites not only help them make that money, they also loose a lot of money because of TGPs/MGPs.

I bet, the moment that when they all will aggree that providing MGP/TGP content is hurting them, they will start seeing some major subscriptions, and the best part is that there will be a lot of REBILLS. Rebills are gold.

Why are they letting TGPs/MGPs make their money??

If you give your customers 3 choices, such as buy, go away, and see some for free on TGP/MGP, then you are allowing them to make that 3rd choice, and you lose control and you lose business! By the way, letting them see some for free on TGP/MGP is same as go away in most cases.

But if you give them 2 choices such as buy or leave, then they don't get a chance to see some for free and they will be more inclined to buying, because everyone loves pron. Just look at how much traffic is out there for every pron keyword. Millions of searches per month!

I hope that they will hear this message and perhaps stop killing themselves and start making money and let affiliates bring business to them. TGPs/MGPs should be eliminated as I strongly believe that there is no need for them and they are taking away profits from pay sites.