The word conversion is a sacred one in the adult Internet community. To the adult webmaster, conversions are everything. Sex might be the most important search term but all those searches; visits and bookmarks mean nothing without conversions.
Conversion determines success and failure. A webmaster with good conversion ratios is a god among geeks.
Conversion. Convert. To turn something into something else. In the adult webmaster lexicon, the word refers to sales. When a click on a banner results in a signup, then a conversion has taken place. That banner click converted into money. One banner click. One signup. One sale. A conversion ratio of 1:1. If the banner is clicked one thousand times and fifty of those clickers pay for fifty memberships then the conversion ration would be 50:1000.
Obviously conversions are important to the affiliate webmaster. An adult website operator spends valuable man-hours designing their sites and pages. They work hard to promote their webs in order to sell paysite memberships and adult products for their sponsors.
A good percentage of those webmasters burn their own bandwidth doing so. If they do not convert at high enough ratios, they lose money. Affiliate webmasters are not paid for their labor. They are not compensated for hosting space or content costs. Adult affiliates work strictly on commission. They might snag free hosting, they might be blessed with free content but their labor and their sweat can only be compensated by profits.
Therefore conversion ratios are just as important to adult program sponsors. Adult webmasters talk to each other. Sponsors always describe the conversion ratios of their affiliate program in glowing terms. That is just good advertising. Those glowing terms will not hold up if enough webmasters state the contrary in public forums.
A good-converting sponsor is praised and recommended by affiliates. When conversions are down, the news spreads like wildfire. When a sponsor converts well and states the fact in their promotional text, they are not embellishing their cause. Sometimes it is true.
Then again, there is a truth about sponsors that escapes some adult webmasters. What converts for one will not convert for everyone. An affiliate sale is the result of a magical combination. No matter what anyone alleges, paysites and services do not sell themselves.
A money making site or gallery is composed of winning text, strategic image/banner/link placement, proper promotion, the right surfer audience, visitor quantity and proficient timing.
You might be a genius at selling teen content but you could suck at selling MILF stuff. You could be an adept designer. You could be a virtuoso at luring visitors to your page. Those talents alone will not generate decent conversion ratios.
Just because your ICQ buddy does well with that “crazy-frat-party-fucking” site does not mean you will automatically become king of bling bling by pushing the same sponsor.
You have to know your market. You have to attract your market. You have to be able to make your audience want to click that sponsor banner or text link.
It is no easy feat being able to consistently convert surfers into customers no matter how great the sponsor converts for others.
What Is A Good Conversion Ratio?
If you are on paid hosting and you do not make enough money in sponsor sales to cover your bandwidth fees, it is pretty obvious you are not converting well. If you are on free hosting you do not have such a reference point.
Conversion ratios will inform you about your productivity with a sponsor program.
If you sell one paysite membership per one thousand referrer-link clicks, your conversion ratio is 1:1000. A 1:1000 average is a pretty common conversion ratio for some adult webmasters. If those webmasters are proficient at generating tens of thousands of sponsor clicks, then 1:1000 is pretty decent money.
Be warned, those same webmasters will have to acquire hundreds of thousands of site/page visits in order to be able to generate ten of thousands of sponsor clicks. A better conversion ratio is 1:500. 1:250 is an excellent ratio. If you can convert 1:50, you are close to godliness.
The above are based on ratios when it comes to selling sponsor programs with a higher per-sale payout such as paysite memberships. There are programs/services that payout less for conversions. An example would be the monies made by promoting cam sites online.
4 Main Reasons Your Conversion Rates Are So Low
There are a lot of reasons why your conversion rates may be lower than you would like. I list some of them below:
No Direction/Relevance
It happens all the time, seriously. I click the ad or link on the one porn site. The site I go to is unrelated to the ad or link.
Most of new adult affiliate marketers create a site and put an ad which is completely irrelevant to their websites. I see porn websites that display mainstream ads every single day. It is a huge mistake.
You have to advertise sponsors that match your niche. For example, if you run the amateur porn site then you can monetize it with amateur or cam programs. It will not translate into much revenue if you are working with the wrong affiliate offers. Conversion is all about understanding your potential customer’s needs.
Poor Call-to-Action
I am sure you have seen some posts on porn blogs that add text links which only say something like “Click Here” or “More Here”. Majority of surfers would click such links out of curiosity but how many of them would purchase a product from such links is another question. This is why it is important to give your visitors what they are looking for.
You have to be more descriptive or else you will not see results. If you run the gay cam blog then add the text link that tells more than just “Click Here”. You can add something like “Click this link to watch this hot guy on cam now” or “Watch this hot gay right now”.
Low Quality Traffic
I visit many adult and mainstream webmaster boards on a daily basis. There are so many newcomers that rely only on the social media or trade traffic and they complain about their conversion rates all day long.
My sites are optimized for search engines, I post unique content everyday and Google rewards me by sending me a lot of great organic traffic. I buy links or ads only on the quality sites, it is not cheap but it is well worth it and my conversion rates prove it.
Oversaturated Sites
Some sponsors that thousands of affiliates jump on, especially the big tubes – like MEN.com, the ratios might start good, but sites go seriously get over saturated, and people will not join due to it being everywhere.
So you should better promote unsaturated sponsors like XLoveCash or join CrakRevenue and find a good product for your site.
Bottom Line
Conversion ratios should not be confused with click-thru ratios, especially if you are in a sponsor program where you are paid per click. Clicks are important but converting those clicks into sales is the ultimate goal for you.
In fact, if you are on a pay-per click program and you do not generate a certain percent of actual sign-ups from those clicks, some sponsors will drop you from their program. Other sponsors will drop you if you do not convert enough sales no matter what payout program you are on.
Conversions matter to you and to your sponsor. If you can not make a sponsor convert for you, drop them. If you can not convert, do not be surprised if they drop you.
Just do not drop the ball. Keep searching until you find a market where you fit. You will know it fits when you can convert.
Learn about your customer base so you can improve your ratios. Ask your sponsors for tips on how to promote more effectively. Sign up with a few different sponsors who have programs/paysites for your market.
I recommend you to sign up with these three adult affiliate sponsors:
Put your eggs in a few baskets in case one sponsor goes under or ceases to be profitable. If you are selling, then you are doing something right. Do it again and again and pretty soon you could have killer conversions!
nice article you wrote, thank you
Thanks buddy. I am so glad you enjoyed it.