most of the adult affiliates i know don’t test stuff that much. the few that do are mad testers and want to know everything, but the rest tend to either be unmotivated or afraid of losing money or traffic.

for example, i know around 40 paysite owners – and that’s no exaggeration – who are afraid to try other prices even for a day or two. they’re afraid they’ll lose sales and alienate potential members. yet the guys i know who DO test make more money – sometimes MUCH more money – once they find out what prices sell for them and how they retain. a lot of programs using a $19.95 monthly price can make the same number of sales at $24.95 with little or no change to recurring.

and i know affiliates who cling to sponsors that don’t really sell for them that well. it’s not uncommon on boards to read about guys converting at 1:1200 on a sponsor regularly, but they feel either a loyalty to the program, a conviction that no other sponsor can do better for them or else they like their rep. yet often a change of sponsors can bring an enormous increase in sales, particularly on a site with lots of bookmarkers or galleries or freesites where the traffic is coming from sites that have lots of bookmarkers.

remember, you don’t have to test with your existing traffic. you can mirror and buy traffic to test, but if you do, remember to test on both your existing pages AND the pages with the new sponsors or prices.