Re: Why lots of sponsors have $1 trial?
[QUOTE=Squirt;36642]What a rip off!
You mean they didn’t charge you a dollar and give you three days to take all the unlimited chocolate you want? ;)[/QUOTE]
Nah. You just kept going back to the lady that was handing out the scratch tickets and got more. rofl
Re: Why lots of sponsors have $1 trial?
My point exactly. That was a sample. It was not a discounted sale.
It was not a paid trial. I have no issue with free samples. But if they sold you a tiny box of candy and then told you in small text on the bottom of the receipt that unless you came back to the store and told them not to do so, they would bill you for $100 bucks and ship you 10 pounds of candy, you would not be happy. Then if it seemed that every candy maker did the same you would become pretty suspect of all candy sellers, whether they used that practice or not. Especially if you could get candy that was almost as good delivered to your home for free.
Re: Why lots of sponsors have $1 trial?
the number of updates are, however, very relevant to the conversion ratios - a good ratio makes a trial worth doing.
and there are lots of sites with very good quality exclusive content out there that have low cost trials. i don’t see how it’s a trap or a ripoff to let someone try a product and make it both a good enough product and a plentiful enough product to make them want more of it so they’ll go for a full membership.
for that matter, there are some sites with exclusive content and limited trials that are very honest up front about the fact their trials are limited. i can’t see how that is a rip off since they are TRIALS that don’t claim to be full memberships and let people know before they join that they aren’t getting the full enchilada for their buck or three.
Re: Why lots of sponsors have $1 trial?
[QUOTE=basschick;36645]the number of updates are, however, very relevant to the conversion ratios - a good ratio makes a trial worth doing.
and there are lots of sites with very good quality exclusive content out there that have low cost trials. i don’t see how it’s a trap or a ripoff to let someone try a product and make it both a good enough product and a plentiful enough product to make them want more of it so they’ll go for a full membership.
for that matter, there are some sites with exclusive content and limited trials that are very honest up front about the fact their trials are limited. i can’t see how that is a rip off since they are TRIALS that don’t claim to be full memberships and let people know before they join that they aren’t getting the full enchilada for their buck or three.[/QUOTE]
We are not ‘making them want more’ with these sorts of trials. We are telling them that unless they tell us they don’t like what we sell we are going to hit them with a charge and an even bigger one if they took advantage of any other $1 trial X-sells on our join page. (Provided they read the small print and didn’t just get swept away by the preview) People seldom read the closing documents when they buy a house. Why do we believe they read the terms when they join a porn site?
If someone wanted to offer a trial that really was a trial, say two hours access for $5.00, with zero opportunity to download and no re-billing obligation I would say hurray for them. That is a trial. The surfer could then join and get the $5.00 taken off their first month’s subscription. But a tour that is clear and accurate makes that unnecessary. But I doubt that anyone would ever do that. It requires that a surfer take an additional action to make money rather than the surfer taking additional action to not make money.
Re: Why lots of sponsors have $1 trial?
[QUOTE=AlexManifestMan;36639] There is not a single retail store that says: Buy something today for $1.00, use it for three days but if you don’t bring it back (after giving it to all your friends to use) we will charge you $100.
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I hope you know I am playing devil’s advocate a bit?
But, there are not too many stores that say buy this for $30 and if you like it we will keep charging you $30 a month for it.
The goal of any and all websites is to get a member into a recurring membership. (Except those sites that offer the non recur option and are happy with the one monthers.)
The trial to full price membership is nothing new and it’s not just porn that does it. Despite what many may think about the surfer getting 3 days access to all that content that they can download, they still convert from trial to full member at about the same percentage as a paysite retains from month 1 to month 2. (That was that retention formula.)
I would disagree that no sites that offer good exclusive content offer trials. Quite a few do actually. I would also disagree that surfers that join the trials" forget to cancel". Those that just want the porn cancel pretty fast. I would say that those that choose longer memberships tend to forget to cancel. I was making around $200 a month from CCbill on a site that closed 18 months before. Those members forgot to cancel. Just like I did when Dish Network gave me 3 free months of some premium HD channels, then zapped me on month four.
Re: Why lots of sponsors have $1 trial?
a friend of mine has a crappy non exclusive site that never updates. less than 10% of his members rebill (around 8% on average), and some of those actually revisit and check out the bonus content every month and appear to know they are rebilling - they sometimes email him and ask about a model, too. it appears that a max of 5% of his members don’t know they’re rebilling. no one is making the big bucks from that.
also when i read surfer boards, it looks like far more porn surfers are aware of all this stuff than webmasters are.
btw, there are some very good sites with trials that don’t have cross sales.
Re: Why lots of sponsors have $1 trial?
We have to remind ourselves that the vast majority of buyers never visit surfer boards. The biggest majority of them are ignorant of the way that things actually work. How many times has anyone (that is a content producer) answered the phone and had a member ask to speak to a particular model (as though we kept them here in the basement). These folks are not involved in the industry and are very naive at times. The get all excited when they see something the like and “Wow it only costs $3.00”. They whip out that credit card and join. They haven’t read a thing and get hit with a bill for $60 bucks 3 days later. How can that not make us look bad as an industry and create a very wary surfer.
As a professional in my former life, I was instrumental in fighting laws ‘that protect the rights of the consumer’ by putting time limits and caps on what they can and can not sue for. I don’t believe that we fully disclose the terms of these sorts of sales if the text is not at least as large and as clear as the largest text on the join page.
By the way I also think that payday loans are evil, rent to own stores are vile and many mortgage brokers should bypass go and head directly to hell so don’t take my views personally.
Re: Why lots of sponsors have $1 trial?
[QUOTE=InsaneSimon;36583]Hello,
few days ago I was chatting with my epoch assistant (Cristiana, a really cool person… I love her!) and she advised me to avoid to use $1 trial cause lots of CC companies could consider the transaction as a “charging/validating test” instead of a real sale. My question is: why $1 trials are so popular?
thank you[/QUOTE]
Ok. Not to get off topic. Here is the best answer that I can give you.
They are popular because they actually do work. I think this is even more so in this economy. Even affiliates that have never marketed a PPS program in their life are jumping on the programs that offer $1 trials to filter out the surfers that are looking for a bargain.
The rep at Epoch has a good point. If I am not mistaken the big billers by default wont let someone charge less than $3 for a membership without the client having a decent monthly volume and a low CB ratio. (I could be wrong on this one). The issue that you brought up may have something to do with that rule, if it is in fact a rule.
For the most part there is not much difference in initial conversion or conversion from trial to full membership between a $1 trial or a low priced trial ($5).
So, why offer $1 trials then? Because affiliates want them as they think they can make more money. Most affiliates that use them actually do make more money, but not for the reason that they would expect. It’s not that the $1 trial converts any better than a regular trial, it’s that they get a better click thru ratio.
For example, I had one affiliate change his links and banners to the $1 trial. His conversion stayed the same, but his click thru ratio was .45% vs .25% for the next sponsor. Just swapping his banners to ones that said $1 trial made a big change in his income with the same conversion. So, think about that. Assume he was getting 5,000 uniques a day. At a .45% ctr he is pulling in 225 uniques to the program. At a 1:125 ratio he is making about 2 sales a day. At a .25% ctr he is making about 1 sale a day. Bump the traffic up to 10,000 uniques a day and it’s the difference between 4 sales a day vs. 2 sales a day. Take it to a macro level and assume other affiliates can get a better ctr on the same traffic and it’s a big increase for the program.
That is why when affiliates choose the $1 option, I try and help encourage them to use the promo tools tools that say $1. I also encourage them to stress that it’s full access, downloadable videos, etc. I really believe that affiliates get a higher click thru ratio stressing the price point than those that don’t.
HTH,
Lloyd
Re: Why lots of sponsors have $1 trial?
[QUOTE=AlexManifestMan;36654] The get all excited when they see something the like and “Wow it only costs $3.00”. They whip out that credit card and join. They haven’t read a thing and get hit with a bill for $60 bucks 3 days later. How can that not make us look bad as an industry and create a very wary surfer.
[/QUOTE]
Alex,
I know you have a good site as I have been in the inside of it. But, not everyone that has a $30 site with no trial is as good as yours.
So, what percentage of surfers would you assume have joined a $30 site and said they will never join another paysite in their life unless they can get a trial membership because they felt the site was utter crap? That percentage is probably damn close to the percentage of members that choose an X - sell. The vast majority of surfers “uncheck” the box as they know what they are getting or most of the others know they are getting another trial and cancel right away.
Seriously. The percentage of surfers that get in a membership that they don’t know they are in is lower than many think. (Probably much lower percentage than those you have joined a site a full price and will never join a site at full price again becausee they felt they got ripped off $30).
Believe it or not, there are members that know they are getting a membership to both sites and actually stay a member to both groups of sites for a long period of time and it’s not because they “forgot” to cancel.
The reason that some PPS programs have resorted to X - Sells below the join page, two pre-checked X - Sells that are confusing as fuck, and such, is because surfers that join trial programs are smart.
Re: Why lots of sponsors have $1 trial?
Not to hijack this thread, but I forgot to mentions something. The reason they joined both is because they KNEW they could cancel both at the click of a button. But, to some surfers, as you know $60 is about the price they pay for a porn DVD. So getting access to nearly 10 sites with exclusive content and another 10 with non exclusive content for $60 a month is a bargain for them. The goal of X-sell is capturing those members and NOT trying to “ripoff” other members at all. While the % that choose it is small, the potential for profit is amazing as these are high end surfers that have no problem paying $60 a month for 12 months to the paysite. These surfers are out there and are very happy with both memberships.