Ah, signup ratios. The number of clicks one acquires before a sale is made. If this particular arrangement of characters confuses you:
Then you're very new to adult webmastery. If it elicits a mournful sigh, boiling rage or a pleasant smile, then you know very well what those numbers divided by a colon stand for. The first number is the amount of sales. The second number is the amount of clicks your banner or text link got before you made that sale. Maybe you've seen the numbers reversed (2000:1). The order really doesn't matter. What matters is the never-ending mission to get those two numbers closer to a match.
|
"The point is eventually, you'll come to understand that your stats won't improve by checking them. You have to take the information you glean from your traffic statistics and apply that knowledge to improving your signup ratios." |
Those of you familiar with signup ratios were undoubtedly made familiar by your adult sponsors. One of the best things about doing business on the Internet is that web servers provide hard numbers on the amount of visitors to web pages. In turn, adult sponsors track those visits and serve those statistics to their affiliates. Our sponsor stats tell us how many surfers clicked our banners, what page those clicks came from and whether or not a click was a new visit or a repeat visit.
Because of sponsor stats, we affiliate webmasters can analyze which galleries, pages, ads and sites sell and which ones need reconfiguring. Because of sponsor statistics, we who promote their content know exactly how much money we're making or not making. On the other hand, because of stats, our sponsors know which affiliates are making the most money, which ones are slacking and which ones might be cheating. Our sponsors are able to dig deeper into their statistics and recognize when an affiliate is manipulating clicks or sending unproductive traffic.
If you're fairly fresh in this business, sponsor statistics are an irresistible lure. You'll find yourself checking stats at all hours of the day. You might even end up dreaming about sponsor stats. Most of today's sponsors update your affiliate stats practically in real time. If you're having a particularly good traffic day, you can log onto your affiliate dashboard on the hour and see the changes to your stats. After a while the fun wears off, especially when the ratio between clicks and signups grows larger. You begin to realize that you're wasting your time stressing on your stats when you could be spending your hours improving your pages.
Untitled Page
This is not to say that sponsor stats lose their importance to the experienced adult webmaster. The point is eventually, you'll come to understand that your stats won't improve by checking them. You have to take the information you glean from your traffic statistics and apply that knowledge to improving your signup ratios. You have to step up your game because no matter how good your ratios are, they can always be better.
So, the answer to the magic question? What is a good signup ratio?
I wish I could tell you what the average signup ratio is but that number varies from webmaster to webmaster. Of course the perfect ratio is 1:1. In a perfect world, your surfers would buy a membership every time they click on one of your sponsor ads but we all know that's a pipe dream. When you get down to it, the best signup ratios come in around 200:1-500:1. The sad fact is the overall average for adult webmasters is more like 1:1000-1:2000.
Naturally you have to factor in other things like whether or not your traffic is coming in drips or droves. If you've got a low-traffic site and your signup ratio is 1:1000, that probably means it took you a long time to make that one, crappy sale and it's time to make drastic changes. If your gallery got blasted with 80,000 page hits in one day and your signup ratio was 2:1000, that's not bad but it could be better. Getting surfers to click on sponsor banners is pretty damned hard and it's up to you to determine whether or not your ads are click-worthy. The problem could be your design or it could be your sponsor. One your surfer leaves your site and goes to your sponsor, they become the marketer. A crappy sponsor tour can be just as debilitating as a crappy affiliate.
Another very important thing to pay attention to: Your sponsor/affiliate agreement. Some sponsors will drop you as an affiliate if your signup ratios remain low. Try not to take it personally when that happens.
When it comes to good signup ratios, I've seen all kinds of claims. The only ratios that matter are your own. If you're selling at a ratio of 1:400, you're doing okay. If it's more like 1:3000, you've got work to do.