I’m considering letting in a trades who use those tube sites or long videos because I figure that if they don’t want sales and quality bookmark traffic, at least I still get them.  But I wonder about these few things:

1. If I associate my site with the sites who promote long videos and tube sites, am I harming the industry by being a secondary promoter? And if so, by how much, and how will it affect my business?

2. Will my conversion ratios decline, but ppc/dating/cams ad revenue increase? And how much time do I have before my ppc/dating/cams rates/conversions decline due to everyone else promoting them even more?

3.  AAW once paid a pretty penny, but now pays a much less because A) it’s been abused by webmasters who place ads in poor places which don’t convert for the advertiser and it also takes 100k daily to earn decent cash with AAW.

4. If I do succomb to the changing market and associate with websites who provide long videos, how long until this industry dies due to affiliate programs closing because they’re no longer making money because we’re no longer converting for them?

5. Am I trapped in a case of “if you don’t do it, someone else will?”

6. What are the benefits of associating with tube/long video websites, and do the benefits outweigh the harm possibly caused in the long run to the industry?

7. How do affiliate programs feel about this? I see one lawsuit from Teen Revenue against Red Tube, but I don’t see any other actions against the tube movement, so is it secretly embraced?

8. What are some creative ways to generate additional income if sales decline due to the user getting off on a poor quality and buffering long video?

Then there’s tube sites who offer embedded videos too. Same benefit of not paying for bw, but there’s one major downfall – you can’t make any money either. AND, you’re giving a website a FREE advertisement and FREE traffic.

If you sold a banner that sends 5000 clicks per day, for 30 days ($150,000 hits), at industry standard $5 per k, you would earn $750.

Let’s say you embed a sponsor video and it receives 5000 clicks per day, for 30 days (150,000 clicks) and the sponsor pays $30 per sale and converts  and an awful 1:2000. You’d get about 75 sales and earn $2250.

Let’s try a tube site embed now and send it $150,000. What did you earn? Nothing. That’s right. Nothing. At. All. Jackshit, completely worthless to use.

The point here is that using tube site embedded videos is basically the dumbest thing you can do for your site and your business. Would you ever give away $750 worth of traffic? No. Would you ever give a trade partner 150,000 free traffic and get NOTHING back? No.

Would you be a smarter webmaster to sell traffic instead of giving it away for free? Yes.

Would you be even smarter webmaster to use sponsor embeds (or host your own if that’s in your budget) and double the income (even on a bad ratio)? Yes.

Here’s something I posted a while back on an adult webmaster forum.

what happens when you embed from a crappy tube site:
1 – you send the tube site housands of free clicks to their site and their ads, and THEY get paid. You get nothing and you just gave them free traffic – why would you give away thousands of free clicks for nothing in return?
2 – if people bookmark redtube instead of your site, you get nothing in return and lose a return visitor to a tube site.
3 – this is you making money for them, and getting nothing for yourself.
4 – sometimes they close the embeds. it’s obvious the tube site doesn’t give a shit about you.

what happens when you embed from a sponsor or host your own video:
1 – you send traffic to sponsors and you either make a sale or dont. if sponsor gets paid, so do you. your clicks generate cash for you.
2 – if people bookmark the sponsor link instead of your site, then it has your refcode in it and you can get a sale. you may lose a bookmark, but gain a sale. if you lose a return visitor to a sponsor, that’s fine because you’re not competing with a sponsor and the sponsor will be paying you if that surfer signs up.
3 – this is a partnership to make money for you and the sponsor.

what sounds better?
1. sending a tube site 10,000 clicks through the embedded player and getting NOTHING in return?
2. losing a bookmark to a competitor and getting nothing in return.
or
1. sending a sponsor 10,000 clicks through the embedded player and getting paid?
2. losing a bookmark to your sponsor and possibly getting a sale later.

even if you convert at a crappy 1:2000, that’s 5 sales using the sponsor embeds. for the average sponsor who pays $30-35 per signup, that’s $150-$175 in your pocket.

are sales guaranteed? no. you have to match your content to your surfers taste and do trial/error testing until you’re satisfied with sales results, as not every sponsor will work on every site. but isn’t it an obvious common sense choice to use a sponsor who is more of a partner than a competitor? and who will pay you if they’re paid for a signup?

what’s a tube site do for us? nothing…they don’t pay us if people click on their ads or sign up for anything. they don’t care about your site when they close down some of the embeds…they don’t get you a sale if a bookmarker visits and signs up for anything.

if you’re going to give away so much traffic to a tube site, then why don’t i update your site for you? i can put my own sponsor videos up and you can give my sponsors the free traffic?

i’ll gladly take your traffic and make money with it if you don’t care to.