poto

I stole this thread from gfy... some interesting points were made... here's the original:
Differences between Mainstream and Adult - GFY Webmaster Board

its interesting running a business that has one foot in adult and one in mainstream. I think it is very advantageous to be able to compare both markets and take the best ideas out of both. In their own ways, their are parts that are very innovative and parts that are much outdated, but they are 2 separate worlds with very little crossover.

As I know it’s a phantom subject for most people on gfy, I thought i would share some of my knowledge.

Affiliate networks/systems

In mainstream many merchants (programs) have their own merchant accounts for the sales they send themselves and use affiliate networks for traffic from partners.

See, in adult you have ccbill, nats, mpa3, netbilling, etc, and these are systems attached to processors or leased out/handbuilt. In mainstream there are hundreds of affiliate networks, and its their own business model. Their purpose is to attract affiliates to join, then they lure the merchants with the promise of many affiliates promoting them (they take 20-30% of the margin on the products from the advertiser/client.)

Dynamics

Much more spread out than adult, you have many huge companies with some very smart people and I would guess 20% of the market is biased against adult.

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(in mainstream) the affiliate networks generally use pixel tracking on the signup page, was something interesting to mention

i guess the general thought is that the first years of the net (1995-2001) or so adult made it big. all the new innovations were done in adult, including the move from the CPM (paying per impressions) to CPA (cost per acquisition/sale). much of mainstream is still using indirect methods, which adult moved out of for the most part 4-5 years ago.

mainstream shows used to suck and be very tame with few parties and everyone going home or doing their own thing after the convention, but now they are catching up to shows like internext/WA/phoenix forum

many more cute girls in mainstream. ironic, isnt it. its much easier to get action at a mainstream show than adult (the ratio of girls/guys is around 50/50, if not better, and they tend to send the attractive ones to the show)

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now thats just a guess. you have *some* Christian/religious sites (ever seen a christian faith traffic seminar?), and remember, lots of people had gotten lured into making money on the net (id guess the rush started in 2001/2002) and you have to figure a sizable # of them would not consider adult/porn, and they stayed on the other side of the line. There are those I had mentioned that we are doing some biz on the adult side, when I told them I got a stone look. So it’s a guess

The 2 worlds cross over very little, considering how many of the business concepts are similar, and because mainstream is so much bigger, the verticals go much deeper. In adult you have a handful of processors, in mainstream hundreds. They are more competitive, and you see them tweaking their traffic to what seems like a much higher degree than adult, really squeezing all they can out of it (where adult will be in 3-4 years, more consolidated)

An analogy would be mainstream is like a high school, with difference clichés and so forth, Adult is like a big classroom its actually a much more friendly and laid back group, once you get dialed in.

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