I've seen this question asked often on the boards and I personally feel that each has a place, but how do we decide where that place is? I think it comes down to what type of site we're promoting sponsor's sites on, what type of traffic those sites get and whether you're looking to make money on an ongoing basis with a rev share program and hope that the member renews his membership for several months or whether you prefer to make a flat $25 or so from a surfer that you presume is just going to download as much content as possible during his trial period and then move on to another website and do it all over again.

When you think about it the answer to the question doesn't seem quite as cut and dried as some webmasters might think. When asked this question, I often hear webmasters say, without skipping a beat, that they always go with rev share because it pays more in the long run. Personally, I think it depends on the website you're promoting as well as the niche. Does the website update often and with a lot of content each time so that the member won't get bored and move on? Is it a common niche like big boobs which is something the surfer might be interested in this month but next month he might decide he'd rather look at teens with great asses, or is it a niche like bondage, that would tend to attract a more loyal member? Does the members area have things like chat rooms, message boards and live webcam shows, like a typical amateur site, which would definitely retain members for several months because they feel like they're part of a community or feel a friendship towards the featured model, or is the site primarily pictures and videos and not much else to capture a members interest for an extended period of time?

Another very important factor that I always consider when deciding which type of program to promote is what type of site I'm using it on and where the traffic is coming from. If it's a TGP/hub, TGP gallery or freesite, I tend to favor cheap trial memberships and a flat rate program because I personally think it's less of a stretch to convince someone that is primarily looking for free pictures to signup at a paysite for $3.95 than it is to expect them to pay $29.95. My assumption is that the type of surfer that is looking at galleries and freesites is more than likely quite experienced at joining a website for 3 days and harvesting all the content he can and then cancelling before the trial converts, so I'd rather make the quick $25 when he joins instead of 60% of $3.95 and hoping he rebills at the end of the trial.

If, on the other hand, it's a review site or a website that gets a high percentage of traffic from search engines or paid adertising, I lean towards the rev share model. In these cases I feel that since the surfer is actively searching for something in particular there is a much better chance that he will join and stay a member for a few months and in that case, 60% of $90 is better than a flat $25.

What about free joins, where the surfer only has to provide an email address to gain access and the affiliate is paid $1 to $2 for every valid email address that is harvested? I like to use this type of program on exit pages. I don't like to use them alongside ads for paid memberships becuase I don't want to sidetrack the surfer and have him join a site like that and only make $1 if there was a good chance he would have joined a paysite instead. However, if the surfer has finished on my website and is leaving anyway, I'd still like to take one last shot at making something from him so I hit him with a popup. -- Yes, I know about popup blockers but I'm using a script that defeats IE sp2's blocker so exits are still working for me, but that's another blog entirely. -- Since he's leaving anyway and wasn't enticed to pay to join the sites I was adertising on my website, there's a good chance he may be willing to type in his email address, even if it's just out of curiousity. He may not know that he's about to be bombarded with email spam for his troubles, he just thinks he's going to get to look at some more free porn. You won't make a lot of money from him, but even if you don't have a lot of traffic, you might still make enough from free join sites to pay your hosting bill, but if your site does get a lot of traffic, those dollars add up.