Models.xxx

Empress Mika

Am I correct that Models.XXX is owned by ModelCentro? 

I wanted to share my thoughts about this, if so.

Madamduchess

yes i believe so

[Deleted User]

@Mika, yes, you are right  

Empress Mika

@SashaGreen

Thanks for the clarification! 

I appreciate your side of the business but, honestly, I do find it a little odd that ModelCentro wouldn't provide Models.xxx for free to promote all models using MC? ModelCentro already takes 25% of all sales. However, to be promoted by ModelCentro, models have to give an additional 25% of the sale to you, so you keep a full 50% and the model keeps less than that becuase ModelCentro does not cover the 10% processing fee and instead makes models cover it. I'm not aware of any other platform that has this requirement in order to get promotion, especially now that another membership competitior is more heavily getting into this market that offers a higher comission. 

I'd like to hear your reasoning on this decision. 

Thanks!

[Deleted User]

@Mika ;Models.xxx is a separate entity; as for now the site doesn’t have that much traffic, but we have plans for it to drive traffic to all models that decide to sign up for it.

In that 25% commission we count development and maintenance costs, hosting, traffic acquisition… all costs that another regular webmaster would have.

Models.xxx promo is an additional option for you models to get an extra 25% commission that is definitely better than 0  

I hope this clarifies a bit more. 

Empress Mika

@Guido Thanks for your response and clarification.

I'll be honest when I say that this is one of the top reasons that many more experienced models (like myself) decide to pass on ModelCentro. I've seen it again and again in model's only forums. Not only does MC have us pay for the 10% for payment processing but MC will also not drive traffic for us at all unless we give up another 25% of our earnings. 

With a huge competitor under way (I won't name it out of respect for you guys here in this forum), I think it's time for MC to make itself a bit more competitive because you will no longer be the only one for the service of hosting membership sites for models.

Most cam sites, clip sites, etc - all advertise their models absolutely free without taking a further percentage. One of the biggest complaints here in MC forums is the lack of traffic. In my opinion, I believe everyone (models, ModelCentro, even affiliates) would see more sales if MC took advertising all models a lot more seriously without a 25% requirement.

Food for thought and I wanted to put it out there Because, honestly, switching to a new platform would be a big pain for me, haha. 

StanDaMan

@Mika, thank you for your feedback.

Of course it would be great if MC was driving traffic to you for free, and at the same time provided the most advanced platform in the marketplace, and the best support in the marketplace, and also charged less then anyone else in the market. Wouldnt' that be great? 

ModelCentro's goal is to empower models to create own business, not be part of another site.. where nothing is in your control, and everything can change at a whim of the site owner. Many models control their fan base, and they are able to drive their fan base to a website that they create using modelcentro as a platform. You must understand the core difference between modelcentro and any other platform/website/service.

So while we would be happy to provide everything under the sun, we are only able to do so a the pace that is economically and technically possible. We are rolling out many promotional methods in the next quarter which would allow models to generate a lot more traffic with our platform. ModelCentro doesn't own/contnro the sites and the users, you (models) do, hence it will never be the main traffic driver to your site, but it will provide you with tools to get the traffic/revenue.

With upcoming MC API release, any cam site out there would be able to promote your modelcentro based content/profile/cam, so you will not be limited to just a single website/camsite. Thus your earning potential will be geometrically multiplied without doing much extra work.

Empress Mika

@StanDaMan Thanks for your response.

MC gets 25% of all sales, so MC would not be driving traffic for free. MC would be driving traffic to increase sales over all to earn the 25%. As it is currently, MC only will advertise models in which they agree to give MC 50% of the sale, which is now a higher % of the sale than what the model will earn. 

The platform and support from MC are great but, again, there is now a competitor that is also offering a great platofrm, a great support and even a higher percentage with the same goal of empowering models to have their own membership site. 

It appears that the only promotional tools MC is providing are through affiliates / affiliate marketing, in which the model gives up more of her earnings. 

Again, I don't want to have to make the switch because I have everything set up here already. I also do like the MC platform but, again, I can tell you MC is not popular among top earning models in the industry and this is a big reason why. I hope this is seen as helpful and not as an attack.

Thanks  

[Deleted User]

Together with what @StanDaMan already said, please consider that cam sites, clip sites etc, have a completely different business model. And they don't actually promote their models, but the product itself.

It's easier for them as they have one site to drive traffic to, while we have more than 2k individual sites

[Deleted User]

@Mika we do appreciate your feedback and it's not absolutely seen as an attack.

Empress Mika

@Guido - Yes, I realize it's easy for cam and clip sites to just link to a home page with a listing of all the models. However, that seems to be what models.xxx does - one site to link that lists all the different models to subscribe to.

Additionally, I don't think it'd be a big deal to link to several different MC pages on social media daily. Like, "Hey, check out Princess Mika's femdom page [link of site here] [picture here]". There could be several models/pages linked to daily and there could even be rotating features. With an already steller support team, I don't think it'd be a big deal to schedule some promotional tweets, at the very least. 

What are your thoughts? 

Natalie

@Mika, social marketing is acctually one of the efforts that Models.xxx team is covering already. We use the ModelCentro accounts for connecting with models, but there's ModelsdotXXX that is aimed at end users and driving traffic to the site.

As to the % settings, I do not believe it is currenlty unfair. ModelCentro deducts 10% of billing costs not because we are mean and greedy, but because it really is taken before we ever get hold of the money to further do the revenue share split with you. So, since we never actually see the $10 on every hundred, why would we want to add it to our costs? MC gets 22.5% of the total of transactions, which gives us very limited margin, provided we also cover all expenses connected with hosting, storage, user support, model support, and the biggest of all - constant development of new features. There is nothing unfair about the share we charge - it is, in fact, very reasonable when you take into account all expenses incurred, things we provide and the level of service we offer. It is also natural that we attempt to be a successful business and hance have a reasonable profit.

I have often noticed that people underestimate the value of marketing and traffic generation. Models who have a fan base and a following, at least most of them, have worked hard for years in order to generate this following, and it is natural that, as owner of that traffic, they can convert it into members of their sites without incurring extra expenses. However, when there is an affiliate, who has spent time and effort building a traffic source (like a blog, a picture-sharing site, a directory website, a review site etc) - and he or she is ready to try promoting a new website, it is somehow surprising that they want to have a profit from sending this hard-earned traffic to a membership site. With affiliates, they are at risk of having their traffic not convert on that website, which means a money loss for them and nothing earned despite the effort.

In affiliate marketing today, competitive rates on revenue share only start at 50%, and when an affiliate sees anything below that chances are he or she will just turn around and leave - because it's their traffic - they don't want to bother risking it for anything less. If you were to build a traffic source, go through all the hardships of watching your analytics and generating content, making changes daily on it for many years, you'd probably do the same.

An alternative would be an advertising platform - where a site owner would risk own time, effort and money - and in this case earn the % without offering any away for markeitng, but media buying is tricky in itself and learning to convert the traffic you purchase is going to take time and a load of effort - again, an investment that makes traffic costly. You can easily get the idea of the cost of traffic by checking out one of the countless advertising networks out there (similar to Google Adwords, Real-Time-Bidding or banner-purchase systems for adult) and seeing what kind of costs you'd be looking at. There was a recent discussion about it here in the forum, and one on xbiz, from which I've added some interesting posts: http://community.modelcentro.com/index.php?p=/discussion/812

I have always been a very strong advocate of MC's philosophy. When it was all just starting out, I talked to many cam site representatives and paysite programs that ran solo sites - I heard all the time that "models are lazy and know nothing about how to market, they'll never be able to make money on their own, that's why we take X revshare (usually over 50%) and manage their traffic for them". I've always argued against such thinking, and I will stand my ground even more because now - 3 years later - I have ample examples of success to base my point of veiw on. I am very glad that ModelCentro did not go in the direction of underestimating models. I am proud that we aim to provide tools and solutions instead of using the models and the content they create for a clean profit. I am happy that we believe in the fact that models can achieve success, and that they're smart and goal-oriented and trustworthy business partners. I am a strong supporter of the way we decided to offer marketing - as an option (yes, for an additional share of the profit, but not as an obligation).

We do get a lot of "why don't you provide traffic" comments, and so we plan to offer marketing as one of our solutions or tools, but we will not be able to do it for free and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that in my view - traffic is a major cost for all online businesses today. To me, as long as we give the models the option of managing traffic on their own (and earning a high rate) and the option of using the affiliate markeing software we built, and "promotional offers" we integrated/are integrating, and our directory models.xxx, and in the future utilizing our marketing platform that is now in development, it's a fully transparent and fair business relationship that is meant to benefit all involved.

About competition... ModelCentro has been in development for 4 years, and it has been live for 2.5 years now. Over this whole period of time, a dedicated development team is working on delivering new featues and expanding the platform to fit the needs of models who use it. That is why I'm not at all worried about competition, even less so newly emerging competition - they would, in fact, be a very healthy thing, finally, if they could achieve a platform that would be similar to ours. That is assuming and provided they'd be able to catch up to what we already have built and what we have in store for the future. So, my response to competition is - yay, that means our concept is correct and that we are on the right path, so bring it on!

busty_von_tease

does models.xxx have a social media presesnce too? is there a models.xxx twitter account? I know from my expience with clips4sale.com that their twitter used to push a lot of sales my way due to them tweeting links to every upload etc.

I don't recall seeing a twitter account, I'd certainly follow it, and anywhere else on social media.

[Deleted User]

busty_von_tease , yes, there's a twitter account, here is the link: https://twitter.com/ModelsDotXXX

busty_von_tease

@SashaGreen found and followed, thanks, is there a way to get our content tweeted by the ModelsDotXXX twitter ? 

Empress Mika

@Natalie - Thanks for your response and insight.

Models.xxx is certainly there for the purpose of driving traffic to the models that have their membership site on ModelCentro. The website lets users sort through various models to help them find what they are looking for. The twitter is a powerful tool to promote various models, as well.

However, I disagree that the service Models.xxx provides should warrant a 25% cut from the model's earnings, thus acting as an affiliate of the models. I believe that Models.xxx should be completely free for the models.

Now, again, I do appreciate and do my best to understand your side of things. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with wanting to make a profit either. However,  I believe models.xxx acting as an affiliate hinders profits for everyone (both models and ModelCentro). For example, I know for a fact that many experienced models refuse to join ModelCentro as a result of the lack of direct traffic combined with having to forefit 57.5% of earnings via promotion through Models.xxx. It's my belief that if you removed this restriction, more experienced models would sign up. In fact, in my opinion, a very strong way to get experienced models on board is by having the model's best interests. Certainly, working to drive traffic via promotion is more than commonly part of the deal; it's expected. 

Furthermore, I don't believe that Models.xxx requires *that* much work. No offense, but Models.xxx is simply listing photos that model's provide and listing the models under categories provided by the model. Because ModelCentro is so savy, creating this more simplified listing site couldn't have been that difficult. Combine that with, say, 10 minutes a day to schedule some auto tweets of various models to promote and another 15 minutes to put up new models and there you have it. I firlmly believe this amount of work does not warrant 25% of the sale from the model and should instead be free for the model. It's a strong reason to show that you're on the model's side and adds so much value to the ModelCentro service. Plus, I believe this would result in more sales for everyone (ModelCentro and the model). The model would make more sales thus you would make more sales. You'd have more happy models and more models would then be signing up after these testimonials. Models talk among each other on various model's only forums and I can tell you that ModelCentro doesn't have the best rep among seasoned models and this is one of the biggest reasons for that. 

I also see that there seem to be featured models on Models.xxx. Now, that would be something more reasonable to charge a little extra for. I see that ModelCentro is already very friendly with Streamate, SkyPrivate and VerifiedCall. I'm sure they can jump on board here, for example for cross-promotion, too. There are other ways to monitize this other than a 25% affiliate cut. 

I have been more recently getting into and learning the entire side of affiliate marketing. I'm in the process of starting my own site that will rely heavily on affiliate marketing. So, although I can't say I'm an expert, I'm certainly not a beginner either. My experience is limited to cam and clip sites via the perspectives of a model, member and webmaster. Most of these affiliates offer 30% at most. In fact, your affiliate percentage for recruiting models is 10%. Therefore, I'm not quite sure where the 50% you're stating is coming from and how this is a standard number because I have not seen this anywhere except on ModelCentro. I'm not saying I know this for sure but I just wanted to point this out from my experience.

I'm happy to hear that you are excited for the competition and have a healthy, positive outlook. However, honestly, I am a little worried for ModelCentro. Among the more experienced models in various models-only forums, many are giving that one a try and do not consider ModelCentro an option. You can talk all day long about tech features and what have you but this will be a tough sell. Your competitor is offering higher rates for models that scales up every year, beginning at 70% (where as on ModelCentro, it's 67.5% for life). They already have a working, functioning store system that allows for re-bills whereas ModelCentro currently doesn't. I wouldn't be too over confident about it and it's one of the biggest reasons I'm even bringing all this up. 

I hope this is seen as helpful. Obviously, I'm apart of ModelCentro and I want it to be great  

busty_von_tease

@Mika I agree, I've signed up for model.xxx but it does feel like double-dipping, I think it should be free too.

sylvy

talking abt affiliates, i didnt get any traffic coming from them yet, not even 1 subscription. I cant sell memberships as my clients dont like the idea of recurring fees (i know they can cancel and they do too), but they prefer to buy shows instead and buy some content that they are focused at than getting a lot of content that is not individualized;

As for models.xxx if i dont keep posting pics every day, i dont even show on the main page and since i dont do naked shows, its even harder to compete with girls who do hardcore shows. My core niche is strict domination, so the site dont help me much. But my question is, where am i paying 25% to them? I dont pay anything to be listed on that site, the only thing i pay for is for affiliates.

 

Any sites modelcentro can refer to dommes?

thnx in advance,

Empress Mika

@queensylvysinclair - I, too, am a non-nude domme and my site is doing fairly well for being new. For me, I make clips and do live cam shows. Anyone that looks up my information (and for the sites that allow contact information), they can easily find my twitter and website. I also promote my membership at least once a day on my Twitter. I set up member-only activities, pictures and videos. You can check out my site: PraisePrincessMika.com. 

However, yes, models.xxx not having that much traffic is a different point all together, haha. I'm assuming they will give it a lot more love, soon. But, in the mean time, this discussion should certainly be about whether models.xxx should or should not be free for the models. 

sylvy

im not paying anything to models.xxx yet, if they go paid, i will leave. period. 

Empress Mika

@QueenSylvySinclair - You don't "pay" them persay. But if you opt into (it's optional) letting ModelCentro advertise you via their Models.xxx page, you agree that ModelCentro gets an additional 25% of the sale from anyone that signs up to your page through Models.xxx. Thus, Models.xxx is acting like an affiliate. Therefore, for anyone that signs up to your page through Models.xxx, you keep 42.5% of the sale. ModelCentro, instead of getting 32.5% of the sale, would keep 57.5% of the sale - more of the sale than what you would get. 

My whole argument is that Models.xxx should not be our affiliate and should instead be free for the models. In doing so, I believe there would be more sales for both ModelCentro and the models. 

[Deleted User]

busty_von_tease , sure, feel free to DM them via Twitter and ask to promote you (you should have an account on models.xxx) 

Natalie

@Mika, your numbers are a bit off. 25% is the affiliate share charged by the promotion team of Models.xxx (as with everyone, after billing), which is 22.5%. That leaves the model with 45% or $45 on a hundred, ModelCentro gets $22.5 and Models.xxx would be getting $22.5. We do not in any way hide that Models.xxx was initiated by us and is, being a separate project with own emploees and work being done, a useful tool for us to be able to start channeling traffic your way. So, yes - it is an optional, additional expense type of service.

Just to re-iterate, opting in to Models.xxx promotion does not lower your earnigns from all sales, comission is only added if the sale comes from models.xxx.

@Mika, I would agree with you that the site, if it was planned just to sit as a directory, would be better off being free. If we weren't planning on expanding it and spending money on it, it would make sense to keep the cost of it within the current revenue share or only slightly above. As of right now, it is not really even launched full-speed, so it's not among the biggest affiliates that are active. However, what we have planned for the site - and the costs and efforts it would take, gives plenty of reasoning for us to charge what % has been put into terms.

As to the successful models who find the % of the revenue share inacceptable and therefore do not want to join the platform, well, totally up to them. I support freedom of choice and strongly believe in the relation between cost and quality.

Affiliate payouts: In cams/dating, standards may be different, but the sites we're talking about are subscriptions sites, and revshare is only taken on joins and rebills and not on tips and unlocks. Here are some of the affiliate revshare offers that content sites promise affiliates that I could google up off the bat: 

70% https://www.sextronix.com/, http://eurorevenue.com/, http://avrevenue.com/, http://www.manicamoney.com/external.php?page=programs and even 75% http://nats.cherrypimps.com/

That being said, it is "Up to" and the smaller affilaites who can't send a volume of sales will stick to 50% as the median/standard. Cams do have a lower % payout for revshare (around 25/30%), and a higher Pay-Per-Signup, due to the fact that revenue share is lifetime and in cams it can build up to a significant amount, it is cheaper for them to pay out $100 and even $200 for the join/conversion then to keep paying revshare on each order the client makes. If you were to offer 25% on all website revenue - including tips and unlocks, I could see affiliates trading that for the 50% of joins and rebills with 0 on secondary revenue.

 

 

Empress Mika

@natalie - Thank you

Hm, perhaps I don't understand the math then. How is ModelCentro getting 22.5% when it clearly states on the affiliate link 25%? You stated that it's 22.5% "after billing" but I was under the impression that the model pays billing, which is 10%. 

Without any affiiate or studio, a model keeps 67.5% of the sale. I subtracted 25% off of this (which is the rate of the Models.xxx as the affiliate) to come up with my number of 42.5%, leaving ModelCentro / Models.xxx with the remainder of 57.5% to equal 100%.

I agree that it is a model's choice to sign up to models.xxx and the 25% hit is only from traffic that is gained from models.xxx.

I think what you said perhaps stated it all. "If it [Models.xxx] was planned just to sit as a directory, [it] would be better off being free." I'm glad we agree! This was my impression of Models.xxx and it was not stated or explained anywhere that it was going to be anything but. With this information, I'd like to know what other plans Models.xxx has to justify the 25%? And, also, to suggest that there is a free directory created for models of ModelCentro to be on to drive traffic to their pages. Yes, please!

As for the affiliate links you sent, I glanced over them. The cherry pimps for 75% is actually an "up to" 75% so it's likely not 75% until x amount of sales or some kind of stipulation is met. I found that quite a few affiliates do this. They state that you can get "up to" some high amount but it is normally quite difficult to get there. Another was some kind of hentai page, another was general traffic for Europoeans, etc. Although these are examples of affiliates paying a high amount, these affiliates are in a different area of the industry. Pertaining to cam models and clip makers having solo sites - this would be a more affilicable example, in my opinion. In other words, which percentage of cam girls / clip makers that have their own solo site are offering an affiliate program that is 50% or more?  

Certainly, sweetening the deal for affiliates encourages them to promote you. However, this brings about a question of quality as well. I know that opting into the ModelCentro affiliate program gave me a lot of affiliate marketing I absolutely did NOT care for which ultimately made me opt out of the program all together because I had no control over who my affiliates were. For example, one affiliate was "marketing" my site by stating he had a password hack to my site. A sale is a sale but I'd much rather have an affiliate that was promoting me in a more honest way that pertained to my niche of femdom as oppose to appealing to free loaders who are looking to get into my site without paying but then "maybe" paying anyway after they see my site. I suppose this takes our conversation in a new direction of having more control and choice over our affiliates. As you stated, you believe in the power of choice and I believe this to be a really important one. 

WebcamStartup

@Mika, wanna collaborate on a free directory and monetize through other means? Doesn't have to be limited to MC models either. Chaturbate pop-under, direct-model affiliate links for camming sites the models are part of (we can list all networks, not just MC), ect. Stick to the programs where the networks pay the affiliates, and not the models. If everything is user-submitted as far as bio, links, ect. it can be pretty low maintenance and turnkey. SEO as as simple as a comprehensive internal linking strategy.

Would probably be pretty slow until after the rafting season due to my priorities in life, but this fall it's game-face on. It's part of my agenda to get something like this going anyway. On a completely narcissistic note, I wouldn't mind being able to pick and choose favorites, and generate model leads through submissions, either

I do agree with shady affiliates in this industry, too. Fucking blackhat ewhoring bastards and those stupid fucking scraper sites featuring stolen content. In all honesty, camming / amateur-adult is seriously one of the most scandalous as far as dirty blackhat tactics go.

Empress Mika

@Webcamstartup Haha, I was wondering when you'd make an appearance. Let's discuss it via e-mail ^_~

WebcamStartup

It's been a fun conversation to watch unfold. Value-added vs paying for value is a tough debate, as both sides have completely valid talking points. The whole argument comes down to ROI for the provider, which is highly speculative unless both routes are split-tested.

Value-add brings in more clients, which in turn creates more revenue. Direct monetization is, well, monetization. Much easier to quantify.

On the model side of things, it's technically justified if it's a sale that wouldn't have occurred organically. That's the justification on any of these type of scenarios. But with the affiliate revshare, it might make more sense to pursue options such as media buy, where you're paying for clicks but keep all the revenue from the conversions. Doesn't mean that pursuing routes like this isn't justified though.

Me, myself, personally, I've always tried to go the value-added path. It doesn't mean that the other route isn't justified.

Like I said, it's a tough argument as there's plenty of talking points on both sides.

WebcamStartup

Really, it all comes down to whether or not that conversion would have happened without Models.xxx, which is completely impossible to benchmark or assess.

@Natalie, should really consider that suggestion to create a "Thank You" post registration page with a URL that is only hit once an initial signup occurs. That way it'd be possible to setup conversion rules in Google Analytics and we could at least have some insight into how well models.xxx converts in comparison to other traffic sources.

I've got a handful of MC girls that I've talked to this about, and they really want to be able to start benchmarking conversions within GA. I myself would be very anxious to be able to benchmark across multiple sites and get my hands on all that data as well.

WebcamStartup

If models.xxx converts better than other referral channels (comparing organic search, dirct and referral is comparing apples to oranges) than it supports the argument that there's a better chance of getting the conversion with Models.xxx than with other sources, and further justifies the addition revenue.

I'd also be interested to see if models.xxx comes up as an assisted conversion, or whether it received an assist from other channels. If its been assisted by other channels, one could argue that if there was another touch-point outside of models.xxx, that touch-point might have assisted in the conversion instead of models.xxx. One could also argue that the reason models.xxx converted instead of the other touch-points is due to its value. All these metrics can help determine the true value of models.xxx, although points can still be argued.

WebcamStartup

Either way, I'd love to be able to benchmark Model.xxx conversion rates across multiple domains.

Empress Mika

@Webcamstartup - Completely agree!  

The other thing is Models.xxx isn't quite fully functioning. Meaning, it doesn't seem like it's doing much as of yet. Part of the reason for this conversation is to talk about all of this before it finally gets the love and attention it deserves, haha.