Hi Everyone
I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I may have to go out and get a proper job. After seven years full time on the web the downturn in sales is becoming serious to the point my lifestyle is suffering.
No this isn't a belated April Fool's prank, it's how I feel right now.
From our peak year of 2007 sales are down 50%. Traffic is the same etc so it can't be that. Our star performer for the past three years has been
www.glamourimages.net but now even that is starting to suffer. Sales for the last two weeks are 30% below average for that site - despite higher than average visitors and clicks out. Sites, even my normally reliable Top 10, just ain't converting. To compound things finding new sites that perform consistently is also getting harder.
Now I don't blame CCBill entirely for this state of affairs but they certainly "seem" to be at the centre of it as I am not getting the same experience with non CCBill based sponsors. In fact they are holding up reasonably well. Sadly they are only 10% of my sales.So what is it with CCBill sponsors?
I said to Astrid at the start of 2011 that we could not carry on going down. And yet we have. I would say that so far this year, the business as a whole is down by another 10% on the same time last year.
So maybe it's time to change careers again and move on.
I would be really interested to get some feedback and insight, especially from those of you who run sizeable affiliate type operations.