slow sales this month for you?
 

I've been doing a lot of reading on the boards and see many webmasters complaining of bad ratios and lack of signups so far for the month of April.

Most of the webmasters have the same traffic they had in the month of March yet significantly fewer signups. I think we have all gone through this at one time or another, but this month in particular seems bad.

What do you do in this situation? Do you consider changing where you send your traffic? Do you stick with it? What is the general feeling on this?

I also posted this message to Cosmic Village, because I want to hear feedback from two different webmaster groups.

my best 2 weeks ever (i work in 2 week periods) , made it to 5 figures for the first time in a 2 week period :)

trying new ways to promote same programs - I always stick with the programs that work and if i get a bad month its time for change!

overall I think this month is just as good as last month....

www.teenagepink.com :thumbsup

for some reason my sales are up but my hits are down..thats very wierd to me

I wouldn't complain about that... :)

Sales are up, conversions are down. Happy camper...

5 figures in 2 weeks? Very nice man :)

We sell content which is a good indication of the market overall. No sign ups, no money for new content.

Not only was April our best month ever, we are only 9 months old on the net, but we had a record number of new buyers.

Let's see if May can be better. Our site was down for three days at the end of the month.

I've noticed signup ratios have been down this month as well.

There are some programs that pay regardless of signups, probably a good idea to diversify. :)

Check my sig for a good one, which is also the company I work for.

Adent.

Gotta love it Chris -

There's so much damned ego on this board that the only people posting here are the small percentage of webmasters who experienced increases in their last month's revenue. God forbid someone post that revenues were down - as if that doesn't happen in the normal course of anyone's business.

I talk to webmasters all the time on the phone and there's no question that this business is getting more challenging. 10,000 visitors today versus 10,000 visitors a year or two years ago will likely produce two very different values.

I think just having the ability to whether the changes and stay in the game is quite admirable for the average webmaster. It's all about being dilligent, patient and creative. This business changes and you have to adapt or you'll wake up one morning and find out your business slipped away.

Brad

yeah, what Brad said. :)

well my sales have been down, ill admit it. but i also havent worked much during april. post-convention laziness maybe. altho sales were way up last week due to a few well placed ads. but yeah, other than that, april sucked for me. but not too bad. just a little. so. um yeah. anyway. :glugglug

INCREASE AND CONTROL

Very interesting month overall... I have been going through sponsors like Hungryman goes through dirty american booze at an after hours bar. (LOL!)

More hits to sponsors, less conversions...

I have a few new ideas this month to try out so I am looking forward to some more sources of income. I believe diversity, patience and dedication is the key...

DH:glugglug

April has been pretty good to me.
My usual sponsors are slightly higher than average.
Freeezines still rockin' for me.
One new beta test for a sponsor is kickin' major ass :thumbsup
Overall very good month
Moving up to a nice new dedicated box also.

Now would be the time to tweak out everything you are doing to get your surfers to click thru to sponsors.

The old build it and forget it used to work well, since there was an assload of newb surfers with more credit cards than sense, but the bottom line now is that surfers aren't so stupid.

Their pals tell them about all the free stuff floating around, you've got the Kazaa type deals where they can trade shit, it's just not like it used to be.

One thing I think people tend to forget is that having the same traffic you had last month doesn't guarantee you anything. The guy who always starts out at the Hun or Yahoo is always going to start out there. If you get a bulk majority of your traffic from one source you'd better start changing out banners etc on those free sites and galleries on a regular basis, since you've got the same surfer seeing the same tired banner that didn't make him click the last time he saw it.

Just a few thoughts.

KK will you marry me?

Brad, what makes me laugh are the ones who say "Oh, it was my best month ever.... (translation: USE MY PROGRAM!!)...
Hell.... my best month ever was.. uh.. lemme see here.... October of 1998 I think... :winkwink:

KimmyKim: I need to sit and talk with you for a few hours again.... I always get a lot out of that. Do you charge by the hour now? LOL

Yeah chris its a real weird month if ya ask me!

I've used this month to test test test... and I tell you even the smallest changes can do wonders!

people forget to renew themselves.... the same old shit doesn't work forever.....

Im one of the lucky cuz I also got my gamblingsites AND they are way more easy to predict....... but at somepoint I'll have to change approach there to :(

I think the online porn is in a changing phase now.....

Time to eat (grill!!!!)

Vegas

Maybe now is the time to start being able to advertise "exclusive content, available nowhere else!" Talk to me. BTW, my sales on my pay site have stayed even, and I sell to several large sites who take the occasional bad month in stride. Show 'em a pretty new girl, and they'll want some.

my sales have dropped by half

the worse 5 months i've had in the last five years
:(

and oddly enough, it started going down the pooper just a month after 9/11

before that, i had been seeing nothing but a progressive increase in my yearly income

Exclusive keeps them around, especially when you're giving them exactly what they ask for, not necessarily what you*think* they want. Listening to your members counts big time.


vegasdude gives good advice.... renew and re-invent yourself and your stuff. Qualify and re-qualify your traffic constantly.