UNIVERSAL CITY, CA – Today’s “Where’s the Traffic” Webmaster Access seminar, held from 2pm to 3pm at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, brought together a small panel of familiar industry faces to discuss the modern adult traffic environment – and, in particular, how best to make use of the traffic your sites receive.With Mark Gallione of Cybercat and Magnus of GTS sitting on the panel, and Sleazy Dream moderating, the TGP sector was well-represented. Joining Gallione and Magnus on the panel was Marc Womack of CJTraffic.com and Kourosh of Local Billing.

As a late-arriving and rather sparse crowd slowly filled roughly half the seats in the hall, Sleazy handed the mic off to Gallione first, who focused his discussion largely on the ways in which advertisers can maximize their return on traffic purchased from TGPs, link lists, and other free site sources.

“It’s not necessarily about numbers,” Gallione said, “it’s about conversions.” Gallione stressed the importance of keeping banner ads fresh, utilizing galleries that are unique, and generally making an effort to create galleries that stand out in the crowd of sponsor-supplied hosted galleries.

The next speaker to take the reigns was Womack, who implored the audience to “treat your traffic flow like it’s the stock market – maintain a balanced portfolio.” Womack explained that on his network, sites that start off hot tend to draw fewer clicks and make fewer sales over time.

“You have to change up your traffic sources – find new sources, and avoid over-exposure,” Womack said.

Womack also touched on the key role of search engine optimization. “People have this idea like SEO is this big complicated thing,” Womack said. “And if you’re looking to dominate and really be one of the top two or three SEO guys, maybe it is. But some very simple shit can make a big difference.”

Next up was Magnus, who addressed a question he is asked frequently; “what makes a gallery work?”

“You have to sell your content,” Magnus said. “What that means is that you have to really pitch that surfer, while you have their eyes on the page,” adding that slapping a few images on a gallery page, along with a standard banner and some lame sales text is “not going to get it done.”

For his part Kourosh reminded the assembled affiliates that when they send traffic to an affiliate program “keep in mind the fact that there’s traffic in there that can’t be billed by a credit card”, and that unless webmasters do something to filter that traffic, or they are using a (rare) affiliate program that credits on all manner of dialers and other billing mechanisms, they are effectively giving away something of value.
The panel also addressed what their response is when they are faced with an unhappy customer – someone who purchases traffic, and isn’t happy with the returns.

“The first thing I do is ask to see their galleries,” Gallione said. “I look for problems, and make suggestions.”

Womack endorsed a more pro-active approach. “I try to head it off as much as possible,” Womack said, adding that CJTraffic turns down as many clients as they accept. “I really look people’s sites over in-depth before the campaign ever begins, and if I don’t think they’re going to do well with our traffic, I just straight up tell them so.”

When asked what he would define as a successful initial return on a traffic purchase, Womack said that his general benchmark is 85% – in other words, a client is doing well if in the first month of purchase, they earn back 85% as much as they spend on the campaign.

“It’s going to take some rebills,” Womack said, “so you have to watch your cash flow.”

One thing all members of the panel agreed on; if there ever were such times as the “get rich quick on the adult internet” days, those times have passed us by, and there is no substitute for time and effort.

“It’s hard work,” Magnus said. “Anyone that thinks their going to get rich overnight is in for a shock.”