AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands—Cuddling on stage, goats and Justin Bieber.
That was only the first 20 minutes of Sean Christian’s raucous “Dating Dominance” panel that pulled no punches Sunday at the Doubletree by Hilton Centraal Station on the final afternoon of Webmaster Access.
Combining expert insight into the $2 billion adult dating vertical with a quick wit and a gift for commanding a room, the CEO of Revolution Force put on a master’s class in moderating seminars, delivering value to the international contingent of attendees that packed one of the weekend’s featured sessions.
“Welcome to the Not Dating Panel,” Christian cracked during his introduction. “This is not a dating panel. None of us run dating sites.”
Calling dating sites “a myth” when it comes to adult, Christian emphasized what the audience was there to learn more about was how to monetize “fantasy chat sites.”
The online marketing guru was joined by Jenny Gonzalez, the Malta-based chief revenue officer for Traffic Mansion, and William Soares Pinto, the head of business development for XCash, who got an earful from Christian when he arrived five minutes late.
“We are creating interactive pay-sites where we have interactive chat on it—and we create a fantasy for people,” Christian continued. “If you look at any one of these sites there’s an open disclosure in large letters and it says, ‘This is not a dating site.’ … There are fake profiles on this site and there are people that are going to send you fake messages that might be generated by an agent or by a computer. Can we please stop calling this ‘dating’?
“Let’s call it what it is. This is a very high-quality pay-site. Not to brag—pay-sites are great—but I’m really super bored of BigBlackCocksonaBus.com.
“Did you know that your product pretty much bills at the same rate as BigBlackCocksonaBus? But you know what you provide your users? Interaction. Thousands of profiles, videos. … What is the difference between that fancy chat site and a pay-site? Nothing, other than the fantasy chat site is amateur content. It looks like amateur content. It’s more fun."
Christian added, “POV was fun years ago. It changed everything. We started liking amateurs more than professionals. That is what we have. That is what we do for a living.”
Jenny Gonzalez elaborated on his assertion.
“As long as you fully disclose that you will be interacting with computer-generated profiles or entertainment profiles—everyone calls it something different—then you’re not scamming,” Gonzalez said. “You’re not lying to your customer. They know what they’re getting themselves into. The more you disclose it the better. So we’ve gone as far as to highlight when you’re talking to a fake profile.
“And we call them something different. We call them ‘Virtual Hotties.’ And there is a star and there is a different color and you know you’re talking to a bot.
“We have computer-generated profiles that are super smart. We like our technology a lot. But you’re talking to a computer. And you know it and you love it and you’re paying for it.”
When Pinto, who can speak four languages and has a heavy French accent, began a speech about typing, “I want to fuck a girl tonight” into a search query, one of the female audience members shouted, “Did you say goat?”
It was just that kind of afternoon in Amsterdam as the 14th annual conference sprinted to the finish line. Powered by the second leg of the world-class educational track, Day 4 of WMA also included meaningful discussions on live cams, billing, doing business in North America, Germany and Eastern Europe; and the Pornhub Content Partner Program.
Everyone brought their sense of humor—namely Pinto, who was a good sport when Christian roasted him, nuzzled his leg and hugged him after tossing more barbs at the fast-talking analyst.
“William looks like this right now, but he actually used to be Justin Bieber and all of the fraud turned him into this French guy,” Christian said. “He went from like Canadian to French national. This is what everyone’s done to William. Poor William…”
As boats sailed down the IJ river outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of what may be the most scenic seminar room on the global show circuit, the anticipated live cams panel tackled the classic question of freemium vs. premium model.
“It’s not a fight,” assured Mugur Frunzetti, CEO of the Romania-based live cam franchise, Studio 20. “We co-exist.
“I think it starts with the model. Because most performers that do amazing in premium are not going to work on freemium sites. Our models are more inclined to do private chat than public.”
Frunzetti was accompanied on stage by Ellisa K. (CAM4), Diana (ImLive), Jeff Wilson (Flirt4Free) and Christophe Peyras (Streamate). Amsterdam local Norman Hauwert (ReflectedNetworks) moderated the exchange that glided through topics such as VR, finding new traffic and public awareness.
“I think the next thing we’re going to see is some sort of amalgamation between AR and VR,” said Ellisa K, regional director for North America for CAM4 who has been working in digital marketing since 2001. “Where you can see things without having to get the headset and still get that full interactive experience.”
Frunzetti, whose franchise network is up to 19 studios, noted the cam sector is still in its growth stage.
“I don’t expect a huge change in technology that’s going to make a difference because the market still has a lot of potential,” he said. “Most of the people on the street still have never heard about live cam. They don’t know that live cam exists because of the barrier between adult and mainstream.
“Advertising is very hard to put the message. My two cents is the market is going to keep growing by itself. There is not going to be a VR button that’s going to change everything.”
Flirt4Free’s Jeff Wilson, the director of business development, agreed.
“I think maybe 10 years ago 1 out of 20 people had heard of live webcams where they’d see it and say, ‘I don’t know if she’s real or if it’s just a recording,’” Wilson told the audience. “Now it’s like 1 out of 4 people.”
Wilson continued, “I don’t see any newcomers that are being disruptive. I will say that all of us are working to improve our experiences—not just from taking shots in the dark but more of machine learning and trying to figure out what the user wants before they actually take an action.
“I know that we’re working on that. Streamate’s been doing a lot with that and I feel like that’s where everybody’s going toward.”
Diana from ImLive said, “I think the future for us is taking the webcam outdoor,” giving an example of a model taking her member to the mall with her to help her choose new lingerie.
“The real girlfriend experience,” Diana added.
Streamate’s Marketing Director Christophe Peyras remarked, “I think the future is making the experience better, whether it’s for the user or for the models. … I think ultimately users are coming not for the sexual experience but more for the connection.”
Frunzetti surprised the crowd when he revealed that China has a booming live cam industry.
“Which most of us—we don’t know anything about,” Frunzetti said. “It’s just that they have disguised all this live cam industry on the mainstream umbrella. Because all their ads say that this is not adult. While in the end most of the guys behind the camera end up masturbating who are looking at the nice girl.
“I admire the Chinese a lot. They’ve managed to create a local industry which we somehow are left out of. It’s a very hard for a global company to enter that market. And you can see it not only on live cam. You can see it on any kind of products—social media, e-commerce like Alibaba. Most of the global companies that went into China and fought with the local companies lost. Because they have their own way of doing things and they’re very into local formats.”
The third annual North America panel brought together a diverse group of pros from the U.S. and Canada who were moderated by Kenny B!, owner of YourPaysitePartner.
The panel included Brad Mitchell, CEO of MojoHost; Remi St. Maur, chief business development officer for TrafficStars; Megan Stokes, partner at NMG Management; and Lindsey Banks, brand ambassador and cam model at Flirt4Free.
The group talked about how consumer spending is effected by national holidays and other annual rituals such as Black Friday and back-to-school shopping—and you should have a strategy for those times.
St. Maur said Black Friday banners often convert well beyond that day.
“Limited time promos go past the limited time all the time,” he said.
Stokes noted how there’s a big spike in porn viewing during back-to-school weeks.
“Parents are like, ‘Oh my god, they’re gone,’” she joked.
Mitchell took it a step further, recommending that wise marketers also consider the time of day and the day-of-week spending habits.
“As a web host, I’ve seen the highest traffic on Monday night,” he said.
Stokes, who specializes in ancillary content revenue generation, said she sees a lot more hardcore content being viewed in the afternoon between 12-1:30 p.m.
Lindsey Banks, a social media influencer who is also known as Banksie, said if there’s a big football game coming on TV she knows it’s not a good time for her to log onto cam. She also said the best way to reach out to her for business nowadays is not by sending her an email.
“DM me or private message on Instagram,” Banks said. “That’s even overtaking email.”
Mitchell pointed out that Facebook, where he is friends with more than 2300 adult industry members, has been “really helpful to my business as a means of staying connected.”
Stokes, meanwhile, said her best advice on what makes a good licensing deal is to make sure “it’s not a rev-share deal.”
“Someone once told me, ‘Always decide how you’re getting out of something when everyone’s still happy,’” Stokes added.
In keeping with the regional theme, Webmaster Access hosted its third ever panel about the German market; this time it combined the subject with an additional focus on Eastern Europe.
Leah Callon-Butler, co-founder and chief impact officer for intimate.io, brought an air of sophistication and poise to the moderator’s chair as she led an all-star panel through a series of questions of how to improve your dealings in these important centers of commerce.
Lukas Taylor (DMCA Force); Ines Petersen (CCBill); Christian Kreul (We-Mo Consulting); Mugur Frunzetti (Studio 20); Andy Wullmer (SexGoesMobile) and Texas Patti (Hitzefrei Medien) stepped up to discuss the many factors to weigh when approaching the region.
“In this business you need a niche,” said Wullmer, CEO of SexGoesMobile, who will celebrate his 20th year in adult in January. “The niche can be the content. It can be the product. Or it can be the country. Of course with me, I’m German. I speak German. My first thing was doing websites and SEO. So of course I know all the German slang.”
Texas Patti, the pride of Munster, Germany, says there’s more to German porn than urinating.
“It’s not like all the German porn actors is only pissing or something like this. We can also do other stuff,” said Patti, a performer/producer who is also making a name for herself in the U.S., where she is represented by OC Modeling.
Frunzetti told the audience not to sleep on Eastern Europe—or Central Europe for that matter.
“Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland—those are markets that if you want to expand you should look more into,” Frunzetti said. “Traditionally, they were used as markets for production because of let’s say, smaller costs than in Western Europe or the U.S. But I am seeing the last two or three years a lot of new customers are ready to pay for content. … also dating content. So there’s a new generation; they use credit cards a lot.
“They are even more willing to use their credit cards online than Western Europe. Everybody I know has a credit card and we pay this online and don’t really fear about getting our data stolen. It’s not part of the discussion because it doesn’t happen that often.”
Frunzetti added, “There is no similarity between Czech, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria. Nothing alike. Each of them has a different language, different habits, different marketing challenges.”
Christian Kreul, an independent consultant with more than 15 years of experience in areas such as live cams, billing, mobile and cryptocurrency, remarked, “When you’re talking about Europe, you are talking about maybe 45 to 50 different languages.”
“But there’s also the aspect—somebody mentioned Portugal which is similar to Central and Eastern Europe in terms of income structure,” Kreul continued. “But let’s say The Nordics—Sweden, Norway, Finland—they are paying three to five times more compared to companies that are in Germany. Or if you take Switzerland you can raise your price by maybe two or three [times] compared to Germany.
“On the other side for example Spain and Portugal you need to charge a little bit lower compared to other countries. So we don’t just have different languages, we also have different income structure within the European continent.”
Kreul said the freemium model for live cam sites is “non-existent.”
“You have to pay from the very first second if you want to have a chat with a cam girl,” he noted.
The Billing panel featured insights from Colin Powell (CCBill), Kathy Beardsley (SegPay) and Jonathan Corona (MobiusPay); Jenny Gonzalez, a veteran of the online dating industry who is an expert in affiliate marketing and branding, kept the session engaging and high-energy.
She asked the panel what does the typical client want from their payment services provider in 2018?
“I think the customer wants to sign up quick,” said the CCBill Sales Executive, Colin Powell. “So you want your join pages or the way they get access quick, easy. Also return purchases. For example with Amazon and Paypal you can click with a button. We kind of instituted something like that as well to help speed up that process.”
“I think 2018 is like the year of compliance,” said Beardley, the CEO of SegPay. “Because we didn’t have this privacy regulation that rolled out. … I can’t tell you how much time we spent on making sure we’re in compliance with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).”
The regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union was implemented in May.
“So the consumer can come to us and say please delete all my information,” Beardsley continued. “And then we also have to be able to go up the chain to the buyers and say delete this information and go down the chain to merchants…There’s a whole host of being able to data map, knowing exactly which data we’re holding and why we’re holding it. And a whole series of policies that we had to write."
Beardsley added, “The regulation allows us to have a policy. So we can say why we’re holding data and how long we need to hold data. For instance our risk team wants to hold data on people who charge back. … It’s really about a policy and procedures and then living to those guidelines.”
The group all said they’re waiting on crypto.
“Until someone cracks the code and makes a true transactional coin it doesn’t make sense,” Powell said.
Christian Campodonico brought the formidable Pornhub Content Partner Program to life in a special presentation that also was the finale of the 2018 educational track.
As the Lead for the CPP and Viewshare, Campodonico broke down how there is enormous revenue potential for performers and studios to upload their trailers, clips and full scenes to the platform.
“We’re very flexible as far as the program is concerned,” Campodonico explained to yet another full seminar room. “What does that mean? Your business model could be different. We’re dealing with studios directly. We send traffic back to your pay-sites. If you’re a producer that’s only producing content in that case we can do let’s say Viewshare, where we use their videos only and don’t really push any traffic to their sites.
“We also have cam sites, for example. They edit down their videos. Let’s say they have a three-hour session. They’ll edit it down to the most important parts and then we push that traffic all back to their cam site.
Campodonico, who came armed with a slick video presentation as well as a stack of glossy Pornhub Playbooks, told attendees that thumbnails are “very important.”
“Because this is what the user is first going to see when the video gets featured. So that limited time that you’re going to have on the homepage you want to drag them in to click on your videos,” he said. “We also have the ability to have custom thumbs. So instead of trying to get the system to generate one for you, your team or whoever’s cutting the videos could actually grab a still—the perfect still from your video—and you can use that to upload to the video itself.”
He explained how Viewshare is different from the Content Partner Program. “Basically you upload full-length HD content that only [Pornhub Premium] subscribers can see and you get paid on a monthly rate per a thousand views. The rate fluctuates because it depends how well the program performs during that particular month. We can give you an estimate during the month then finally at the end it will lock in.”
The ballpark average, Campodonico later said, is about $37 per 1000 views.
“Viewshare is an ad-free section of Pornhub since the users are actually paying a monthly fee to be on it, but this does not mean that you don’t get traffic back,” he told attendees. “You still have join buttons under every single video, as well as a join button on your channel and the traffic’s going to be a lot less because it’s not just free users watching your stuff. But it’s more filtered users since they’re already paying for a Premium they’re more likely to go with your site and actually pay for a membership. So it’s like better leads.”
Campodonico noted that titles are important.
“They weigh heavily on searches both on the free side and Viewshare,” he said. “We have a quarterly report that I put out on the 'Most Searched Terms' on Pornhub and the other tubes as well. So what you want to do is create titles but also sprinkle in maybe two, three keywords.
“You don’t want to make the title too spammy, so don’t just grab all the keywords and put them all in there. … You kind of want to strike a balance between both.
“You’re able to choose eight categories as well as 16 tag-words. Of course you can use the search terms to choose the Most Popular categories and tags but also tags and categories that are unique. For example, if a particular video has an outdoor scene. ‘Outdoor’ is not searched as much as say ‘Big Tits,’ but then ‘Big Tits’ is saturated. So if you actually tag ‘outdoor’ and somebody searches for it the chances of your video showing up is higher.”
Another key tip he offered was to check out the top trending porn stars and upload content with them in it.
“It’s better that you invest your money in one scene with a top model rather than uploading let’s say 10 scenes with people that are not recognizable,” Campodonico said. “You put any video where Riley Reid is in there or Piper Perri it’s almost guaranteed to kill it every single time.”
When the seminars ended, attendees began bracing for The Big Bash closing party at the Chin Chin Club.
For additional coverage of WMA 2018, presented by AgeID, click here.
For photos from the show, visit WMA on Facebook.
