When talking with many webmasters these days, I get the impression that DIALERS are some sort of taboo in the adult business. It’s true that dialers have had their shady days when dialer sponsors were going out of business before paying up to their webmasters. But that was due in large part to the dialer sponsors’ paying their webmasters before they got paid themselves – only to find that they themselves didn't get paid on some routes.
But now most dialer sponsors only pay on routes that provide a revenue. It’s better for a webmaster to not receive their payments than to lose out on several months of revenue because their sponsor went bust trying to pay payments they didn't receive themselves! Nowadays, dialers are a very safe and effective way to squeeze out every possible penny from your traffic. But just what exactly is a dialer and what does it mean to you and your surfers?
Dialers are a small program that allows the user to access high quality content from subscription based web sites. Instead of charging to a credit card, the program dials a special phone number (after the user accepts the charge), and charges the fee to their telephone account. However, some dialers also accept credit card and PayPal payments for those surfers who want to use them. This means more money from your traffic. Also, some dialers are web browser-based. This means that they act and feel just like a pay site to the surfer. In short, dialers offer a way that a surfer can pay to gain entrance into a pay site. In most cases the surfer is not asked to join a membership but rather pay per usage. Sort of like pay-per-use for the Internet.
Because dialers offer the option to pay via a surfer’s phone bill, it opens up the whole European market and beyond. Most people in Europe and other countries outside the U.S. don’t have a credit card, so having an option to pay via their phone bill is actually a blessing to them. And let’s not forget the many people in the U.S. who don’t have a credit card: when they want to get access to a porn site, dialers are often their only way of doing so.
One more misconception about dialer sponsors is that in order to promote one, you need your own content or pay site for the surfer to enter. Not true. Nearly every single dialer sponsor I know of offers access to their own mega site. These sites are filled with tons of content designed to keep the surfer connected longer. On the other hand, you may very well set your dialer up to where the surfer does indeed enter into your membership site and you are the provider of all the content that is presented to the customer. This is a helpful feature to use if you have some really unique content that the dialer sites don’t offer or if perhaps you already own your own pay site and you just want another paying option for your customers.
Lets say you own a pay site and you want to make sure all surfers coming to your site who do NOT have a credit card can still access your site. A good way to achieve this goal is to place a link on your join page that reads, “Click here to join if you do not have a credit card”. Those surfers without a credit card could then opt for this payment method.
Another way to use dialers for your pay site is to have the surfer attempt to sign up for a membership and if declined present them with the dialer as an option to pay. This works well because some surfers who do have a credit card may attempt to join, but have their card declined for various reasons. When this happens they can still access your pay site via a dialer.
The main thing to keep in mind about dialers is that your not really promoting the dialer itself, but rather the pay site it connects to, whether it’s yours or the dialer sponsor's. I never liked the term, dialer promotion. That’s almost like saying processor promotion because dialers are a processing mechanism in their own right.
Now you may be asking yourself just how many surfers would actually use a dialer? To answer this one must consider this; statistics show only 1% of the World's Internet users have or are willing to use a credit card. With that in mind it’s safe to say that without the promotion of a dialer sponsor, you may very well be losing out on lots of extra cash that your sites could be making for you. You could be wasting 99% of your traffic on surfers who don't have credit card!
You should also keep in mind that even if someone visits your site who has a credit card, they still may not want to use it Online. There are plenty of people out there who are weary of their credit card information traveling over the Internet. And you can bet that they would feel safer paying via their phone bill rather than give out their credit card information online.
Dialer sponsors won’t replace all your traditional sponsors nor should they. Dialers are for a special group of surfers who don’t have any other alternative of payment on the Internet. However, given the enormous financial income gains that dialers offer, it would be in any adult webmasters best interest to advertise dialer sites in order to fully utilize their site’s traffic.
When used wisely and responsibly, dialers can help you cash in on all the extra income that you may be throwing out the window with everyone of your overseas surfers.