The statistics are numbing — market penetration in Asia, even with its burgeoning tech sector in China and India, is only 7 percent, with 256 million surfers. In comparison, the United States’ Internet level is at 68 percent market share, with 222 million.
The message here is a simple one: Foreign network traffic levels are increasing faster than domestic and big tech companies that are armed with a large cache of statistics. As the ratios between foreign and domestic traffic increase on the foreign side, the conversion ratios are likely to drop due to lack of credit card saturation in foreign markets.
For instance, Japan is the only Asian country with significant Visa/MasterCard penetration. The rest can be safely considered unbillable surfers. In order to maintain a competitive advantage, adult webmasters and paysite owners might want to begin filtering foreign traffic and make crucial decisions on three primary issues:
- Identifying traffic from foreign countries;
- Having the ability to sort that traffic;
- Sending each country to the best converting solution.
There are other techniques to bring traffic. For instance, webmasters might want to resort to detecting Internet Protocol addresses by doing a lookup. Another technique is to redirect traffic based on language settings in browsers.
The ability to offer local payment methods also helps — it’s a must that creates an opportunity to profit from recurring billing and long term retention. And by offering a wide selection of local payment solutions, the user is put in the best position to select the payment method he feels most comfortable with — an important advantage when processing subscriptions in a market hesitant or unable to use a traditional credit card.
There is no need for American webmasters to change any of their preferred domestic affiliate programs, but when it comes to profiting from international traffic, webmasters should simply add an additional partner that will assist in converting these foreign surfers into cash.
The reality of traffic growth in Asia can be best witnessed by the burgeoning numbers. With more than a billion people in each country, China and India are rapidly expanding their economies and building new communications infrastructures. As a new middle class emerges in each country, a large number of consumers are ready to surf in a big way.
Cisco Systems, which has spent nearly $300 million in China, said recently that it plans to spend $32 million over the next five years on a new Chinese research center, to be located in Shanghai. Cisco is also in a venture investment program in India to spot new startups.
Additionally, Juniper Networks announced this year that it plans to open a research facility in China that focuses on developing network and security products for small and midsize businesses in the world market.
Activenet.com specializes in providing webmasters with the ability to identify and sort foreign traffic, and also offers default solutions to convert the foreign traffic into revenue.
Fred Warner handles strategic marketing for Activenet.com, an affiliate program that combines IP-based foreign filtering with download technology and dialers.
