Speakers participating in the seminar were Tela Andrews, director of business development for ExpressPro; adult industry attorney Greg Piccionelli; Scott Rabinowitz, CEO of Traffic Dude; Brandon Shalton, founder of T3Report and moderator Stephen Yagielowicz of XBIZ
The topics covered included definition of "traffic," appropriate ad placement and the use of inappropriate keywords to drive traffic to sites.
Shalton pointed out that buyers and sellers of adult traffic should be clear on what is being bought or sold.
"What is the definition of what you're buying?" Shalton said. "Is it a hit? Is it a click? Is it unique? ... There have been a number of hot topics related to whether or not people are getting their money's worth. What are the measurable units of what you're buying or what you're selling? Getting that clarity of definition determines whether or not you have even a running chance of making a success of a campaign."
Andrews concurred, saying that the definition of the unit of success should become more sophisticated, saying that a click followed by a purchase on a subsequent visit has a value.
Piccionelli added that the definition of traffic should be agreed upon, and that in case of fraudulent traffic, the parties responsible for the fraudulent traffic should be responsible for it.
The question of appropriate ad placement was raised, with Shalton mentioning that some advertisers were displeased when their MySpace placements went on pages with nudity.
"They don't want that kind of bad will," Shalton said.
Piccionelli said that branding was an important consideration, with possible legal action involving tarnishing a trademark by association with objectionable content.
Vendors should be asked about their practices, Rabinowitz said: "How do you screen? Do you accept any source of traffic just because they give you the right to sell it? ... You have a right to know from us or anybody else that wants a penny of your money for traffic where the ads will be displayed, and if they can't give you an answer, at least regarding policy ... I recommend asking first and pulling out the Visa card later."
"There's a tradeoff between ease of use and protection," Andrews said. "There's also a difference between sites under owner control and those that accept user content."
Shalton then mentioned the use of inappropriate keywords like "Lolita" and "young teen" to drive traffic to sites with legal content.
"This is a form of bad traffic," Shalton said. "The problem occurs when a pedophile joins these programs, thinking 'There has to be [child pornography] there, otherwise why would they use Lolita?' They don't find any, and there's a chargeback. If you are using those words that can get you the bad traffic, you're going to make some money on pay-per-signup, but it causes a lot of implications for everybody up the food chain."
Piccionelli added that a legitimate adult entertainment site that uses words like "Lolita" to draw traffic are asking for government attention.
"That's to the detriment of everyone. It's clear in how the Department of Justice addressed the [new 2257] regulations that they just can't bring themselves to believe that this is a legitimate industry.
"Anybody that uses these types of CP-related terms is likely to be high among the lists of all those millions of sites out there for scrutiny by the government."
Piccionelli also added that if a webmaster inadvertently posts CP, a defense would be tough to mount if "Lolita" was a keyword on the site.
Yagielowicz said that ASACP keeps a list of key words that are used by pedophiles to find child pornography, so they can be removed from keyword lists.
Shalton's final comment: "Treat your business as a business. Take it seriously. Follow regulations. Follow the law. Look at things like trademarks. A lot of people don't do that; they aren't incorporated, they don't have attorneys on retainer, they don't pay attention to these issues."
