Ashley Madison

Ashley Madison! You knew they’d get on my radar. They’re … not exactly known for their affiliate marketing. That’s what I’m reviewing today, but it’s going to be hard. They are kind of known for… not being know, even though they’ve been on national television, several times over, against their wishes. If you haven’t heard about this site, you’re probably a zoomer. Or, maybe you’re a millennial incel.

This is a website for people who literally can’t live without multiple sex partners. I don’t mean to say that they fuck around, as I do. I mean, they marry people and then they cheat on them, because they don’t want a divorce. I only have one question for those kinds of people: Why get married? Like… If you knew you were a dog, just fucking own it, man. There’s nothing wrong with being a lone wolf—no need to be a snake about it. I’m loving all of these animal metaphors.

Back in the Day

Ashley Madison started fucking up the world of married people back in 2002 and taking literally no credit for it because they dead-ass support cheating. Hell, they talk about the pros of cheating more than I talk about the pros of tight pussy. Seriously, that’s a hard record to beat. Long story short, they had some data breaches along the way, and many cheaters got exposed.

Then, there was also the fact that they promised they’d find you someone regardless of how criminally unfuckable you are. They didn’t say criminally unfuckable, but they did make the promise to hook you up no matter what. They’ve been phasing out that kind of marketing for the past few years, undoubtedly because of an influx of unfuckable clients. What was I talking about? Oh right, their affiliate marketing…

The Affiliate Terms

This is by far the worst affiliate marketing sales pitch I’ve ever read on a successful mainstream website. Why? Because they don’t tell you their fucking rates. I’m sure that they pay you for your referrals and all that. They’re not a scam site. I get that. But, for fuck’s sake, why wouldn’t you just list your tiered rates so that people can plan ahead and decide to reach out to you? I don’t know who okayed this, but there it is, on their site. They offer affiliate marketing with zero information on how much it actually pays.

At the very least, they tell you that they offer three distinct packages. These are PPL, PPA and RevShare. You must have seen these terms before listed under other affiliate offers. They’re pretty straightforward. PPL means you make money per lead. This is usually the lowest-paying offer. It’s great if you want to funnel thousands of low-quality leads towards a third-party site and get paid for it. It’s the quantity over quality approach. So, you get less than a dollar per lead, but you have thousands of leads. Shit adds up.

Then, there’s the PPA, with which you get paid every time one of your referrals signs up and pays for a membership. An Ashley Madison membership can cost up to $100 at a time, so it’s safe to say you make at least $100 on these. I’m just guessing. As I said, I have literally no idea how much they kick back, because they refuse to be transparent on their website.

Finally, you have RevShare. This is the approach you use if you’re building a long term passive income setup. It pays a percentage of all the money that your referrals spend on the site, between none and … a lot. And, it lasts for a long time, possibly forever. I’m not sure. Again, you have to reach out to them to get a direct quote. This is the tier for people who want money to trickle down on them over time. If you’re not in a hurry and you want a proper porn empire, this is the tier for you.

Some Other Technical Details

They don’t really have much information under their affiliate FAQ, much less on the damn landing page, but there’s some information here that we can go over. They support over 50 countries and across five languages. They also make it a point to note that no language is technically unsupported. They don’t really care about geographic details. So, as long as the client is viable, they’ll take the referral. They don’t discriminate. This is great news for any porn masters operating large scale operations in small-sized countries.

Regarding payments, all they really say is that the more you refer, the more you make, but you could have divined that from a crystal ball or read it on a fortune cookie. At the very least, they tell you how often the payouts are sent and it’s kind of … meh. They pay you every 15 days through ACH or wire transfer. I have nothing against the methods, but they could, at the very least, allow you to invoice when and where appropriate. Instead, you have to wait for a cycle. At least it’s NET15 and not NET60. I’ve seen quite a few of those in my day. They make it a point to call these payment cycles prompt. I wouldn’t boast about that, since most affiliate marketing offers let you withdraw whenever you want, but hey, who am I to judge?

You Get a Manager

They dedicate an account manager who is accessible to you over Skype, email and phone. They’re also available for contact, workdays between 9 am and 6 pm. I wouldn’t normally bother to mention this kind of information, but their site is so sparse, I am literally going out of my way to find as much value as I can. It’s not that their offer is terrible; it’s that they dead ass don’t make a very convincing case. Going by everything they offer on their affiliate site, they could be a fucking inside joke and you wouldn’t know until you straight-up sign up. They’re not a joke, though. I think they’re just on edge since the whole data breach debacle.

I’ll be nice and say that the whole dedicated manager feature is a godsend. I’ve heard of a lot of webmasters having trouble with integrations and having to use e-mail support with very slow response times. It can be really aggravating, especially during the early stages of integration. You want to make sure everything is flowing smoothly and for that, you need to talk to an actual human being, especially if you’ve never done affiliate ad integration before.

The Types of Ads

Ashley Madison doesn’t do white-labels; let’s start there. They couldn’t do white label if they wanted to, if I’m being honest. Their entire service revolves around their brand name and they don’t have any commercial media that they charge for, so … you kind of have to refer them with a reroute. That means, you put up ads on your site in the form of banners, images and text links. Users see the ad, they click the ad and they end up on Ashley Madison.

You should probably think long and hard about who you pipe to the site, though. Women don’t have to pay for Ashley Madison membership; they get it for free. So, it’s likely that you can’t actually make money off of them. Now, you can’t quote me on that, but I’m pretty damn sure that makes sense. The RevShare model doesn’t fit, since there’s no revenue to be measured there. This is one of those features you simply have to ask about the first time you get in touch with them. Then again, if you’re running a porn tube, the chances of you actually having female visitors are pretty damn low.

Most of your referrals are always going to be men and they’re the ones paying the big bucks. You’ll have to go out of your way to plan out your geographic approach. They won’t sign up for Ashley Madison if you’re marketing hot singles in the States and most of your viewers are Australian. That’s something to keep in mind. You could go with the staple: “Hot Sexy Singles in Your Area”. Except, you know, they’re not single and they’re down to cheat on their spouses. You get the point.

You could probably contact Ashley Madison and ask for a marketing content package with their own ads and banners or you could make your own. The bottom line is, you have to figure out your audience type and their geographic data, then choose a payment plan that makes sense. After that, cater your ads towards the dudes that are likely to make you a ton of money.