“If something is free, you’re the product.” This comment, made by famed American artist Richard Serra back in 1973, was meant to explain that free television turned viewers into a sellable product because television delivered viewers right into the hands of advertisers and earned money from paid commercial sponsors. Porn today works much the same way, though things are a little more complex than they were in the 70s. So let’s take a look under the skin of the skin biz together.
Visible Advertising is the Obvious Revenue Stream
What many of us think of as “advertising” is just one small part of modern marketing. Different kinds of marketing are often referred to as “revenue streams,” and visible advertising is the most obvious. For example, when you go to a free porn site and see banner ads beneath the video or a popup ad on your screen, you’re keenly aware this site is trying to advertise another product, website, or service. Obviously, they aren’t doing that for altruistic reasons; they’re receiving monetary compensation for those ad spots. Often it’s a simple payment per month, sometimes it’s a payment for a specific number of clicks, or it can be part of a traffic trade where one company advertises another for an ad back to them on another site in return.
Less Visible Advertising Brings in the Most Revenue
Imagine you’re given the first dozen oranges ever discovered and are asked to sell them. A novice might think, I have 12 oranges, and all I need to do is figure out who will pay me the most for each orange. A professional looks at that same set of oranges very differently, however.
What if we could sell the scent of the oranges to a cleaning product or perfume company? How about we license the color orange to paint suppliers or fashion designers? Once we start producing and selling oranges, we can probably include advertising in each box of oranges we ship or send other goods and expand our oranges company into becoming a logistics provider. That’s the mentality every porn site operates under. There are many ways to make money, and they should be all be fully explored, so we are squeezing all the juice out of our oranges and not leaving any potential revenue on the table.
Aside from the apparent ads you see on the page, porn companies have created an ingenious set of ways to earn revenue from more subtle marketing techniques. Of course, there is much more than we can cover in one article, but here’s a quick dive into what’s out there on porn sites you visit already.
Pop-Unders:
Pop-unders are an entire category of ads that happen outside your field of view. For example, when you visit a site and see an ad pop up in your browser, you might quickly close it. Still, if that same ad was popped into another tab of your browser or a second browser window behind the one you are looking at, you may not find it until later, when you’re more receptive to what it is marketing to you.
Email Marketing:
Every site in porn or elsewhere asks for a valid email address during the registration process. Most companies keep that data private and use it for follow-up email advertising of special offers and future correspondence. Some, especially in the mainstream market, turn their mailing lists into a revenue source by selling those email addresses to other third-party advertisers. That’s why when you apply for mortgage refinancing online, you’ll often see a follow-up of insurance companies and other ancillary service providers contacting you as well.
Up-Sells:
Once you’ve joined a porn site, the marketing effort isn’t over. Ever notice “featured” videos from other sites or ads inside the member’s area asking you to check out these other great places to enjoy porn? Those are upsells designed to increase “value per acquisition.” Put simply, if a site charges you $20 to become a member but can also upsell you to another site willing to give them a referral fee, they can earn more from you signing up than they would without the upsells.
Cross-Sells:
When you visit a porn site, you’re likely sitting with your pants around your ankles, eager to get inside and see more. Take your time on the signup pages, and you may notice a series of checkboxes asking if you want to also add on membership to another site or service provider. Those are cross-sales, designed to increase value per acquisition again.
Advertorials:
The content of a site itself can also become a revenue stream. So, when you see a site blog that usually offers news and features about the content but occasionally does an article about another site, product, or service – that’s likely an advertorial paid for by that sponsor or in exchange for some kind of traffic trade.
Some Advertising is Beneficial to You
It’s important to remember that a lot of the ads you see are helpful to you. Yes, some bad actors try to do unethical things, but most are simply trying to earn an honest living from a product available to you for FREE. If they couldn’t make money on ads, and you weren’t paying them to create new porn videos – nobody would be willing to make new porn videos!
Similarly, some of the sites they recommend to you may be sites you want to join. Again, they’re picking sites based on similarity to what you’ve already shown are your own sexual interests. So there’s a strong chance that if you joined a site all about lesbian sex, the other sites they advertise for lesbian porn are likely to be ones you would enjoy.
You Can Help Get Better Porn Made
Here’s the dirty secret you need to know most. Porn sites (and all online content creators) track what gets watched, what people like most, and what’s likely to earn them more money in the future. So if a really hot video on a specific page of the site is getting a lot of clicks to the ad banner on that page, you can be sure they’ll take notice and volunteer to make more videos that fit that same style!
So when you see a video you like, click the ad! It’s the best and most direct way for you to vote to get more videos created that are made just the way you like them – free and in your favorite style. Instead of you being the product, you can become the site’s porn director, and all it takes is a few clicks between orgasms.
