One of the things that astonishes me about the adult entertainment industry is the total lack of professionalism in advertising. With few exceptions, publishers in this industry expect advertisers to make media buys in the blind – both print and on-line. Their offerings are so far removed from that of mainstream it borders on insulting. Worse, some of these publishers have the balls to talk down to you when pressed for answers to commonly asked questions.

I get really annoyed with an ad rep, for a major print magazine, telling me I don’t understand advertising, right after I’ve asked what their demographics are. What’s not to understand? Either they reach my target market, or they don’t. I’m not going to make a $3,000.00 media buy if the Gay consumer is not reading the magazine. This is not rocket science.

Then there are sites that won’t even tell you how much traffic they get. One site that comes to mind is a popular adult webmaster board. Volume of traffic is the most basic component in determining your return on investment (ROI). Demographics are, to a point, a given on a site like this, but you still want some detail. If I’m a sponsor program, I want to know what percentage of the traffic is affiliate webmasters, program owners, service providers and so on. As a sponsor program, volume of traffic and what percentage of that traffic is affiliate webmasters, is important information.

It is understandable that some publishers do not have detailed demographics. But any print magazine can, and should, have that data. Webmaster boards, that require a login, also have the capability of gathering demographics.

No mater how much detail you are given by a publisher, it’s still smart to test that publisher’s effectiveness. Any advertiser that will not let you test, or track, your ad effectiveness should be highly suspect. There are a lot of publishers in this industry that want a six-month commitment up front. Run…don’t walk from those deals. Any publisher worth its salt will allow you a test run.

The same goes for tracking ad effectiveness. There is a very popular links site in this industry that will not let you use any special URL or tracking code in an advertisement. BIG red flag! There can be only one reason why they won’t allow advertisers to track their ad’s effectiveness.

Some publishers out there will claim you don’t need this data, because you will be branding your company’s product or service. That’s a bunch of crap! Why would a sponsor program care about branding themselves when the only readers are other sponsor programs? Even with a branding strategy, you need to know that your advertising dollar is reaching your target market.

That said, I’m amazed at how many in this industry plunk down the cash without knowing how effective their ad investment will be. Simply put, your advertising effectiveness is determined by your ROI. A lot goes into determining your return on investment. In future articles I’ll talk about the basics of determining ROI, and the specifics involved for each target market. As an example, calculating ROI for consumer advertising is very different from that of affiliate recruitment.