Adult Industry: A Comprehensive Vertical Analysis

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Who it is for

1. webmasters
2. affiliates

Adult is a vertical with 18+ content, products, or services related to the porn industry. This niche stands out with consistently high payouts, which can be attributed to the challenges involved in promoting 18+ offers. The pandemic period significantly impacted this vertical, making it one of the most popular and profitable directions in affiliate marketing.

Today, we’ll discuss user motivation and target audiences, traffic source limitations, offers and rates, explore some approaches and provide a few tips for beginners. Let's dive in!

Features of the adult vertical: advantages and disadvantages

As usual, let's start with the advantages of this vertical:

Solvent audience. Adult is about satisfying physical needs, for which the target audience (TA), namely financially capable men over 25 years old, are willing to spend decent amounts of money.
Extensive Reach. Every user is a TA of this vertical. The key is in the approach.
Wide range of traffic sources. Certainly, advertising campaigns launched through sources where content for ages 18+ is prohibited will require cloaking. However, the potential success of such promotion outweighs its drawbacks.
Diverse offer selection.The assortment of adult offers is continually expanding, as this vertical is considered ever-evolving.
High payouts. Affiliate networks are willing to generously compensate for users who spend a significant amount of time within an app or on an online platform. For instance, for bringing in a significant lead to a popular webcam platform, you can even earn up to $1000.
No language barrier. Unlike other verticals, the key element of adult creatives is imagery. Therefore, attracting large volumes of quality traffic can be achieved with minimal use of text.

Payment models in the adult vertical

Offers in the adult vertical are paid for by affiliate networks and direct advertisers using the following models:

PPT (Pay per Trial). Webmaster receives a fixed payout when a user subscribes to receive a sample product or trial version of a website.
PPS (Pay per Sale). Webmaster is rewarded when a user purchases a subscription or 18+ category products.
CPL (Cost Per Lead). For a webmaster to receive a reward, the user must leave their contact information on the platform. It can be divided into SOI (Single Opt-In), where email input is required without email confirmation, DOI (Double Opt-In) – a payment type that requires confirmation of registration through an email sent to the email address, and CC-Submit (Credit Card Submit) – the lead is counted after the customer provides their credit card information. Usually, the user subscribes to a free newsletter, and after a certain period, an actual payment is charged.
CPI (Cost Per Install). Webmaster receives a payout after the user installs the application on their mobile device.
RevenueShare. Webmaster receives a certain percentage of the revenue generated by the affiliate network from the user he has attracted.

Types of adult offers

The adult vertical is known for its wide range of offers, some of which border on other verticals (dating, gaming, nutra). Webmasters who choose to promote 18+ offers can select from the following list:

Adult dating. Applications or websites for dating and finding sexual partners. Such offers are paid on SOI, DOI, CC-submit basis.The high conversion is explained by a person's natural inclination toward reproduction. More than 60% of users consider online dating for sex an attractive advertising format.

18+ dating offers are the most popular within the adult vertical and are primarily aimed at tier-1 traffic due to the population's paying capacity.

Adult dating offers are divided into several subtypes:

Ebony/Black are dating websites for African Americans. Especially popular in the USA, France, and the United Kingdom.
Gay is a prohibited direction in some countries. It’s particularly distinguished by a financially capable audience that values anonymity and freedom.
BDSM is a significant converting niche whose audience should be sought on major thematic websites and forums.
MILF is a top direction for adult dating offers, popular in European countries.

One of the brilliant solutions in the adult vertical can be considered Smartlink. The smart link will determine the user's GEO, their device, and redirect them to a suitable offer for that GEO and device with a high conversion rate.

Websites with 18+ content. Offers from porn platforms providing users access to pornography content. A study by the Society of Human Resource Management showed that more than 70% of respondents search for pornographic videos daily, regardless of the season, day of the week, or GEO.

According to Pornhub, the site is visited by more than 20 million users daily, which speaks volumes about the popularity of the genre among the audience.

Webcam. Webcam are platforms where online models engage in live conversations with users and perform sexually explicit actions in exchange for donations, fulfilling the requests of users who have made donations.

Webcam is an entire industry which satisfies the most intimate desires of the adult audience. Users who, for various reasons, cannot dedicate enough attention to real-life dating but are willing to spend a considerable amount to satisfy their natural needs often opt for webcam services, preferring them over websites with videos or other content. These services are versatile, with detailed menus categorized by different criteria, and operate in any geo..

Nutra and 18+ products. This category of offers includes any supplements affecting potency, sexual desire, enlargement of intimate body parts, as well as sex toys and 18+ products.

Creams for increasing the male sexual organ
Potency enhancers
Vibrators
Lubricants
Aphrodisiacs
Prostatitis remedies
Sex toys

Offers are paid through CPA or RevShare models.

18+ games. Game offers of the XXX category. Games for adults originally appeared in Japan, were popular in Asian countries for a long time, and have now spread throughout the world. Gamification in these games is similar to standard casual applications and differs mainly in the reward at the end of each level. Often, it’s 18+ content.

Traffic sources

Advertising campaigns for adult offers, launched through popular traffic sources, often require cloaking. Otherwise, ad network moderation systems block accounts and halt promotions. Popular sources of adult traffic include:

Social networks. If working without cloaking, attracting adult traffic can be done through spam, bots, specifically created publics and groups, and direct advertising purchases in thematic groups and publics (be cautious, as they often consist mainly of bots). Cloaking allows you to run advertising campaigns targeting age, gender, and interests that match the target audience.

Usually, social networks are used to promote offers from websites and applications for dating and finding sexual partners. Webmasters try to disguise advertising creatives as much as possible, attempting to deceive moderators while still retaining key elements that hint to users about the nature of the advertised content.

Messengers. Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber, Lime and others. Promotion in such cases occurs not through setting up an advertising campaign but through the creation of a channel, its quality warming up and management, as well as through subsequent sending of spam to subscribers.

Native networks. Teasers are placed on platforms related in content to the vertical's theme. Many native networks that offer the opportunity to promote 18+ offers specialize exclusively in the sex industry and are called adult native networks.

Push networks. Push networks free webmasters from the risk of getting banned but don’t guarantee large volumes of quality traffic. Many users perceive adult content push notifications as spam. The advantages of push notifications include the absence of censorship, 100% delivery of advertising messages, and a low cost per click.

In-app. Advertising for an offer takes place within other similar gaming applications. In-app networks can effectively promote adult game offers since their audiences are highly similar.

Approaches to creating creatives

Regardless of the chosen traffic source, special attention should be given to the visual aspect of creatives, as it’s the primary means of describing the offer's character and encouraging users to click.

The primary target audience for adult offers is considered to be men aged 25-45, accounting for about 70% of all incoming traffic. Women are less attracted to such offers, but it's better to target a broader audience. As practice has shown, women often click on advertising ads in an attempt to satisfy their natural needs or in search of a 'magic pill' for their partner.

Depending on the offer, approaches will vary. By testing different design options, you can find the combination that allows you to attract the maximum volume of quality traffic effectively.

Popular Approaches:

Proximity Effect. A popular approach in promoting dating offers. To increase the likelihood of a click, an approximate proximity of a potential partner is indicated. For example: “Hi. Want to have some fun? Samantha. 13 km away from you.”

A creative with a personalized address in the user's language. Direct addressing, especially when written in the user's native language, increases the likelihood of clicking on the ad.Despite the fact that the image is the main element of an adult creative, personal addressing can prompt the user to take the desired action as it will be perceived as a direct call to action. For example: “16 girls nearby are looking for one-night stands. Click now and spend the evening with a passionate beauty!’’.

Using audio and video playback elements. What can be better than a direct message? Perhaps only a voice message or a private video waiting to be played. Using the PLAY icon in creatives significantly increases the likelihood of a click, intriguing the user with the potential content.

Using numbers and statistics. This approach is most effective in promoting products in the nutra 18+ category. Specify exactly how many centimeters the user can expect an increase in a specific body part after using the product or specify the timing that their partner can confidently rely on.

Explicit 18+. Surprisingly, one of the most effective ways to attract users to a resource. It involves explicit visuals with elements of a sexual act or visualization of intimate body parts.

Tips for working with adult traffic

Like in the case of working with any other vertical, there is no universal formula for a successful campaign in adult advertising. However, by following a few recommendations, you can increase the CR and maintain a stable ROI.

Choose your traffic source. The budget and risks of your future campaign will be determined by the source you choose to work with. Of course, the likelihood of a user clicking from Facebook is significantly higher than from a native network because the audience on social media is less demanding when it comes to such ads. However, when working with a new niche in Facebook, a webmaster risks losing a significant portion of their budget during the testing phase. When choosing a source, rely on your personal skills in working with that source, as well as consider your advertising budget.
Test a minimum of 5 creatives. To better understand the specifics of the audience you will be working with and to determine their preferences in advance, we recommend testing a minimum of 5-7 advertising creatives. The creatives themselves should differ in design, level of explicitness, and the intensity of content presentation.
Target a broad audience. If you are running adult offers for the first time, start with broad targeting, only adjusting the device type and OS. According to statistics, adult campaigns convert best when launched on mobile traffic.