An Interview With Becky DeForest of ARS
ARS (Adult Revenue Service) has been around since the late 90's and has been a leader in the adult online industry since its inception. Over the years the program has gone through some changes and has changed owners. We spoke with Becky DeForest, the program's owner, about its past, present and future.
Webmaster Vault (WV): ARS is one of the legendary companies in the biz. Can you give us a little background into how and when it came into existence?
ARS Becky (ARS): LOL thanks for that J ARS came in being in 1999 when we decided that we wanted to have more than just gay sites. Before that, the program was called Manca sh and only focused on gay products. We wanted to go one step beyond the traditional hardcore sites and decided we were going to offer a large selection of niche sites to promote. This was probably one of the best moves in terms of our early growth.
WV: Your company went through an ownership change not too long ago. Can you give us a little insight into what brought that on?
ARS: Marc De wanted out of the business. He had made his fortune and wasn’t comfortable with the atmosphere that surrounds our industry, especially since he now has children. So the logical choice was to sell to me since I had been CEO of the company since 2001.
WV: How many people work for ARS?
ARS: I currently have 15 people on payroll, including myself. But they work for both of my companies, Innovative Ideas which owns ARS, and Storm Media which owns all of the adult products.
WV: Where in the world are you located?
ARS: Kalamazoo, MI.
WV: Your program offers webmasters a very wide selection of sites to promote, have you seen any of these sites been standing out as top performers?
ARS: I think the best performing sites are Chicks Go Both Ways – the exclusive lesbian site, Rate My Tranny – the exclusive shemale site, and Gay Black Hardcore – gay black seems to be a very popular niche. Of course, we are working on upgrading a lot of the sites in the portfolio as well as adding new ones, including new exclusive content sites, so hopefully that list will grow.
WV: Would you say you get more traffic to your own traditional sites or to the user/webmaster created BYOT sites?
ARS: The BYOT program gets the most traffic by far. Now that there is no longer a $5 reduction in commissions for sending to them, I anticipate the amount of traffic to grow. Removing that $5 commission reduction basically took my portfolio of sites from around 65 to around 650.
WV: Is the content on your sites exclusive or licensed?
ARS: Both, but mostly licensed for now.
WV: A few years back there was talk of ARS offering its webmasters health insurance. Did that ever happen or was it something that didn’t work out?
ARS: Health insurance was offered to webmasters, and we did have a few take advantage of it. But, I’ve had to remove the offering due to lack of participation. That went into effect 11/1/07.
WV: Your program offers webmasters reward points. What is the largest item a webmaster has redeemed points for?
ARS: We’ve bought 4 Cadillac Escalades from points redemptions.
WV: Any new projects coming down the pipe in the near future?
ARS: Yes actually there is. I’m working on a new billing model on emx.com which has been completely redesigned and will launch hopefully early in 2008. I’m also exploring my options of what to do with the domain smut.com, which currently hosts the BYOT program as well as all of the 12,658 free hosted galleries offered.
WV: What do you like most about working in the adult business?
ARS: The lack of “corporateness”, if that is such a word. I like not having to conform to standards that have been established for other industries. The content is a lot of fun as well. After all, where else can you work and not get busted for looking at porn? LOL.
WV: What do you like least about working in the adult business?
ARS: The automatic negative stigma applied to anyone that works in this industry; and the fact that the industry attracts a lot of untrustworthy individuals.
WV: One last question. If you could give webmasters one piece of advice on how to best make money with your program what would it be?
ARS: I think the biggest thing I can say is to come give ARS another try. I think that you will be pleasantly surprised with what has been done in the last couple of years. If you aren’t completely satisfied, talk with me and I’ll make sure you are.
ARS has many custom tools to help webmasters maximize their profits including FHG’s, tons of sites to promote, rewards points and the ability to build your own tour for their sites. Check them out at http://www.adultrevenueservice.com/index.php and earn yourself one of those Cadillac Escalades.
ARS Becky (ARS): LOL thanks for that J ARS came in being in 1999 when we decided that we wanted to have more than just gay sites. Before that, the program was called Manca sh and only focused on gay products. We wanted to go one step beyond the traditional hardcore sites and decided we were going to offer a large selection of niche sites to promote. This was probably one of the best moves in terms of our early growth.
WV: Your company went through an ownership change not too long ago. Can you give us a little insight into what brought that on?
ARS: Marc De wanted out of the business. He had made his fortune and wasn’t comfortable with the atmosphere that surrounds our industry, especially since he now has children. So the logical choice was to sell to me since I had been CEO of the company since 2001.
WV: How many people work for ARS?
ARS: I currently have 15 people on payroll, including myself. But they work for both of my companies, Innovative Ideas which owns ARS, and Storm Media which owns all of the adult products.
WV: Where in the world are you located?
ARS: Kalamazoo, MI.
WV: Your program offers webmasters a very wide selection of sites to promote, have you seen any of these sites been standing out as top performers?
ARS: I think the best performing sites are Chicks Go Both Ways – the exclusive lesbian site, Rate My Tranny – the exclusive shemale site, and Gay Black Hardcore – gay black seems to be a very popular niche. Of course, we are working on upgrading a lot of the sites in the portfolio as well as adding new ones, including new exclusive content sites, so hopefully that list will grow.
WV: Would you say you get more traffic to your own traditional sites or to the user/webmaster created BYOT sites?
ARS: The BYOT program gets the most traffic by far. Now that there is no longer a $5 reduction in commissions for sending to them, I anticipate the amount of traffic to grow. Removing that $5 commission reduction basically took my portfolio of sites from around 65 to around 650.
WV: Is the content on your sites exclusive or licensed?
ARS: Both, but mostly licensed for now.
WV: A few years back there was talk of ARS offering its webmasters health insurance. Did that ever happen or was it something that didn’t work out?
ARS: Health insurance was offered to webmasters, and we did have a few take advantage of it. But, I’ve had to remove the offering due to lack of participation. That went into effect 11/1/07.
WV: Your program offers webmasters reward points. What is the largest item a webmaster has redeemed points for?
ARS: We’ve bought 4 Cadillac Escalades from points redemptions.
WV: Any new projects coming down the pipe in the near future?
ARS: Yes actually there is. I’m working on a new billing model on emx.com which has been completely redesigned and will launch hopefully early in 2008. I’m also exploring my options of what to do with the domain smut.com, which currently hosts the BYOT program as well as all of the 12,658 free hosted galleries offered.
WV: What do you like most about working in the adult business?
ARS: The lack of “corporateness”, if that is such a word. I like not having to conform to standards that have been established for other industries. The content is a lot of fun as well. After all, where else can you work and not get busted for looking at porn? LOL.
WV: What do you like least about working in the adult business?
ARS: The automatic negative stigma applied to anyone that works in this industry; and the fact that the industry attracts a lot of untrustworthy individuals.
WV: One last question. If you could give webmasters one piece of advice on how to best make money with your program what would it be?
ARS: I think the biggest thing I can say is to come give ARS another try. I think that you will be pleasantly surprised with what has been done in the last couple of years. If you aren’t completely satisfied, talk with me and I’ll make sure you are.
ARS has many custom tools to help webmasters maximize their profits including FHG’s, tons of sites to promote, rewards points and the ability to build your own tour for their sites. Check them out at http://www.adultrevenueservice.com/index.php and earn yourself one of those Cadillac Escalades.
Reader Comments: (1 posts)
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August 18th, 2008 at 2:54pm EST Rating:  |
