Description: Right now when a member of a community comes up against content that requires a Subscription they land on a generic page that tells them the content they have requested is Private. This can be altered to a certain extent and via language manager you can make it a dual purpose page but this in itself does not go far enough.

In an effort to monetize and educate members that some content is indeed Private or that it requires a site Subscription I suggest the following:

1. Two pages be available via the core script - one for Private Content & one for Subscription Required.

Pretty simple if you ask me... but as a monetization tool it is Extremely Powerful! With two pages to work with I can make clear calls to action when there is a restriction due to not having a subscription and I can then drive more revenue. Plus there are some great plugins in the marketplace already that can be improved on to allow for this to go even further once SE allows it.

Win - Win!

Thanks for considering my request!

This post was edited by ITLJames at August 21, 2018 11:27 AM EDT

Great idea.

 

What triggers the differentiation between the two, i.e. how would SE PHP determine when to call which one?  Would this be as simple as 'private' flagged content loads the existing 'private' page/message, but everything else loads the 'subscription' page/message?

 

This would be great too so that 3PD Products could tie into (such as SES' Error Page Plugin and SEAO's Subscription Plugin).

I have SES' error page plugin and asked for this as a custom development... but was told that SE does not allow for it.

I think it should be as easy as a call/hook that looks at the type of content a member is trying to see and then comparing it to their membership level and privacy value of the content

==> '...then comparing it to their membership level and privacy value of the content...'

This is what I was thinking, but realized this could get quite complicated due to 3PD Plugins.  In other words, it's one thing for SE to compare to their own settings for out-of-the-box stuff, but since most other 3PD Plugins also have ML settings, it might get complex to handle this (ex.  the spreadsheet I have of available ML settings across all of my Plugins is over 1200 lines in an Excel file, and I don't even use any SE modules other than Photo Albums; so basically what constitues a 'subscription' type of item is quite a long list.  That's why I was hoping for a 'private' vs. 'everything else' solution.

 

Of course, once SE places hooks to differentiate 'private' vs. 'subscription', then each 3PD could build upon this to determine what do to, but that is of course an enhancement to almost every Plugin in existence just to support this.  Soooooo... back to my hope for an easy 'private' vs. 'everything else' thing.

This post was edited by gs at August 21, 2018 2:41 PM EDT

This is my flow for iDev:

1. a person signs up as an affiliate
2. they use one of our prebuilt ads or links and someone signs up for our site via clicking it
3. that new member subscribes as a paid member of our site
4. we add $ to the affiliates account and it remains there until they hit a minimum threshold for payout

This is all automated by iDev

Our "best" affiliate does about 2.5k US a month with our program between residual payouts and new signups

Our cost of acquisition is VERY low when we get new subscriptions this way

Thanks @ITLJames.

I'll have to revisit this affiliate thing due to the lightbulb that went off in my head after your 'cost of acquisition is Very low...' comment.  I've been so focused on 'advertising' and it's related high costs, that I completely forgot all about my research into iDev years ago.  For $400 it's a 1x purchase that is much less expensive than most forms of advertising I've looked into, and it's most likely (at least for the ideal client for my site) a more organic 'sale' anyway.  Duh - I can't believe I never returned to the affiliate model.  Thanks so much for mentioning this - it's one of the gems I find when reading through Topics here (even Topics, unlike this one, that don't necessarily interest me).

Glad to help - I would suggest that the leads gained through an affiliate are much warmer and more likely to convert so it is win-win in my opinion. It is of huge incentive to the affiliate too when they have a pre existing group they belong to and then market directly to them (for us its clubs and competitor websites).

I wish a 3PD would develop an affiliate Plugin.  The 'other place' had one that was excellent.  But iDev's pricing is very reasonable as well (more than the typical Plugin, but not ridiculous).

Ahhh lol ok

@GS - I looked extensively into this and iDev is the only affiliate program I would consider recommending

Shoot looks like I replied about the affiliate program in the wrong thread!

An affiliate option rewarding credits instead of $ is the below.  This is of course only useful to Members, but seems like a good engagement tool.

 

https://www.socialengineaddons.com/socialengine-credits-reward-points-and-virtual-currency-user-engagement-plugin
This post was edited by gs at September 4, 2018 7:37 PM EDT

Looks interesting but does not seem to tie into anything accept their two plugins for redeeming the credits.

I believe you're referring to the Events/Ticketing and Store carts. But it also may be used for User subscriptions, packages (in their Pages and Group Plugins), Listings in Multiple Listing Plugin, and Ads. So it seems to allow Users to use their Credits in many areas (plus credits may be purchased and transferred between Users). It obviously doesn't offer direct payments but it's designed more for Members than non-members, and to engage the community in activities, then 'spend' their credits in the community (so you're not paying out $$ - they have 2 buy somethg 2 use the credits).