As one of the most vibrant sectors of the adult entertainment industry, live cams have an exciting history of providing new opportunities for affiliates, models, networks and studios alike.
Now, PinkLabel.com has elevated the game with the newest incarnation of the white- and black-label branding and marketing tools long used by affiliates, marketers and studios to provide custom-branded services, and signed on one of the top freemium networks, CAM4.
Necessity is the mother of invention and Pink Label was not an exception to that rule.
For an insider’s insights on what makes Pink Label an excellent cam customization tool, XBIZ turned to Pink Label’s “Princess of Everything,” Ellisa Kamula, who provided a revealing glimpse at this new way to build your own brand while leveraging the strengths of one of the top players in the interactive entertainment game.
XBIZ: Tell us what inspired the launch of PinkLabel.com.
Kamula: Necessity is the mother of invention and Pink Label was not an exception to that rule. This platform was initially imagined as C4Maker and was meant to be a system that pushed out white labels for CAM4 and nothing more.
Although CAM4 is the longest-running freemium site and one of the largest online, it was really late to the affiliate game. I was hired to build an affiliate program nearly four years ago and have since launched CAM4.com/Affiliates. However, one of the biggest missing pieces was the ability to quickly and efficiently provide white labels to our affiliates.
Since CAM4 was late to the party and we knew a white label system was not an original idea and would therefore not create a real buzz with affiliates, we started to reimagine the wheel. I wanted to really provide something of value, that would solve some of the issues our internal media buying team was having in filtering content and getting site customizations.
The reality of needing a platform that could manage a number of different endeavors across many different companies became clear and this ultimately inspired the creation of Pink Label.
XBIZ: How would you characterize today’s cam market and how has it changed over the years? Where does a Pink Label site fit into this picture?
Kamula: Great question! It has changed a lot since I started in adult in 2002. At that time, cams were something people put in their paid members’ area and weren’t really a stand-alone product.
Witnessing camming evolve into an array of products and platforms over the years has been fascinating. You can see a whole history of the internet and technology in people’s desire to watch and consume more and more live content.
Pink Label will hopefully be the next level of delivering more targeted and cultivated live content to its viewers. As the content goes live, the hope is that more and more broadcasters will see this system as the most independent way to build their brand and maintain control over their traffic and fanbase.
XBIZ: What makes Pink Label stand out from other white- or black-label sites?
Kamula: We are a white/black label system for your pink bits. We can be a “quick setup in five minutes” type of solution for media buyers or we can be a fully integrated black label solution for big brands looking to offer curated live cam content to their users. Additionally, we can be a hybrid and be customized for certain elements of the integration and out-of-the-box for others.
The point is, our platform allows affiliates, models and studios to build out a site with content however they want. They can also add their own links to sites and additional content that will be great for SEO-focused affiliates. I think what will really make us stand out is still in development and part of phase two — so definitely everyone should keep their eyes on us! — but the things I have listed above are certainly a great start.
XBIZ: How customizable is the platform? What are some of the standout features?
Kamula: There is a lot of room to customize. The affiliate can add their own CSS/HTML with a simple cut and paste and we offer multiple themes to help users with customization. For those who are a bit more into development, we offer the ability to write your own themes, which could also act as an added source of revenue for developers who would like to make this a service that they offer.
Pink Label gives the affiliates an easy interface to curate the content they want to feature. This really is the standout feature for me. For example, if you hold the domain DutchRedHeadedMILFs.com, then you can use the content curator to display only Dutch redheaded MILF broadcasters and then tell the system, “If there are only 10 Dutch redheaded MILFs online, then show redheaded MILFs who speak Dutch and then fill up the page with redheaded MILFs who speak German — and then show all the redheaded MILFs, and then show all the English-speaking MILFs. This allows affiliates to give their users exactly what they came looking for, and also if they get specific, allows them to build in enough additional options so that they are not displaying half-empty pages.
From a studio side, the owners always want to know how to get their models featured more prominently on the site. What is the secret algorithm? Can I buy traffic for my room? This content curator allows all of that to happen very easily — and if a studio wants to build a site with just their models, it is quite easy to do.
XBIZ: Discuss your approach to branding Pink Label and marketing it effectively to models.
Kamula: My approach to branding Pink Label is to appeal to the masses. This program is in its infancy and the things I am expecting from here on up should reach a number of different targets. Therefore, I wanted a few things to be true: I wanted the brand to be something that would lend itself to lots of memorable marketing moments, I wanted it to be something that has longevity and I wanted it to be something that would work as its own platform. It needed to appeal to men, women, nonbinary folks, studios, models and affiliates alike. I would go as far to include some more vanilla brands as well.
The brand came to fruition while my director of strategy and I were trying to imagine endless possibilities and Pink Label just popped up … because we knew we were building something greater than a white label or a black label system.
XBIZ: What are the payouts for affiliates and how are sales credited and tracked?
Kamula: Payouts for the affiliates are either based on a lifetime revenue share or pay-per-lead. The tracking is through HasOffers but is visible inside of Pink Label.
XBIZ: What types of promo tools does it offer?
Kamula: We have the promo tools that you would expect to find: live banner generator, static banner generator, link builder, XML/JSON feed and more. Additionally, all of the parameters set for the content of your site can be applied there. We also offer a suite of APIs.
XBIZ: How is a Pink Label site different in terms of user experience and affiliate opportunities compared to promoting a content provider directly?
Kamula: The most obvious difference is the ability to curate the index page of your white label. Traffic and content — as most of these readers will know — are king and queen of the affiliate game if you want conversions and revenue. So, being able to give your traffic exactly what they are looking for is a very basic but very important piece of affiliate marketing and allows a visit to the content on one of our partner sites to look very different than if you come through the provider’s index page.
In terms of user experience, the look and feel of the white labels are quite different than what is seen on the provider’s site. As I see it, the biggest difference is that there are less distractions as a visitor through a white label. So, you are getting the chats and private shows but a lot of the other features are being held back to let the content be the star. Plus, our phase two will offer up new and innovative solutions for the affiliate that does want to incorporate those features from any of our partners.
XBIZ: Any advice for how to best leverage Pink Label?
Kamula: I see so many opportunities for all different traffic sources and industry roles to really make this part of their marketing arsenal. The sky is the limit. Everything is built on APIs so we can plug and play with so many different sites. One affiliate even uses our token currency on his site as part of the monetization strategy for his users.
XBIZ: What do you see as the future of the live cam market in general and for the Pink Label program in particular?
Kamula: The future is Pink! I think the cam market will become about offering up turnkey solutions to everyone from affiliates to broadcasters to studio owners, in a variety of ways to keep the users coming and to keep finding the pink bits they are willing to pay for.
Like the rest of the world, this industry has become very service-based, so, those figuring out how to provide their services in a socially responsible way will be making a huge impact going forward. The cam market is one vertical in adult, but it is also part of many other industries and what keeps me fascinated with this industry is that we are often the leaders in tech, marketing, and traffic innovation and solutions.
While I believe that has shifted since 2009, I do think it will be refocusing on us as we move to the future of this industry, and “mainstream” companies, a.k.a. “everyone else,” will once again be looking to see what we are up to and how we are doing it.
