ARS is a Las Vegas-based affiliate marketing network that got its start in 1996.
The newly-instated incentive feature for ARS affiliates allows webmasters to use accumulated reward points to purchase traffic from Sex.com at a special rate, as well as target specific traffic depending on the content or products the webmaster is promoting.
"It's a pretty cool thing," Sex.com founder and CEO Gary Kremen told XBiz. "ARS has a great reward system and a credit card that goes with it for webmasters, and this is a great way for webmasters to get traffic instead of points. Traffic is what people need. Quality traffic."
Under the terms of the deal, ARS webmasters can bid on keywords and phrases on Sex.com's Pay PerClick search engine, which provides niche-specific and country-specific traffic with proven conversion rates, according to Sex.com.
ARS Marketing Coordinator Jake Ludens told XBiz that the alliance with Sex.com will be added to ARS' rewards store where webmasters can exchange points for a range of products and services, including computer parts, content, and now Sex.com's search word-specific traffic.
"We wanted to add quality products for our webmasters and give them more incentives," Luden told XBiz. "We wanted to make sure they're taken care of and that they can trust ARS to make them more money."
Kremen said that the impetus behind the deal with ARS was to work with a company that Sex.com could really trust. Both companies have been working on the terms of the deal for a while, Kremen said.
According to Kremen, the alliance with ARS will continue indefinitely. "For as long as we're both happy," Kremen told XBiz. "We hope to keep getting closer," Kremen added. "Maybe there is some other stuff that can be done in the future. Stay tuned."
Wholly owned and operated by Grant Media, LLC, Sex.com's search engine capabilities receive an average of 150,000- 200,000 unique users and 400,000 page views on an average daily basis.
Sex.com also distributes its search results and banners to more than 25 international search engines.