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If you're a newcomer to this industry and you're hanging out on any of the major webmaster boards to try and learn the ropes it's easy to think that the sponsor side of the industry is confined to ten or maybe twenty big companies. All you seem to see on those boards are ads for the big sponsors, posts by their representatives and board whores and comments by other webmasters about those big guys and so it's so easy to think that's all there is.

Of course, those of us who have been around for a while know that there are a heck of a lot more sponsors out there than just those big guys. The reality is that there are a huge number of sponsors in adult online; some have a number of paysites in their portfolio and some concentrate on just one site.

I wouldn't like to even hazard a guess at how many sponsors, both big and small, there are who would like you to sign up as an affiliate. MasterzoneX.com is a good place to go if you ever do feel the need to find out just how many sponsors there really are. That site has a massive list and they list most of the sites that affiliates can promote too.

And that list of sponsors is a good place to start if you're looking for some of the smaller guys to promote. But why should you be thinking of promoting the smaller sites rather than just concentrating on the big sponsors?

Well for a start there's a little matter of over-exposure. If every affiliate out there is promoting some of the big guys then surfers are seeing the same sites being marketed over and over again. And quite often many of the sites run by the big sponsors tend to look the same.

When that's all the surfer is seeing there's going to be some buyer resistance and to overcome that resistance you need to show them something new, something different and something the surfer doesn't see every single time he hits the porn sites.

That's where the smaller sponsors come in. Advertising for their paysites aren't seen by every surfer every time they log on and quite a few of those paysites run by small sponsors look unique, they don't look like the same old sites that the surfers have seen again and again. And each one of those points goes towards making the marketing of those sites so much easier.

Quite often those paysites run by the small sponsors have another advantage over the big guys too. Those small sponsors are running paysites in niches that they understand and they understand them because that's the sort of porn those small sponsors like to look at themselves. That personal involvement will quite often give the small sponsor the edge over the big guys when it comes to producing something that the surfers want to see.

Many of the small sponsors also know how to look after their affiliates. Sometimes the quality and type of promotional material available to affiliates is just as good or even far better than what the big guys make available. Obviously better promotional material mans that affiliates have a better chance of making sales.

Just this morning I got an email from one small sponsor who has just one paysite. It's been around for years and it has always been marketed as the original site in its niche but that doesn't mean that the sponsor isn't on top of his game.

He's certainly not sitting back and letting his affiliates struggle with outdated promotional material. Instead he's turning out hosted free sites, hosted galleries, a hosted TGP, headers and footers for galleries, screen grabs and a whole lot more and it keeps coming out at regular intervals.

This small sponsor isn't the only one who is doing that. Most of the small guys are just as keen to support their affiliates as he is because they know that they have a great product to market and the more help they can give their affiliates the more money both they and their affiliates will make.

So when you're thinking about which sponsors to work with don't only think of the big guys. You don't want to have your marketing efforts getting lost in the deluge of marketing that's out there because everyone else is promoting the same sponsors. When that happens all you're doing is adding to the big sponsors' branding and that doesn't put money in your pocket.

And that's the bottom line. You want to put money in your pocket and the little sponsors can do that if you just take the time to promote them.