It’s no secret to content based Internet marketers that online consumers today want everything for free. While it’s great to be able to make content sales, such as an adult paysite membership, it’s important to have multiple ways to leverage “free” content in your marketing toolbox.

While much has been made about the number of people using social networks today, with traffic hungry mainstream and adult website operators sitting up to take close notice, research is showing that most visitors from social media sources tend to be “low quality,” from a traffic monetization perspective — at least when compared to the visitors referred by content-centric websites, such as news sites.

Mobile and Internet technology are playing a vital role in selling pleasure products in today’s changing market. Recent innovations have bred scores of new marketing tools — and experts who have mastered them — that purveyors are using to strategically target the modern shopper.

With up to 400 million Spanish speakers in the world, and the official language of more than 20 nations, the Latin market is global — and a hotbed for sex toys sales?

Just how important are international sales to American porn manufacturers? “Overseas is critical,” said Peter Reynolds, whose Plaid Bag Media sells content around the world for clients that include, exclusively, Adam & Eve. “It’s a new world order and every studio has to look at every aspect of the market now and not rely on their domestic sales, as they did years ago.”

For adult entertainment entrepreneurs seeking a broader audience, Europe is a fertile field from which an abundant crop of new business may spring. While many typical adult Internet marketing efforts may focus on the U.S. audience, for today’s global merchant, Europe holds significant promise — despite the region’s current financial turmoil.

The almighty credit card continues to be the dominant payment method for e-commerce in the U.S., but when one travels around the world, it becomes quite apparent that man does not live by credit card alone in cyberspace. Indeed, the fact that credit cards are so popular among American consumers doesn’t necessarily mean that they are as popular among consumers in Europe, Asia or Latin America, and American adult webmasters who hope to reach as many non-U.S. markets as possible need to offer as many payment/billing alternatives to credit cards as possible. One area of alternative payments that has grown in popularity in various parts of the world is the pre-paid/pre-loaded sector, which includes e-wallets (also known as digital wallets). With ewallets, one simply adds funds to the e-wallet electronically, and those funds are used to make payments.

When American webmasters travel to Europe on business, one of the first things they learn is that credit cards aren’t necessarily as revered overseas as they are in the U.S.. Credit cards are a way of life in the U.S., but in many European countries, they take a back seat to alternative payment methods—and one of those methods is direct debiting. Not all of Europe’s noncredit card payments are made with debiting; in Europe, alternative payment methods for online transactions can also include anything from e-wallets to mobile payments. But there are millions of European Internet users who prefer direct debiting whether they are purchasing sex toys, paying their electric bills or joining an adult membership website. The popularity of debiting can vary from one European country to another, but for American webmasters who are hoping to reach European consumers, offering debiting as a payment option makes very good business sense.

Traditional content models are giving way to cloud based access and storage systems — and this change isn’t about hosting provider marketing jargon, but rather, represents a profound shift in the way that modern media is distributed and consumed.