TiMe22 wrote:Even worse: It's 35% of all sales from the moment they get involved + the USD5000 upfront. For FT it's a goldmine and without any risks...
A 35% cut isn't necessarily a "gold mine" at all---it depends upon a lot of factors.
As a hypothetical example using some realistic rates, let's say that you spend $100 to show a Facebook ad to 10,000 people, that 5% (500) of those ad-viewers visit your client's campaign page, and that 1% (5) of those page-visitors back your client's project by pledging an average of $60 each, for which which your client pays you a 35% cut. This means that you've lost $100 in order to gain $105, which is barely profitable, and it means that you'll earn $5 for every $300 that you bring your client, which is far short of a small fortune. And this example assumes that you've collected enough data to be able to rely upon the accuracy of those rates, which isn't necessarily true, especially with only 5 backers---and, even if those rates are trustworthy, then they will invariably slowly decline over time until you can't earn anything anymore or, worse yet, even start to suffer a loss.
So, if you want to actually enjoy a "gold mine" (without negotiating for a higher cut), then you'll need to raise those hypothetical rates tremendously, which means achieving (A) a much higher CTR for your ads and/or (B) a much higher conversion rate for your client's campaign page. Although those two goals are definitely within the realm of possibility, average Facebook ad CTRs are only about 2-3%, average Kickstarter conversion rates are perhaps only 1-2% (and those conversion rates fall with rising pledge sizes), which means that you'll need to stay far above-average if you want to maintain any hope of huge profits.
Although a few campaigns may be highly profitable, I can testify that most are relatively challenging for marketers, even with something like a 35% cut. And, since you can't stay in business by persistently spending more than you earn, it's only natural for crowdfunding marketing agencies to try to cut their losses, as well as minimize their risks. And each new project (which should ideally be coming regularly) poses a new risk. Some projects might prove unprofitable no matter what's tried---and, as for the rest, a crowdfunding marketer might need to test dozens of ad sets in order to find only a few that will actually work. And, in the latter case, there's no way to clearly determine an ad set's profitability (or lack thereof) for sure without normally spending hundreds of dollars on each set---not only on showing those ads, but also on paying skilled labor to both design and analyze those ads, while perhaps maintaining some profit margins of one's own. All of that intense testing can be rather expensive, and so it's not unusual for crowdfunding marketing agencies to either charge sizable upfront fees for it like those that you cited (and then reject a significant percentage of clients whose campaigns prove unprofitable), or else choose to be very restrictive about what clientele they accept from the very beginning, as some other agencies have chosen to do. Without such efforts to mitigate the risks of doing business, those risks could become overwhelming, especially in such a volatile market-sector in which so many projects prove to be relatively undesirable---and, whenever a product isn't sufficiently appealing on its own, then there's only so much that even the best marketing can do to help it.
In any case, that's some of my insight about this subject based upon my own personal experience, for whatever it may be worth.