Who's responsibility is it, sponsors or affiliates?
 

Who's responsibility is it, sponsors or affiliates?

I recently found that i was sending traffic to a newbie paysite owner, the site bills thru ccbill and on his webmaster page you put in your ccbill code, it cookies you, and you can grab your ccbill linking codes from that affiliate area

i sent a lot of traffic, didnt notice any new sales from them, so i

1. clicked my own links and went to their join page
2. viewed the source code, looking for my ccbill affiliate ID

it was not there, so that means i dont get credit for sales using the linking codes they gave to me

i was pissed off, made a thread on a private message board and contacted that sponsor about it................

what is the proper way to handle something like this? i think the codes should be double checked by the sponsor before making them available for affiliates to grab and use them on our sites

You should always check your own links, why leave something that important to someone else?

First, check to see that the id that was handed to you is indeed the one that ccbill thinks it is.

CCBill's passthrough to the admin actually passes the parent ccbill ID rather than the ID assigned for that affiliate program. CCBill claims this is a feature and not a bug.

If the code you use is not part of that affiliate's program, the cookie won't be set. In your browser, verify that the cookie is indeed being set just to make sure.

I had the same problem a few years ago and I contacted ccbill about it. They said I should delete all cookies in the settings of my browser and try the link again. That's what I did, and after this the affiliate code showed up perfectly. Obviously some browsers can not store an abundance of cookies ....

Another thing you might want to check: Is the merchant code of the site's sign up page in the source code the same as the one in the referal code? Some programs switch ccbill accounts and 'forget' to inform affiliates about changes. There are plenty of examples for this disgraceful behaviour.

well, in the affiliate admin area, the linking code included a "=ccbill=" code in it that was NOT supposed to be there, when i take that out then it works fine

so to affiliates, make sure you check all your linking codes from now on, you never know if you're getting your cut unless you check your codes yourself

You'd think before a program launches they would check their own software, has the sponsor gotten back to you about the issue yet?

The program should have working pages, ect. We trust them to do this and to never change it so you don't get screwed out of sales.

If they are the type of sponsor to boast about ratios (realistic or not), then tell them to put their money where their mouth is and pay you for the traffic you sent.

I doubt they will but it's worth a try!

I have an opinion about CCBill link codes, but I won't get into it.

Alex

still waiting on a reply...................

RawAlex, whats your thing about ccbill codes? spill it spill it!!!!!

JScott- Are you referring to our program? I responded to an affiliate last evening regarding an identical situation, and feel that the issue was closed before this thread began. I'm not clear if it was you though, since the affiliate info I have, your profile here, and the bogus whois info are not a match. Additionally, we are hardly newbie paysite owners -lol; so I'm thinking this is a coincidence in timing.
If you are not referring to us, then maybe this would be a good opportunity to educate affiliates how php and link codes work :-)

I think it is your responsibility to check your link codes before you use them. Im not just talking CCBill but any links you use.

Many sponsors using CCBill will have a box with the words "Enter your CCBill affiliate ID" or something similar. You enter your code and click on the "Generate" button. This will change all links currently on the page to contain the code you entered.

If you enter the wrong code or use a link that didnt contain your id then what is a program owner to do?

I am also a gallery submitter and use dozens of programs. I myself have grabbed the wrong links but I have learned from my mistakes. Beofre I put up any link, I double check. I make sure the link works and in the case of a sponsor link I make sure I see a click in the sponsors stats before I move on.

Its an easy habit to get into and using the wrong link code is a very easy miskate to make. Sorry to hear it happened to you and hats off to you for not mentioning who this sponsor is .. and no its not me :)

Good luck, keep us posted.

hey there emmanuelle, nope not you guys, just coincidence ;)

This is a thread from last year about making sure your affiliate codes are in place and correct...

http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...ad.php?t=21584

We still see affiliates doing everything mentioned. Yes, program owners need to do the things they should be doing, but I think it's worth mentioning that everyone has to do their part to not leave any money on the table that belongs in your pocket.

Simon


P.S. It wasn't us either, just adding some feedback. :)

perfect- glad to hear it!

terry, thats the thing, this sponsor did have the correct "link generator thing" and you put in the correct code and generate your hosted galleries BUT in those hosted galleries the affiliate had the code generate with something that isnt supposed to be there in the code, that totally cancells out ANY affiliate code, therefor ONLY the sponsor can get credit for the sale

damn! that was quick!!! lol

That sounds bad. There could be other affiliates out there using their hosted galleries and trusting that the link codes the sponsor gave them are correct. If their export tool is broken, they need to know about it and get it fixed. And shut it down in the meantime so no one else gets bad codes.

PLEASE READ!!!!

ok i dont think some of you understand what i mean:

lets say my affiliate id is: 1234567

i use the hosted gallery links generator, it tells me to link to this:
sitename.com/webmasters/set/?ccbill=1234567


well, there are links in that hosted gallery that carry your aff ID, and here's the link the hosteds carry
refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=1111111-0001&PA=ccbill=1234567&HTML=http://www.siteurl.com

with that =ccbill= coding we get NO credit for any sale

I can't speak for others, though several of the posters in this thread often exhibit good comprehension skills, but I did understand what you meant.

That's what I'm saying that we need to be sure the sponsor knows to shut off the export tool until it's fixed.

And it would help to know who the sponsor is, so we can all check to see if we're promoting them and then check the links we're using.

Agreed.

i assure you noone here (in this thread) is promoting the site (it's NN)

but if someone is promoting any NN sites icq me and i'll let you know, i dont want to down a site that possibly has made an innocent error on the linking codes

That coding error is one where they are using the QUERY_STRING in their hosted galleries, but, are passing the coding as if they had used $_REQUEST['ccbill']

I would guess that they had a new person design the hosted galleries that worked for a company that did them the other way.

Let the sponsor know and provide them with some detail as to the urls that are generated versus the hosted galleries.

Quite simply, there is no reason in the universe to force your affiliates to put a long and complicated link code in place. A very, very short piece of php on the paysite domain could handle and redirect the surfer through CCBill without any issues, and allow webmasters to have link code like:

http//www.paysite.com/?1010010

instead of

refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=1111111-0001&PA=ccbill=1234567&HTML=http://www.siteurl.com

The same thing could easily be applied to hosted galleries so they they would like to the same redirection rather than attempting to handle the coding on each and every gallery.

Alex