What Ratio Do You Value?
 

I have a sponsor that counts 1st page hits, 2nd page hits and join page hits. The sales average they post is based on 2nd page hits. Here's an example for the last 7 days:

1st page hits: 3,502
2nd page hits: 427
Join page hits: 750

I had one sale so they say my sales ratio is 1:427. I don't know if 1st page hits is uniques or raw but either way I think this ratio sucks. What do you consider a valid ration? I'm considering moving to yet another sponsor chasing the elusive ratios I used to have.

First page is the only one that matters to me. 2nd page and join hits all depend on the tour of the site.

First page hits is the most important number. Sponsors who don't report first page hits don't want you to see how much traffic you are REALLY sending them and how poorly they REALLY convert. The second page and join page hits are only there so that they can see that their skim is working properly.

First page is the only way. Raw and unique is nice to know too but 1st page only!

I'm mostly concerned about money in my pocket.

1:300 with trials that don't rebill might not be good
1:1,500 with full memberships that rebill forever

Which one will put more money in my pocket thing year?

I agree with the 1st part of what Useless said :D

1st page clicks along with money per click are the 2 totals you should
be worrying about.

Conversion ratios are almost totally meaningless:

1. Because of differences in the way sponsors record their stats, at the very least you would need to compare sales against click stats of your own.
2. Why should conversion ratios be consistent when promotions run from freebies to high-cost products and cover everything between?
3. What do conversion ratios tell you unless you relate them to income: particularly with recurring programs?
4. If you want to see just how meaningless conversion ratios are, stick up a blind link in a prominent position. Your conversion ratios will go down the toilet, but your income may actually increase.

People focus on conversion ratios, no matter how many times they are said to be near useless, because they can. And hey, better to be doing something and better still if it's easy. The only relationship which really matters is earnings per impression, because two things determine your income: traffic and the effectiveness of the promo spots you display to that traffic.

Unfortunately, it isn't a simple calculation. You should reasonably expect prime promo spots to perform better than secondary ones, big promos to do better than small. Thus you cannot say I showed Sponsor A's promo the same number of times as Sponsor B's, but earned more from B, therefore he is better. You need to either figure out a balancing factor or compare the results of sponsors to whom you have given a similar "quality" of exposure (ie one group for those to whom you gave a space of their own at the top of your page, another for those appearing only in a list of links, etc).

Not straightforward, but then why track stats at all, unless they actually mean something?

OK, so based on my numbers above, which is for one week, that's .01/click. I'll check some monthly and six month totals before I move on. I know you can go two weeks with nothing then boom, several sales back to back.

If you're 1:3502 now, I would not go much past 5000 hits before I made my judgment (if I didn't pull them today, because that ratio is horrible)

To me your real ratio there is 1:3502...I use $ per unique because you can try and compare from one sponsor to the next that way. Some of my sponsors don't even show you raws... I think the sponsor you are referring to does not show you the raws as well. Another way sponsors try to make there numbers look better is by using "qualified" hits. Then with some sponsors I know that they simply are not reporting all of my hits...

I know, that ratio is worse than a link list ratio |crazy|

I need to do this more often. Since Oct. 21, 2006 (sponsor stats don't go back any farther)

1st page hits: 51,538
2nd page hits: 6,363
Join page hits: 11,974
Sales: 22 |shocking|

Without a calculator that's .012/click. I should have done this months ago |banghead| |cry|

I saw small checks dribbling in and thought things were OK.

(note to self: check $'s/click, whatever clicks the sponsor shows)

Where's the smiley kicking himself in the butt?

Most important - and impossible to tell without a good clickout script on your server - is what was mentioned before - but not comparing them to the sponsors click tracking but to your own - then you really know what your earnings per click(impression) are.
Unfortunately most people still trust what the sponsors click tracking reports - and as seen recently this can be sadly way off base even with large companies like Google

Before you dump the sponsor completely, I'd run stats using those time frames for the individual sites, as you might be converting good with some of the sites in the program, but not others.

I do that all the time - there are some sponsors where I only promote some (or even one) of their sites as they do convert well with my traffic while the others convert like shit.

LOL How could my stats get any worse? If they're not counting all the hits I'm really fucked. |jester|

Now that's an idea. That's gonna take some time but since I'm not making any money what else do I have to do? :D

I agree, 1st page hits are best as long as they are uniques and not raw. 1st page raws and you're back to being blind again.

CCBill only reported 1st page raw hits for the longest time. This made all CCBill sites have higher ratios compared to sponsors that based their ratos off 1st page uniques or deeper.

I mention this here for those of you that might not know that CCBill now reports both 1st page raws & uniques to affiliates. (The sponsor has to activate this feature which is in their best interest to do so because it will only make them look better by having a lower ratio.)

CCBill also added another feature where if the sponsor chooses they can also report 2nd & 3rd page hits along with the 1st. (They have always reported join page hits) To enable the sponsor has to add some code to the tours and enable this feature in their CCBill admin. This feature is good for seeing how deep your surfers go into the site and how many just hit the first page, say fuck this, and hit the back button.

If your CCBill sponsors arent showing 1st page uniques along with it's usual raw hits in your stats, hit them up, they might not even know about it.

The more stats the better but reporting the ratios should be based on 1st page uniques in my book. (not 2nd or join or raws)

As much as I love Ratios they really are almost useless (to a point) for comparing one site to another, but are very helpful for seeing how different traffic sources you send at the same site convert.

Once you try to use it as a basis of comparing different sponsors it gets tricky. Especially using other peoples ratios. There are just too many variables that affect ratios. The technique and source the affiliate used to send the hits as well as the aggressiveness of the sponsors fhg, hfs and tours all play on ratios.

They do however help when things are out of hand. If you send 5-10,000 hits to a sponsor and no sales, then something is obviously wrong with them (unless all your traffic is coming from a hit bot or a 3rd world country.)

Licker4u wrote:<< Now that's an idea. That's gonna take some time but since I'm not making any money what else do I have to do? >>

Just take you a few seconds actually Licker...

From your main stats page click drop down for custom reports.
Choose "date range" and set it 10/21 to present...click generate.
Now go down to "current pay period" and and use the "view details by" drop down and select "by site".
Be aware that although "view ratio by" default is "unique clicks" they are uniques to the second page.
The only manual part is looking at 1st page (uniques) to your number of sales.

My first one shows a ratio of 1:132 but the real ratio is 1:1526...

A BIG Thanks to Greenie |greenguy| for pointing out to look at the individual sites because I can see that although my overall ratio is not great at 1:1279 I do have some hidden jewels in there at 1:285 and 1:468 (from TGP traffic)...I also see that I have some Ass Suckers at 1:5000.

Thanks for the tip, why don't they ever tell us about these new features? |crazy|

I have a question though about the section right above there-
should those uniques be tracked by
- IP Address and Browser Digest
- Cookie
- IP/Browser and Cookie
- IP/Browser or Cookie
???????????

As much as I love GG's 1:7 join page ratios, |bananna| |bananna|
I'd like to present the most accurate picture as possible.

They announced in your admin August last year. I'ts in the archives.
I'm using: - IP Address and Browser Digest (the first one) I called wondering about the same thing.




https://webadmin.ccbill.com/readNewsItem.cgi?mid=9453

Announcing NEW Affiliate System Upgrades
Posted August 18th, 2006 11:09:08, by CCBill Management
CCBILL LAUNCHES NEW AFFILIATE SYSTEM CLICK TRACKING FEATURES!!!

We are excited to announce new changes and upgrades to the SET UP and REPORTS areas of the AFFILIATE TAB. This improved tools and reporting functionality includes the following new features:


- AFFILIATE CLICK TRACKING: Choose the types of click tracking desired and define unique tracking for your Affiliates.

- CLICK TRACKING HISTORY DROPDOWN: View past settings for the account and re-activate those settings.

- AFFILIATE VIEWS: Choose the level of detail viewable by your Affiliates on the Affiliate Admin System (Raw, Unique, Second Page or Form).

- ADDITIONAL PAGE CLICK: Generate the HTML to place on your Tour pages that will track how far into your site tour (3 page limit) a referred consumer browser.

- SALES PER CLICK REPORT: View the data pertaining to your Affiliate's total sales and clicks tracked. This report will now breakdown and produce clicks and ratio information on the following click types: Raw, Unique, Raw Second Page, Unique Second Page and Forms.

- PAGE VIEWS REPORT: View detailed data surrounding Raw Clicks and Unique Clicks.

With this upgrade, the following Affiliate System terms and references have also changed:

- Raw Clicks: (formerly known as “clicks”) View the total number of times a banner or link advertisement is selected by a consumer.

- Raw Ratio: (formerly known as “clicks”) Provides the proportion of sales to raw clicks, based on your search parameters.

- Form Clicks: View the number of times consumers click on your sign up Form, based on your search parameters.

- Form Click Ratio: Provides you with the ratio of sales to form clicks for the search parameter provided.

If you have any questions regarding this or any other CCBill System5 feature, please feel free to contact us at clientsupport@ccbill.com.

Many thanks for your attention to this matter.

The Staff at CCBill.com

Yep, that's why Greenie gets the big bucks.....:D

Ratios I'm not that fussed about. I'm more about the unique traffic, 1st page hits, sent (counted via an out script) & compared to cost per click and my bottom line. But in saying that I like my ratios under 1:1200.

-N

I would say Unique 1st page to Sales, just because Join:Sales is useless, then u got the ratio Unique 1st page:join aswell, kinda useless. Anyway, so you say your ratio is 1:3502.. well thats kind of low, but remember that a sale is just one guy that bought something. you can just as well get another sale off the next 50 uniques that you send.. you never know, ratio's are not even near accurate..

Ok, going off on a small tangent. I have a CCBill sponsor that converts better than 1:500. Great ... except for the fact that rebills are less than 20%. So do you keep them or not? |confused|

30%-35% is about average so 20% is a little low. But 1:500 sounds good but there are so many other variables consider.


That 1:500 is probably RAW, in reality your more like 1:350, and that would be 1st page. which = dam good, so in essence you would have to replace it with a site that converted 1:700 with a 40% rebill just to do the same thing providing the membership costs are the same for both.

So another reason why ratios are meaningless by themselves and why you need to look at the bottom line, how much $ you make from it versus another site in it's place.

I use the first page Unq:Sales mainly.

But, I also evaluate the Unq:Join and Join:Sales ratios also. Sometimes the tour needs to be modified to get more people through to actual sales pages.