Are These New Piece Of Shit Options Now Standard In NATS?

[Special "Ed"]

So...I'm gathering here that it wouldn't be to smart for LotzaDollars to make the choice to switch to Nats?
As a program owner, the only reason why I feel it would be necessary for our business model to choose another software company other than the one we're using (Taboo Tracking) would be for their stats.
Unlike some other sponsers, I wouldn't be switching for the sole reason of cascade billing, as we already have that in place. So the idea that Nats, or any other program would bring me a 20-25% increase in sales is false. We did gain a significant increase in revenue when we implemented cascade billing into my company a couple years ago. I'm only looking at providing affiliates with a better stats solution than the one we currently use. Any suggestions before I make a switch?

[Useless]

Originally Posted by Special "Ed"

Any suggestions before I make a switch?

Tell Taboo that their current stats are insufficient and light a fire under their ass to improve them.

[Preacher]

Well I was hoping John would come back to this thread as he promised, but it doesn't look like that is the case so I guess I'll just post my findings.

Keep in mind, this is my theory as to why my personal ratios plummeted after a sponsors switch to NATS. I wish I had done some pre-NATS testing, but as we all know hindsight is 20/20. I have tested the time to live on the cookies that my link codes insert at three seperate times from three different links (both old and new) to three different paysites in their program. Each time my cookie expired within 55 minutes.

Now it's easy to say that if you can't make a sale in 55 minutes, then you're not going to make the sale at all, but apparently according to my pre-NATS stats (with a longer cookie life I would presume) as compared to my post-NATS maybe I was selling after those 55 minutes. A great theory on this is that maybe I was selling on type-ins because my freesites were so fucking awesome as compared to the crappy freesites they saw after mine, that the surfer just had to go back to the site I was selling for and donate my commission to me.

All joking aside the majority of my inbounds and also my sales to that sponsor were from "no referrer" prior to NATS. Was it type in traffic or did their old stats just suck? You tell me. What I can tell you is that as of right now I am at 1:7241.

And while I love the people at the program and enjoyed working with their sites and their content, I just can't justify continued traffic directed to ratios that bad. All of my scripted links have been deactivated, the hardcoded links are being removed as I update my pages, and I'm no longer building freesites or mini-hubs with their links/content.

In the short term they may have saved on my commssion on a few sales, but in the long term they will be losing a good source of steady targetted traffic.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by Preacher

Well I was hoping John would come back to this thread as he promised, but it doesn't look like that is the case so I guess I'll just post my findings.

Who?

[Greenguy]

UW - that's actually good to know

[Preacher]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Who?

Ok, my mistake. Will this work as a retraction?

Well I was hoping John would come back to this thread (and post answers to the questions posed to him) as he promised, but it doesn't look like that is the case so I guess I'll just post my findings...

[jonnydoe]

I'm still a newb but I see problems with both systems... I look at my NATS sponsors and they have whacked out ratios if they want...I think they count like the third page or something so I've had x number of sponsor hits and I am converting with them at 1:17 (by the time they count it). ccBill takes so fucking long to show you anything and it is mostly pure raw crap... Sometimes you wonder where the better end of this business is. Selling to the customer or the webmaster...

[Qon]

the amount of nats bashing in here is amazing... as an affiliate of many nats programs and as an affiliate program owner, my understanding of both sides is extensive. without running down a list of complaints about ccbill, i'd say i'd definitely prefer any affiliate tracking software to ccbill tracking alone (though i send traffic to both types of programs). why? i noticed john mentioned that ccbill is a processor and not in the business of developing software that benefits BOTH affiliates and site owners. they are in the business of quickly and effectively processing transactions for its clients... which means, who is the higher priority to them? the site owner or you as an affiliate? what makes you think ccbill caters any more to the affiliate with their software than NATs/MPA3/Whatever?

why exactly would any of you believe that a program owner would LIKE for NATs to NOT credit you on signups? hell, i'm more upset on my end as a program owner if my software isn't crediting properly because i know if u are sending traffic but you are not seeing sales, then you probably won't be an affiliate of mine for very long! who stays in business by continually shafting affiliates?

often, changes in sales due to a switch to NATs are caused by configuration problems on the program side. the thing about NATs is that once u have it installed, a lot of technical setup of sites and processing steps are the responsibility of the program owner. if you incorrectly configure something, its really left up to you to figure that out on your own.... you will not be notified by TMM or your processor that something is not setup properly. TMM support is absolutely phenomenal but in order to get help with it, you have to recognize a problem & ask for help fixing it. NATs cannot be blamed for a program owner's lack of understanding when using their software. they also can't handle 100% setup of a program's sites as they have too many clients and your license of the software comes with a walkthru and an understanding that one has to have extensive technical knowledge to utilize the software.

take the time to go step by step thru a signup on the site you are selling if its important to you to insure your sponsor has things setup properly. if they haven't taken the time to do so (which they should), then perhaps there's something happening that they haven't even noticed. when you signup as an affiliate, you are making a partnership agreement so contribute to it by helping them insure everything is set correctly so that both of you make money. the only reason you would LOSE on a program that offers cascading (using any software) is if the cascade is not setup properly... otherwise, i don't understand the complaints about it. of course i'd want 2 or 3 chances to get a sale from 1 customer if i could get that.... why would i PREFER to send my traffic to a program where there is ZERO chance to get a sale from a backup processor? perhaps ccbill will scrub a guy today but paycom won't? this "I ONLY TRUST CCBILL" shit is crazy..... what happens if ccbill isn't around one day? you want your top sponsors dependent on a credit card processor? have all of you forgotten about the IBills & GLOBills of the world? maybe you're all too new.... i dunno.


i have a few more things to go over but i'll let ya marinate on that for now....bbl

[lassiter]

Originally Posted by DamnQ

why exactly would any of you believe that a program owner would LIKE for NATs to NOT credit you on signups?

Huh? How about the sponsor getting to keep 100% of the sale revenue instead of 50%? Multiply by a couple hundred sales a month and it's an irresistable revenue enhancer.

The more pertinent question is "why should we believe for a moment that this doesn't happen?"

[Qon]

Originally Posted by lassiter

Huh? How about the sponsor getting to keep 100% of the sale revenue instead of 50%? Multiply by a couple hundred sales a month and it's an irresistable revenue enhancer.

The more pertinent question is "why should we believe for a moment that this doesn't happen?"

did u completely skip everything i posted thereafter? IF YOU DON'T MAKE SALES, YOU STOP SENDING TRAFFIC. YOU STOP SENDING TRAFFIC, I STOP MAKING SALES. seems like common sense to me.... if you're talking PPS, then its a different ballgame... but this is revshare and every sale counts so why would i WANT your sales to go missing or not get credited?

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by DamnQ

the amount of nats bashing in here is amazing...

you look at it as bashing - and while it did start out that way, John came by & turned it into an unanswered Q & A session, which disappoints most of us

[shunga]

Good post, Q.

I've been hoping John would contribute more, too. I appreciate the signal to noise ratio can become a little overwhelming, though.

[Preacher]

Originally Posted by DamnQ

did u completely skip everything i posted thereafter? IF YOU DON'T MAKE SALES, YOU STOP SENDING TRAFFIC. YOU STOP SENDING TRAFFIC, I STOP MAKING SALES. seems like common sense to me.... if you're talking PPS, then its a different ballgame... but this is revshare and every sale counts so why would i WANT your sales to go missing or not get credited?

This reminds me of a time about a year ago where some well known webmaster on some forum listed a handful of sponsors that he swore was shaving based on traffic numbers and ratios.

[Qon]

Originally Posted by Preacher

This reminds me of a time about a year ago where some well known webmaster on some forum listed a handful of sponsors that he swore was shaving based on traffic numbers and ratios.

my deductions were not strictly based on traffic numbers and ratios and i believe i went thru all this.... don't u hate when people try to take your words and use them against you on a completely irrelevant subject?

[Useless]

Originally Posted by DamnQ

my deductions were not strictly based on traffic numbers and ratios and i believe i went thru all this.... don't u hate when people try to take your words and use them against you on a completely irrelevant subject?

But Q, that's what many of us are saying. Hell, I'm here to blame the sponsors who use NATS as a tool to shave affiliates more than blaming NATS for selling those tools.

NATS doesn't shave people - people do.

And if NATS is as complicated to set up correctly as you've stated, and we're getting banged in the ass as a result, who are we to be angry at? We have no idea who has a good installation and who is driving blindly.

[Qon]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

NATS doesn't shave people - people do.

hmmmmm.... seems like a lot of you feel the best way to go about finding a resolution to whatever caused your ratios to go bad is to attack the developers of affiliate software rather than to simply do a bit of additional research to discover where the actual problem lies. as i've said, the errors are OFTEN due to PEOPLE's MISUSE of the application rather than the application itself. i've always been a proponent of honest affiliate/sponsor relationships and i certainly wouldn't have invested all my time and money into an application i felt wasn't built well for the job & effective in helping me maintain that relationship with my partners.

i'm sure i would be standing in the same place if i was using another affiliate software application and i saw people unfairly blaming it for their problems... i wasn't sent to "defend" nats (fyi)

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

And if NATS is as complicated to set up correctly as you've stated, and we're getting banged in the ass as a result, who are we to be angry at? We have no idea who has a good installation and who is driving blindly.

back to my previous point: make the effort as a partner to insure the place u send your traffic is working & setup properly. perhaps you could be saving the program and other affiliates with your efforts. its just as much your responsibility as it is the sponsors once you go into a partnership agreement of this nature.

[Simon]

Maybe there needs to be a "NATS Watch" website.

What I mean is someplace that lists all of the required and optional configuration settings in the NATS software that are important to affiliate webmasters. The site could list how each sponsor has their copy of NATS configured. Those listings could be posted based on how sponsors say that they have their NATS set up, and also based on real world tests by affiliates to reveal if some sponsors may have misconfigurations they're not aware of (or if some are just screwing affiliates on purpose).

[Useless]

Originally Posted by DamnQ

hmmmmm.... seems like a lot of you feel the best way to go about finding a resolution to whatever caused your ratios to go bad is to attack the developers of affiliate software rather than to simply do a bit of additional research to discover where the actual problem lies.

Well, being that I'm the laziest bastard in the business - and a lot people here can back me up on that - I haven't built a damn thing to promote anyone in a loooong time. So, I can see pretty clearly that a couple programs' ratios dived down to nothing after they switched to NATS. But being the silly little fucker I am, I don't contact the sponsor, I don't sit around pondering anything - I do what you suggested. I pull links. Of course, that's not possible on all pages. If you are gallery or free site submitter and you're using sponsor content to promote those fuckers, you can't just pull links or pages. You're stuck hosting a bunch of shit that you know won't make you a cent, but the sponsor is probably continuing to pull the same ratios on their end.

[Qon]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Well, being that I'm the laziest bastard in the business - ....but the sponsor is probably continuing to pull the same ratios on their end.

1) you're lazy
2) you argue with conjecture and assumptions

go back to my original reply to this thread... a lof of the issues you are complaining about seem to have a lot to do with what you are NOT doing. nats is just an easy scapegoat for you... if thats the way you like to live, hey.... do your thing. i certainly would hope my affiliates would notify me if i DID miss something but u obviously aren't where that notification will be coming from. btw, every GOOD affiliate software app is complex in 1 way or another.... people are going to be people, don't villainize them or the software if all you have is assumptions about what's going on rather than experience and technical know-how

[Useless]

Originally Posted by DamnQ

a lof of the issues you are complaining about seem to have a lot to do with what you are NOT doing.

Q - I've done nothing! Literally. I sit here and watch my traffic. That's it. You're arging for NATS because that's what YOUR PROGRAM uses. Big surprise. It's best for you and your friends at NATS for you to shift the blame upon the affiliates. That's fine. I'm sure it's a solid business decision for you.

I'm not looking for scapegoats. My ratios don't improve when I find something to blame. I just point out the obvious. Program A switches to NATS. My ratios drop. Program B switches to NATS. My ratios drop. Somethings up with the way they're running NATS. It's not fucking rocket science on my end.

[Qon]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

It's best for you and your friends at NATS for you to shift the blame upon the affiliates. That's fine. I'm sure it's a solid business decision for you.

what are you talking about dude? how am i shifting the blame on affiliates? whats the point of having a discussion with someone who doesn't actually read what you've said? its MISUSE of software, not the software and its the responsibility of both the program owner and the affiliate to insure that the agreement you have come to is backed up by a functional use of the software they have chosen to use. its very simple so i reeeeealy don't understand why you're having such a tough time getting it.... or maybe you just like to find things to bitch about?

i'll say it one more time: DO SOME INVESTIGATION & DISCOVER THE PROBLEM. if they are misusing the affiliate software and you continue to send them traffic while they do that, who is to blame? both sides are to blame and the responsibility lies in both hands to resolve the issue.

[Toby]

Originally Posted by DamnQ

...make the effort as a partner to insure the place u send your traffic is working & setup properly...

OK, but just exactly what are we supposed to be looking for beyond simply making sure that the links from the hosted galleries have our referral code?

BTW, nice to see you here.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by DamnQ

...back to my previous point: make the effort as a partner to insure the place u send your traffic is working & setup properly. perhaps you could be saving the program and other affiliates with your efforts. its just as much your responsibility as it is the sponsors once you go into a partnership agreement of this nature.

Why is it my job to make sure the sponsors affiliate software is working?

Oddly enough, I do check most of the tours & hosted materials to make sure that the codes pass thru to the join page, but fuck me if you think that's my job!

9 times out of 10, I just delete the codes & move on - I do sometimes let the sponsor know about the problem, but I do not think that it's my responsibility to make sure the program owners have their affiliate software working properly - it's the program owners & the software developers responsibility.

Who has time to do this kind of stuff anyway when there 100's of programs out there that are set up properly?

And what does any of this have to do with our questions about the NATS software?

[virgohippy]

DamnQ, you mentioned finding the "real" problem.

If programs can so easily turn sour as a result of a software change then how would it be in the best interest of an affiliate to NOT be skeptical of the software?

I don't care if the program owner is the one responsible for mucking up the works. As a business owner, I have to find trends in the market. And if using a particular software usually accompanies a drop in sales, I have little choice in the matter but to adapt. My survival as a business owner depends on it.

Furthermore, as UW pointed out, as an affiliate, I have absolutely no responsability in insuring the success of a program owner's business.

If something is consistently not right, I'm not going to waste my precious time doing research on a topic that's not going to help me run my business so I can fix someone else's problem. Not when I can easily work with people who can fix their own problems. That's just business.

The "real" problem is that I don't think your values are in line with the values of the affiliate marketers who disagree with you.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by DamnQ

....DO SOME INVESTIGATION & DISCOVER THE PROBLEM...

I think you're missing the point here as well - a lot of us have done our own investigating & most (if not all) of the time, the problem involves a program using NATS.

If most of us see that our ratios & income drop when a program moves to NATS......