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

[Preacher]

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

Although the 11 joins in 4.5 months is a bit low to get a full grasp on how the traffic is doing. There are fluctuation and it could be just a bad dip. I have no problem taking a look at your account on that sponsor program to make sure nothing is wrong. I believe overall tho that their affiliate ratios are up. I will speak with Arthur about this on Monday. Please contact me Monday or Tuesday (if not earlier) to discuss it.

I will contact you early next week then. And while my traffic may not be the Hun's I said 11 joins in 90 days, that's 3 months.

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

The gains I mentioned were gross revenue gains. An extra 10% to 20% in joins which means 10% to 20% more for affiliates also. I don't quite get your point on this, but I think you misunderstood what I meant. I meant an overall 10-20% increase, not a 10-20% increase in margin for the program.

Where the Hell is Useless when you need him.

Someone else will jump on this point I'm almost sure, I'd rather be vague then to speak about the sponsor side of things which I've had no experience with.

Whoops, apparently Useless posted while I was typing!

[[BV]]

Originally Posted by Greenie

The more I look at NATS, the more I like CCBill.

I'm going to have to agree with you on that. I've never used NATS as a sponsor but I have used it as an affiliate and sometimes it can be a bit confusing.

On my BVCash program I have a custom coded affiliate script that we mainly implemented for cascade billing purposes, BUT on my new program (BME) I decided to just use CCBill's affiliate script because based on my data cascade billing is just over rated.

Plus CCBill now counts uniques visitors (if the sponsor activates it) and not just raw clicks plus they are coming out with a new version soon that will have campaign tracking amongst other things. The merge feature is also a big plus that attracts affiliates to push CCBill sites! No way to take advantage of that with NATS.

[PBucksJohn]

Originally Posted by [BV]

I'm going to have to agree with you on that. I've never used NATS as a sponsor but I have used it as an affiliate and sometimes it can be a bit confusing.

On my BVCash program I have a custom coded affiliate script that we mainly implemented for cascade billing purposes, BUT on my new program (BME) I decided to just use CCBill's affiliate script because based on my data cascade billing is just over rated.

Plus CCBill now counts uniques visitors (if the sponsor activates it) and not just raw clicks plus they are coming out with a new version soon that will have campaign tracking amongst other things. The merge feature is also a big plus that attracts affiliates to push CCBill sites! No way to take advantage of that with NATS.

The problem with cascading with a simple script rather than a full affiliate package such as NATS or MPA and having the processors do the payouts is that you will not be paying your affiliates what they see in stats all of the time. Say an affiliate makes 20 sales on CCBill and 1 on Paycom as your secondary. They will receive a check from CCBill for the 20 and no check from paycom as they did not meet the minimum. Their checks will not match their stats and will cause confusion. There are other problems also but this is the most obvious.

As far as the benefits of cascading I typically see gains of 10% to 20% on our clients. With very few if any not seeing 10% of their sales coming from their secondary processor. If you didn't see a gain like that then I would assume that something was not working quite as it should.

The benefits of NATS go well beyond cascading. Because of Mansion's hyping of their product as a "cascading system" when they launched many people began to confuse 3rd party affiliate systems with a "cascading script". NATS (and other products) go well beyond cascading. Simple cascading can be achieved by simply pointing your processors denial URL at the second processor. This is not even a script (and not recommended also of course).

The point is NATS is a very advanced system which goes well beyond cascading. It is not a "script". It is an entire affiliate backend with numerous features and benefits. Can you run a successful program without something like NATS? Of course, many people have and many people will. That doesn't mean there are many benefits from doing so. If there weren't, hundreds of people would not be using our product.

The combination of checks issue was address above. And yes, some affiliates do prefer it. However, I fear for those affiliates (and those affiliate programs) should CCBill ever go out of business. I don't see any reason why that would happen but it has to other processors before. With a product like NATS or MPA you can spread your eggs around and quickly have another processor in place. When you are 100% dependent upon a processor for your program to exist you are putting an awful lot of faith in them and assuming an awful lot of risk.

[Linkster]

I guess I have a big misunderstanding here - I have quite a few programs that I promote that use ccbill and paycomm at the same time as a backup - I dont get seperate checks from them - thats handled by the sponsor - its the sponsors minimum I have to meet not ccbills or paycoms
So using that example of 20 sales and 1 sale gives me an uneasy feeling of your understanding of sponsor programs???

[PBucksJohn]

Originally Posted by Linkster

I guess I have a big misunderstanding here - I have quite a few programs that I promote that use ccbill and paycomm at the same time as a backup - I dont get seperate checks from them - thats handled by the sponsor - its the sponsors minimum I have to meet not ccbills or paycoms
So using that example of 20 sales and 1 sale gives me an uneasy feeling of your understanding of sponsor programs???

I said when the processors handle the payouts. Someone who has a full custom backend and does their own payouts is the same as someone running NATS. There are people who will buy $50 scripts that will send someone to processor B when processor A denies the customer and they have both processors issue checks. That is the situation I was referring to.

I have been in this industry since 1996. My understanding of affiliate programs is just fine, no need to feel uneasy about it.

[Linkster]

In answer to your statement about someone using the two processors with separate checks - I can only think of one program that does that - and have for at least 6 or 7 years - and I think I use a little over 300 sponsors but I suppose someone out there could be doing their own cascading
So again - Im still a little uneasy since you seem to use that as a major selling point and really emphasize the issue - when it doesnt seem to be an issue?

[[BV]]

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

I said when the processors handle the payouts. Someone who has a full custom back end and does their own payouts is the same as someone running NATS. There are people who will buy $50 scripts that will send someone to processor B when processor A denies the customer and they have both processors issue checks. That is the situation I was referring to.

That's how BVCash is set up, affiliates can choose who they want as primary and it cascades from there. Checks are issued by CCBill and Paycom. The merge CCBill account feature is just too much for me to pass up. I get too many small TGP affiliates signing up every day to go away from 3rd party billing. I don't care if they only do 1 sale a week or even every 2 weeks. I am close to 2000 affiliates now and most of them fit that category. You've seen the "Spam me with CCBill sponsors" threads before.

Our script is far from a $50 script though. It has alot of the same bells and whistles NATS has. Some even before NATS had them. In fact we probably would have bought NATS but it wasn't available in 2001 was it?

[Linkster]

Not being a hater here - but yes you did bring it up

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

The problem with cascading with a simple script rather than a full affiliate package such as NATS or MPA and having the processors do the payouts is that you will not be paying your affiliates what they see in stats all of the time. Say an affiliate makes 20 sales on CCBill and 1 on Paycom as your secondary. They will receive a check from CCBill for the 20 and no check from paycom as they did not meet the minimum. Their checks will not match their stats and will cause confusion. There are other problems also but this is the most obvious.

As far as the benefits of cascading I typically see gains of 10% to 20% on our clients. With very few if any not seeing 10% of their sales coming from their secondary processor. If you didn't see a gain like that then I would assume that something was not working quite as it should.

The benefits of NATS go well beyond cascading. Because of Mansion's hyping of their product as a "cascading system" when they launched many people began to confuse 3rd party affiliate systems with a "cascading script". NATS (and other products) go well beyond cascading. Simple cascading can be achieved by simply pointing your processors denial URL at the second processor. This is not even a script (and not recommended also of course).

The point is NATS is a very advanced system which goes well beyond cascading. It is not a "script". It is an entire affiliate backend with numerous features and benefits. Can you run a successful program without something like NATS? Of course, many people have and many people will. That doesn't mean there are many benefits from doing so. If there weren't, hundreds of people would not be using our product.

The combination of checks issue was address above. And yes, some affiliates do prefer it. However, I fear for those affiliates (and those affiliate programs) should CCBill ever go out of business. I don't see any reason why that would happen but it has to other processors before. With a product like NATS or MPA you can spread your eggs around and quickly have another processor in place. When you are 100% dependent upon a processor for your program to exist you are putting an awful lot of faith in them and assuming an awful lot of risk.

[PBucksJohn]

Originally Posted by Linkster

Not being a hater here - but yes you did bring it up

BV brought it up when mentioning he put in a script to do cascading. My post you quoted was in response to his. My apologies if my trying to provide a detailed explanation to him came off to you as me touting it as a "major feature"

I wouldn't doubt your "being a hater" has something to do with the fact that you use our competitors product. But don't worry, I don't expect you to actually have a constructive conversation with me. I expect you to just keep spitting things back at me and twisting it as you have been.

[Linkster]

Well - since I dont use any scripts from either you or anyone else - dont think Im being jaded here Im not employed by the people in my sig
And as far as being confrontational and twisting things - I just want the ability as an affiliate to see my real stats - not to have to depend on a sponsor to email me my correct stats or explain why the stats dont add up - that was the only point I think most of us were trying to make

[PBucksJohn]

Originally Posted by Linkster

Well - since I dont use any scripts from either you or anyone else - dont think Im being jaded here Im not employed by the people in my sig
And as far as being confrontational and twisting things - I just want the ability as an affiliate to see my real stats - not to have to depend on a sponsor to email me my correct stats or explain why the stats dont add up - that was the only point I think most of us were trying to make

And I agreed with you and said it was a very bad problem to have and you threw it back at me twice

My apologies for assuming that since there was no ref code in your sig you were the owner of or related to the company.

[Linkster]

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

you were the owner of the company.

I wish

[PBucksJohn]

Originally Posted by Linkster

I wish

Don't wish, work towards it (not that program specifically but one in general) One great thing about this biz is that anyone can achieve success

[Useless]

Boy, I wish I had something truly constructive to say about NATS, but I don't think I that I do. Is it OK for us to voice that we, as affiliates, simply don't like NATS and that we don't trust NATS - without the fear of being sued by Too Much Media? If someone did want to speak frankly to its developers, would that require the signing of a non-disclosure agreement?

Where there's smoke, there's fire.

We all whisper to each other about the mysterious powers which NATS gives a sponsor; and the rumors of the possible 11-some ways an unethical sponsor could choose to screw its affiliates with its sparkling new 3rd-party toy. And many of us have seen conversions falter and fade into the abyss when a formerly solid program switches to NATS while promising us improved ratios. Woe is we.

[PBucksJohn]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Boy, I wish I had something truly constructive to say about NATS, but I don't think I that I do. Is it OK for us to voice that we, as affiliates, simply don't like NATS and that we don't trust NATS - without the fear of being sued by Too Much Media? If someone did want to speak frankly to its developers, would that require the signing of a non-disclosure agreement?

Where there's smoke, there's fire.

We all whisper to each other about the mysterious powers which NATS gives a sponsor; and the rumors of the possible 11-some ways an unethical sponsor could choose to screw its affiliates with its sparkling new 3rd-party toy. And many of us have seen conversions falter and fade into the abyss when a formerly solid program switches to NATS while promising us improved ratios. Woe is we.

When have we ever done anything to anyone for saying they have a problem with our products?

If you have something to say, please do so. Don't speak in riddles. This is exactly what I mean when I mention people complaining just to complain. If you have a problem with something or a suggestion let us know. If you're right, we'll work to fix the situation. Saying things with no substance doesn't help us or you.

[PBucksJohn]

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

When have we ever done anything to anyone for saying they have a problem with our products?

If you have something to say, please do so. Don't speak in riddles. This is exactly what I mean when I mention people complaining just to complain. If you have a problem with something or a suggestion let us know. If you're right, we'll work to fix the situation. Saying things with no substance doesn't help us or you.

To add to this. I just did a search here. You seem to have something personal against us. I don't know what it is. But I don't really care after reading all of your comments either.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

To add to this. I just did a search here. You seem to have something personal against us. I don't know what it is. But I don't really care after reading all of your comments either.

You know, John, it's the not caring that hurts.

Personal? If you consider watching one's income drop repeatedly when sponsor after sponsor decides to use your product as personal - well then, yes, maybe it is personal. I suppose one would find it really mysterious as to why one would actually earn less with cascading billing.

Just tired of the empty promises and bullshit - that's all.

[DangerDave]

John,

DangerDave, the same thing applies to you. Perhaps you would have better results contacting us and telling us what you dislike rather than posting that "Everyone hates NATS!" or that "its a gimmick/toy" every few months.

I see two problems..

1. You are not going to change NATS to how "I" would like it.. so that defeats the purpose of contacting you.

2. I am going to assume every program is making more cash post-NATS than they were before.. so they aren't going to change anything either.


While I don't have the concrete figures, to hand, to back the argument up, I would agree with Preacher's posted ratios. Almost evey single program that has gone from CCBill to NATS has gone to shit for the affiliate.

For me(like Preacher) as the "affiliate" that makes NATS the problem.. and I am really getting sick of good programs going bad...

I realise it is not "your" fault.. but the use of your product, leads to decreased income to me... that means I aint going to love it..

I now cringe everytime another email comes in from a program saying they are changing to NATS.



If you want to fix one thing... Turn the fucking session/admin timeout off! It is the most annoying thing about NATS admins, and its serves absolutely no purpose at all..
If some fool is accessing their sponsor admins on a public computer and they forget to log out.. they deserve to get screwed..
For the rest of us it is just a useless annoyance!


DD

[PBucksJohn]

Originally Posted by DangerDave

John,


I see two problems..

1. You are not going to change NATS to how "I" would like it.. so that defeats the purpose of contacting you.

2. I am going to assume every program is making more cash post-NATS than they were before.. so they aren't going to change anything either.


While I don't have the concrete figures, to hand, to back the argument up, I would agree with Preacher's posted ratios. Almost evey single program that has gone from CCBill to NATS has gone to shit for the affiliate.

For me(like Preacher) as the "affiliate" that makes NATS the problem.. and I am really getting sick of good programs going bad...

I realise it is not "your" fault.. but the use of your product, leads to decreased income to me... that means I aint going to love it..

I now cringe everytime another email comes in from a program saying they are changing to NATS.



If you want to fix one thing... Turn the fucking session/admin timeout off! It is the most annoying thing about NATS admins, and its serves absolutely no purpose at all..
If some fool is accessing their sponsor admins on a public computer and they forget to log out.. they deserve to get screwed..
For the rest of us it is just a useless annoyance!


DD

Thank you for getting more constructive

1. How do you know that? If it makes sense of course we will. You're right. I might not agree with everything you have to say but that doesn't mean I won't agree with some of it.

2. I would hope they do overall. However I would never hope that they do at the expense of the affiliate. I know some affiliates dislike NATS but the vast majority that I speak with love it. If affiliates did not like NATS as a whole we would have no where near the market share we have and our business would die. We (Too Much Media) need to do our best to please the affiliate as well as the program owner.

Saying that all programs that move to NATS have gone to shit for affiliates is an assumption and wrong. We get complaints from affiliates that a program moved to NATS and their ratios went to shit. We investigate it. Sometimes it is a tiny change in an affiliate with very little traffic which is a normal fluctuation. Sometimes it is a configuration problem. Sometimes its a bug in the NATS software that the affiliates help us find and we fix. Nothing is ever perfect and if people don't let us know when they're having a problem we can't fix it. When we do these investigations we also look at affilaites as a whole (excluding type-ins, internal traffic, etc.) and as a whole affiliate ratios are almost always better. In some cases they are worse overall and we work with the affiliate program to improve them, most of the time with great success. This doesn't mean some affiliates don't see a decline. But overall affiliates see ratios go up. If all affiliates saw them go down we would have been out of business a long time ago.

I'm sorry you've had a bad experience with the product and I'd love to take a closer look at some examples where you've had a decline in ratios. Maybe there is a problem we are missing. Like I said we're not perfect But we can't look into it if people just post "NATS sucks". Contact me, I'll get in touch with the program owner(s) and we'll take a look if you'd like.

As far as the timeout of the affiliate area sessions I understand it being a problem. I will speak with our developers on Monday. Perhaps we could make the setting login specific. So you for instance could set your time out for your accounts to a week or whatever you would like but those who would like it shorter can have their way also. Its very hard to please everyone, but we try our best.

Thanks for being a little more specific with me, I appreciate it. If you'd like to get even more specific and work with us to improve things for everyone I would appreciate it even more.

[Chop Smith]

John, it is good to see you addressing some concerns about NATS on a board that is all about business. The bottom line is there are no haters here just people that don't want to get screwed and most members here do not mind speaking frankly in public. One would expect you to point back to your users and that is who our beef is with, not the script developers.

Your problem starts with the announcement "XXXXX Sponsor switches To NATS, you need to sign up again..."

Then there is the inability to easily get linking codes for hfs' from sponsors. As an example, a board member recently released 18 hfs'. Site A and site B had five new ones each. C, D, E, and F had two each. A fellow has to repeat the same process 6 times to get 18 links. Seems to me if a not so bright guy could come up with something like HFSLinks then a man that knows the ends and outs of the business since 1996 could make that interface user friendly. (Yep, I know about the add-on that most don't offer or they hide it)

And then, I still don't understand the purpose of encoded/unencoded affiliate codes. Really it is not important for me to understand but there has to be a reason for a sponsor not to offer your option or to hide it so when confronted they can point you to it.

IMO, it is not Danger Dave's, Greenguy's, Linkster's or any other affiliate's responsibility to directly communicate their concerns with NATS to you. I doubt that Danger Dave was being hostile but I am sure he meant every word he wrote and folks around here tend to value his opinion. If the three link list owners I mentioned decided not to promote NATS sponsors, a few hundred others would follow their lead.

This reply is meant to be contructive but I had much rather curse, scream, complain, and insult especially when sponsors get a powerful tool and then treat affiliates like bastard stepchildren. But I don't fault you for selling them the tool.

[Greenguy]

This is way too much to absorb at 1 AM Friday night/Saturday morning

John - Let me 1st say thank you for coming by the board - regardless of anything good or bad said in this thread, it's good to finally speak to someone from NATS here on this board *because knows we've spoke about NATS a lot - lol)

1st thing is that I do actually like a lot of things that NATS has - when the program is not using this silly option that I mentioned in my 1st post, the stats are easy to read & interrupt.

There are, however, a lot of things that I do not like.

1 - What's with the link codes? I think I'm safe in saying that no one here understands the need to have MTUxOjU6MTU be the link code for one site & MTUxOjU6Mw be the link code for another in the same program. Yes, I know there are unencoded links available, but why are those not the default? What is the purpose of the seemingly random letters & numbers?
(edit to add...) and what's with that update that added 0,0,0, to the end of the link codes? What do they do? If they are options where you change the 0's to a different number/letter, can you give me an example of a program that is using it, as I have not seen any that have something different than 0,0,0,

2 - You mentioned that CCBill is a processor, but I think to correctly describe them, they are a processor with an affiliate admin. Paycom is a processor & they're POS affiliate admin shows you nothing but signups & money. CCBill does track clicks & set up banners & a lot of affiliate admin stuff. To be honest, they'd be perfect if they forced the program to use sub accounts for all their tours & then posted the total clicks for individual sub accounts. But, to get to the point, what I really love in their admin is that I can see each individual member that I referred, what they were charged, what I made, how long they stayed & if they were still active. CCBill assigns the member a number & I assume that pretty much all other processors do the same thing. I would really like to see NATS implement this into their stats because the way it is now with NATS (and every other revshare affiliate admin) you have no idea how many recurred, which is a really valuable tool when deciding if a sponsor is worth it or not. If I sent 10 signups to a NATS program & looked a couple months later & saw 5 rebills, is that 5 individual rebills (5 members recurred once & then cancelled) or is that 1 member that recurred for 5 months where 9 cancelled after the trial. That info is critical for anyone promoting revshare programs

3 -

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

...1) the way in which NATS client display stats to their affiliates is up to them. I agree some programs do it in ways that I never would but everyone has different ideas. As long as the programs are showing the correct data and not misleading or lying their affiliates we have no problem with how they show it....

You have to admit, while it may not be lying, it certainly is misleading for a recurring program to show you that you have 9 signups & a total of $362.10 & not point out on the same line that the total is before processing & their cut when every other program out there shows the affiliate they money they made. I understand that the sponsor has the option to show it the normal way or this screwed up way, but NATS gave them that option.

PS - where in the Northeast are you located?

[shunga]

I promoted a Latina site a long time ago - I won't name the sponsor - which was a very steady seller with a predictable ratio over a fair period of time. And then it stopped selling. It wasn't a steady decline, it just stopped. Perhaps if I was in that situation now and that sponsor had recently switched to NATS I might well blame that.

It's human nature to want a perfect explanation for something that doesn't make sense, when usually the explanation is rather imperfect: a change in traffic; surfers becoming bored with the same ads; a small tour change; a change to the join page; a pricing change.

I dropped that site and tried it with another, but I never achieved similar results with another Latina site. In hindsight, what I should have done was contact the sponsor and made an attempt to resolve the problem.

And on the original topic, NATS is quite adaptable, depending on how you want to present the data. The NATS people are pretty responsive, too. I'd put them up there with CCBill in that regard, which is high praise.

[DangerDave]

Shunga,

I am sorry.. but you are unlikely to find a "program owner" that dislikes NATS.. just as you have said.. it's great for you!

The problem is that the experience is not so great for the affiliate..

Eg: I had just started promoting your program.. and then you changed to NATS.

Now I have three NATS accounts with you and get three newsletters etc etc... but the fact is I stopped promoting you as soon as you changed.


---------------------------------------------------------
Another Example of Post NATS changes - Unamed CCBill Program

Pre NATS - 85000 - 68 - 1:1200
Post NATS - 20000 - 5 - 1:4700(and getting worse by the day)
----------------------------------------------------------


John, despite what you might see as negative views in regards to NATS, I think this episode/thread might just offer you a unique opportunity.

As Linkster has said, there are many webmasters here that promote 100s of programs/sponsors and have done so for many years. If you sought the advice of these webmasters on the functionality and workings of the affiliate side of NATS I think you could make some great improvements.

1. As GG said.. the "random" type code at the end of links is a huge pain is the ass
2. For me.. The timeout, and the multiple clicking just to recieve one link code is hugely annoying.
3. I am sure other "working" webmasters can give you some imput on possible improvements.


DD

[shunga]

Originally Posted by DangerDave

Eg: I had just started promoting your program.. and then you changed to NATS.

The awful cold I have made me think the stats you posted referred to me. But to take something from this thread, if you're interested if you can put up a link for, say, a week, we can track your links specifically and see if there is a problem.

Your point about easy to find links is noted, and I'm going to add those to the welcome page.

[shunga]

DD, on the contrary, if it's not good for affiliates it's not good for me as a program owner. The top ten affiliates dating from the summer changeover to NATS are doing good numbers, which doesn't point to it being a NATS issue per se. What I'd like to do, if you're willing to contact me privately, is go over this in detail with all the techs involved to see what's happening. Believe me, I value affiliates and view this as a team effort.