ccbill scrub up?

[Simon]

Scrubbing may be a problem, but I think affiliate code tracking and click tracking is a far greater problem. When Joining any ccbill Sponsor these days I always ride the tours to the join page then search for my affiliate code in the source. In every case the sponsors links that are supplied by ccbill track and many times the hosted ones do not carry your affiliate code and as a result you do not get paid. I'm not calling the majority of sponsors or CCBILL cheats here just pointing out that when you take a close look at what you are linking too your chances of making any $$$ are made even slimmer by affiliate code problems.

Mornin' everyone,

I noticed this thread because I've seen scrubbing become a real problem at times too, although I'd say that in general we don't have as much trouble with CCBill scrubs compared to some others we've used.

But we do use CCBill in our webmaster program, and one thing I really want to comment on here is about the affiliate code not being carried all the way to the join page at times. This was a personal peeve of mine for a long time, and it was one thing we wanted to see if we could improve on a little with our own webmaster affiliate program and with our (soon to come) Hosted Free Sites.

We think we're doing it a good way now on our tours, where the initial link to us begins by setting a CCBill cookie before the surfer even sees the warn page (or whatever tour page the webmaster wishes to target). We do that in the background with php, and you often won't even see anything happen. But if you check that you don't have a cookie from CCBill named 925611 (our account) before you enter our tour, you'll definitely have one as soon as you do.

From that point on there's no need to carry the code forward to our join page since the cookie already exists long before that.

Yes, if a surfer has a 'no-cookie' browser, or surfs with cookies disabled, they're not going to get tagged, but surfers who disable cookies (and/or Javascript) in their browser aren't usually our best candidates for membership -- particularly since CCBill (and others) require those capabilities to even process a signup.*

In our HFS, we'll be using another method to "bury" the webmaster's affiliate code in the URL (a big thank you to swedguy for help with that one!), because we don't want to see the code easily snipped off the end like happens a lot. With this method we're really hoping to see lots of our HFS appear in search engine listings eventually with the webmaster's code right where it should be.

I didn't mean to help hijack this thread to talk about webmaster affiliate code tracking instead of shaving, but the mention of CCBill and hosted promotions not tracking just kind of pulled my trigger this morning. ::grin::

Simon


* Note: I wonder if it would be worth it to identify the no-cookie/no-javascript surfers, and send them someplace other than tours where the join pages require those functions?

[Toby]

Simon,

You elaborate on a very valid point. I always check the links on new FHG's to make sure the affiliate codes are being inserted properly. I do find a link, or sometimes a whole gallery, that isn't coded properly.

Checking for cookies being enabled is something I hadn't considered. Most of my sponsors are CCbill programs. Why burn the bandwidth on someone that can't even sign-up? I'll have to think on where else to send this traffic.

[wicked1]

Originally Posted by Simon

Mornin' everyone,

I noticed this thread because I've seen scrubbing become a real problem at times too, although I'd say that in general we don't have as much trouble with CCBill scrubs compared to some others we've used.

But we do use CCBill in our webmaster program, and one thing I really want to comment on here is about the affiliate code not being carried all the way to the join page at times. This was a personal peeve of mine for a long time, and it was one thing we wanted to see if we could improve on a little with our own webmaster affiliate program and with our (soon to come) Hosted Free Sites.

We think we're doing it a good way now on our tours, where the initial link to us begins by setting a CCBill cookie before the surfer even sees the warn page (or whatever tour page the webmaster wishes to target). We do that in the background with php, and you often won't even see anything happen. But if you check that you don't have a cookie from CCBill named 925611 (our account) before you enter our tour, you'll definitely have one as soon as you do.

From that point on there's no need to carry the code forward to our join page since the cookie already exists long before that.

Yes, if a surfer has a 'no-cookie' browser, or surfs with cookies disabled, they're not going to get tagged, but surfers who disable cookies (and/or Javascript) in their browser aren't usually our best candidates for membership -- particularly since CCBill (and others) require those capabilities to even process a signup.*

In our HFS, we'll be using another method to "bury" the webmaster's affiliate code in the URL (a big thank you to swedguy for help with that one!), because we don't want to see the code easily snipped off the end like happens a lot. With this method we're really hoping to see lots of our HFS appear in search engine listings eventually with the webmaster's code right where it should be.

I didn't mean to help hijack this thread to talk about webmaster affiliate code tracking instead of shaving, but the mention of CCBill and hosted promotions not tracking just kind of pulled my trigger this morning. ::grin::

Simon


* Note: I wonder if it would be worth it to identify the no-cookie/no-javascript surfers, and send them someplace other than tours where the join pages require those functions?

Thanks for following up with your experience Simon.

I'd actually been waiting for a few Sponsors to to attack my findings on my previous post . I do have examples and evidence of there problems and have mentioned it to many sponsors too many times in the past. Most have either denied it happens or we have a disagreement and I no longer send traffic

We are all in the business to make $$$ so I'm tired of sitting on this and keeping it to myself. I personally have "Unknowingly Donated" quite a bit of quality traffic over the years to sponsors with faulty codes.

The problem needs to be brought to the attention of webmasters so they can make up thier own minds why thier traffic either is not converting or is erratic at best.

NOW THIS BEING SAID, The ratios you saw in my previous post are from highly targetted se traffic using lots of pre selling. No TGP or FREE SITE traffic there.

The reason I detected this is I know how much traffic goes to each page and then to each sponsor. I can see if the hosting stats are not registering when compared to my ccbill stats.

Regards,

Wicked1

[Linkster]

Wicked - thats a good start at the tracking and I am glad some WMs are starting to do this type of tracking.
Its very important to realize that while there is a small minority of non-cookie traffic out there, that wont bring you a sale, there is also a large majority of traffic that has been cookied without their knowledge by some rather dubious site owners that set cookies on free sites, galleries and other SE listed "doorway pages" that although the LL owner or TGP may have sent the surfer, will never see that sale. Recent sites we have detected have little 1x1 pixel inserts in their galleries and free sites that are setting all types of cookies for different sponsors (not just ccbill) and atleast in my opinion, stealing sales from the WM that should be getting credit for it

[Barron]

Things are about the same with me. I was checking stats with CCBill this morning before reading this thread, goose eggs everywhere for this month. Ratios are exceedingly bad.

Originally Posted by Simon

Mornin' everyone,

Simon

* Note: I wonder if it would be worth it to identify the no-cookie/no-javascript surfers, and send them someplace other than tours where the join pages require those functions?

I mentioned this on another board recently and didnt get much feedback. Not a single person asked, "How do you do that?" I think every webmaster should be checking everything about their surfer.

I'm checking country, proxies, cookies, third-party cookies, been here before, niche and using a out click script. This is all done server side. When I get the coding done, I'll be doing a double check with java and checking against Norton, Mcafee, and sp2.

I check all the tours for every site with every sponsor for my affiliate code. But, I never thought to check the FHG's and FHS or check by processor. That will keep me busy for a while!

BTW, for those that are using out click scripts, there is a major sponsor that is checking for it. When out click scripts are detected, they will track the hit(I think), but then they turn the traffic and change the affiliate code. I discovered it completely by accident. I sent an email asking what was up, but got no response.

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[natalie]

Originally Posted by Barron

BTW, for those that are using out click scripts, there is a major sponsor that is checking for it. When out click scripts are detected, they will track the hit(I think), but then they turn the traffic and change the affiliate code. I discovered it completely by accident. I sent an email asking what was up, but got no response.

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Barron I use phpadsnew and am noticing what may be this, could you please pm the sponsor name? Your help would be greatly appreciated.