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

[Linkster]

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

It is not as much as a hole as one might assume (and rightfully so) because the problem is limited to the stats display. Payouts are still built correctly. You are right tho in that it is a stupid problem to have and it will be fixed soon.

I guess Im an old-fashioned guy that just likes to see accurate numbers then - although I do have a hard time with the fixing soon part as I first reported this to Deecash a year ago and they said they were working with you to fix it - then I reported it again through them in Aug this year and again their response was that they were working with you on 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?

[PBucksJohn]

Originally Posted by 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?

It was mentioned as a problem. Its not a "major selling point". It wasn't even brought up by me.

[PBucksJohn]

Originally Posted by Linkster

I guess Im an old-fashioned guy that just likes to see accurate numbers then - although I do have a hard time with the fixing soon part as I first reported this to Deecash a year ago and they said they were working with you to fix it - then I reported it again through them in Aug this year and again their response was that they were working with you on it

Again, as I said in my first post. You can contact us directly with any concerns you have.

[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

[Preacher]

Man did you ever pick the wrong month to pop-up. You'll have to excuse my tone, I'm normally not so confrontational, but see my income has been affected so I'm a tad on edge.

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

I understand a lot of people don't fully understand what NATS is or how it works. We are always happy to answer anyone's questions or concenrs, you just need to contact us.

We post a lot over at "that other big board" (and you can't imagine the headaches that come from some of the people on there, lol). I will try to be around here more often to answer people's questions here also should they come up.

We are also always reachable by email, icq, or by calling our office. Full contact info can be found at http://www.toomuchmedia.com/corporate/contact.html

So I'm assuming being as you have posted here you don't mind explaining to someone like me -- a vanilla flavored affiliate -- exactly how things work then. See, I'm really confused by all these fancy stats and whatchamacallits, because I thought having features for me the affiliate would equate to me making more money, but turns out -- silly me -- I was wrong.

Can you please explain to me why when I'm sending the same traffic to the same sponsor from the same sources conversions suddenly nosedive when your cascade has been installed? Now I'm not one who "would rather curse, scream, complain, and insult on message boards..." without some proof for the pudding.

90 days prior to NATS
Total Raw-24154 unique-18406 sales-11 1:1673
45 days since the NATS conversion
Total Raw-21695 unique-10933 sales-1 1:10933

"As far as the benefits of cascading I typically see gains of 10% to 20% on our clients." No shit? What kinds of losses do the affiliates for those sponsors see? Now where would the extra income come from if they are paying you for the cascade? See I'm just an affiliate so maybe I'm missing something, I would think that might increase their expenses rather then raising their income.

You'll obviously know what sponsor I'm talking about, feel free to mention my issue to Arthur, he's already heard about it though.

[PBucksJohn]

Originally Posted by Preacher

Man did you ever pick the wrong month to pop-up. You'll have to excuse my tone, I'm normally not so confrontational, but see my income has been affected so I'm a tad on edge.

So I'm assuming being as you have posted here you don't mind explaining to someone like me -- a vanilla flavored affiliate -- exactly how things work then. See, I'm really confused by all these fancy stats and whatchamacallits, because I thought having features for me the affiliate would equate to me making more money, but turns out -- silly me -- I was wrong.

Can you please explain to me why when I'm sending the same traffic to the same sponsor from the same sources conversions suddenly nosedive when your cascade has been installed? Now I'm not one who "would rather curse, scream, complain, and insult on message boards..." without some proof for the pudding.

90 days prior to NATS
Total Raw-24154 unique-18406 sales-11 1:1673
45 days since the NATS conversion
Total Raw-21695 unique-10933 sales-1 1:10933

"As far as the benefits of cascading I typically see gains of 10% to 20% on our clients." No shit? What kinds of losses do the affiliates for those sponsors see? Now where would the extra income come from if they are paying you for the cascade? See I'm just an affiliate so maybe I'm missing something, I would think that might increase their expenses rather then raising their income.

You'll obviously know what sponsor I'm talking about, feel free to mention my issue to Arthur, he's already heard about it though.

If you'd like to contact me privately please feel free to do, ICQ 5596373. Just know that I am in the Northeast and we are having really bad winds and my connection is in & out every 5 minutes.

NATS hands the customer to the biller. It does not do billing. Ratios should not be greatly effected by simply plugging NATS in. Affiliate programs often change the join process when they move to NATS (adding a pre-join form, changing the pre-join form, alterting tours, etc.) which can cause ratios to change (for better or worse) but certainly not to the extent you mentioned. 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.

As far as the benefits of cascading...

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.

Your post didn't come off as rude or anything. People often have concerns, especially as you said when it comes to their income. I can understand being a little heated. Its when people don't provide any info and just want to say "abc sucks" or "xyz is stupid" that no one gets any help.

[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

[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 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

[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.

[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!

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[PBucksJohn]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

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.

So don't use the product. Like I said, I read your posts. I really have no desire to even try to work with you on it.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

So don't use the product.

I don't USE your product - your clients do. I, as an affiliate, haven't much choice in the matter. I have as of yet never seen a program ask for its affialiates' opinions on whether or not it should use NATS.

So now your sitting there all smug - just waiting to reply with "I meant don't promote our client's programs!" Well, when you've already built sites and galleries and SEOd pages promoting your clients BEFORE they switched to NATS, what are you supposed to do - just pull those pages? Get banned everywhere for yanking pages? Lose SE traffic? Yeah, okay - I'll get to work on that.

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

Like I said, I read your posts. I really have no desire to even try to work with you on it.

|shocking| I warned you that I didn't have anything constructive to say. It's all opinion, if you don't mind.

[PBucksJohn]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

I don't USE your product - your clients do. I, as an affiliate, haven't much choice in the matter. I have as of yet never seen a program ask for its affialiates' opinions on whether or not it should use NATS.

So now your sitting there all smug - just waiting to reply with "I meant don't promote our client's programs!" Well, when you've already built sites and galleries and SEOd pages promoting your clients BEFORE they switched to NATS, what are you supposed to do - just pull those pages? Get banned everywhere for yanking pages? Lose SE traffic? Yeah, okay - I'll get to work on that.

|shocking| I warned you that I didn't have anything constructive to say. It's all opinion, if you don't mind.

You do use it via the programs. I didn't say don't purchase it.

A few (but a vast minority of) programs offer both a CCBill program and a NATS based program but you do a have a point there as far as programs you already use moving to the NATS backend.

As far as programs asking their affiliates if they should move to NATS, not all do but I have seen some do so. I think the problem you're running into is not the affiliate programs not caring, but the vast majority of affiliates wanting NATS.

Too bad you don't have anything constructive to say. Maybe then something would actually be accomplished.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by PBucksJohn

I think the problem you're running into is not the affiliate programs not caring, but the vast majority of affiliates wanting NATS.

If so, those same affiliates wear bells on their shoes and are awe-struck by blinking lights.

EDIT: Hey John, it was good arguing with you - and you are definitely damn good at it , but I need to drop out of this thread. I become irrational and somewhat uncivilized (or so I'm told) after awhile and I don't want to destroy the focus of this thread with my idle hostility. Thanks.

[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.

[[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?