Got questions for a NATS program? Ask here.

[Greenguy]

It just danwed on me that I might have got the concept of this thread wrong. So let me ask:

Why do you use NATS? What do you get for the monthly fee that you can't do on your own or thru a different affiliate software program?

[The Ghost]

Originally Posted by Greenie

It just danwed on me that I might have got the concept of this thread wrong. So let me ask:

Why do you use NATS? What do you get for the monthly fee that you can't do on your own or thru a different affiliate software program?

The reason for going with Nats was the experience with being involved with a ccbill based program previously. I love CCbill and they have been fantastic. It's why we have them primary in the cascade most of the time. If they had more in depth stats, I might have gone with them for our affiliate management.

But without any reservations I can tell you that the program I was with (they will stay nameless out of respect for their business) had no idea where it's traffic came from or why. Not a clue. They had a program that had grown for a few years and had a frankenstein backend that half work to manage promo materials. All from not having a solid singular programming team working on it thoughout time. Just a few rogue programmers coming through patching it up. They were on the fence for too long trying to make a decision for themselves, and I did not have the time or energy to hang around for the decision.

CCbill was not looking for a solution to improve their stats at the time, so I decided an outside 3rd part solution was the route to go. I wanted my partners (affiliates) access to all of the statistics I could. I am a huge fan of stats. I can look at the MLB page in the sports section and get wood. The object would hopefully be to bringing selling the sites down to a science and understand quickly what works and what doesn't. There is a setting in the Nats admin that program owners can choose what stats are shown to affilaites, uniques, raws, qualified, etc. We have all shown, since as it should make for better sales, or at least know what's not working.

The decision was down to two solutions, Mansion (MPA3) and Nats (TooMuchMedia). A custom solution just was not in our budget, and I did not want to end up with a half baked (frankenstein) custom solution. Mansion was still reeling from the shave module they had installed in MPA2, and that was enough to avoid them at the time. It is much better to do everything possible to avoid added mistrust or issues with a program, especially a new one. The next show where I could meet the principles of the companies was Internext 06 Las Vegas. Regardless a decision has to be made.

I went to the keynote speakers and listened to Oystein (Mansion) and quite a few other industry persons speak about varius issues. He sounded like a very knowledgable guy, but with the shaving aspect still there I went over to the show floor. TMM was running presentations for Nats every hour or so, so I sat in on one. After seeing what the program was advertised to do, I was sold. Visions of cascading billing and stats were dancing in my head. It was in my budget and seemingly more powerful than I could expect for the price. Coming from the experience with CCbill stats, it was exactly what I was looking for in a program. I did also met John and Fabian there, only breifly. Fabian answered what questions I had about the program, but what I liked was he seemed genuinely interested in improving the software.

There is a alot software can do, but I was/am also still amazed that some of the things that seemed obvious that are not in there, such as a scheduler for promo content. But with many things I have come to understand that Rome can't be built in a day. A month later I had the install done, went through the training and started putting together the program together.

So if Mansion didn't have the bad rap, who knows what would of happened. But I feel the monthly fee is worth it for the ease of use for the stats alone.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by The Ghost

...So if Mansion didn't have the bad rap, who knows what would of happened. But I feel the monthly fee is worth it for the ease of use for the stats alone.

Did you do any research about how affiliates felt about NATS?

[The Ghost]

Originally Posted by Greenie

Did you do any research about how affiliates felt about NATS?

I did, and three main ways to research the product. Ask affiliates, research (message boards) and shop the competition.

In general, the consensus of what I found was positive. The typical answer used by 'vocal' affilaites is "If it makes me money, I don't care what type of program it is." But there is a huge amount of affilaites that are quiet about their needs or are unfamilar with the different message boards. They just prefer to remain anonymous. For those partners, check the sites (tgps, link lists), see what sponsors they use, and look at what back end those sponsors are using. The quite a bit of the time if it's not a CCbill only program, it is Nats being utilized.