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

[lassiter]

Originally Posted by xxxjay

I am sending this thread to TMM...maybe Albright or Charlie will get in here.

Guess not.

[Useless]

Just a passing thought...

Since many programs who start as CCBill-only and then downgrade to NATs often allow affiliates to maintain their original CCBill links, why don't programs offer the option for us to use CCBill or NATs? I mean, if they are really looking to please the affiliate webmaster, wouldn't that be the smart thing to do? Anyone out there brave enough to do that?

[bluemoney]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Just a passing thought...

Since many programs who start as CCBill-only and then downgrade to NATs often allow affiliates to maintain their original CCBill links, why don't programs offer the option for us to use CCBill or NATs? I mean, if they are really looking to please the affiliate webmaster, wouldn't that be the smart thing to do? Anyone out there brave enough to do that?

Only one off the top of my head that does is Radical Cash

[Useless]

Originally Posted by bluemoney

Only one off the top of my head that does is Radical Cash

Well that settles it. I'm a fucking genius. It can be done.

[bluemoney]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

I'm a fucking genius. . . .

And don't forget "all around bad ass mofo"

[[BV]]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Just a passing thought...

Since many programs who start as CCBill-only and then downgrade to NATs often allow affiliates to maintain their original CCBill links, why don't programs offer the option for us to use CCBill or NATs? I mean, if they are really looking to please the affiliate webmaster, wouldn't that be the smart thing to do? Anyone out there brave enough to do that?

We do that.


If a program stops using CCBills script and still allows you to use your old CCBill links then they are allowing you to choose either or. (providing they have things set up correctly)

The problem occurs when hits from your CCBill links are sent to the new tour used for the new script.

Any other affiliate scripts are not going to recognise a CCBill code besides theirs. You will still see clicks in your CCBill admin, but you will be seeing no sales in your CCBill admin or the sponsors new admin.

If you are still using your old CCBill link codes the sponsor should have a CCBill tour set up just for that traffic. If not chances are that sales are not being tracked.

Here is an example of how BikiniVoyeur works. It was originally only using CCBill's script and still does for this style of link: http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clic...0000&PA=620577
will take you to the CCBill tour here: http://www.bikinivoyeur.com/index-ccb.php

Our new codes looks like so:
http://www.bikinivoyeur.com/affil.php?affilid=147 and will take you to its own tour here: http://www.bikinivoyeur.com/index2.php

If you notice both tours look similar but the CCBill tour has a different join page that's able to track the ccbill link code.

If I was to send that traffic to the other tour no affiliate sales would be tracked.

[lassiter]

I just spent some time computing my conversion ratios for the year (yeah, it might be thrown off by a last-minute massive surge of NY Eve sales, but I doubt it).

Anyway, I found something of minor interest here. Both my best-convering sponsor (at 1:213) and my worst-converting sponsor (0 sales out of over 23,000 uniques |shocking|) use NATS.

So NATS alone is obviously not costing me sales or loss of ratios, but I do suspect that the way NATS is set up by individual sponsors to count sales may well be a factor.

Alas, I have no data for any of my CCBill sponsors yet, since CCBill's stats are giving me error messages if I try to grab more than one pay period worth of stats at a time.

[[BV]]

Originally Posted by lassiter

I just spent some time computing my conversion ratios for the year (yeah, it might be thrown off by a last-minute massive surge of NY Eve sales, but I doubt it).

Anyway, I found something of minor interest here. Both my best-convering sponsor (at 1:213) and my worst-converting sponsor (0 sales out of over 23,000 uniques |shocking|) use NATS.

So NATS alone is obviously not costing me sales or loss of ratios, but I do suspect that the way NATS is set up by individual sponsors to count sales may well be a factor.

Alas, I have no data for any of my CCBill sponsors yet, since CCBill's stats are giving me error messages if I try to grab more than one pay period worth of stats at a time.

Is the 1:213 first page, second page, or join page ratio?
If it's 1st page then thats a dam good ratio.

[lassiter]

Originally Posted by [BV]

Is the 1:213 first page, second page, or join page ratio?
If it's 1st page then thats a dam good ratio.

Unique hits. But a.) it was a highly specialized niche, and b.) most of my sponsors didn't convert even close to that well, so I'm not a miracle worker.

Hm - I did do 1:422 on a particular sponsor's gay twink site (non-NATS) but no, I'm not telling which.

[lassiter]

OK, I just dumped one NATS sponsor where I had a horrendously bad sales ratio (as mentioned earlier in this thread) but now I've signed up with a new sponsor that does the exact same thing the old one did that makes my "bogosity" meter go into the red.

On the standard NATS stats interface, you get a breakdown by "raw," "unique," "signups,: etc. and then on the right side is "Break down by: site, program, campaign."

I've only been promoting this sponsor since the 2nd. I had 3 hits under "unique" each day for the first two days. I can click that numeral "3" for each day and get the referring FHG urls that sent the traffic to the tour. And when I click the "Break down by site" link, I get the two sites I was promoting, and the 3 total hits. So far so good.

But as of today, the "unique" hits show 33 hits so far. Wow! My links must be doing really well! But when I click the "33" under unique, it only shows 2 referring URLs with 1 hit each. Hmmm.

Ah but now, when I click the "break down by site" link I get a list of hits to a bunch of sites that I'm not promoting and didn't even know were in the program! Where the hell is that coming from?

The NATS system of the aforementioned first sponsor was doing the exact same thing. And now I suspect that I was really only sending that sponsor 1/20th of the actual hits the sponsor claimed I was sending. Why would a sponsor do this? All it does is make my sales ratio look 100 times worse than it actually might be - and that's supposed to encourage me to promote them? Rather the opposite, since I dropped Sponsor #1 like a hot potato when I looked at my end-of-year stats.

Most of my other NATS-using sponsors appear to give me accurate, or at least believeable, data.

Can anyone explain what's going on with this? Obviously the NATS folks themselves aren't gonna do it, and I'd like to get some perspective on this before I contact the new sponsor.

[Edit: I did ICQ the rep for sponsor #1 about this issue a few days ago, but they haven't seen fit to reply yet. So I guess I can mention that it's PanchoDog. |pissed| ]

[Useless]

Allow me to take a moment to applaud Exclusively4Affiliates' decision to discontinue the use of NATS and return to being a great amateur paysite program. Thank you Mark.

E4A email notice:

Very Important Affiliate Information About E4A Cash!!!


E4ACash has decided to discontinue the use of the NATS affilaite system. All of our billing will now go directly through CCBill, as it was in the begining. The reasons for this decision are numerous but suffice it to say that we feel it is in the best interest of our affiliates as well as E4ACash.


As of January 15, 2007, all NATS linking codes will no longer work. You WILL need to sign up with CCBill and replace your new link codes ASAP.


You can sign up for a CCBill account here: http://www.exclusively4affiliates.com/signup.html


If you already have a CCBill account with us then please go here: http://www.exclusively4affiliates.co...tingtools.html
and grab the new links and promo materials


What about active members and recurs?
As of Jan 6th 2007, you will be paid 2 months in advance on all active rebilling members you have in your account, whether they rebill or not!! It's our way of saying thanks for seeing through this transition.

BTW Mark - I'm an idiot and just re-signed up through CCBill even though I already have a pre-NATS CCBill account with you. I was so excited I only read the part to your email.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Allow me to take a moment to applaud Exclusively4Affiliates' decision to discontinue the use of NATS and return to being a great amateur paysite program. Thank you Mark. ...

While part of me is glad that they did this, part of me is pissed because I think this is the 4th (maybe 5th) processing/admin/linkcode move/change in the last 3 or 4 years.