Signups only paid if surfer stays 4+ hours
 

I signed up to a sponsor this morning, but now I've looked more closely at their terms and conditions, I'm reconsidering whether I should promote them.

Their terms said:

"[Sponsor name] will pay the Webmaster $35 per sign up referred, as soon as this is not cancelled within the following 4 hours after the registration, and an access is confirmed, within the same period, to the selected content."

Now, I can understand why they would do this, as they don't want to pay me $35 when the surfer has just paid $2 and bogged off again...

BUT I have to say, after going to all the effort of pre-selling the surfer and getting them to to the tour and eager to sign up, it's not my problem if they don't stay for more than four hours. I did my job...

Do other companies use this "minimum time before cancellation" thing?

Do you think it's fair?

Not my fault if their member's area sucks.

Move on…

I agree. It's up to the sponsors to convert and retain customers. We should be paid for holding up our end of the deal.

ugh, 4 hours?!? This is why I choose my sponsors wisely, and promote sites that i myself would sign up for. 4 hours... most of my surfers that rebill, rebill for 4 months or more! ive even had a few that have been rebilling for over 2 years at ATK, they seriously need to look at their shitty members area and see why people wouldnt stay 4 hours...

sounds like an easy excuse to shave your sales to me! I would not go with that sponsor.

cheers ,
Luke

Hmmm.....that's really shitty. I guess I need to start reading more TOS before I sign up. :(

hmm
 

I didnt even think of that Luke, they could easily shave (even when its a valid, recurring member) and just give the excuse "They didnt stay for 4 hours".

|angry|

and the sponsor is...??

They dont have to stay for 4 hours, they just have to login within 4 hours of purchasing a membership. Thats what I understood.

What sponsor is this?

Well, the sponsor is a board sponsor so I'm not sure if I can name them.

I'm now going to check the terms of several of my other sponsors to make sure this doesn't appear elsewhere.

Sean, there's two conditions - one is they have to login within that first 4 hours, and they other is that they can't cancel in that time.

I guess my title implied they had to be logged in and looking at porn for more than 4 hours. I don't think any sponsor requires that kind of stamina LOL

hehe, that would be impressive stamina, but no, it was this comment that made me think it needed to be cleared up.

The four hours only applies to the PPS links, you could always use the revshare links where at least you'll get a cut out of whatever money the surfer can be convincd to part with.

they wont pay you a dime but they collected this guy email....

I think Nasty Dollars does something like that. It's just to save the agro of crediting you for chargebacks, refunds and dodgy cards. Actually I suspect that most sponsors do it - it's just that some are upfront about it.

Damn! I know who the sponsor is! I had this problem with them and I was told I got no payout because I cancelled my test signup like 15 mins after signing up. I the fact that I didn't read the TOS!

Here are the terms that are being debated. I've hidden the programs identity with the clever use of 'GABBO'.

I'm pretty wishy-washy on this subject. It doesn't seem like a big deal to me, but at the same time, I don't push enough traffic to notice whether or not something like this is hurting me. I would assume that, under normal circumstances, most surfers would immediately login after registration and most wouldn't cancel with 4 hours. But someone looking to just get inside and rip the site would cancel that soon. A site would have to really suck balls for a typical surfer to cancel the quickly.

I can see why the sponsor would want such a condition, but as an affiliate I'd want email notifications of both sign-ups and cancellations that included the actual time of the transactions.

Gee, does any sponsor actually provide that info? I'm grateful if they will let me know the actual referring URL that the signup came from.

I would think the 4 hour thing is so webmaster scammers dont just go around signing up for trials and canceling right away, but still get paid PPS.

ronnie

CCbill provides that info to affiliates for sign-ups, but not for cancels. I can see when a rebill is no longer pending, but I don't get email notification of the cancellation nor the time/date of the cancellation. They also don't support the "4 hour rule" so it's not an issue.

There is a lot of seasoned surfers out there who join a trial, try to dump the entire members area content to their hard drives, then cancels.

Personally, I'm not familiar with the sponsor in question, but I can certainly see it as a legitimate attempt to combat the huge losses by paying out $30+ for what amounts to be just a leech..

I'd prefer that to be classified as a "Pay Per Active", than a "Pay Per Signup".

It seems to me that while this policy may make business sense for the sponsor, like some sponsors deduct chargebacks from the webmaster's commisions, the webmaster has sent a sale and it's up to the sponsor to retain the surfer for more than 4 hours. If the surfer cancels within 4 hours it should be part of their business expenses. I don't know how many other sponsors have this in their terms, but since they put it in theirs maybe there's a problem with cancellations within 4 hours? Plus if there's a serious problem with downloading huge quantities during trials, the trials can be setup to only offer limited content.

I doubt many (if any) of your surfers signup, never login, and then cancel within 4 hours.

Does anyone who runs their own paysite with CCbill or similar revshare billing ever see this happen?

The sponsor is just being upfront about what constitutes a scam signup to them imho... I would assume most PPS signup programs would not pay you if they detected that same thing happening. Probably by closing your account and refusing to even speak to you... they just don't declare it in the TOS so clearly.

I get several signups where the cancellation is under 4 hours from the time of sale. Not the majority, by any means, but enough of them that I wouldn't want to promote a sponsor that used that policy.

It's my job to make the sale. Whether they stay a member 60 seconds or 60 months is not my problem.

I agree with you opti. This is used as fraud prevention, I would suspect.

A somewhat recent trend with surfers is to sign up and cancel immediately, without having seen the interior of the site. The fear of the rebill has killed it for the smart surfer that will just suck down the site, and the novice who has gotten screwed with poor customer service at other sites.

I know of some companies that won't allow you to cancel until you've logged into the members area, or you can't cancel until some period of time has expired. Its a battle to keep someone that has never looked at the interior and who is going to use it for the trial and only the trial. If the content is good enough, or the customer service experience is good enough, the surfer might come back. Surfers have learned through time how to evaluate a site and determine if it has been updated, or what the update schedule is. So, if it is unique content, they will bookmark and come back every 90 days to see the new stuff, etc.

But, its a gamble -- so many sites offering the same thing, surfers that want to just get in there and suck things down and not have to worry about fighting charges on their card when they couldn't find/didn't find the cancellation link.

I can see why they do it that way, but, I would rather see a lower PPS rate that didn't have that clause, or, label it as a Per-Active with a 4 hour probation or however they want to do it.

I see in my e-mail today that Xbang has done away $2.95 trials altogther:

"On April 5th, 2005, @ 5PM PT, XBC will be discontinuing the $2.95 trial on all XBC paysites.

XBC content is in high demand, and our success has enabled us to fill this need by offering all the content from our 12 sites to each member for one low monthly price. "

In my CCbill stats I see quite a few that signup for trial memberships that cancel immediately after joining, knowing that they'll still have access for the full length of the trial membership. That's the reason I usually avoid promoting sites that pay a percentage and also have low priced trials.

That says it all in a nutshell. :)

Since i mostly do revshare, i dont like promoting trials for that exact reason, you folks may not believe me, but my ratios are just as good, if not better, promoting only 30 day memberships. I dont know if alot of surfers think the same way as I do, but when I see a site that costs 3$ to get into, i automatically think "There must not be much good stuff inside." this isnt always the case, but more often then not, paysites with trials lack good content...

VideosZ does send you an email when you got a new signup and it shows you where the signup came from, how long the surfer browsed the site / left it and came back and how many dvds he looked at before he joined. They don't send you cancellation emails though.

Btw. why do you hide that Sponsor name? Everybody can copy the TOS into google and the sponsor name shows up.

Google sure is powerful. :) I've checked out their member's area, and it's pretty good actually. It would take surfers alot more than 4 hours to go through the site.

If they have serious enough fraud issues to require terms like that they should just go revshare only

So people like you will feel clever.

Why did you spam a sponsor in your reply?

As I said before, the sponsor is a board sponsor. I decided not to name them because I wasn't sure if it would be kosher to do so. I respect Greenguy and Jim and don't want to cause trouble for them.

I agree that this kind of signup would be better labelled "Active Sign Ups". And as I said, I can see where the sponsors are coming from and why they would institute that kind of rule. But I also stand by my thoughts that I have done my job by getting the surfer there and keen to sign up and I should be paid if they do sign up.

I was planning to send a specific type of niche surfer to one of their sites but now I've joined to check out the members area I'm not certain they will want to stay for very long. If I was sending mainstream surfers I might be willing to risk the 4 hour thing, but at this stage it will be more profitable for me to send my surfers elsewhere.

This experience also makes me more certain that revshare is increasingly becoming the best way to go.

:)

signup, never login, and then cancel.


Who are these surfers that pony up their Credit Cards but never even try to log into the paysites? But can still find the website link or CC processor needed to cancel within 4 hours?

Seriously.. do any of you guys really think you are sending genuine surfers that do that ever?

And if the customer has never received the goods... and have cancelled that incomplete order, are people saying that should equate to a signup to be paid out on? (maybe that sponsors TOS will answer that one as well)

Imho, Good Fraud Control = Good Management = More Profit = Less Reason To Risk Cheating Your Affiliates |jackinthe

We're talking here about rules that say in order for the webmaster to be paid the surfer has to both:
a. Not cancel within the first 4 hours of joining up
b. Login within those first 4 hours.

It doesn't say anything about surfers who signup and then don't ever login and then cancel. I think we all know such surfers don't exist.

Yes, there are savvy surfers out there who only want to do trials, and yes, there are site strippers, but I would also say that it definitely helps to have a decent members area that will encourage members to stay. And if you don't have a worthy members area, I as a PPS affiliate should not have to be penalised for that.

Either that or the sponsor needs to reconsider the idea of trials and $35 signups. And reconsider the statement that they are paying $35 "per sign up".

The 4 hour rule may be good management for the sponsor, but it is not a good proposition for me as a possible affiliate (who only spotted this rule in the small print), which is why I have decided against sending traffic.
:)

That sponsor is my best at the moment (mostly for one particular niche), which makes me go hmmm how much more money could I be making there...

I am sorry but I just totally do NOT agree with those terms, if he signed up you should get paid, thus the term "pay per signup".

Now I am going to google that t&c text!

cheers,
Luke