Kink.com Affiliates using old ENCODED NATS Links - Inside - GoFuckYourself.com

Jesse1984 · 07-17-2017, 01:55 PM

Hey All,

As many of you know we switched Kinkydollars over from NATS recently to an in house system. Up until now, you haven't had to change your links, but we will be implementing a code change on August 1st that will end support for old encoded NATS links.

It will ONLY affect these links, any other vintage NATS links will still forward to the correct domain. I know it's a pain in the ass to update links and some of you have been affiliates for a long time. If there's something I can do to help ease the transition, feel free to reach out to me. CLICK HERE TO E-MAIL ME.

That being said, I'd love to get more of you promoting Kink [duh, we all want to make more money.] Let me know what you need, whether it's discounts, access to content to cut clips for tubes, interviews for bloggers, or take your mom out on a date. Whatever we gotta do.

I'll be at QWEBEC, at the Amsterdam and Prague shows and will likely be kicking around Berlin too. Let's set something up.

Adraco · 07-17-2017, 02:34 PM

FOR STARTERS...

a less than 14 days notice on old links, let it be only those that are encoded, will be invalid and not generate any sales after August 1st - when you know what a pain it is to switch links???

Do you, yourself find that to be a reasonable amount of time and a reasonable notice? Are people supposed to drop everything on their plate and just start finding and switching links?

Call it "shady shit" or what ever you like, but unpredictability like this can definitely drive anyone away. There have been a lot of changes at Kink lately and I appreciate you being around but some of those decisions need to either be changed or at the very least allow for more time to adapt and adjust. For people to just drop everything and start working on changing Kink links during summer/vacation times is just not reasonable and you have to realize that too.

Suggestion, show exactly how affiliate friendly you are by adding another month to that change you just announced. Make it September 1st and email ALL affiliates WEEKLY about this intil it's done and a SECOND email every week for EVERY affiliate which still, for ANY and ALL reasons receive traffic in to an encoded link. Now THAT, would be a SPonsor I'd easily like to ramp up my promotion for!

RyuLion · 07-17-2017, 02:46 PM

Damn, this sucks, I hope you get in touch with all affiliates with this!

Forkbeard · 07-17-2017, 03:10 PM

Sorry, Jesse, but Adraco is right about this. Two weeks at the height of summer is NOT really sufficient.

One thing that would help: you should have logs that would let you, with a bit of automated data mining, generate a list of referrers for each affiliate that have links that need changing. Now, THAT would be industry-leading affiliate care!

woj · 07-17-2017, 03:20 PM

There is really no reason why you shouldn't be able to decode the "encoded" nats codes, and then send the surfer to the right spot and continue to give affiliates credit... it may be slightly tricky depending on your setup, but it's almost certainly doable...

I can set that up for you, icq me: 33375924 or email me at woj a.t wojfun d.ot com to discuss details...

Forkbeard · 07-18-2017, 08:33 AM

Further thoughts now that I'm back at my computer and can check a couple things:

On 5/2/17 affiliates received an email that started "Important Affiliate Announcement" that included the promise "NATS links will continue to redirect appropriately into our new platform." There's nothing in my email inbox about the abandonment of that promise. There should be; affiliates who don't use GFY will be relying on that previous email promise.

The front page at KinkyDollars.com shows a variety of important affiliate news on log-in. This link breakage news is not currently displayed there.

Jesse, we appreciate you coming here to tell us, but there doesn't appear to be a full and appropriate push to alert affiliates to link breakage on such a scale.

Konda · 07-18-2017, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by woj

There is really no reason why you shouldn't be able to decode the "encoded" nats codes, and then send the surfer to the right spot and continue to give affiliates credit... it may be slightly tricky depending on your setup, but it's almost certainly doable...

what he said.

especially if you still support the encoded links I can't think of any reason why not put a simple rewrite to base64 encode the unencoded links so they are still supported also

Jesse1984 · 07-18-2017, 08:47 AM

Hey all, first, don't shoot the messenger, please. This is what I was given by my tech team as far as timeline. Let me speak to them and see what I can do about extending that.

Second, I am not a programmer by any means so I have no clue what it takes to de-encode NATS links. Call me incompetent all you'd like, I'm a marketer and a sales guy, not a dev.

I appreciate all of your feedback, it gives me solid feedback to take to my tech team. I will update this thread later today with their response.

Jesse1984 · 07-18-2017, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

Sorry, Jesse, but Adraco is right about this. Two weeks at the height of summer is NOT really sufficient.

One thing that would help: you should have logs that would let you, with a bit of automated data mining, generate a list of referrers for each affiliate that have links that need changing. Now, THAT would be industry-leading affiliate care!

I can definitely present this as an option to my tech team.

BigFurry · 07-18-2017, 08:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konda

what he said.

especially if you still support the encoded links I can't think of any reason why not put a simple rewrite to base64 encode the unencoded links so they are still supported also

Well said. It's not complicated to decode the encoded affiliate links. All you need is a list of Affiliate IDs and Affiliate Usernames from the old NATS, and a few lines of code.

Adraco · 07-18-2017, 09:02 AM

This is directly from the NATS own wiki on how to decode the encoded NATS links:

NATS4 LinkCodes - TMMwiki

where it says:
Decoding Link Codes
-----------------------
Encoded link codes can be decoded using base64 decoding, which uses ASCII characters and binary to encode/decode links. For the admins, we built a page that allows for creating/decoding NATS code. The URL should be http://<NATS_URL>.com/admin_codes.php. The affiliates also have a page that is not shown by default. The URL should be http://<NATS_URL>.com/internal.php?page=code_info.

This shouldn't be too hard to implement a fix for. As you see above, the un-encoding of the encoded links that you plan to not support any longer is rather easy to do.

It will be really hard to recruit new affiliates if this is the way the current ones are treated. You say in your original post:

"Whatever we gotta do."

- Well, now it's real easy - it starts with you and what's in Kink's own control. So let's see just how far that promise of "whatever" goes and what it really means when push comes to shove...

Forkbeard · 07-18-2017, 09:14 AM

This is really a question for higher management, but why is your tech team in charge of policy decisions that affect marketing? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Usually the way it goes is that the tech guys say "this is how it's going to be" and somebody above them has to say "no, that will damage our business reputation". If that's not happening, it should.

But meanwhile, you need to announce link-breaking news at least as loudly as they were promised not to break.

Of course, it appears that the only time I routinely used encoded links was in places (tumblr reposts and other social media) that no longer allow user edits. So, if you can't convince your guys to write the extra lines of code, that traffic is gone forever ... or rather, you still get it but I don't get paid for it. Leaves a sour taste, even if it's small.

Jesse1984 · 07-18-2017, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

This is really a question for higher management, but why is your tech team in charge of policy decisions that affect marketing? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Usually the way it goes is that the tech guys say "this is how it's going to be" and somebody above them has to say "no, that will damage our business reputation". If that's not happening, it should.

But meanwhile, you need to announce link-breaking news at least as loudly as they were promised not to break.

Of course, it appears that the only time I routinely used encoded links was in places (tumblr reposts and other social media) that no longer allow user edits. So, if you can't convince your guys to write the extra lines of code, that traffic is gone forever ... or rather, you still get it but I don't get paid for it. Leaves a sour taste, even if it's small.

Tech is mandated with working on our new affiliate system [by us] and in doing so they made the decision to discontinue support for these links, which they then informed us of. Being that they're not nor ever have been affiliates, they don't know the amount of work that goes into changing your links so they gave what they thought was an appropriate amount of time.

Based on the feedback in this thread [we were planning on sending an e-mail today to all affiliates about it] I can now bring back alternative suggestions to them and see what we can do.

I understand your frustration as an affiliate, despite not having been one, and having to deal with the plethora of folks that have been in and out of Kink.com over the past couple of years. I was hoping the last six months of dealing with me would have made you realize, that I'm clearly willing to fight for and work with you guys on better solutions.

I'm going to set a meeting with tech for today to see what can be done. Hold off on lighting the torches and raising the pitchforks for now.

PornDiscounts-R · 07-18-2017, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JesseKink

Hey All,

As many of you know we switched Kinkydollars over from NATS recently to an in house system. Up until now, you haven't had to change your links, but we will be implementing a code change on August 1st that will end support for old encoded NATS links.

It will ONLY affect these links, any other vintage NATS links will still forward to the correct domain. I know it's a pain in the ass to update links and some of you have been affiliates for a long time. If there's something I can do to help ease the transition, feel free to reach out to me. CLICK HERE TO E-MAIL ME.

That being said, I'd love to get more of you promoting Kink [duh, we all want to make more money.] Let me know what you need, whether it's discounts, access to content to cut clips for tubes, interviews for bloggers, or take your mom out on a date. Whatever we gotta do.

I'll be at QWEBEC, at the Amsterdam and Prague shows and will likely be kicking around Berlin too. Let's set something up.

See you in Amsterdam, lets set up a meet

Jesse1984 · 07-18-2017, 09:44 AM

Okay.

1. Spoke to our head of tech. Turns out the Dev working on the system made the call to stop supporting these links without consulting her about it, so we will continue to support these links, you can rest easy.

2. There is one caveat. There is apparently an old style of these links that does not follow the standard NATS way of passing affiliate info through when unencoded. BUT. I am having them investigate how much traffic this accounts for, if we can spend some time developing further support for it before discontinuing them, and if we do have to discontinue them, do what Forkbeard says and do a crawl to so I can notify the folks and give them the links that need to be changed.

NOTHING NEEDS TO BE DONE FOR NOW. Your traffic is safe and I won't let them throw any switches before giving me time to give proper notice to you.

Forkbeard · 07-18-2017, 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JesseKink

I was hoping the last six months of dealing with me would have made you realize, that I'm clearly willing to fight for and work with you guys on better solutions.

I'm going to set a meeting with tech for today to see what can be done. Hold off on lighting the torches and raising the pitchforks for now.

Awesome. Speaking for myself, this is not torches and pitchforks; I'm VERY appreciative of your availability and willingness to to what you can.

What you're fighting, though, is the inertia from those years when shit was breaking left right and center and the tickets were all coming back with "thank you for feedback" and "no tech resources available to answer your question." I can appreciate what you're doing now, and I do! But it will take some time for kink.com as an org to earn back the trust and goodwill levels from 2007. You're doing WELL (from my perspective) but breaking links is a backward step even if you handle it in all the best possible ways that we are so "vigorously advising" you on. :-)

Forkbeard · 07-18-2017, 10:00 AM

And THAT'S how you do it! Good work, and THANK YOU.

Adraco · 07-18-2017, 10:01 AM

This is good!

I just don't understand why you needed us to stop this for you?
Under all normal circumstances, this is a big decision and should have been stopped in-house before even being communicated outwards.

But thank you for realizing this needed to be stopped.

Jesse1984 · 07-18-2017, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adraco

This is good!

I just don't understand why you needed us to stop this for you?
Under all normal circumstances, this is a big decision and should have been stopped in-house before even being communicated outwards.

But thank you for realizing this needed to be stopped.

To be honest, because I've never built a long standing affiliate site. I understand how affiliate links work, how you promote, etc. The vast majority of affiliates I deal with on a daily basis are people with [what I feel] are a small or moderate amount of links. For example, Review Sites like Rabbits Reviews, only have a handful of links on their pages for us. Tube affiliates for the most part use URL redirects to promote, or go through their accounts on the tubes and can just change links in a handful of places.

Now, I do realize that Gal's take a lot more work to change and so would long standing Blogs but apparently misjudged the scope of it. This has been a learning experience for me as well, and for Kink, having relied on NATS for 20 year or so and building affiliate tracking software from the ground up.

I am not a career affiliate manager. I'm a marketing manager, I do biz dev and handle partner relations, SEO, and a number of other things. I was given affiliate management here at Kink because our old affiliate manager left and I told them not to hire a new full time one because I saw the repair work that needed to be done with the way Kink is viewed by affiliates.

I passed off the basic affiliate webmaster stuff to Nikki here, she handles the stuff like password resetting, account help, etc. along with her other normal duties not related to affiliates. I handle the larger affiliates and the outward facing part of KinkyDollars which is why in almost every thread or reply I always tell you to e-mail me, cause I'm communicating with you directly and that's important.

Some of this is learning as I go, as you can see, but most important to me is repairing relationships, fixing problems, and hopefully at the end bringing back old affiliates and picking up new ones as we go along. Eventually we'll probably get back a singular full time affiliate manager but for now, you've got me and I'm doing the best I can.

I'll try and get an update later today if I can about the one type of link I mentioned above, but as I said, we're not ending support for anything right now.

Adraco · 07-18-2017, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JesseKink

To be honest...

Some of this is learning as I go... Eventually we'll probably get back a singular full time affiliate manager but for now, you've got me and I'm doing the best I can.

I'll try and get an update later today if I can about the one type of link I mentioned above, but as I said, we're not ending support for anything right now.

And this - IS HOW IT'S DONE !

Honest, to the point and no strange explanations.

You have just earned yourself a new, hardworking affiiliate. Because this type of straight shooter communication is rare today. Very rare indeed! Thank you for taking the time and thank you for going the extra mile today.

/Adraco

Jesse1984 · 07-18-2017, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adraco

And this - IS HOW IT'S DONE !

Honest, to the point and no strange explanations.

You have just earned yourself a new, hardworking affiiliate. Because this type of straight shooter communication is rare today. Very rare indeed! Thank you for taking the time and thank you for going the extra mile today.

/Adraco

Cheers, and thanks for both your patience with me and Kinkydollars, as well as your understanding.

DonVitto · 07-18-2017, 11:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JesseKink

I know it's a pain in the ass to update links

Quote:

Originally Posted by JesseKink

and some of you have been affiliates for a long time.

Yeah. How i must change links for 7 years of work ? This is physically just impossible.

And how old links can still works half of year and suddenly they can`t work anymore...LOL.

For me this situation means the end of partnership with kinkydollars.

AmeliaG · 07-18-2017, 11:27 PM

I think it is kind of a refreshing upgrade for Kink that Jesse is attempting to reach out to affiliates like this.

Tjeezers · 07-19-2017, 04:18 AM

Reaching out to affiliates is very important, as this thread turned into a good direction. A few programs have done this also and turned a blind eye to affiliates. This thread however is a example of what an affiliate manager should do, communicate with traffic senders to come to a fruitful solution.

bns666 · 07-19-2017, 04:49 AM

how are the conversions with kink these days?

Jesse1984 · 07-19-2017, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bns666

how are the conversions with kink these days?

Depends on your traffic / promotion type. Conversion and retention got a nice bump globally with the roll out of our new partner channels. Members are getting more content now and from third party sites, more reason to convert and stay. Plus we're about to launch new series and channels internally.

Obviously my opinion is biased, but I'll let others chime in.

Kate Bi · 07-19-2017, 10:34 AM

Jesse, I am so relieved right now 'cause hell, changing tons of links would be a pain in the ass
Kinkydollars always was my fav program and I hope that you will not disappoint your affiliates ;)

Jesse1984 · 07-19-2017, 10:37 AM

Thanks all for your understanding.

I'm still waiting on an answer from tech about the specific kind of link, but as stated, it's still being supported for the time being.

The tech just got back from paternity leave so he's got a STACK of work in front of him.

This all being said, we're running a 20th anniversary promo starting on August 15th, with a lifetime recurring discount. If you want in on it or more information, please e-mail me.

Axeman · 07-19-2017, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JesseKink

To be honest, because I've never built a long standing affiliate site. I understand how affiliate links work, how you promote, etc. The vast majority of affiliates I deal with on a daily basis are people with [what I feel] are a small or moderate amount of links. For example, Review Sites like Rabbits Reviews, only have a handful of links on their pages for us. Tube affiliates for the most part use URL redirects to promote, or go through their accounts on the tubes and can just change links in a handful of places.

Now, I do realize that Gal's take a lot more work to change and so would long standing Blogs but apparently misjudged the scope of it. This has been a learning experience for me as well, and for Kink, having relied on NATS for 20 year or so and building affiliate tracking software from the ground up.

I am not a career affiliate manager. I'm a marketing manager, I do biz dev and handle partner relations, SEO, and a number of other things. I was given affiliate management here at Kink because our old affiliate manager left and I told them not to hire a new full time one because I saw the repair work that needed to be done with the way Kink is viewed by affiliates.

I passed off the basic affiliate webmaster stuff to Nikki here, she handles the stuff like password resetting, account help, etc. along with her other normal duties not related to affiliates. I handle the larger affiliates and the outward facing part of KinkyDollars which is why in almost every thread or reply I always tell you to e-mail me, cause I'm communicating with you directly and that's important.

Some of this is learning as I go, as you can see, but most important to me is repairing relationships, fixing problems, and hopefully at the end bringing back old affiliates and picking up new ones as we go along. Eventually we'll probably get back a singular full time affiliate manager but for now, you've got me and I'm doing the best I can.

I'll try and get an update later today if I can about the one type of link I mentioned above, but as I said, we're not ending support for anything right now.

A post starting with "to be honest", actually being honest. Very refreshing. You got things going in the right direction there.

SilentKnight · 07-19-2017, 11:18 AM

Affiliate 302 is watching this thread with interest.

Jesse1984 · 07-22-2017, 09:07 AM

Kink stats are down for the weekend. All data is being recorded correctly, we will just have to re-import stats on Monday as we don't do code pushes on Friday except in emergencies.

Apologies all.

RyuLion · 07-22-2017, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilentKnight

Affiliate 302 is watching this thread with interest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JesseKink

Kink stats are down for the weekend. All data is being recorded correctly, we will just have to re-import stats on Monday as we don't do code pushes on Friday except in emergencies.

Apologies all.

Ughhh....

bns666 · 07-22-2017, 01:13 PM

huh ....

Jesse1984 · 07-22-2017, 09:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RyuLion

Ughhh....

Really? Your affiliate name is the same as your username, yeah?

just a punk · 07-23-2017, 01:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by woj

There is really no reason why you shouldn't be able to decode the "encoded" nats codes, and then send the surfer to the right spot and continue to give affiliates credit... it may be slightly tricky depending on your setup, but it's almost certainly doable...

Indeed. The "encoded" NATS links are just base64 ones, so they can be easily "decoded". If someone says they won't support old NATS encoded links, that's not because the guys can't decode and process (redirect) them as usually. That's because they simple don't want to pay for that traffic anymore. IMHO.

Barry-xlovecam · 07-23-2017, 04:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CyberSEO

Indeed. The "encoded" NATS links are just base64 ones, so they can be easily "decoded". If someone says they won't support old NATS encoded links, that's not because the guys can't decode and process (redirect) them as usually. That's because they simple don't want to pay for that traffic anymore. IMHO.

This is classic *slippage*

^^^

Due to technical changes beyond our control... ... same as why at cam sites; when a customer makes a new screennames and user accounts -- the affiliate referrer is no longer paid his rev-share for purchases made by that new account. Lifetime revenue from the customer you refer -- we can no longer identify that customer

Sorry ....

Jesse1984 · 07-23-2017, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CyberSEO

Indeed. The "encoded" NATS links are just base64 ones, so they can be easily "decoded". If someone says they won't support old NATS encoded links, that's not because the guys can't decode and process (redirect) them as usually. That's because they simple don't want to pay for that traffic anymore. IMHO.

Well, you're wrong, had you actually read the rest of the thread you would have seen that wasn't the case. A developer made the decision and due to my lack of knowledge about how much of a problem it would be for affiliates, I just passed the information along.

After feedback from affiliates, we decided to not move forward with the project. Kink has always paid affiliates and I've actually credited a number of people in this thread and others when traffic has been lost, especially due to the switch from NATS to our system. I can understand why / how your comment would apply to other programs, but here it just falls flat.

Jesse1984 · 07-24-2017, 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RyuLion

Ughhh....

If you'd like I can count your hits on my fingers for you, for the weekend, and send you pictures. It's an import issue, no need for dramatics.

Stats will be populated by this afternoon [PST.]

RyuLion · 07-24-2017, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JesseKink

If you'd like I can count your hits on my fingers for you, for the weekend, and send you pictures. It's an import issue, no need for dramatics.

Stats will be populated by this afternoon [PST.]

I know man, I didn't mean any dramatics man. I haven't pushed any sales for over 8 years to you guys.

How are things?

Jesse1984 · 07-24-2017, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RyuLion

I know man, I didn't mean any dramatics man. I haven't pushed any sales for over 8 years to you guys.

How are things?

Things are going great, up month over month for the last six with all the changes we've been making.

Shoot me an e-mail, let's see if we can do some trades or business together again.

Jesse1984 · 07-24-2017, 03:26 PM

Okay, so for the issue of links that we will no longer be supporting.

These are links that contain no affiliate information, only a campaign ID. The reason being is that NATS used to have some links that would just match a campaign ID number to the affiliate it belonged to, but not include the affiliate name.

When we imported these campaigns into our new system, we found a number that were either duplicates from NATS itself, we could no longer match to an existing affiliate, or from campaigns in our system already. This does not represent a huge number of affiliates nor does it represent a large portion of our traffic.

Here is an example of one of these encodes:

MTYzMTcyNTozOjQw unwraps to 1631725:3:40 - There is no affiliate ID present here as you can see.

This does represent a fairly significant issue when it comes to resolving it.

1. We do not have any degree of certainty that we can match these old campaign ID's to the correct account, either in NATS or in the new KinkyDollars. This is as much a NATS problem as it is a KinkyDollars problem.

2. In order to even do this, it would take two dev's at least two days to even just pull a referral path and gather these URL's from traffic they sent from the past six months. And again, we have no gauge for the accuracy of matching these campaigns up, nor could we pull ALL of your URL's for you to go fix them.

3. We implemented a partial discontinuance of a segment of these links on June first [this wasn't reported to me initially, as I was out of town at the time.]

The good news is, if you don't notice a large drop in traffic starting June 1st, this hasn't affected you so far and likely won't. This is because we were able to match the campaign ID from NATS to the ones we mapped out in KinkyDollars.

The bad news is, we've finished running this and we're going to completely end support for the remaining ones that we can't map.

BEFORE YOU START YELLING, HERE'S WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN.

1. If you notice a significant and consistent traffic drop beginning on JUNE 1ST 2017, contact me so I can review your numbers and I will credit you for any lost sales and rebills based on your conversion ratio and an average cancellation rate of 30% month over month.

2. You will have to investigate and update your links accordingly, should you notice a traffic drop off on June 1st, or August 1st. But again, this is such a small portion of affiliate traffic, most of you will not be affected.

3. This does not affect any other types of encoded NATS links.

I'm sorry for anyone this affects, but this is truly non-fixable with any degree of certainty and to give up literally almost 32 hours of working dev time for an issue that represents very little revenue... I just can't sell that.

But if I can see a traffic drop as outlined above, rest assured you will be paid.

E-MAIL ME DIRECTLY TO RESOLVE THIS.

TMM_John · 07-24-2017, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JesseKink

Okay, so for the issue of links that we will no longer be supporting.

These are links that contain no affiliate information, only a campaign ID. The reason being is that NATS used to have some links that would just match a campaign ID number to the affiliate it belonged to, but not include the affiliate name.

When we imported these campaigns into our new system, we found a number that were either duplicates from NATS itself, we could no longer match to an existing affiliate, or from campaigns in our system already. This does not represent a huge number of affiliates nor does it represent a large portion of our traffic.

Here is an example of one of these encodes:

MTYzMTcyNTozOjQw unwraps to 1631725:3:40 - There is no affiliate ID present here as you can see.

This does represent a fairly significant issue when it comes to resolving it.

1. We do not have any degree of certainty that we can match these old campaign ID's to the correct account, either in NATS or in the new KinkyDollars. This is as much a NATS problem as it is a KinkyDollars problem.

2. In order to even do this, it would take two dev's at least two days to even just pull a referral path and gather these URL's from traffic they sent from the past six months. And again, we have no gauge for the accuracy of matching these campaigns up, nor could we pull ALL of your URL's for you to go fix them.

3. We implemented a partial discontinuance of a segment of these links on June first [this wasn't reported to me initially, as I was out of town at the time.]

The good news is, if you don't notice a large drop in traffic starting June 1st, this hasn't affected you so far and likely won't. This is because we were able to match the campaign ID from NATS to the ones we mapped out in KinkyDollars.

The bad news is, we've finished running this and we're going to completely end support for the remaining ones that we can't map.

BEFORE YOU START YELLING, HERE'S WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN.

1. If you notice a significant and consistent traffic drop beginning on JUNE 1ST 2017, contact me so I can review your numbers and I will credit you for any lost sales and rebills based on your conversion ratio and an average cancellation rate of 30% month over month.

2. You will have to investigate and update your links accordingly, should you notice a traffic drop off on June 1st, or August 1st. But again, this is such a small portion of affiliate traffic, most of you will not be affected.

3. This does not affect any other types of encoded NATS links.

I'm sorry for anyone this affects, but this is truly non-fixable with any degree of certainty and to give up literally almost 32 hours of working dev time for an issue that represents very little revenue... I just can't sell that.

But if I can see a traffic drop as outlined above, rest assured you will be paid.

E-MAIL ME DIRECTLY TO RESOLVE THIS.

There's a fair bit of misinformation here. I don't want to get into it in a public space, but I'd suggest speaking with us before blaming us on a public forum when that is not the case. I'm easy to reach.

Jesse1984 · 07-24-2017, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TMM_John

There's a fair bit of misinformation here. I don't want to get into it in a public space, but I'd suggest speaking with us before blaming us on a public forum when that is not the case. I'm easy to reach.

Hey John, I will absolutely reach out to you about this, especially if you can help our tech team resolve this. I'm only posting the information I'm given, I'll reread it but to my knowledge this was nothing against you, but an issue where our team is unable to match encoded links that don't have affiliate info, just campaign ID's.

That was NEVER my intention and I have NOTHING bad to say about NATS at all.

I am not a tech guy as I have stated above and affiliate marketing software is not my forte. Please shoot me an e-mail at the link above.

Jesse1984 · 07-24-2017, 07:51 PM

Hold tight everyone! With any luck we'll have a better solution, John and I are in touch.

CamTraffic · 07-25-2017, 07:42 AM

Any plan on removing those KINKlive/webcam TABS on the Tour pages?

Jesse1984 · 07-25-2017, 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CamTraffic

Any plan on removing those KINKlive/webcam TABS on the Tour pages?

It's something we've considered and will test with in the future. I personally don't like traffic leaks... but these make a lot of money and leak back into our pockets.

I fully understand this is a potential traffic leak for affiliates as well and you wouldn't get credited with any revenues. I can set up a test to remove it from traffic with an affiliate parameter in their URL and or cookie to see what that does to swing the dial.

Jesse1984 · 07-25-2017, 10:01 AM

So after talking with John, we've determined that this isn't an issue with NATS URL's, and seems like some affiliates that went and tried to make some custom changes to links, which ends up only passing along the campaign ID.

So unless you went in and made hacky changes to links, this shouldn't affect you. Again, if you notice a traffic drop starting June 1st or August 1st [really, specifically those days] hit me up and we'll figure out why and how to move forward.

I'll consider this thread closed now.

EMAIL ME WITH ANY QUESTIONS.

07-17-2017, 01:55 PM	#1
Jesse1984 Web Viking Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: San Francisco Posts: 562	Kink.com Affiliates using old ENCODED NATS Links - Inside Hey All, As many of you know we switched Kinkydollars over from NATS recently to an in house system. Up until now, you haven't had to change your links, but we will be implementing a code change on August 1st that will end support for old encoded NATS links. It will ONLY affect these links, any other vintage NATS links will still forward to the correct domain. I know it's a pain in the ass to update links and some of you have been affiliates for a long time. If there's something I can do to help ease the transition, feel free to reach out to me. CLICK HERE TO E-MAIL ME. That being said, I'd love to get more of you promoting Kink [duh, we all want to make more money.] Let me know what you need, whether it's discounts, access to content to cut clips for tubes, interviews for bloggers, or take your mom out on a date. Whatever we gotta do. I'll be at QWEBEC, at the Amsterdam and Prague shows and will likely be kicking around Berlin too. Let's set something up.

07-17-2017, 02:34 PM	#2
Adraco Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: May 2009 Location: Onboard an airplane around the globe Posts: 3,707	FOR STARTERS... a less than 14 days notice on old links, let it be only those that are encoded, will be invalid and not generate any sales after August 1st - when you know what a pain it is to switch links??? Do you, yourself find that to be a reasonable amount of time and a reasonable notice? Are people supposed to drop everything on their plate and just start finding and switching links? Call it "shady shit" or what ever you like, but unpredictability like this can definitely drive anyone away. There have been a lot of changes at Kink lately and I appreciate you being around but some of those decisions need to either be changed or at the very least allow for more time to adapt and adjust. For people to just drop everything and start working on changing Kink links during summer/vacation times is just not reasonable and you have to realize that too. Suggestion, show exactly how affiliate friendly you are by adding another month to that change you just announced. Make it September 1st and email ALL affiliates WEEKLY about this intil it's done and a SECOND email every week for EVERY affiliate which still, for ANY and ALL reasons receive traffic in to an encoded link. Now THAT, would be a SPonsor I'd easily like to ramp up my promotion for! __________________ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The truth is not affected by the beliefs, or doubts, of the majority.

07-17-2017, 02:46 PM	#3
RyuLion ClubDomCash.com Industry Role: Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: San Diego Posts: 32,051	Damn, this sucks, I hope you get in touch with all affiliates with this! __________________ Promote Clubdom.com (since 1997) - Adult Biz Consultant

07-17-2017, 03:10 PM	#4
Forkbeard Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: I Roam Around Posts: 2,236	Sorry, Jesse, but Adraco is right about this. Two weeks at the height of summer is NOT really sufficient. One thing that would help: you should have logs that would let you, with a bit of automated data mining, generate a list of referrers for each affiliate that have links that need changing. Now, THAT would be industry-leading affiliate care! __________________ Offering sponsored blog posts and custom writing services.

07-17-2017, 03:20 PM	#5
woj <&(©¿©)&> Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Chicago Posts: 47,883	There is really no reason why you shouldn't be able to decode the "encoded" nats codes, and then send the surfer to the right spot and continue to give affiliates credit... it may be slightly tricky depending on your setup, but it's almost certainly doable... I can set that up for you, icq me: 33375924 or email me at woj a.t wojfun d.ot com to discuss details... __________________ Custom Software Development, email: woj#at#wojfun#.#com to discuss details or skype: wojl2000 or gchat: wojfun or telegram: wojl2000 Affiliate program tools: Hosted Galleries Manager Banner Manager Video Manager Wordpress Affiliate Plugin Pic/Movie of the Day Fansign Generator Zip Manager

07-18-2017, 08:33 AM	#6
Forkbeard Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: I Roam Around Posts: 2,236	Further thoughts now that I'm back at my computer and can check a couple things: On 5/2/17 affiliates received an email that started "Important Affiliate Announcement" that included the promise "NATS links will continue to redirect appropriately into our new platform." There's nothing in my email inbox about the abandonment of that promise. There should be; affiliates who don't use GFY will be relying on that previous email promise. The front page at KinkyDollars.com shows a variety of important affiliate news on log-in. This link breakage news is not currently displayed there. Jesse, we appreciate you coming here to tell us, but there doesn't appear to be a full and appropriate push to alert affiliates to link breakage on such a scale. __________________ Offering sponsored blog posts and custom writing services.

07-18-2017, 08:47 AM	#8
Jesse1984 Web Viking Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: San Francisco Posts: 562	Hey all, first, don't shoot the messenger, please. This is what I was given by my tech team as far as timeline. Let me speak to them and see what I can do about extending that. Second, I am not a programmer by any means so I have no clue what it takes to de-encode NATS links. Call me incompetent all you'd like, I'm a marketer and a sales guy, not a dev. I appreciate all of your feedback, it gives me solid feedback to take to my tech team. I will update this thread later today with their response.

07-18-2017, 09:02 AM	#11
Adraco Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: May 2009 Location: Onboard an airplane around the globe Posts: 3,707	This is directly from the NATS own wiki on how to decode the encoded NATS links: NATS4 LinkCodes - TMMwiki where it says: Decoding Link Codes ----------------------- Encoded link codes can be decoded using base64 decoding, which uses ASCII characters and binary to encode/decode links. For the admins, we built a page that allows for creating/decoding NATS code. The URL should be http://<NATS_URL>.com/admin_codes.php. The affiliates also have a page that is not shown by default. The URL should be http://<NATS_URL>.com/internal.php?page=code_info. This shouldn't be too hard to implement a fix for. As you see above, the un-encoding of the encoded links that you plan to not support any longer is rather easy to do. It will be really hard to recruit new affiliates if this is the way the current ones are treated. You say in your original post: "Whatever we gotta do." - Well, now it's real easy - it starts with you and what's in Kink's own control. So let's see just how far that promise of "whatever" goes and what it really means when push comes to shove... __________________ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The truth is not affected by the beliefs, or doubts, of the majority.

07-18-2017, 09:14 AM	#12
Forkbeard Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: I Roam Around Posts: 2,236	This is really a question for higher management, but why is your tech team in charge of policy decisions that affect marketing? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Usually the way it goes is that the tech guys say "this is how it's going to be" and somebody above them has to say "no, that will damage our business reputation". If that's not happening, it should. But meanwhile, you need to announce link-breaking news at least as loudly as they were promised not to break. Of course, it appears that the only time I routinely used encoded links was in places (tumblr reposts and other social media) that no longer allow user edits. So, if you can't convince your guys to write the extra lines of code, that traffic is gone forever ... or rather, you still get it but I don't get paid for it. Leaves a sour taste, even if it's small. __________________ Offering sponsored blog posts and custom writing services.

07-18-2017, 09:44 AM	#15
Jesse1984 Web Viking Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: San Francisco Posts: 562	Okay. 1. Spoke to our head of tech. Turns out the Dev working on the system made the call to stop supporting these links without consulting her about it, so we will continue to support these links, you can rest easy. 2. There is one caveat. There is apparently an old style of these links that does not follow the standard NATS way of passing affiliate info through when unencoded. BUT. I am having them investigate how much traffic this accounts for, if we can spend some time developing further support for it before discontinuing them, and if we do have to discontinue them, do what Forkbeard says and do a crawl to so I can notify the folks and give them the links that need to be changed. NOTHING NEEDS TO BE DONE FOR NOW. Your traffic is safe and I won't let them throw any switches before giving me time to give proper notice to you.

07-18-2017, 10:00 AM	#17
Forkbeard Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: I Roam Around Posts: 2,236	And THAT'S how you do it! Good work, and THANK YOU. __________________ Offering sponsored blog posts and custom writing services.

07-18-2017, 10:01 AM	#18
Adraco Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: May 2009 Location: Onboard an airplane around the globe Posts: 3,707	This is good! I just don't understand why you needed us to stop this for you? Under all normal circumstances, this is a big decision and should have been stopped in-house before even being communicated outwards. But thank you for realizing this needed to be stopped. __________________ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The truth is not affected by the beliefs, or doubts, of the majority.

07-18-2017, 11:27 PM	#23
AmeliaG Too lazy to set a custom title Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 10,372	I think it is kind of a refreshing upgrade for Kink that Jesse is attempting to reach out to affiliates like this. __________________ Blue Blood's SpookyCash.com Babe photography portfolio

07-19-2017, 04:18 AM	#24
Tjeezers Webmaster Industry Role: Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: BP4L - NL/RO Posts: 16,394	Reaching out to affiliates is very important, as this thread turned into a good direction. A few programs have done this also and turned a blind eye to affiliates. This thread however is a example of what an affiliate manager should do, communicate with traffic senders to come to a fruitful solution. __________________ Minimal 2 Free Backlinks 149 Quality URLs to pick from - Go To My Thread here! Join the SWAG Affiliate Asian Live Cam Program and get rewarded!

07-19-2017, 04:49 AM	#25
bns666 Confirmed Fetishist Industry Role: Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fetishland Posts: 11,472	how are the conversions with kink these days? __________________ ⭐ CAM SODA ⭐ STRIPCHAT ⭐ ⭐ CHATURBATE ⭐ SKYPE SEX CAMS ⭐

07-19-2017, 10:34 AM	#27
Kate Bi just lurking around Industry Role: Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Nice place indeed Posts: 167	Jesse, I am so relieved right now 'cause hell, changing tons of links would be a pain in the ass Kinkydollars always was my fav program and I hope that you will not disappoint your affiliates ;) __________________ Please PM me your best converting kinky sponsors

07-19-2017, 10:37 AM	#28
Jesse1984 Web Viking Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: San Francisco Posts: 562	Thanks all for your understanding. I'm still waiting on an answer from tech about the specific kind of link, but as stated, it's still being supported for the time being. The tech just got back from paternity leave so he's got a STACK of work in front of him. This all being said, we're running a 20th anniversary promo starting on August 15th, with a lifetime recurring discount. If you want in on it or more information, please e-mail me.

07-19-2017, 11:18 AM	#30
SilentKnight Megan Fox's fluffer Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: shooting pool in Elysium Posts: 24,818	Affiliate 302 is watching this thread with interest.

07-22-2017, 09:07 AM	#31
Jesse1984 Web Viking Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: San Francisco Posts: 562	Kink stats are down for the weekend. All data is being recorded correctly, we will just have to re-import stats on Monday as we don't do code pushes on Friday except in emergencies. Apologies all.

07-22-2017, 01:13 PM	#33
bns666 Confirmed Fetishist Industry Role: Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fetishland Posts: 11,472	huh .... __________________ ⭐ CAM SODA ⭐ STRIPCHAT ⭐ ⭐ CHATURBATE ⭐ SKYPE SEX CAMS ⭐

07-24-2017, 03:26 PM	#41
Jesse1984 Web Viking Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: San Francisco Posts: 562	Okay, so for the issue of links that we will no longer be supporting. These are links that contain no affiliate information, only a campaign ID. The reason being is that NATS used to have some links that would just match a campaign ID number to the affiliate it belonged to, but not include the affiliate name. When we imported these campaigns into our new system, we found a number that were either duplicates from NATS itself, we could no longer match to an existing affiliate, or from campaigns in our system already. This does not represent a huge number of affiliates nor does it represent a large portion of our traffic. Here is an example of one of these encodes: MTYzMTcyNTozOjQw unwraps to 1631725:3:40 - There is no affiliate ID present here as you can see. This does represent a fairly significant issue when it comes to resolving it. 1. We do not have any degree of certainty that we can match these old campaign ID's to the correct account, either in NATS or in the new KinkyDollars. This is as much a NATS problem as it is a KinkyDollars problem. 2. In order to even do this, it would take two dev's at least two days to even just pull a referral path and gather these URL's from traffic they sent from the past six months. And again, we have no gauge for the accuracy of matching these campaigns up, nor could we pull ALL of your URL's for you to go fix them. 3. We implemented a partial discontinuance of a segment of these links on June first [this wasn't reported to me initially, as I was out of town at the time.] The good news is, if you don't notice a large drop in traffic starting June 1st, this hasn't affected you so far and likely won't. This is because we were able to match the campaign ID from NATS to the ones we mapped out in KinkyDollars. The bad news is, we've finished running this and we're going to completely end support for the remaining ones that we can't map. BEFORE YOU START YELLING, HERE'S WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN. 1. If you notice a significant and consistent traffic drop beginning on JUNE 1ST 2017, contact me so I can review your numbers and I will credit you for any lost sales and rebills based on your conversion ratio and an average cancellation rate of 30% month over month. 2. You will have to investigate and update your links accordingly, should you notice a traffic drop off on June 1st, or August 1st. But again, this is such a small portion of affiliate traffic, most of you will not be affected. 3. This does not affect any other types of encoded NATS links. I'm sorry for anyone this affects, but this is truly non-fixable with any degree of certainty and to give up literally almost 32 hours of working dev time for an issue that represents very little revenue... I just can't sell that. But if I can see a traffic drop as outlined above, rest assured you will be paid. E-MAIL ME DIRECTLY TO RESOLVE THIS.

07-24-2017, 07:51 PM	#44
Jesse1984 Web Viking Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: San Francisco Posts: 562	Hold tight everyone! With any luck we'll have a better solution, John and I are in touch.

07-25-2017, 07:42 AM	#45
CamTraffic Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Paris - Miami Posts: 6,512	Any plan on removing those KINKlive/webcam TABS on the Tour pages? __________________ I am always buying traffic and white labels. Hit me up. Email me HERE! KWFinder is the only keyword tool in the universe you will ever need. Seriously

07-25-2017, 10:01 AM	#47
Jesse1984 Web Viking Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: San Francisco Posts: 562	So after talking with John, we've determined that this isn't an issue with NATS URL's, and seems like some affiliates that went and tried to make some custom changes to links, which ends up only passing along the campaign ID. So unless you went in and made hacky changes to links, this shouldn't affect you. Again, if you notice a traffic drop starting June 1st or August 1st [really, specifically those days] hit me up and we'll figure out why and how to move forward. I'll consider this thread closed now. EMAIL ME WITH ANY QUESTIONS.