Wtify

I’ve known this trick for a few years, but I think it’s finally time to share it.

Want to estimate how big your competitors are? If they use NATS, you can do it fairly easily under certain conditions.

Requirements:

• The site must use NATS
• The payment flow must go through a NATS-managed gateway

When you land on the payment page, the URL often looks something like:

That memberid value is the key.

By checking this value at time X and again at time Y, you can estimate how many new members have signed up during that period, based on the following facts:

• The number includes both paid and non-paid members
• It applies to the entire NATS installation, not just a single site
• It represents new joins only

Since the number of paid members can never exceed the number of new members , this gives you a fairly reliable way to approximate the size and growth of your competitors.

At least, I hope TMM sends me a gift this year

Thanks,
W