Looks like there is money to be made in porn, just not as a affiliate code monkey.

Is this a custom solution?

I seriously doubt Chris / J&A would just impulsively post this information. There is a reason for it, these guys are solid.

Well, to be honest I have just recently started promoting programs that use NATS, and I love the system (especially the campaign tracking), but I never understood how it could be "shave proof"

Well I am going out to the pool to do some work.

I will be back to check on the threads progress. Some very informative stuff in here.

I may be wrong but Nats has been around roughly the same amount of time that MPA2 was when problems starting going public with them. Right? I'm no expert but that makes perfect sense. MPA2 was the ultimate program. Everybody loved it. Then after 6 to 10 months bugs start happening and everybody goes fuckin nuts. Now nats has been around for about that time and I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing more and more Nats problems pop up.


Here are a few of the problems.
#1 if you want to shave you are going to shave. Anybody who thinks otherwise is a complete noob. If a program wants to shave they'll dish out the bucks and make damn sure they are shaving. You can blame MPA2 all you want for including that feature. Yes I agree it was wrong to make it SO easy to shave. But think about this, if they included it is because there was a DEMAND for it. They made a bad business decision to include it however webmasters are making an even worse business decision by DEMANDING and USING shave functions.

#2 The more features an affiliate software program has the more problems you are looking at. I'm a stats freak. In an ideal world I'd be able to get every stat I could possibly imagine. Unfortunately that doesn't work well in our industry. Sure it's nice to know all your stats and log and track every single thing. However that puts a huge load on your server and greatly increases your chances for disaster. The majority of issues that have come up with other affiliate software programs have been server issues, database issues, mysql issues, corrupt data issues. All the issues seemed to have one thing in common the program was trying to do too much. That is why we decided to use a program that basically tracks only what i need. Hits and Sales and I keep my password management 100% seperate from our affiliate program.

#3 If a program like Nats and Mpa2 is popular and sells well then the company gets bogged down on orders and can't dedicate enough time to you and your problems. I spoke with Oystein about this. They didn't expect the growth they had and as a result they quickly wound up understaffed. That is a tough position to be in. That is why it isn't always best to go with the most popular affiliate software. It's important to go with a company that:
- provides a solid software that will do the job.
- has the man power to do custom work for you and take care of your custom needs in a timely manner.
- has the man power to take care of all your problems in a timely manner.

You have to remember these programs are built to be sold to the masses. Personally I always have custom requests for my programs. Any company that can't respond to that won't get my business.

I dont think anyone is insinuating NATS is doing anything intentionally or that they would help anyone do anything like this.

The problem is if your affiliates arent getting paid , they will move on to more lucrative sponsors.

Unless a sponsor is on the ball they arent going to notice , because glitches like this mean the sponsor gets MORE money and the affiliates LESS, so everything appears better until your affiliate base starts leaving for better ratio's.

If the problem isn't addressed what else can you do really but switch software.

interresting..

I had a similar problem too, but it was with wts bank. Actually nats wasnt reporting that they were cancelled or bounced checks so I paid out on about 270 checks. This seems like something as simple as a post back error. Shaving? no.. Its just a miscomunication of the back ends. That can actually be retro imported pretty easially. im almost certain of that. In all honesty, this is something that you should have caught sooner and mentioned it to nathan. I caught my postback problem within a few days and it was fixed in a few minutes.
Duke

I hate to quote such a long speil , but i couldnt pick any one part to comment on , it was all good :)

:thumbsup :thumbsup great post

Very good point :thumbsup

It was mentioned MONTHS ago and still wasn't fixed. Did someone from NATS have you say that?

Chris, I can do many things, and nothing is ever perfect.

I need my sig space in this thread...

I need 2 cents

Jon

yes... i kwno
to me it seems as if programs can choose how to display the numbers...
I would prefer them being forced to show first page hits and 2nd page.
They can display the conversion rates how they want to (even based on 2nd page hits).
I just wanna see first page raw and unique for myself...
thats what I meant

drama drama drama

What makes you think we didn't point it out? We would be ignorant to have not pointed it out.

Not having to do with nats, but just ask yourself how many program owners besides Alex and Jason would spend the time to manually credit these sales. I can tell you very few.

It was a pure Rsync problem. Wasn't done on purpose.

100 errors.. :Oh crap

:thumbsup Theres only one reason to show second page hits.. ( to make your ratios look better ) . Its not a terrible thing ,but gives the affiliate almost no information to work with..

Spacash shows all of the hits , first, second, join etc so that you can tell if its a problem with the sponsors design perhaps ( like they arent getting a good first to second page ratio )

It really helps you analyze your traffic in a much more detailed fashion. A good affiliate isnt going to be fooled by a low second page ratio , they know approx the hits they send , so it really doesnt help in the end , ( except for gfy fodder )

ideally i would like to see all sponsors showing stats this way , but first and second page hits would be nice.

5 rebils is not that bad.

Nope i speak for myself. I'm nobodys bitch. if you know me you know that..

DUke

How long have you guys been using NATS?

Only you would turn this into an ad for Spacash ;) Nice Vaio you guys are giving away btw --

that's not what you told me in bed last night... :winkwink:

Since November 1ish

You are exactly correct Smokey which is why we had to make a switch. When a large portion of the day is spent on problem solving tracking issues, password management issues etc...all related to your software, the core of your business suffers to include affiliates. You end up scrambling and doing additional work that shouldn't be necessary in the first place. You have to have a comfort level with whatever software you use and our comfort level or confidence was just not there any longer hence the switch.

I've had times where i had an issue and they said they would look into it and if it wasnt looked into I was on the phone screaming to john or charlie. did you do the same? This is a simple post back error or a misconfig. Thats why you have to check all your billers and compare that to nats. Then if you find a discrepancy bring it up to them. I dont see what the big deal is here. Granted it's a pain in the ass for you, but everyone is going to get paid, right? This wasnt done intentionally or with motive right? Nats had no motive to do this. Did they benefit or take any money from this? Did you benefit or take any money? NO. It's just a simple post back error. If this was done out of malice there would be motive... There is no motive.
Duke

Me or jason and alex?
I was the first person to use nats
Duke

Still no response from NATS?

LOL i seriously tried not to , but if you have seen the stats area you know it kicks ass.

Like i said i wish every sponsor had stats like that , but i dont expect them all to , all i want for sure is first and second page hits.

Very true, NATS had no motive or reason to cause an issue for JSA, nor would they have done this on purpose.

There are a lot of issues here between the two companies, and I find it more than a little distasteful to see that JSA wants to create such a drama out of what should have been a simple move from one backend software company to another. The situation could have been handled with class and grace but instead you get multiple threads with unproven claims in them.

It sucks to be the owner of affiliate program that uses NATS and reads this thread now...

NATS is not in the habit of creating drama for its own sake.

I posted the proof, are you publicly telling me it is not true? Yes or no. Quit bending my words.

YES or NO

I dont know their reasons, im sure they had them. I respect that. But what people are missing here is its just a simple post back error that can be imported back in. Nothing is lost.. That is what puzzles me.. It's like a wire not showing up at your bank. It's not like someone stole your money, it's there, you just need to call the bank to fix the error and put the money back in your account. It's nothing more than that.
Duke

I don't like to kick someone whe they are down but let me indulge myself by saying that i reported problems in GFY with NATS tracking in a few threads and like European Lee I got howled down by all the sychopants.
I said then and I say now that i will not use sponsors using NATS.(Unless their conversions are 40% better than everyone elses) :winkwink:

And you think we would switch for one simple error? Need I put on record many more example with concrete proof of why we switched? I can if you would like me to.

For someone who said they dont have time to spend all day tracking down errors, you certainly have a lot of time to talk about it.
:2 cents: