The consensus seems to be that NATS has the most features and capabilities, but the learning curve is very steep and they've had support problems in the past. So I guess there's a big time investment on your part if you're going to go with NATS, until you figure things out.

MPA seems to have the best support and is alot easier to use right out of the box, but you have to sacrifice some features and functionality that you would get with NATS.

Not much discussion on executive stats, but they are the newest player in the field so there's probably alot fewer people who have used it and can give feedback.

Just like everything else in life, no one solution is best for everybody.

bump MPA3 and the Mansion guys, heard good words about them

:smokin

MPA Rocks it!

MPA3 hands down - beyond the fact that Mansion is a top notch tech company (with multiple XBIZ Awards to its credit), the product works -- awesomely.

More importantly, when evaluating these systems, take the tour, run the demo, examine the supporting documentation. There's many fine scripts on the market that do wonderful things, from automating CMS (like Mansion's kick ass MAS) to running TGPs -- scripts are everywhere -- but most are woefully undocumented, leaving many users with very steep learning curves, to the point that many of the best features are never utilized or maximized.

Mansion's docs don't leave you guessing. And if you still have questions, their support is first-rate. Those reasons alone make its products a wise choice. Add the value of its industry-leading feature set and reasonable terms and MPA3 becomes a no-brainer.

Mansion Rocks :thumbsup

i vote Mansion, they have solid functionality and longevity in the industry. my choice hands down. as well, Oystein is such a damn fine individual...

All are good solutions but for my business - Me and my team chose MPA hands down. :thumbsup

Not digging on anyone's product since I have only used NATS and one one other briefly that didn't work for us (not MPA)

Nats, hands down, played a huge role in our success since for the first time in our history, we were able to concentrate 100% of our time on site dev not affiliate software. I think it's safe to say, we would not be where we're at without their help and software. Can't wait to see what else comes out in V3.1 and beyond.

we use Executive stats and I'm real happy with the fraud protection and It has all the bells and whistles written in PHP

Dont a few use River Styx as well

Didnt really look into Nats since I wanted to by the source code
the only thing i didnt like is all the drop down menu's when I log in as an affiliate.

MPA's been around and looks good I think I just got a better deal with ES at the time

anyway As long as it tracks and has all the features everyone will have their own opinion

log into everyones Interface and see what you like the best

All I can say is that we use MPA3 and it works solid, don't have too much experience with NATS to be honest.

The only thing I can tell you is that NATS has the worst service I experienced in many years, I contacted them 4 tot 5 weeks ago about an implementation for one of their customers, after a few weeks of no results I tried to contact them at least 4 or 5 times over the past two weeks. Result: 2 weeks of absolute radio silence.

Finally this morning, one of the BIG bosses told me he was a 'busy man' and that he was sorry.

Well, I am sorry too but that's just a wrong way to deal with customers!!

No NATS for me, period!!

:1orglaugh

BTW, the girl is smoking hot

DiTTO! We switched to MPA3 and could not be happier. the build process of the new affilaite program has been simple and they don't leave you guessing as to what needs to be done next. The design departments a joy to work with and the quality of the work is OUTSTANDING. RADOOOOO!

I take pictures. I have a computer background but know NOTHING about affilaite programs, code, webdesign (other than the most basic stuff using dreamweaver) An I'm able to use and understand both MAS and MPA3. If you have questions drop Oystein or Garry a Note. no bullshit they just get it done.

Unlike the vast majority of our competition we actually maintain a real office. You could have called the number which is all over the website at any point and spoken with someone immediately. There are multiple people there Mon-Fri 10am-6pm EST and some on evenings and weekends.

Which "big boss" wrote you this morning?

Appearently running a real office only means answering phone calls John?

Emails and ICQ messages are not part of your daily office routines? On your corporate website I found many numbers, e-mail addresses and ICQ numbers indeed...

http://www.toomuchmedia.com/corporate/contact.html

If two out of three contact options don't seem to work or the people behind these adresses and/or ICQ numbers are too busy you'd better make sure they are not to be bothered by annoying people like me...

I am not a type of person to post names on boards, as a matter of fact, I am not a type of person posting any negative stuff on boards in general, but this has pissed me off soo much that I had no problem with it.

Hey John,

It amuses me to see how all the posts about how bad your support is or that people are trying to reach you, or your people time after time and never getting a reply back.

BUT when ever someone post even the smallest little comment about it here on the boards you guys are always only a few seconds away. And always pretty air headed as well I might add. Great Attitude....NOT!

We have been using mpa3 now for a year and their support are outstanding...most of the time they reply/fix our issues within 20 mins..day and night...they even do customizations on the fly for us...i have never seen service like this before....anywhere!

MPA2 left SUCH a sore taste in my mouth as an affiliate with tons of errors with linkcodes, webmaster area, and other problems, as well as the shaving feature built in that some program owners were using. I won't touch MPA3 as an affiliate b/c of it.
ZoiNk

We answer dozens of icqs & emails every day. I'm sorry yours was missed, it happens.

I spoke with Fabian, who you spoke with and discussed what you spoke with him about. Explains your sarcasm and attitude here.

I'm always a few seconds away on ICQ all the time also. Perhaps people exhaggerate and/or make things up. Nah, that can't happen on GFY. I'm sorry you feel I'm an "air-head" and feel the need to get insultive.

i go for NATS!

btw, i'd love to see that blonde taking one in the ass!

wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

xD

Our Experience with NATS
 

(I am coming out of hiding for this discussion again.)

Around September '04 we began looking for a turnkey affiliate program. We found MPA2/3 and determined that it was indeed the type of solution we were looking for. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending how you look at it), we were not able to come up with the funds nor were MPA and ourselves able to come to an agreement as it related to payment terms. So we dropped the idea focusing instead on improving our existing affiliate system on our own (bad idea when you?re not a serious programmer).

We were at the Jan '05 Internext when we came across the Zend booth (creators of PHP). We spoke with a gentleman there by the name of David Goodman. We explained to him that we were looking to get some custom PHP apps created to better our existing affiliate program. The conversation quickly turned to turnkey 3rd party affiliate applications. He immediately recommended Too Much Media and their NATS application. Stating that Nathan (Head Developer at TMM) was "the best" PHP developer he had ever met.

We found TMM to be very eager to work with us and our budget constraints. We came to an agreement and had our installation one month later. I personally am a feature/upgrade junky. This addiction was (and continues to be) very satisfied simply because the NATS application is actively being developed and refined on all fronts constantly.

We have been running two (of our own) merchant accounts for the last 6 years (only using 3rd Party billers/ISPS's when necessary for 900, Online Checks and such), which are interfaced with Netbilling (#1 & #2), Paycom (#2 only) & Jettis (#1 only). Too Much Media quickly revised there cascading feature to give us the ability to push our signups through a seamless/transparent "gateway/biller" cascade. This means we get four chances to convert the customers sign up attempt before they ever see a response from our system. We have found that on average over the last 12 months that 1 out of every 5 sales has been "saved" by the cascade. This feature alone justified the capitol outlay and efforts to get the new software in place.

As it relates to product support, I don't know where they find the time (honestly). Its mind blowing to me to think that they are developing, installing and supporting their products and still keeping everyone so happy. I have never once had a complaint about their operation. Even when I feel that I am really pushing the "support envelope" I never experience a lag in there response time.

Getting to the topic of members section security and authentication. We have been using a couple Apache modules by the name of Hack Detect and Hack Protect. The served there purpose for many years but, over the last 12 months we have seen an increasing number of compromised member accounts. Too Much Media's solution for this is SPARTA (also an Apache module). We have not seen a huge bandwidth spike since rolling it out! There really isn't that much to say about this product other than that it solved our problems in this area (see members.strapon.com for an example of our new login page).

StraponCash.com is a two man operation (one person for all affiliate support, "site partner" support, customer support and member/tour updates and one person to handle all the internal business operations). I reveal this because I think it clearly illustrates that one person (with NATS) can run the whole show! Not forgetting to mention that a solution of this caliber is not limited to big budgets and giant operations.

We are not "get under the hood" guys. NATS keeps us from screwing any of the backend up by making sure to provide us with access to everything we could possibly need in the admin interface.

I think on of the biggest things NATS has done for us is bring clarity as it relates to the fruits of our labors. We can now truly see what is working and what is not!

Our affiliate payouts have more than doubled in the last 5 months and we have had record breaking months (in terms of gross revenues) the last 4 months in a row! Now just to keep things in perspective our margins aren't what they used to be but we are defiantly back on track relative to the money we were "netting" 3 and 4 years ago.

I hope you found this post informative and feel free to contact me directly [email protected] at anytime if you have any questions.

Courday
StraponCash.com / Adult Ventures, Inc.

I dont mind taking this puppy to 100. Go for it. :thumbsup

100........,.

Great customer service and support!!!!

NATS forever ... our vote goes since almost 2 years to Favbian, John and all the other NATS people :)

It is a fairly even vote between the two. Is there a list somewhere of affilliate programs and what backend software they use?

We dont post who our clients are. It is up to the client to say what they use.

:2 cents: