my dad can beat up your dad!

His post wasn't exactly 100% correct. I don't want to turn this into an argument thread, but I do want to point out that we've never taken tickets via email and customers are always welcome to call us. There are also major differences between software support & service support. The "how do I look up a member ID" questions that CCBill techs who answer the phone get are much easier than the vast majority of support questions we get. Ask around, ask customers who have used us for years, our support is very good.

EPASS huh? i will keep them in mind. My consigliere uses Verotel & feels he gets more foreign sales with them. for the beginning i want to focus on the USA market. if i cant sell to US consumers then i wont do any better overseas. However spinal tap did get a boost in Japan when things shit the bed in the USA. I think those kinky japanese will love what im doing.

Thanks John, as you can see i am impressed with NATS. you can also read a lot of feedback that newbs should start with the simpler program & the trust concerns expressed here is a valid one. If its possible i can set up NATS & rectify the concerns affiliates have here with ensuring they are not getting scammed, i am very inclined to go with you. My decision is not final by any means & have already changed my mind in the last 24 hours. if you want to follow up with me to discuss offline i am at [email protected].

An advantage to using a 3rd party affiliate software would be the ability to use CCBill and Verotel and any of dozens of other billers, some general, some specialized.

NATS does much more than "cascading". You have full configurability over your processors. You could send your US customers to CCBill and your non-US customers straight to Verotel. Your customers wouldn't see any difference, they'd just get the appropriate biller first. This goes well beyond this and well beyond what many call "cascading" in other solutions. There is an endless number of things you can do with NATS. It is up to you how much you want to learn and use.

I can confirm this. Comparing CC Bill support to the support of ANY script "provider" is not exactly apples to apples. I've asked NATS questions in the past where they had to dig deep and actually troubleshoot issues... that takes time. I've also asked CC Bill questions in the past where they had to dig deep and actually troubleshoot issues... that took time for them as well.

CC Bill is very fast on "simple" questions with their live support where they know the answer. Whereas NATS doesn't really have a similar "triage" type support system... you simply submit your ticket and you wait in line until it's your turn, regardless of the issue.

All in all, I don't even think you can compare CC Bill/Epoch with NATS/MPA. It is not an apples to apples comparison. It's true that the former work with the latter, but it's just not the same.

Thanks, I'm glad you do like it. I understand the trust concern, however you have to also remember that GFY is the "the sky is falling" capital of the online adult industry. This place is convinced that something new is going to "end" the adult industry every 6 months for the past 7-8 years or so. Again, it is an understandable argument, I just don't agree with it to the extent many like to portray it. And I believe the advantages far outweigh it. It is midnight on Sunday here. I will get in touch with you tomorrow.

Someone understands! You made my day :)

I often hear "my host answered my ticket in 15 minutes". Then I ask them, what was the issue, and they say "I needed to add a new DNS entry for a domain name". When I tell them that doing that requires clicking a button or two and what they are asking us is to troubleshoot code/add functionality to an enormously large program, troubleshoot what their host screwed up on their server, etc. they simply repeat "my host answered my ticket in 15 minutes". This of course is not the majority of the time, and we have many understanding clients who get it, but every time I have that conversation I can feel myself getting older. Thanks for being someone who gets it :)

Thanks EB, I've always respected the program you've steadily built over the years and I'm very glad to finally have you giving us a go. We're always here if you need anything.

Also, your existing sites can stay on Windows servers (only a separate NATS server on *nix would be needed to get them running NATS), the tours/members areas/etc. can be totally separate and on their own. Hit me up if you need any clarification.

ccbill!! Why not MPA3? ;)

Because he doesn't base business decisions that are the foundation of his entire business on friendships? ;)

To clarify...

My post was not intended to 'slam' one or the other. The way I see it each has significant advantages (significant enough that I plan to run both side by side).

John, since you are active in this thread... is there a date set yet for the release of the 'simplified' skin for NATS 4.0 that adds 3.0 simplicity/look and feel for affiliates? I am waiting for it to be released and have been since we last chatted about it.

I give everyone a bit of love.... they all make people money :)

Well far be it for me to jump in here as I might appear to have a bit of a bias as I own CCBTools, but I do also run 2 NATS programs Made in Porn and DreamGirls Cash.

Really there are many advantages to using both CCBill and NATS. CCBill is reliable and has a certain trust level that comes to working with them. The webmasters know that they are getting their checks on the days that they are supposed to get their checks, you can in fact cascade to Epoch if you choose to and the European webmasters can promote many programs through CCBill while only having the expense of cashing 1 check which I know a lot of them really appreciate and has helped them to build their brand loyalty across the pond. There is a definite ease about setting up a CCBill affiliate program and a lot of help along the way to make sure it succeeds.

Of course as a CCBill client you can then use CCBTools for all of your marketing materials and easily provide everyting from FLV XML Feeds and Page Peel Ads to Gallery Builders and POTD or VOTD plus so many more in demand tools.

That being said there is a decent amount of webmasters that only want NATS programs. They are used to the way the stats work, they like the detail that they get back and there are a lot of tools that until CCBTools launched were really only readily available to a NATS prorgram.

I have always found their support helpful, although maybe their system is not as straightforward for a newB to learn how to use.

What I would do if I were coming into Adult today and starting a new program is I would build my new program on CCBill. I would do this for 2 reasons, speed and simplicity. I would also be able to attract more webmasters and traffic to my program giving me a solid base.

Then once I had my base, I would build out from there adding CCBTools to give the webmasters what they need to make my program really fly and to make it keep up with the big guys and all the tools that they provide.

Finally once all that was happening for me, I would then build out the same program on NATS. I would continue to run the CCBTool/CCBill affiliate program for the webmasters that are in there and that are loyal CCBill webmasters but I would build out the NATS to bring in all of the NATS loyal webmasters. I would do CCBill first as it is not an expense, and I would upgrade to NATS once I could aford to take the time to learn it.

Off hand I know of 2 of my clients that do this really well. You can take a look at what they have done here:

XXXSexCash
Dream-Cash

Hope that helps out a little!

We have been using CCBTools and its great for us. It's very flexible and scalable. Plus why would we ever want to have to cut our own check's for affiliates...

You can run CCBill on NATS.... so NATS. Dont put all your eggs in 1 basket. We run 7 billers on our cascades.

How about Zombiao only?

Or are affiliate just not interested even with the considerably higher payouts? Is it the lacking affiliate program, trust or both?

Im just starting my own program and im going full balls with NATS straight away. I dont want to fuck with the hassle of moving from ccbill to NATS. Plus I feel NATS shows your very serious about your affiliate program and ready to do business. Another reason I went with Elevated X CMS and Mojo Host because I know my stuff will be top of the line.

About cutting your own checks, my solution to this is im going to use Webmasterchecks.com Some time along I may send out my own checks but in the start when I have plenty of other things to take up my time and no billing department, WC will do just fine. :) I think its like ~ 3 dollars per check they send out but if you split that fee with your webmasters then theres about no way you could do it any cheaper.

Just my opinion.

I'd go with NATS, however did you test MPA3?

I'd take MPA3 over NATS any day.

wow this came back from the ded.

No i didnt really look at MPA3. seems a lot of peoples swear on NATS.

in any case, i am setting up with CCBill next week...unless NATS wants to offer me their August special, then i would have to reconsider :)

Done! do you have Vlad's contact info?

wow!!!

no...i would be happy to contact whomever you want. Its decision time on my payment structure.

Can someone please give me a clear answer on this? Do program owners or even affiliate managers with admin access have the ability to shave sales using NATS? :helpme

There has never been support in NATS or by TMM for shaving. There are no shaving features in NATS, nor will there ever be. If someone has a reasonable reason to believe someone is somehow shaving with NATS you're welcome to notify TMM and we will investigate the issue.

Just hit you up on ICQ, if you prefer email/phone.. you can send your contact info to vlad[at]toomuchmedia.com and I will be more than happy to assist you. :)

Hi John, thanks for the clarification. :thumbsup

BTW, as an affiliate I like the layout of NATS over CCBILL alone.

depends
 

Depends on point of view of webmasters. I know many people that almost always will drop program after it goes from CCbill to NATS , MPA3 or anything else, from one simple reason and that is harder fro them to get money then with CCbill. people running programs seems to forget that there are many small webmasters promoting many sites and not being dedicated just to their program.

Only crazy thin is why CCbill don't improve their stats and payment options for it's affiliates.

in ccbill there's one cookie you need to set by link code for your traffic and it's easy to track if everything works fine (just go to join form and search for your pa into source)

and with nats it's impossible to track that. search gfy and you'll find a bunch of different kinds of 'errors' happened to nats running programs

sure there's no 'shave' option, but there's a lot of bricks and you can build a castle from them

nats is a great back-end, but there're many people failed in many ways to run it (and affiliates are ones who lose most of all because of that)

btw that's some interesting poll: http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=926650
also there were a few threads on different boards to support 'NO' in that poll