I think many of you (affiliates) are being tricked in your stats...
 

It has come to my attention lately, that talking with some people and seeing their stats with different programs, that they don't realize their true stats.

A lot of programs only show JOIN PAGE HITS.

I'll take a recent example. Someone told me they are doing 1:10 free with us and 1:13 paid. He was complaining he does 1:4 free with one of our competitors and showed me they do 1:22 paid for him.

Now to him, this equates that he is doing 1:88 with them and 1:130 with us, TOTAL.

However once I realized that program only shows JPH, I let him know this. I tracked his individual JPH with us and found he does about 1:4 as well. Thus, I showed him that if our JPH:free ratio is the same as theirs and our paid is better, he makes more money with us.

He switched over all his traffic immediately and is making more money now :winkwink:

Now the questions I have for you is, how many more of you are being tricked in the same way ???????

I would think it's great for programs to show JPH to the affiliate, but they should also show uniques (and hey, even raws!). Otherwise, this is very deceptive (great from program's side, but bad for affiliate - then again, he should check his stats more carefully)

What do you guys think on this ????

Sponsors showing anything but first page hits have something to hide. 2nd page hits are impossible to compare with any number of hits that you count yourself..

I think surfers who become webmasters are just sheep and good for nothing in their first year... (unless they give you a bad review... ON THEIR BLOG).

Well some of the people I talk to, have some decent traffic and numbers. They just don't seem to udnerstand the concept above though, until I lay ti all out for them in 'simple' terms :1orglaugh

Yeah but you may count join page hits differently than the other program......they may pay a different amount per join.....etc etc etc

The only stat that matters is who pays you the most $$ at the end of the month for your traffic.

Anyone who knows what they're doing in this business knows that.

Said it a million times, say it again. The only method to trust is to count your clicks out to sponsors.
Use any other method and you are just fooling yourself.

That's what I try to tell people as well...the only number that matters is RPC (revenue per click).

However many still only like to hear about ratio and conversions, etc...

Obviously, someone paying $35 per signup compared to $20 per signup doesnt need to convert as well to make you more money. Some people don't seem to 'get' that yet though :disgust

I don't even think revenue per click is all that important......different banners and text links are going to pull different amounts of clicks....and some will convert better or worse than others.

For instance...."click here for free videos" will get alot more clicks than "click here to join for 2.95 with a valid credit card"

But the per click value of the 2nd is astronomical.

Webmasters just need to know their traffic...they know how much traffic they have and how much money it generates for them

If you do galleries or free sites then the only stat that matters is $$ per 100K hits to your page (or whatever number you want to use)

If you own a tgp or link list then $$ per X hits to your main page is all that matters.

If you do mailers then $$ per X opened emails.....if you do SE then $$ per X surfers that hit your doorway pages.

ETC ETC ETC....

If you use blind links you'll have high CTR but shitty conversions....ultra targeted links you'll have much lower CTR and great ratios.....but which one is more profitable?

You won't know until you test it for yourself on YOUR traffic.

To sum up....ratios don't mean jack shit.

:2 cents:

Only people new to this and fools take too much notice of sponsor stats anyway. Unfortunately there are a lot of newbies and fools. The ONLY use for sponsor stats is to view amount earnt and quickly compare performance with the same sponsor over different periods.

I want to add that ratios aren't totally worthless IF you own the paysite.

Then you'll be able to tell if one tour converts better than another tour....or if this weeks update is doing more sales than last weeks update....etc

But for affiliates they don't really matter.

Back in the early days two of the absolute best converting programs ever had NO click stats. (blacksonblondes and busty-amateurs)
There were alot of webmasters who wouldn't promote them because of that.....but it just meant more $$ for those of us who did.

And the cam wars continue........


I think this is creative marketing and a dig at another company.

it's all about REVENUE PER IMPRESSIONS. sponsor ratios can NOT be used to determine which sponsor generates more money ...

1 in 4 LOL.

Coversion ratios don't mean shit. Most people are like sheep, they bounce from program to program because one company says they convert a little better then the next guy.

You can convert 1:1 with clickcash. If you setup a series of pages that drills the person before they make it to the signup page, where you set the cookie and register the hit. Page 1, " signup for free" . Page 2, "before you proceed do you have a credit card ?" page 3, " are you sure you have a credit card, and it is not over the limit, and are you willing to use it" if so proceed to page 4, Ok, if you are sure you are ready to signup now and you've got your credit card in hand, then click the next link to signup" (register hit now)... guaranteed to convert 1:1 LOL

There are a million ways people register their hits, so like myself do it on page load, so my hits will be a lot more then someone who registers the hit when someone clicks the link on the page. Some companies like the orginal poster metioned do not register the hit until the surfer makes it to the join page. Others may take it to the extent of my example above.

Point is people and programs all register hits drastically different. So it is rediculas to try to compare one program to the next based up conversion ratios.

Not to mention the quality of traffic. I can covert much mujch better from inside a members area where someone has already paid $34.95 to be there and they are prequalified. opposed to someone who gets tgp traffic. Huge difference. But does anyone care about these things when people post i convert 1:20 or 1:100... Nope they jump on the 1:20 program with no regards to all of the relevant points I posted here.

Last thing is how much do you make ? So what if you convert 1:50 on a program that pays you $2 a email. I might convert 1:200 with the same traffic but I am making $55 a signup, do you think I really care if you have a better conversion ration if I am making 7x more money then you from the same traffic ?

Intresting thread :thumbsup

i wish there was a standard that everyone used.

fucking, your hit dont count untill the surfer gets here, that to me is bullshit. my hit counts as soon as that page ends loading. the very 1st fucking page.

Totally agree.

I dont trust any of them

Thats how I do it too. Because clickcash works off of cookies. I want to set as many cookies as I can. I know I get a few signups a week from people who don't signup through my pages but find ifriends on their own. Ifriends has a lot of pages in SE that you will get credit for if your cookie is the last one that was loaded in their browser. So my ratio is a little worse then someone who registers the hit on click.. but who really gives a shit ? I guess sheep do.

There is only one Stat that needs to be looked at. the RETURN ON INVESTMENT stats that you keep yourself.

Hours worked + money invested X money earned.

All the rest is BS.

You could be sending traffic to a site that convert twice as well as others, but pays 20% less.

You could be sending traffic to a site in a niche you understand and able to build better galleries for it.

If all you are looking at are the sponsors stats then you are doing it wrong, look at the stats on your bank statement. They are the ones that put bread on the table.

Thread bookmarked!
I Will bump in 2006 for the 100s of new programs that have popped up.

Wow, a non-Paris, non-Fred thread got 20 replies...I'm honored :upsidedow

A lot of you are expressing points that I feel *should* be obvious to any webmaster (or surfer-with-traffic), but they aren't.

That being, if you are trying to compare sponsors, you should look at what $$$ you make with the same traffic.

What I'm trying to discuss though, is why is it so many people are so stubborn to only look at ratios. Even at that, they compare the WRONG ratios!

As a program, do you think it makes sense to start shwing join page hits? Or stick with as much detail as possible, as I think in the long run, that will win out.

Reality cash only counts second page hits. Are you saying they have something to hide ? :winkwink:

I agree with you though , i totally hate it. Its only so they can have low ratios advertised .

The whole ratio things is supposed to be how well you convert the traffic.

it makes you have to have 3 different ratios, one for how many hits you send one for how many your sponsor sends and one for your money.

Regardless of the simple fact that all that matters is the cash,

I really like spacash's tracking setup , i cant say enough about it. It tracks every type of traffic, shows ALL hits including join page hits AND it breaks your hits down country by country for you.

The answer to that is as I said above - fools. Unfortunately flogging porn to people doesn't take too much intelligence. Those that have a little intelligence are usually better at it.

'Standardisation' of sponsor stats as suggested above would be a total waste of time too. That would then presume that tracking is accurate. For many programs this is a very long way from the truth.

Use your own tracking - it's really very easy to do. Also as Charlie said it really is down to ROI and whilst click tracking helps a little in tweaking things at the end of the day it's more than possible to work without it.

All that said it won't stop yet another dozen dumb threads this week with people shouting about 1-100 ratios and idiots replying 'wow man that's awsome' :)

TIP: Track how many hits you send

10 Dollar cash counts ratios from the join page, but they do show all the other hits you sent.

You shouldn't really focus that much on ratios. Compare the bottomline and how much cash you have in your hand.

The only thing I trust in this biz is a cleared check.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

:thumbsup

This is only one part of the bullshit going on....lots of sponsors do this

I find it amazing that some older webmasters still aren't aware of this...

I was Mr. Surfer like 4 months ago and I knew damn well the opening statement to this thread was true. It really ain't about how long you been in the game because I've seen webmasters for quite a number of years just be plain dumb to the fact really. Most cats are lazy as hell, they just wanna see profit without putting in any real effort which converts to minimum income. If they would actually sit down and study shit a bit they would be alot better off. SoUlBrUtHa#1 aka MurdaXL is ghost and peace out to all ya'll. :thumbsup

I agree with this..

jesus people, get a fucking clue.

IF YOU DON'T COUNT YOUR OWN CLICK OUTS YOU WILL NEVER KNOW WHICH SPONSOR MAKES YOU THE MOST MONEY!

A
 

It's easy to see which sponsor makes you the most money. Switch all your traffic to Sponsor A for a week, next week switch it all to Sponsor B, compare checks... simple enough. any questions ?

yes, simple, but how you gonna know how much traffic you send to each one per week ULESS YOU TRACK YOUR CLICK OUTS?

Indeed :thumbsup

I'm still waiting for my first :winkwink:

I totally agree, and I would like to add that I believe sponsors that hide 1st page hits and only show 2nd or join page hits have something to hide. I really hate when they have 'raw' hits in the stats area but what is listed is in face second page hits :321GFY

wrong...many people don't have constant traffic, plus there are other variables, thats the "lazy man" way of analyzing it :winkwink:

Hum i wonder what sponsor that guy was useing .... :)

We only show first page hits. Our affiliates always average around 1/350 for tgp/mgp traffic. If you are only showing jph then you do have something to hide... :winkwink:

With consistant traffic that is the only way to do a fair comparison. period. the reason why I say do it for a week is incase some days are better then others. Also make sure the there is not a holiday or anything unusal during either week that might throw it off. While NO method is 100% accurate this will clearly tell you if sponsor A is better then sponsor B.

and your suggestion is ... sorry i missed that? oh wait you didnt have one, you just said I was wrong. LOL

Thanks but I think I'm smart enought to see the difference

*slightly old thread gets a bump*

I pretty much don't give a f*BLEEP*ck about counting hits.
Neither own incoming or outgoing hits, nor sponsor-hits...

To me it's all about continuous, never-ending testing of a selection of different sponsors & sites.
Switch, measure & compare something else if the money shrinks.

Value = Revenue / (Promotion Material Created) :thumbsup

As an affiliate, I'm chasing as many $'s as possible, not conversions...
Otherwise I would avoid anything Teen & always go for Midget Trannies,
thinking it's the only right thing to do when basing it all on ratios / CTR / X hits here or there. :2 cents: :winkwink: