anyone ever wonder why AFF doesn't show rebills?
 

There could be only 1 reason.

Don't get me wrong, I have been making bank with them for years, but the fact they don't show rebills drives me batty.

I wish more programs would have a section for rebills like ibill did in CMI. Where you can click on it and it will show the next months rebills that you should have. Shows each day and the amount of rebills and $ total for each day they should go through. I really wish CCBill would do this.

I'm with you gleem.. it sucks. Hard to tell if anyone's rebilling. Hard to tell if your marketing changes/efforts are resulting in NEW sales or if you're just doing well on rebills.

Which is surely the idea...

Isn't it part of the same "psychology" which makes sponsors so reluctant to provide decent tracking? If you knew which of your traffic sources weren't generating sales and tweaking them didn't work, you could send the traffic somewhere else: not something most sponsors are keen to encourage.

It would be nice to see a separate column in stats but it's not like they are hiding it from you for some devious reason as you seem to imply.

Use their sub tracking feature. That's what it's there for.

Assuming you don't have a million hardcoded links, if you want to check on rebills change your link once a month.

eg ....p123456.submarch2005, p123456.subapril2005 etc

or if you want to test how something you tweaked is working

use p123456.submysupercoolnewpage

etc :thumbsup

I am doing this (the submarch etc), however it isn't really all that accurate. For all I know, someone decided 3 months later to sign up for an account.. it helps, but more would sure be nice :).

was doing that, but as darnoth pointed out, it's not accurate.

They know your rebills, they just aren't showing you them.

Do you really believe they can't track rebills and display them? A company that size not springing a few G's for their programmers to create a rebills column is freakin rediculous.

The only logical explanation is they don't want you to see the rebill stats for one or both of these reasons:

1. The rebills suck or aren't that great.
2. They are shaving rebills.

I can't prove either one because THERE'S NO GODDAMN REBILL STATS.

fucking rediculous, and unless they either come out with a decent PPS program or a rebill column, I hope these newer programs eat em for lunch so I can switch.

Thats a shame, I know they boast their members stay like 6-9 months on an average.

if that were true lee, why wouldn't they show it with a rebill stat? surely webmasters would share that stat and they would get more affiliates pushing em harder.

I believe that was true about 4 years ago, doubt it anymore.

note to self:

Cross AFF off the prospetive sponsors list.
stats ain't cosher.

end of note to self.

didn't say they aint cosher, just saying they are incomplete.

If this is true, I'm not making any new sales for the past few months. DAMN!

lol, same here, that's the point, WE DON'T KNOW!


AFF WE DEMAND REBILL STATS!!!

You know.. as well as we have done off of AFF for the past 5 years.. I could care less..

They are an excellent company with an Amazing program..

When you buy traffic, you can't just " care less ." You need to know if it's working or not. You could be sending worthless traffic, and coasting on rebills, wasting your money buying traffic.

exactly, I've maintained the attitude "fuckit, I'm making good money" with em, but I realized they are the only sponsors I do that for, and I don't want other sponsors to get jealous!

Imagine if all of your recurring sponsors took their lead and just grouped rebills with new sales.. talk about marketing in the dark!

Ever wonder why sometimes you miss entire days worth of stats with them ? If you think your making good money, I guarantee their making much much better money at your expense

I agree. It's bullshit that they don't show rebills. They have the ability to show them so why aren't they? You can't just say I make bank with them so I don't care. You should care. If it's a recurring payout you should know how many people are recurring. Simple logic.

yeah, gotta love those days! jesus, it's amazing what you put up with when you still make money.

hey gleem whats up man? If your interested, try out the site in my sig, they show rebills seperate, count every unique click in real time and convert pretty well. I've been with em for two years now and had some really good results. :thumbsup

I tried em when they first came public, crappy results, can't stand their campaign manager, won't work at all on macs, and I hate programs that make me fire up their PC's.

hey, I was gonna call ya today, bikini contest at shooters :winkwink:

hmm maybe.. what time?

I checked my AFF stats this morning, still no "rebills" column.. hmmm

hell, I live 20 minutes away from em now, maybe I'll drive over and ask em in person, anyone ever do that to a sponsor?

Heh heh, Gleem's on a rampage. I was wondering the same thing yesterday bro. I know where you are coming from.

it's indeed a bit fishy when you think about it
I would really love to know why they would not simply add a rebills colum.
I am really curious about the answer to that question lol

can't wait for an answer!

Isn't it obvious ? AFF reps usually respond to threads fairly quick when there's an AFF topic. They're AVOIDING this thread.

yes it's obvious, just hoping it'll bug em enough seeing this bumped for a week that they will eventually give some sort of answer :thumbsup

they need time to think of the answer...

lol
gfy can be a bitch

Not avoiding at all, Brujah.

We've just been attending WebMasterAccess this last week, and are still catching up on things.

Thanks all for your patience.


In response, I want to focus on gleem's important observation above -- "I have been making bank with them for years..."

This has always been and remains our primary concern -- to make as much for our affiliates as possible. I have seen no post on this thread to dissent that commitment.

The simple answer is rebill information on AdultFriendFinder DOES NOT mean the same things it does with other programs.

All of you are essentially saying the same thing -- you ARE happy with the money you make, but you can't help but wonder WHY we don't break-out rebill orders.

The order make-up for AFF is EXTREMELY COMPLEX. It is NOT like the orders types and patterns most of you are experienced with for promoting other (content-oriented) programs.

Let me explain...

For content programs, if a visitor is going to convert, he will do so within 10 minutes of clicking your ref. link. It's simply the nature of that traffic. By contrast, only 25% of AdultFriendFinder free members convert to paid within the first 24 hours. Moreover, conversions to paid occurring months after the initial free registration are not uncommon. Such orders would have the virtues of a rebill, but not be. This shatters the ability to directly correlate "traffic events" to "revenue events" -- which is at the heart of properly gauging the value of your traffic. As Brujah indicates...

Consider also, that AdultFriendFinder (as a personals site with a very different pricing scheme from content sites) has memberships of different durations (1 month, 3 month, 12 month), with different initial prices and different rebill rates on renewal.

And to add even more to the complexity, remember that affiliates also enjoy a percentage share of all the feature upsells available to paying members -- like chat packages, and profile highlights.

This means there would have to be several columns to properly represent this complexity. Not as my good friend Ozman suggested...

So, to offer you an answer I hope will allay the concerns expressed in this thread and to give you all some insight into our unique reporting challenges...

We don't breakdown rebills because:

1. To do so would greatly misrepresent the ultimate value of your traffic.

2. The revenue stream for an AdultFriendFinder affiliate is so complex and so different from what most of you are accustomed to (from promoting content programs) that it would be a programming colussus and a UI nightmare -- and in the end would not tell you what you want to know.

Instead, I would encourage all of you to focus on the best predictor of your traffic's actual value -- Long-Term Member Value. This is simply the sum of commissionable orders divided by the number of free members sent. This allows you (so long as your traffic quality and promotional methods don't vary greatly) to make a CLEAR and DIRECT correlation between "traffic events" and (ultimate) revenue consequences.

On a person-to-person basis, as many of you can attest, I am (and, under my direction, the entire AdultFriendFinder Affiliate Management Team is) EXTREMELY FORTHCOMING with rebill information and future order projections. We have put a lot of thought and programming time into building the tools that allow us to gauge the ultimate value of affiliate traffic.

We are only to happy share this with all of you, and to help you make the best (informed) decisions about your traffic and promotional strategies.

Beyond that, on the strength of the opinions expressed here, I am requesting the addition of a Long-Term Value Predictor to the affiliate's stats page, that will allow all of you to make the same assessments we can make (of LT Member Value) even when we're sunning ourselves in Cancun -- LOL.

As always, I am deeply grateful to all of you for your traffic and your loyalty. Please accept my promise to be not only the highest-paying program on the Web, but also the most honest and ethical.

Regards,


j-(ack Mardack, General Manager FFNet)


ICQ: 222141571
f: 650.847.3129
e: jack AT friendfinderinc DOT com

rebill stats or not, these AFF guys are the best sponsor I've used since i started in this biz back in '96

I'm sure its complex but we still need'em.

Since when did Karl Rove start working for AFF?



JK, good response 2House.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh -- LOL.

Thanks, Pornwolf.

That's quite the compliment.


j-

I have noticed this also. The stats will be off for several days then back to normal.

AFF is the shit regardless. They provide good tools, they are always on time, they
have been around for years and will be here for years to come. But I cannot
disagree with you regarding the rebills issue or stats down for a day issue, but I do
know that every other sponsor in the business does their share of dirt its just that
AFF out weights the good vs bad.

P.S Thats why I also got them in my Sig.

Nooooooooooo.

"Sigh"

Occasionally-Broken stats don't mean we're cheatin' -- I swear.

Believe me, it's more difficult to admit a company our size has less-than-perfect code.

"Sigh"

Oh, this would be a good time to remind you that AdultFriendFinder has been getting more traffic than God lately, and what we're doing about it.

__________________________________________________ ___


The reason clicks and uniques sometimes "vanish" 2 days back has to do with the transfer mechanism from real-time to stored data. Sounds boring and simple, I know. But, when you're talking about billions of uniques to account for, even the boring and simple becomes an engineering super-challenge. At least that's what the CTO tells me -- :upsidedow .

Hang in there guys, please.

I promise it all gets better from here.


j-

To be honest, it seems like you yourself are over complicating things. AFF revshare has two types of payouts: new orders, and recurring orders. Depending on how much traffic/how many free signups you send, the percentage can change, but there are only those two types of orders. If you can simply it to that point in terms of how much an affiliate gets paid, I am confused as to why it suddenly becomes complicated when showing stats.

As I've said a few times, you keep track of which orders are labeled as Initial Orders, and which orders are considered "Recurring". Can we see which orders are recurring now please?

The difficulties I describe relate to presenting that data in its PROPER form -- that is, the numbers that would give affiliates a TRUE indication of their traffic's value.

Of course I know it would be simple to just throw numbers into two columns.

What I'm saying is we choose NOT TO -- because it would (WE FEEL) mis-represent performance and hamper accurate traffic/revenue correlation.

But, let me remind you, darnoth, this is a policy choice we are making with regard to stats. I have put in on record (above) that, on a person-to-person basis, I will work with ANY revenue share affiliate, as closely and as forthcomingly as needed, to give them all the info they need.

I would expect my affiliates to put greater faith in what the General Manager of the world's largest single-site sponsor program tells you publicly will be the truth, than in what impersonal stats say, which I myself have admitted occasionally err*.

Let me work with you, and then you can post here whether or not I gave you what you needed.


j-


*(But never for anything other than purely honest reasons of temporary technical trouble.)

I'M WITH YOU MAN!!!

Just *feels* deceptive.. but hey, rock on.
:2 cents:

I hear ya...

But...

That is a *feeling* you are invited to let me personally dispell -- :)


j-

I somehow don't believe a single word. This is what I think right now: If you are able to correctly credit me my rebills to my account you must be able to display them in the stats area. This somewhat does not sound complicated to me.
as simple as that, don't you agree :winkwink:

are you saying they shave?

I say I don't believe its complicated to implement a rebills colum into the stats area...
not more not less... If they know on how many rebills they have to pay me they should be able to display this in the stats area, don't you think so?

I don't want to see the rebills. PLEASE DON't ADD THEM.

... exactly, we wanna see sexy jack in his undies !!!
:1orglaugh :1orglaugh