Affiliate Program Powered By NATs?

Does this type of detail matter to you when you are searching for a new affiliate program to join, for example, if they are using NATs, CCBill, Epoch, or if they are using a specific backend CMS, etc, etc?

I must admit to me that typically the only type of program i wont promote is an Epoch based program but thats for personal reasons, the other stuff, NATs, CCBill, MPA, Carma, CCBillTools, etc, etc, etc... Doesnt really matter to me at all so long as im going to be paid.

Do you think it matters if an affiliate program mentions this or not on their webmaster site to the general webmaster population? I know a few years back everyone went jumping to sign up to NATs based affiliate programs but i see fewer and fewer requests for NATs bassed programs posted on the boards lately.

Is this type of information actually needed do you think or is it just a way for the program owner to add 'extra' features to their site that really dont mean a whole lot of anything to affiliate webmasters?

Regards,

Lee

At the time, NATS was popular because MPA was still suffering the stigma of the "shave" switch they'd had in MPA2, and because NATS had a bunch of features that weren't otherwise easily available.

Now, with Epoch offering a version of MPA and CCBill having their new webmaster marketing thing, it's hard to argue there's any real advantage to NATS, and with the issues that NATS has had, and their history of being less than transparent, there are reasons some affiliates are leery of NATS.

Does it matter?

I think so, because it was about trust. Now, I don't know if that holds true, as rumors fly about this program, that program, and one really has to wonder, which one to trust?

It isn't just about being paid, but about being paid what one actually earns.

There are loads of features in nats that you just don't see in ccbill or epoch's systems, especially in nats4. The stats in nats4 are phenomenal, offering tracking right down to FHGs (also offered in mpa), including stats broken down by geo-locations (not sure if this is in mpa). Not to mention that both ccbill and epoch are limited in their cascades, for example, if you run your own merchant account you can't use it in either of their systems, same is true for a lot of alternative billing methods like most phone billing (except the one ccbill just approved the other week), sms billing, 3rd party cheque processors, etc. They also don't allow things like variable rebill cycles or amounts upon initial rebill failure, completely customized join pages, full integration within your own site domain, etc, etc, etc...

And I can tell you from personal experience that using your own merchant account will give you a 10-20% increase in credit card signups, and using a proper phone billing system like GXBill will **easily** add 10% to your bottom line profit.

CCBill and Epoch have taken massive strides forward with their recent introduction of limited cascade billing, which is nice for small and/or new sites. But IMHO you are missing out on a HUGE HUGE advantage by not running your own affiliate program software like nats/mpa3.

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Originally Posted by HunkMoneyLuke

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And I can tell you from personal experience that using your own merchant account will give you a 10-20% increase in credit card signups, ...

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I don't see how using your own merchant account would give you a 10-20% increase unless you had a 10-20% decline rate with the others.

Jimmy

by letting YOU control the scrub

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Originally Posted by HunkMoneyLuke

by letting YOU control the scrub

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Right, but unless you had 10-20% decline rates in the first place, controlling your own scrub is not going to increase your signups that much.

Jimmy

wouldn't it actually make it easier to get carded
when you are controlling the scrub vs say CCBill doing it
with their algorithms and such?

i dont bother about this stuff for me it is for the sites that they have to sell and if they can fit in my way of making sales

Do you need NATS to be able to offer FHG to your affiliates?

no - you can have FHGs with ccbill or epoch easily, and there's a way to do it with verotel.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by markwolff

Do you need NATS to be able to offer FHG to your affiliates?

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Nice summary Luke - has anyone checked out the new WMS from CCBill announced at Phoenix Forum?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HunkMoneyLuke

There are loads of features in nats that you just don't see in ccbill or epoch's systems, especially in nats4. The stats in nats4 are phenomenal, offering tracking right down to FHGs (also offered in mpa), including stats broken down by geo-locations (not sure if this is in mpa). Not to mention that both ccbill and epoch are limited in their cascades, for example, if you run your own merchant account you can't use it in either of their systems, same is true for a lot of alternative billing methods like most phone billing (except the one ccbill just approved the other week), sms billing, 3rd party cheque processors, etc. They also don't allow things like variable rebill cycles or amounts upon initial rebill failure, completely customized join pages, full integration within your own site domain, etc, etc, etc...

And I can tell you from personal experience that using your own merchant account will give you a 10-20% increase in credit card signups, and using a proper phone billing system like GXBill will **easily** add 10% to your bottom line profit.

CCBill and Epoch have taken massive strides forward with their recent introduction of limited cascade billing, which is nice for small and/or new sites. But IMHO you are missing out on a HUGE HUGE advantage by not running your own affiliate program software like nats/mpa3.

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