CCBill/Epoch Affiliate Stat/Link question

I run a fairly low traffic'ed blog, so I'm unsure if the phenomina that I'm seeing is naturally occuring or if there is some alternative reason for it. I write a blog that promotes a variety of sites, most of whom use NATS4, a few of which work through CCBil or Epoch. When reviewing the stats of the various sites I promote I will see information for all of the NATS4 sites (even if it is simple clicks and not joins); however, I won't see even simple clicks for most CCBill and Epoch sites. Before I go pointing fingers and bitching about the situation, I'd like to get ya'll's input.

The trend that I am seeing for those sites that don't show stats on CCBill or Epoch are sites the provide me links that point to "SponsorSite.com" as opposed to CCBill.com or Epoch.com links. I suppose the simple question is, should I be using the URL provided by the sponsor or should I be using a 'CCBill.com/Epoch.com' URL? (I'll stop my questions there for now, otherwise I may ask an inappropriate question in regards to sponsor sites that provide URL other than CCBill.com or Epoch.com.)

I *think* I understand your quiestion ... and my initial answer would be that if it isn't a ccbill style link with your affiliate id attached to it, ccbill would have no way of tracking the click.

Yeah I think the main difference you are seeing is that when using a NATS link, it goes thru NATS first and records your raw/unique hits. When using a CCBill program and not specifically using the CCBill link, its impossible for CCBill to track that raw/unique hit.

As for changing the link, first I would ask the affiliate program itself as there MAY be a valid reason they are not providing you with a direct CCBill link, for instance, if they have 2 billers (not cascading thru ccbill) and the link that they provide you to use has your account info from those two billers. This is a "cheap and nasty" way of setting up multiple billing on paysites, but its not a good way as you can see, since you are not able to get your full stats.

Now, if the paysite is ONLY using CCBill (and possibly a ccbill cascade), then IMHO, you should be using CCBill links, to allow full tracking and cookies and such. Otherwise, you are risking losing commissions.

Care to share the programs with us?

Thanks for the responses Bec and Luke. I guess I was indirectly asking for reassurance that it is working as intended. I figured there is some kind of communication from the sponsor site back to CCBill/Epoch at the very least to give me credit if I direct a sale to them. I was kind of hoping that there'd be additional communication for stat tracking.

So at the moment, for these particular programs, I don't know how many people click on the links I provide. I suppose I could modify my site to record outgoing clicks on those links, but I'm lazy. :)

I would highly recommend contacting the sponsor program and asking about this.