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This morning has wasted 2 hours of my time, as a VOD partner changed its stats reporting procedures, and I've been editing XLS files and PHP scripts.
Same thing yesterday with a BOOKS partner.
I hate it when IT people make retro-active changes to a previous month, and change column formats of XLS reports.
These Brainiacs are blind to the fact that when they make a change from the norm, it has a ripple effect.
Now, 2 hours even later, I find a major partner made changes to their platform Aug 1.
With it, a major SNAFU with their stats.
Now, for the entire year 2013, the "Total" field is not being multiplied by the "Qty" field, just a static "1"!
Was wondering why my stats had dropped... as much as 50%... and now stats for previous months, back to Jan 1, were also about 50% compered to when originally recorded.
As an Affiliate, we need to check the numbers.
Numbers are not just symbols on the screen or piece of paper. They represent actions. In our case, they represent dollars. Small numbers or big numbers.
If you're supposed to make 40%, then the fields (Qty * Price Each * 40% = Total) being computed, need to add up to 40%!
40% of $1200 is not $200, when some Qtys are 1, some 5, some 10!
It is easy to not see the forest for the trees, but it is important to take a minute (or an hour) and take some samples, and test the numbers for accuracy.
Without naming names, I learned a month ago that a platform was bleeding money and it couldn't figure why.
Turns out: One stats report counted free preview minutes of movies, and another stats report did not.
Payouts were being made on the basis of the first report (paid and free minutes @ 10cents/min * 20%), not the other (paid minutes only) report.
Got to count all the chickens and beans very carefully.
Whether or not you believe that free previews create sales (I agree in the 5%-10% range that they do), besides paying for bandwidth for free previews, you don't go to the bank with income from free preview minutes.
Count your numbers very carefully.
I feel bad that I dropped the news on them at 3pm on a Friday of a short week!
If they outsourced that programming, they should be getting a do-over!
4 hours later, on a Friday afternoon, they fixed it!!!Quote:
I feel bad that I dropped the news on them at 3pm on a Friday of a short week!
If they outsourced that programming, they should be getting a do-over!
Not naming names.
Man That sucks! I feel your pain! I always have to stay on my people when they do things. The only people I don't have to worry about is my web development people--Adult Bluefly...They know what they're doing and are on top of their game. Whenever something unexpected happens we all get together and discuss it and find a solution. I hope things work out for ya.