Can be this considered as cheating webmasters (shaving)? [biz thread]
 

I've found out that some CCBill sponsors are on join page linking to alternative payment option like Epoch or Verotel. Sure CCBill affiliates are not credited for these sales....is this cheating/shaving webmasters???

what is Your opinion?

Absolutely.

Some of those I've seen do that also allow/offer webmasters to sign up with an extra besides CCbill. Are you sure that isn't the case?

unfortunately I'm sure :(

examples are needed..

paul rocks, and im not accusing him, but thats the only site that came to mind where i remember seeing ccbill and another option

Interresting discussion...
bump

This thread will be looooong.

Parking.

That is a bad practice and is certainly frowned upon by affiliates. I try and stay away from programs like that. However, sponsors are free to run their programs however they like. No one is forcing webmasters to sign up and send traffic.

I'm paying out 60% so some of that extra is what signs up via Paymonde.

After the August promo of $20 worth of content for every join we will be upping the rev share to 65%. Some of it will be from the 5% who sign up via Paymonde, most of it will be type in, returning members, content store links or stuff we can't ID as coming from affiliates.

We will always pay out to affiliates what we budgeted to pay them. If the traffic arrives and can't be credited to them we can spend a fortune on a program and two guys to manage it, or just pay out a bigger %. What would you prefer?

If enough of our affiliates hit me up and tell me they don't like it I will put up a tour which can only be billed via CCBILL, and pay out 55% on that tour. Then they can choose which one they want. :winkwink:

If its not credited, and the ccbill referal link doesn't lead to ccbill join page only, then it IS shaving. Some sponsors also use this in exit consoles if payment fail, or when just leaving the join page. Beware :2 cents:

uhhh yeah !

Hi,

In my opinion it depends on how the webmaster creates the join page.
If he places a big button of the primary biller on the join page and a smaller one for his secondary biller (without affiliates), then he's just making sure the sale will be made.
A lot of webmasters also place a text with the secondary biller saying something like "if you get declined by ... use our secondary biller ...."

If he does it like this I'm not seeing this as shaving.
The sponsors intention is just not to lose any sales.
(being one of the reasons I always tell webmasters to have at least one secondary biller).

Just my :2 cents:

I'd read the webmaster program terms as a refresher. Does it say "you'll be paid xx% of all sales sent to the tour" or "xx% of all sales through our processor ccbill" or something else or what?

It might not be anything depending 100% on what you are told up front that you'll be paid for.

i am one of your new affiliates and i didn't notice that you have another payment option. I don't like that very much. If you can make a tour that has only ccbill payments, i would like that alot more. Until then, i probably wont add more of your galleries since I'm not sure that I'll get my sale because of the Paymonde. Please let me know if you make one of these "ccbill only" tours. You have very nice content and i think it will convert very nice and i would love to add all your galleries to all my sites. It is disappointing to find this out. Now I'm going to check all my other sponsors too see if they are doing the same thing. Waste of my time now since i could be doing other things that are more productive but damn.. :disgust

this is bad

I think it should give me a choice if i want the regular join page with the extra payment options or not. :2 cents:

I agree 110%

i'd also like to add that http://www.paulmarkhamteens.com/affiliates/ is one of my best converting ccbill sponsors, and the extra 10% he pays out fucking rocks, also good god that man has a TON of content!

it is a form of shaving.... but at least it's out in the open where you yourself can decide whether to accept or not.

Real shaving is shady shaving where they take your commision and such

When/if you do, please post them :)

yes we need to see more sponsors that do this

bookmarking this page and getting ready to check ALL of my sponsors will post the ones i find after I delete them

Trust me... i will let it be known if/when i see some...

did you even read the fucking thread?

I only put the epoch switch codes on if theres no referer code so webmasters don't lose out.


CCBILL should accept switch / maestro.

Thats fair enough, as long the affiliate knows about it and accept it.

If the difference is the same as the uncredited sales, then I would prefer the lower payout % with cascade billing. Like you focus on costs, the affiliate focus on where to send traffic, and the better 'real' ratios the more traffic you will receive :)
Off course ratios does not matter compared to $/clicks, but if affiliates are mislead it could have opposite effect when they find out why the percentage payout is that high :upsidedow

shaving is shaving

funny how youre trying to bend the rules, ppl get bashed here due to a mailinglist link and youre trying to justify 2nd processor noone gets credited for.

Well, this is the way we progress. What's coming from this is a clear message that program owners need to create ccbill only tours for people coming in as a ccbill affiliate to force the surfer to use the biller that brought in the customer. This is good not only for the referrer, but for the biller as well. They are losing the % if they have one of their affiliates refer a program a member and the member signs up via another biller.

Nobody should have a problem with alternate cascading billers in the case of a decline though, that is just the program owner trying to save the sale from scrubbing by the biller. If ccbill fails or declines the buyer then they go to an alternate biller to give it a shot. that you just can't help. I wouldn't expect the program owner to loose the sale because it came from a ccbill affiliate and ccbill declined for some reason, but paycom for example might approved. In that example it sucks for the affiliate who sent it and didn't get credit, I always wondered what programs that didn't have a backend like NATS did about that. If the program has a backend like NATS and the affiliate is signed up for the program through their own backend then they get credit no matter what. It is just a tough situation.

I wonder if Nats can make an alteration to catch ccbill ref codes going to an alternate biller and at least alert the program owner so they can pay out properly (if it doesn't already, i'm not sure, it may although I've never seen it), especially in the case of a decline, which goes to a secondary biller.

Interesting discussion.

I can understand the point of view of the affiliate.
But if a sponsor doesn't use a secondary biller he could lose quite some sales, for several reasons. (downtime primary processor, declines by primary processor).
Maybe now the affiliate doesn't get credit for the sale, but there would have been no sale without a secondary biller at all. (as mentioned before the sponsor should give the primary biller a more prominent place on the sign up page, so the surfer would try that processor first).

Affiliates can clearly see if there's a secondary biller, so it's their choice if the want to send him traffic. Or do affiliates just sign up for a sponsor without checking his sites first.

Exactly, I think a change may be in order. Programs that use the ccbill affiliate program maybe should make a ccbill only tour. Although, you cannot do anything about a sale that's declined or doesn't go through for some reason being referred to a secondary biller to try again, that's just business. You can't expect the program to forfeit the sale completely.

If website owners want to take advantage of this, they should switch to software that does cascading, and pays the affiliate imo...

Also, the banner could be much much smalller...Now it are just 2 big buttons...

Maybe something like

BIG: JOIN HERE NOW

small If you have problems joining click here.....

That's exactly why I won't use a sponsor that uses CCbill as it's main affiliate software. Cascades count for alot of sales and so stick to sponsors using nats or MPA3.

I 100% agree with You

Exactly.

Im like WTF Paul has two processors and when they decide to signup through the non ccbill the affiliate gets no credit and everyones cool with that?

Traffic leaks suck.

Everyone doin NATS use paycom or ccbill as prim processor. So like 50% of the NATS users you promote cause you hate ccbill use the processor you dont like.

You dont need a 3rd party stats package to give credit from more than 1 processor.

Not all sponsors have the money to get Nats or MPA3 or a cascading setup.
So then the option of a big and small button is a good one in my opinion.


Btw nice thread. :thumbsup