Real-Time STATS (discussion)
 

How many of you actually USE real-time stats from the programs you promote, to make decisions about your methods and as part of your daily "work" routine?

Do you REALLY rely on real-time data to optimize campaigns, make changes, etc.?

Or do you just like to sit by your stats page and be able to hit "Refresh" and see the numbers change (between GFY postings)?

I know what category I'm in -- just curious what y'all do.

Tell.



j-

YARGH! I used to. My sales are fairly consistent. If sales seem to be slowing down, I'll look into it more closely, and adjust as neccesary.

I used to be a stats junky, it was a hard monkey to break, but now I barely look at my stats at all.

Real time stats I guess would be good for timed events, perhaps it is wiser to think of it as an tool/instrument butnot one for all uses or general use.

I mean at the end of the day stats will be same but if your doing live promotions coordination with television broadcasts or what not I guess a real time tool is useful.

But if your in that range your probably watching your hits out in real time as well. I guess it depends on alot of things to make the decision to watch real time.

I don't need real time stats. I only check stats about twice a day.

What I do like is detailed stats though.

Is that because you don't HAVE to anymore (because your shit's all set up right and in the hands of ONLY people you trust)?

OR...

Because you don't care enough about it anymore, feel that sponsor accountability is a lost cause -- and because you've moved most of your LARGER eggs into safer baskets, anyway?


j-

I know when I'm working (which i havent done in about 6 weeks) if I have realtime stats, i can tell within an hour if what i'm doing is having a positive effect or not. I know my traffic that well, and I know what they want.

So yeah, realtime stats are important to me when I'm tweaking things and building stuff. But otherwise, its not that big of a deal.

I usually look at an week to see how i'm doing with a specific sponsor. Mainly because there is no consistancy whatsoever, for example i brought in 24 sales yesterday, while the day before that i did 3 sales with exactly the same traffic

hmmm, good question. It depends, pretty much if we are talking about my stats with other programs or for my AVS.

I admit that I do check my stats for SexPicturesPass a couple times a day, because I get these new guys that spring out of nowhere, and it is kind of fun watching their payouts go up.

Up until the beginning of the year, I never really promoted other people's programs, but since I have gotten into this blogging craze, I now find myself promoting well over a dozen different sponsors, with a few dozen different sites. With them I don't really bother checking for a couple reasons.

1. My blog is not sending TGP quantities of traffic, it is more like SE numbers (lower qhantity, higher quality). So I don't really think it is fair to judge a sponsor after relatively low numbers of hits.

2. There are so many things going on that I really don't have time to go open up every program and see what is happening.

3. I have goodgirl there to tell me who is converting, and I in turn make more blog entries where I can upsell their particular program a little more than someone elses.

4. I pretty much limit the programs I sign up for to people that I know . . . and like. There are one or two big programs where I don't know the owner, but have a good rep, and I might promote them, but for the most part I know who I am dealing with, so I guess there is a certain amount of built in trust.

I don't think real time stats are essential. Detailed stats are far more important. I think hourly updates would be fine. I mean, if you had substantial traffic, you'd be able to tell within an hour or two if what you changed had a positive or negative effect.

I don't have substantial traffic though, so i can't really say for sure. What do you think MrPheer? Would hourly updates be enough? Half hourly? Or is real time really essential for that sort of tweaking?

even with substaintial traffic it takes a day or two at a min- you can't make decisions min to min or hour to hour.

exactly, that is why with blog traffic I figure I can give a sponsor a month before I decide to stop pushing him as hard

A MONTH!!??

I realize it has something to do with the absolute volume of traffic (in your case) and the rate of delivery, but...

That's still unfathomable to me.

How can it be, in this age of real-time stock quotes and Bloomberg and a thousand other high-tech information delivery systems (all aimed at keeping the business-person informed and on top) that WE (the most advanced practioners in the art of turning traffic into money) are so loathe to think of our traffic as investment capital, and bring to its management the same attention and analysis we would give to our stocks and bonds?



j-

Laziness is a factor for sure...lol


but you answered your question yourself..there is but a small handful of people who would have the traffic volume required to warrant watching their stats and making changes to increase performance on a constant basis.


It is an opportunity cost...if you spent all day worrying about whether or not you have lost on sale due to low conversions that day...you will miss out on the chance to create more traffic and get more sales the next...etc


I would suggest everyone come up with their own solution to watch their numbers....many sponsors count differently but you should be able to at least monitor uniques on a 24 hour rolling clock



Ok im off to find a mcdonalds in korea....ive already lost llike five pounds...they keep feeding me healthy foods..lol

Primarily because I promote a different sponsor with each entry. They may only get two entries in that month, and sometimes it takes a while for the SE spiders to catch up.

I don't know about that. Say you were to change the wording of a text link, and you were to have 50 thousand hits in an hour, and sent 5 thousand hits to a sponsor. 10% CTR. Change the link for the next hour. Get 40 thousand hits that hour and get say, 6000 clicks. 15% CTR. Once you start getting into that sort of volume, the numbers become more consistent. So that kind of jump in CTR would be very meaingful, even over 1 hour. I mean, with low volumes of traffic, your CTR from hour to hour is going to vary quite a bit. But once you get into those big numbers... If it's 10 percent one hour, it's going to be very close to 10 percent the next hour. So i think any changes would have a fairly immediate impact on stats.

I think high volume guys could definitley benefit from monitoring changes on an hourly or half hourly basis while tweaking their pages.

Bump for a great discussion!

i want real-time or at least 2-3hours delayed...I rarely get suprised from the results of a sponsor cause i know well my traffic, so this specific rule applies when i test something new.

I check my stats a lot, which i am trying to break the habit. I also deal with blogs and it hurts your feelings, and if you blog and check stats a lot, you will get discouraged, because it is about patience with blogging. imo

I still watch my stats pretty closely, but it's for out of interest than using them to adjust....unless of course they change a lot!

not that much, but im still looking at least one time/day

with adwords campaigns where you are buying traffic, real time stats can be very valuable. I don't pay as much for traffic in the very early US hours as I do in the evening hours.

I have to disagree here.

I know my traffic well enough that I can make a decision based on an hour or two when I have realtime stats to look at. Been doing it for years.

However with AFF, it did take a couple of days to decide, because they dont have realtime stats.

to some people;
Ever here of statsremote.. It just came out 5 years ago.

Traffic IS money. Therefore, when your traffic quality and quantity are reasonably constant, real time stats are invaluable. As soon as you spot a trend developing, you can replicate the page/method if it's positive or tweak the text or sponsor if it's negative. This minimizes any losses to the value of your traffic.

Of course if the shoe is on the other hand... you need to be reasonably certain before getting out the scalpel that it is not a temp bump/dump and maybe you should just sit tight and ride it out.