Should we keep CCBill?
 

We've just moved over to a NATS based affiliate system, but as part of the move, I wrote a bunch of stuff to maintain compatibility with our old CCBill based program. Now that we've made the move, do you guys think it's worth maintaining the legacy program? As things stand, all the old links work and so forth, but running two programs at once is a lot of extra effort, and there's far greater chance for missing little things that break stuff.

I'm kinda leaning towards helping the old affiliates move on to NATS and dropping the old CCBill stuff, but are there webmasters out there who won't promote NATS at all? Would we be shooting ourselves in the foot a bit?

Does this mean when you close ccbill only links, the old (affiliate) links won't get credit? If so, you should keep 2 programs IMO....

Nothing is worse for affiliates to remove/change links.....

It's no trouble to keep the old links working forever - the code is written, it works, end of story. It's more for new sites we're bringing on. Is it worth doing the integration on those?

Whether it is true or not, there are many affiliates that only trust CCBill affiliate programs. If it is not a matter of trust, then they like the idea of having consolidated checks... plus the minimum is lower for newbies who don't get checks that often.

If it doesn't cost anything, I would suggest you keep both.

I like balls!

Who's your daddy ?

after doing much study, I am not sure NATS is the way to go. Seems like ccbill is. I know that wasnt your question, just thought I would chime in.

CCbill is great if you are just starting out and you don?t have the know how or funds to set your own affiliate system up.

But the usability, for an administrator?s point of view is nothing special, you obviously can?t cascade billing (which I have no idea how you are tracking) break down statistics and since you don?t host the service, there isn?t much in the way of control.

Software like Nats and Mpa3 are in a league of their own and can?t really be compared to a piece of software you don?t pay for, so we would be only keeping CCbill to keep our affiliates happy :)

rebbeca, i would like to know what some of your findings were....... this is a good point of discussion we recently made the move to nats also

http://www.swingingina.com

If you don't mind CCBill subjectively dictating to you what content is acceptable...

with CCBill, your ratios will not be good and you will make less $$$

personally I hate when programs change from ccbill codes to cascading billing and deactivate the old codes. I have better things to do then replacing codes on programs. Some like ccbill som like cascading. Let the people choose if they want to continue with old codes or not or you might end up with people boycotting your program :2 cents:

you MUST keep them

Well said:thumbsup

I can think of a few programs I dropped for making old links invalid.
Like I don't have better things to do than to go to over 100+ friggen pages & edit links

My ccbill ratios are better than my nats ratios with one particular program I promote. Actually I've never made a sale since nats was implemented..but my ccbill links continue to make sales.

imo keep them, a lot of ppl promo only ccbill

u should keep them...

[QUOTE=shack]CCbill is great if you are just starting out and you don?t have the know how or funds to set your own affiliate system up."""
>>>>>Great, you dont have to pay for CCbill. Just the Visa poo poo. :thumbsup

"""But the usability, for an administrator?s point of view is nothing special, you obviously can?t cascade billing (which I have no idea how you are tracking) break down statistics and since you don?t host the service, there isn?t much in the way of control.""""
>>>>>>>there are options for failed billing, if you need to go to another processcor. And it is trackable. Find a good programmer to set you up some cookies. I mean really, how much usability do you need? Collecting a check every week is pretty good for me. :winkwink:

"""Software like Nats and Mpa3 are in a league of their own and can?t really be compared to a piece of software you don?t pay for, so we would be only keeping CCbill to keep our affiliates happy :)"""

>>>>>>>> Because I paid for software its better? Dear lord we better do away with open source then. Why use a software that you are in full control of? Why do you need control of it so bad? I can only think of one reason and I wont spell it out.

All in all. I have pushed CCBill sites, and NATS sites. I have seen CCBill sites change to NATS and their stats for me hit the gutter. Why did that happen?

With CCbill the customers are usually in it for the long haul. I have customers from 2002.

I am not knocking NATS in any way. I still am looking at using it. I just don't see it making my pocket any fatter. And thats what it all boils down to right?

quick edit, I said you dont have to pay for CCbill. You do have processing fees as you would with any processor.:thumbsup

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (ok, here), someone started a rumor that you couldn't shave with NATS. People believed it, and that rumor persists to this day.

Sure, and we wouldn't have dicked around making sure these link will always work!

Which brings us to the point of the thread, since we've done the leg work writing our own ccbill script to run happily along side nats, should we add NEW sites to both program? Is the maintainability worth it?

:)

If you can't any added financial benfit in using it, then why would you bother.

I am still curious how you track your affiliates sales using the CCBILL affiliate system across two billers that cascade ?