Really sucks

Well Mr. Peabody I am glad you said you will stop there with the form hits....LOL

I think you do know but in case you don't mentioning "form hits percentages" has tremendous stopping power...and it is the elephant in the room THEY KNOW they cannot fuck with you on.

Like you stated clearly in your post...you can do basic math 3 sales from 4 form hits is 75%

Notice how when I challenged the big fish to post form hits perentages they run for the hills...

I know this because I too was a big fish and had days where I could do 35-40 sales a day.....WITH THE PROPER JOIN FORM SUBMISSION PERCENTAGES!!

And guess what ...that was with a mere fraction of the traffic the Big fish seem to have! A tiny fucking fraction...but I am getting off the point.

The point remains join form submission percentages,join form submission percentages,and join form submission percentages...

Now the question you must ask yourself is this is getting into dangerous territory if it has not already.

Do you really want to break down your observations and questions with join form % vs approvals vs denials and the predictable patterns we notice week in and week out.

Guess what it has nothing to do with content or niche... I know this because we recently went a few months without updating one of our sites and the monthly cumulative join form percentage did not budge and are you ready for this MR. PEABODY?????

It was fixed at an average of 25% for 4 out of past 5 months. Denial average was fixed at about 20-25% also.

So tell me Mr. Peabody isn't it strange how our traffic is varied, content is varied, updates varied but join form submission percentage average is 25% OVERALL. VERY VERY EERY coincidence....especially when you and I seem to ask the most questions about it.

We better quit now before both of our accounts get locked and we can't compare notes anymore

For the "record" - whatever that is - let me state publicly that I think CCBill is a fine company and I am very happy they are in this business, still IN business, and that they provide such a fine service.

No "but"s or "having said that"s. I mean it. Thank you CCBill.

Percentage of form hits to form submissions to form approvals (or form denials) is "the whole ballgame", in the end. BV or anyone else can cite this reason or that reason why odd sales patterns occur for some but clearly not for all, or at least not for all at the same time. But putting aside for the moment what, exactly, constitutes a 'denial', a form 'hit' and a form 'submission' - yes, I know the definitions of those words but what are the various CC processers definitions? - looking at your form hits will give you a clearer idea of what's going on. Why? Because form submissions - submitting the credit card info to the bank - IS the whole ballgame.

If I see a ton of denials or hits to the join form but no submissions or retries or whatever, I can usually surmise what needs to be tweaked to improve those numbers. But when I see form hit percentages dance like Lady Gaga on crack I do have to wonder.

NOT saying someone - in this case, CCBill - is "fucking" with me (or with anyone). Rather, I'm saying there are all kinds of "forces" that must be considered and dealt with but most importantly understood so someone like myself (the 'small' business owner) can do what so many on here insist we all do every damn day: adapt or die.

</rant>

I am close to giving up on pushing ccbill sites.

I don't have huge sales but I have always done fine for myself. This past 3 months has been pathetic as a ccbill affiliate.

Sponsors which used to conver at 1:500 in 2010 or lower are not converting at all this year.

I know it's early but still terrible.

Well I used to feel like that, and would love to have that feeling again, but what will it take to get the join form submission percentage issue addressed or corrected?

Its easy for people to say use someone else...for whatever reasons customers trust ccbill and prefer ccbill...so to simply just stop using them is impractical and still offers no explanation as to why the join form submission percentages dance all over like Peabody said like LAdy Gaga on Crack.

What happened 2 weeks ago booming....past 2 weeks dead? How is it we see the same slow down and same submission percentage fluctuations Mr. Peabody?/ I mean how hard is it to get this resolved. We clearly are not blind.

Clearly been in the game long enough to know better. What could it be? We really don't want any problems just want to get on with our business but this issue we cannot seem to get a clear answer for.

Mr. Peabody,

Let's shed some light on "form hits" and the % that go to submission.

You say you woke up to 8% down from 25%.

That's an overall average on all your sites / subaccounts.

Drill down and click on "subaccount" and break down the stats by subaccounts.

You will find that they drastically vary from site to site.

Mine vary from .98% to 8.67%.

My point being, that really it means shit.

Anything can load a join form. Anyone from Achmed in Iran, MSN bot, Google bot, etc etc etc....

It really means shit.

You bring up some fair points BV but let me shed some light on your shed light, so to speak. :)

My sites are amazingly consistant. So I know which sites do well and which ones struggle. Overall, yes, averages will vary when all 24 sites are taken into consideration. But I mainly focus on the 7 or 8 that bring in the majority of my business. For each of those sites, form submission percentages are down. Take just my top three sites. They are ALL down significantly this past week.

But it's not the number of form HITS that really matter, that's just the starting point. The whole ballgame is how many of those forms get SUBMITTED (and then accepted or rejected, and for what reason).

Maybe BV does attempt to play devils advocate and bring up a fair point, but the issue still is the join form submission percentages... which I hammer non stop!

If its the tubes, if its the economy, if its the banks,if its visa, if its the freaking postman or whatever you want to blame the poor site design, poor content,saturated niche whatever then why why why why

Would you believe...
1. that other online shoppers would go to amazon,walmart, search for item...which is akin to taking a tour on adult site

2. Find that item and decide to purchase... meaning add coffee maker to shopping cart..shopping cart meaning click on our join form in adult biz

3. Then get all the way to the point where they have to submit credit card to buy coffee maker...in our world submit cc details into join form

4. Then before clicking complete purchase just say nahhhhhhhhh I don't want that coffee maker... in our world not submitting the join form

5. Who does that?? How normal is that when I am going to buy something online I don't visit "checkout page" and just cancel at last minute. ESPECIALLY IF ITS A TARGETED ITEM like in our world a specific website membership is a targeted item!

6.So thats what we are expected to believe customers go pass our tours, consider buying enough to click on join page, then get to form and say nahhh I don't want that coffee maker

I know that's a bizarre analogy but it is relative we are talking online sales behavior.

When I go online to order a book, a cd, concert tickets... I don't go all the way to where my credit card info is asked for and then say nahhhhhh nevermind. Maybe some do but not the majority.

And then we are expected to believe people like Peabody, MCfadden, myself, and others that on the same days all of our customers went to the checkout page(our join form) to get a coffee maker then said nahhhhh I don't need to buy that coffee maker today...(submission percentages all drop on same days)

Yeah I'll just come back tomorrow and buy the coffee maker than simultaneously it seems like after a sudden drop to low single digit submission percentages 0-8% it shoots back up to 30-35%

You can't explain that away on tubes,poor content,visa rules,etc. there are other possible explanations and those are what we desperately seek...sensible explanations that appeal to our logic and do not insult our intelligence!

Again on certain days the join form submission percentages drop unusually low..and backup processors seem to have flurry of sales when normally are flat.

Come ON...all you got to do is connect dots and think.

Been a horrible week here, but to be fair I normally find the third week of most months to be a struggle.

I run a denial report to compare:
feb 1-20 - 104 failed $3,549
mar 1-20 - 95 failed $3,233

So denials are down, traffic and hits are up, buggers just aren't biting in this past week!

Have you considered cascading billing with CCBill to see how many of the declines from CCBill get picked up by another processor?

Do you have a leak free tour for affiliates to use?

Just had a look at what I think is the affiliate tour. It is loaded with traffic leaks. IS there a 100% leak-free tour for affiliates to use other than this, http://saraswirls.com/affiliate1.htm ?

The very first link on that page takes you off the tour. Not very good :)

We're processing sales fine, everything from a $2.95 trial to a $300 content store order. Those that don't bounce to Epoch, if they turn them down I'm able to send them alternatives for the stores. For the paysite 2 refusals is enough.

On my end sales were good till the Japan drama. Last week was really bad.

I run some reports:

MARCH 2011 (1-20)
14,70% form submissions - 64,29% approved

FEB 2011
16,29% form submissions - 86,11% approved

JAN 2011
18,04% form submissions - 75,56% approved

DEC 2010
15,03% form submissions - 83.33% approved

NOV 2010
18% form submissions - 69,44% approved

OCT 2010
18,34% form submisssions - 86,11% approved

looks like I cursed myself..... we cascade ccbill to epoch, the closest sales ratio I ever saw in 2.5 years with this setup was 2 ccbill sales for every 1 epoch, it normally hovers around 8:1... today 1:7 WTF?!? 1 ccbill sale compared with 7 new epoch sales, its not even that easy to get to our epoch page!

Many Thanks for posting those Amadrec

Thats the data we should try and compare when we have concerns.... here are mine for past 5 months

nov. 2010 26% submissions 84% approvals

Dec 2010 23% submissions 82% approvals

Jan 2011 16% submissions 87% approvals

Feb. 2011 26% submissions 76% approvals

mar 2011 22% submissions 80% approvals


Now what I have trouble with and I hope you can follow me is that when you look at these numbers they seem somewhat stable on the surface but here 2 things that concern us about these reports...

1. Now this is a critical point here please follow me...

For the months of...
Nov 2010
Dec 2010
jan 2011
Feb 2011

For reasons beyond my control there were no site updates what so ever for 4 months. However even with no updates the MONTHLY JOIN FORM SUBMISSION PERCENTAGES seems relatively steady based on form hits to submissions versus approvals.

2.Now site was finally updated beginning of march and was very very active until about 2 weeks ago.

Strangely the join form submission percentage remains close to 25% submissions with 80% approvals

Now I also feel it is necessary to mention this cumulative join form submissions for 4 years in a row

2005 30-35% join form submissions

2006 30-35% join form submissions

2007 30-35% join form submissions

2008 30-35% join form submissions

The average was 30% for those four years of yearly submission percentages!

So the question we had was how do you explain that kind of recurring join form percentage when traffic was doubling or quadrupling, updates were changing, tours were changing but during those years the submission percentages magically evened out!!

HELL WOULDN'T A RATIONAL PERSON EXPECT ONE YEAR TO BE DEVIATION OR INCREASE TO 45% OR 50% I MEAN 30% FOR 4 YEARS IN A ROW???

No matter what new affiliates you had, no matter where your traffic was coming from, no matter how often you updated the numbers still were fixed at an average of 30% join form submissions for each of those years.

The question was asked to ccbill MANAGER how can you explain this constant and seemingly fixed number of 30% for each year when all of these other variables (traffic,affiliates,updates,content) were changing and not constant?

Well ccbill rep SKILLFULLY provided two answers...that did not in fact answer anything!

1. First he said well if you are stuck at 30% just increase your traffic and your sales should go up! Well hello genuis we had increased it,decreased it,quadrupled it you name it and the numbers were still fixed at 30%

2. He said well we are APPROVING 80% of your transactions which is a damn good amount! In his mind, as long as they were approving 80% that was an outstanding joib for them

So back to my recent stats how is it that for 4 months with no updates the percentages still seem to reach their new averages of 25% submissions?

If I read the data correctly its telling me thru ccbill no matter how much traffic you send to form, no matter how many affiliates you have, no matter whether you update or not, you still seem to magically arrive at BASELINE percentage averages 25-30% submissions

Regardless of what work you put in to get that traffic to the signup form.

Now it is our contention that the only way to arrive at these fixed numbers is to have throughput maximized when your form hits are MINIMIZED.... and then to have through put MINIMIZED when your form hits are MAXIMIZED

I don't have the answers to why this is happening but when we check and recheck our stats especially the past year or so days when form hits are MAXIMIZED
the join form submission % seems to go down.

If for some reason the join form submission percentage does not go down with the extra form hits, then the approvals go down and denials go up.

I don't know what else to say on it...I would like to know with all the changing variables how do we arrive at a seemingly fixed amount of submission percentages over the long haul?

Its a fair and reasonable question and does not mean anybody is being accused of anything. It means why work on traffic, why work on content, why work on affiliates, if the numbers are going to stay constant and average.

No updates....same traffic 25% join submission.....fresh updates same traffic 25% join form submissions

I never ever looked into the section of form hits and form submissions and approvals but since this thread I do.
Now I saw something strange:

Yesterday I had 5 sales and 3 rebills = 8 sales.
In the report I see there were 9 form submissions and 100% approval = 9 but I have only 8 sales. How can this be?

If I were seeing those kinds of numbers SwirlsGirl I'd immediately do the following (and apologies if you are doing or have done this):

Create a mirror tour - same exact tour but with an Epoch-only Join option, no cascade - and split test that baby! Take a week and let 50% of your surfers go to Tour A (the CCBill tour) and 50% go to Tour B (the Epoch tour) and then compare notes. Hit up Woj for a great A-B script if y'all don't have one yet. :)

Perhaps you see immediate sales jumps whenever you update, many sites do, but I've found there IS a bit of a mysterious 'lag time' between when I update a site and when new sales start to come flooding in based on those updates. But given the numbers you quoted I would split test immediately to get to the bottom of all that. Good luck!

Bump for this. I know you are probably wrapped up in the stats issue, but I am curious about aff tour?

Sorry DA, was getting around to replying to your post...as far as my affiliate tour its like this...there have been times where its was 100% leak free then times where one would say a few traffic leaks...personally I have a different philosophy on so called "traffic leaks" you see we also promote other interracial,amatuer,hot wife, and cuckold sites some with "traffic leaks" some without and case in point

we have several sites we promote with multiple traffic leaks and multiple billing options on join page and as crazy as it sounds they make more money for us than even the most professional looking site with zero traffic leaks and arguably the biggest interracial network on the web.

So I have my reasons for not adhering to the I can't push that site because it has leaks attitude.

I understand the concept and concern but I am here to assure you that at the end of the day I will take 200.00 a week from site "A" with 10 traffic leaks as opposed to 20.00 a week from site "B" with ZERO traffic leaks.

Thats just my preference.

I don't have any affiliates complaining and I feel its because they also realize a surfer is going to join because of your hot video clip preview, or photo previews and really is not going to let a petty traffic leak disuade them from wanting to see that content.

Hope I have answered your question. When I have affiliates sending traffic and as you know many many people are sayin they are not making shit with ccbill anymore, I would say its not because of leaks we are still sending clicks to join pages..

.thats the bottom line its the join form submissions...IE this is where we can not track what happens to surfers and what they do when they leave our join pages and go to ccbill pages.

Thats the big mystery and we have no way to verify what the surfer does or does not do. There fore we are at the mercy of the stats reports that are provided for us.

Thanks Peabody for the heads up and yes we are working on another solution I am still getting emails from customers who cannot login been 4 days in a row. So there is a problem of some sort and with all the work I have to do this issue is a thorn in my side because there is a little more to the puzzle about those join form submissions.

They are aware as I have bought this issue before them, and let me tell you when you ask some one a direct question, and you watch them squirm and wiggle and dance around the question you know you are on to something.

It only makes you more hungry and more curious about why you cannot get a straight answer.

Its not as simple as move along... I want that answer even if I don't get it today, tomorrow or next week...my question will be answered one way or another at some point in time.

Thanks for the reply.

Hey well I can do you one even better than that AMADREC you ask how can you have a 100% showing in your form hits submission...

Well I ask the question before how can you have a 150% join form submission percentage?

I mean if you have a 100% join form submission percentage that means every single submission is accounted for right?

Lets say you have 100% form submission on 10 form hits. 5 were from different surfers and then 5 were from same surfer multple attempts. Would the percentage still be 100%

5 out of 10 possible submissions is 50% so 5 more would be 100%.... So how could you ever expect to look at your form hits and see 150% submissions.

That tells me that every form hit made a submission and then there were submissions made "beyond" the clicks on the form....hmmmmm

Well I know basic math and I know that 100% means 100% If my gas tank is at 100% capacity, is there a way for me to add 50% more gas??

100% of your monday sales being approved means you have every sale approved for that day! So how could you mathematically have a number of 150% of your sales approved? I say anomaly... others say glitch, bug,error damn right its a gltich

Ask your billers to rebuild your HTA Access files for you, this should clear up the can't login issues your members are having. Make sure you get the Epoch list to give to CCBill so no one gets lost in the cracks. LOL

Groundhog Day...
 

You must have the ABSOLUTE WORST luck of anyone in the entire adult industry. Or you are the epitome of chicken little on GFY when it comes to processing and making money. Just a brief snap shot for da ladies...

* VEROTEL NEGATIVE INVOICE BULL SHIT
* Verotel .... No more refunds please...fix isue I have emailed you about
* interesting clips4sale anomaly waiting for answer...
* Verotel...inside please!!
* The pull zombaio links thread
* trouble loggin in to ADULT FRIEND FINDER
* ADBRITE sham operation
* Password By Phone Please step Inside!!
* Hotmovies.com Payouts for March???

....and now CCBill. Although you have a number of those threads as well.

You seem to have problems with EVERYONE you do business with. You then run to GFY and make a thread about it in some sort of smear campaign each time. More often than not, resulting in it being nothing more than a storm in a tea cup and you get paid like everyone else.
:disgust

I've seen potential affiliates bring it up at least four times on GFY. You seem like an intelligent person so I'm sure you realize that for every one person bringing it up here 10 - 100 have likely noticed it and said nothing while perhaps deciding not to promote you.

You have a decent niche site and you are actively involved in keeping it going on a daily basis. Those are strong pluses these days when many niche sites haven't been updated in three years. That said I bet you'd get a lot more affiliates if you fixed some of the issues relevant to affiliates.

If you ever decide to take action and have some spare resources to pay for some design tweaks it wouldn't be that hard to make a leak free tour only for your affiliates (they could pass in the url using the &HTML= parameter of the ccbill link) while keeping the same design for your type-ins. I think you could be pleasantly surprised by the reaction from potential and existing affiliates. Especially in these times.

I'm working on leak-free tours for my affiliates beginning in May, when the PeabodyCash relaunch happens. It really doesn't involve much design work other than removing links. LOL Okay, maybe a little tweaking here and there but totally doable, and well worth it to keep affiliates happy. Heck, even if an affiliate chooses not to use the leak-free option it must still be nice, knowing it's there and that the program owner gives a shit about affiliates' needs at all. I would assume. :)

Now that says what? Quite the contrary this business even with the headaches and nuisances has been very very good to me! Lets get that straight and in more ways than one. The fact that I come to gfy to post about gripes is not attention seeking, with all due respect there is no shortage or lack of attention I am getting in my world. Just know that gotdamnit...Idon't need GFY for attention..so clearly you misunderstand my motives.

Yes the business has been good but in many ways it has been disappointing. I like many have been burned by 10,000's of thousands and when I come here to post about my concerns or gripes it is for the following reasons...

I have learned you have to constantly remind many of the companies especially compnies collecting your money...you cannot cut them a drop of slack. They must be reminded constantly that they work for you and you will not accept funny weird bizarre looking stats, payout delays or ineptitude.

You have to remember barepussies that we have no real trade association or members guild where we can get together and offer support and brain storm and trouble shoot. GFY is the closest thing we have without having to pay membership to some of the coalitions.

I learned long ago that all industries should have an association to ensure that our interests are being protected and addressed fairly and squarely across the board.

See its sheep like you who would say she deserves her payouts to be short because she is always bitchin...

Inversely I would say that no matter how we feel about other webmasters when we are facing issues with billing companies,traffic companies, or any perceived threat we should stand as one and put our bull shit aside.

You should be glad that someone comes here and expresses discontent or disatisfaction

There is not one post ever in my GFY career that was made without merit, without real concern, and without reasonable suspicion. So please stop acting like I am the black sheep no pun intended...

Even with my gripes my years in this business have surpassed my wildest expectations and I if it ended tomorrow I would still be forever grateful for the ride.

It has enabled me to dramatically increase and enhance the quality of life and time spent with my loved ones and what could matter more?

I have never lied or besmirched any individual or company that I have posted about. If I was promised a payment on the 15th and the payment is not here on 16th I expect an explanation. If no explanation is available then I come to GFY to try and get explanation. I will continue to do so whether you like it or not. Got that?

Yes, exactly. :) It feels more like a partnership and less like someone might be trying to take advantage of you. It can mean a lot.

you are the camgirls of billing.

Now that one's gotta hurt. :D

Hey signupdamit, I appreciate everything you said and can definitely feel the sincerity in your post! I also have respect for you and your posts most of which I do try to follow.

You are one of several whose posts I try to follow and value your judgment and wisdom displayed on the boards.

Sure I will be the first to admit we could stand to redo the tour and leave it leak free. The problem is I have done that before and really honestly didnot notice a jump in affiliate signups. Sure I was expecting a bunch of new affiliates because I offered a leak free tour but surprisingly there just does not seem to be a big noticeable difference.

Like I said I care about affiliate satisfaction like everyone else and if you or others are considering promoting us I would be weilling to create a seperate and custom tour page with custom content or whatever.

I mean Its just me an hubby running this from top to bottom and we really are overwhelmed and can never seem to get around to making all of the changes we want to implement.

Right now my affiliates are bringing in the larger part of my traffic and I have ccbill on the affiliate tour page for them to use. For whatever reason the form hits are there but the signups are not. I have my suspicions but without anything concrete they just remain suspicions.

I appreciate the fact that you can and do recognize I have some intelligence and have put my heart and soul into my work. At the end of the day what keeps us in this business is not so much the income anymore...

I mean its income and it helps out, but our passion does lie with the lifestyle and trying to capture and illustrate the lifestyle in a entertaining yet raw stunning fashion. It is the feedback and kindness from my fans,members,and friends that keeps us motivated to do this.

The sad paradox for us is that we get more emails, Im's, real fan mail, kudos now than we ever have. More and more people are finding about our work, and are giving us strong support to not stop, but sadly for us the revenue is dropping to levels that seem suspiciously low.

We are under no illusions about the economy and the mysterious shadowy world of credit card "processing" online banking...credit issuance etc.

Having said all of that we keep grinding day after day trying to do the best we can with what we have. We are goingback to the drawing board and will try to implement some ideas that have been in development.

Thats all we can do is hang in and try to maintain.

thanks again for your sincerity!

Part of the thing I suspect you get around here SwirlsGirl is that:

A. You're a Girl - gasp!
B. You also produce the content you sell on your site.

So you're not an affiliate, tho you are (kind of) for yourself, and you're not a content provider, tho you are, of course, you run a program, a paysite, and you're a woman. LOL Kind of like me except not a chick and times all that by 24. LOL

My focus is slightly larger than yours, tho not as wide as many on here, as I do not focus on one single site. So 'odd patterns' for me, as BV pointed out, are differant than those for a single site, or a smaller number of sites. What I'm saying is that everyone's online sales experiences are differant so it's very hard to find exact matches as examples.

Doing all sides of the business is extremely difficult and burns out many, many couples. Good luck to you and your hubby, trying to build your business and walk the talk by filming your lifestyle. :)

CCBill sales have been unusually good for a Monday. I'm happy :pimp

Just seeing this post for the first time....really left a big smile on my face! Much love to you for that:) I have tremendous respect for you, and love your wit and sense of humour!