I have a question — last week Scarlet announced in the Traffic Leak Problem Solved thread that TIMrev had installed the “Track and Strack” feature to their NATS affiliate software.
What is this? What does it do, and should NATS-based affiliate programs have it?
I get the impression that it allows the tracking so that if I sent a referral to TIMfuck and they clicked over to TreasureIslandMedia.com to buy a DVD, it would properly follow and credit any eligible referrals.
If most NATS sites do not have this installed, I’m concerned. For BigBling, if I send someone to Cockyboys and they click to buy something on StudMall, will it track? What about HelixStudios.net and someone avails themselves of their inexpensive DVDs/toys at their Mankind Video store?
Re: What Is the Importance of Tracks and Strack in NATS?
Geez, you are a ray of sunshine Steve. Now you got me wondering if all those other programs do indeed carry things through, if its as you say. Maybe some of the other program owners can respond, or the so called NATs affecienado’s? Despite the archaic ccBill system, it is looking better with each new revelation of NATs improper set ups.
It’s basically a way for sponsors to link to other sites in their network with preserving the original affiliate cookie. It’s the same functionality as marking your internal accounts as “in house”.
So for example if I want to link from Staxus to Homoactive and make sure the original affiliate that referred a member to Staxus also gets credited for Homoactive sales, I can use a strack instead of track inside the link.
Another way to do it (my favourite) is using in-house affiliate accounts.
This works by creating an affiliate account (e.g. "internal traffic) and marking it as “in-house” in the backend. I then link from Staxus to Homoactive by using a normal track link with the affiliate “internal traffic” code. But if a regular affiliate sends a member to Staxus, and then he clicks a link marked as “internal traffic”, the original affiliate will still get credited for the sale as his cookie is more “important” than the “in house” affiliate cookie.
I prefer in-house internal affiliate accounts as I can filter in the reporting tool and see how many sales the internal accounts brought us and what is the ratio between our sites and our internal traffic.
Hope I explained this well. But as I mentioned in the begining, these features are not new to NATS, they have been there for ages.
Re: What Is the Importance of Tracks and Strack in NATS?
[QUOTE=andreiDL;147725]
It’s basically a way for sponsors to link to other sites in their network with preserving the original affiliate cookie. It’s the same functionality as marking your internal accounts as “in house”.[/QUOTE]
So if I’m understanding you correctly there is NO difference between the two as far as the affiliate is concerned?
If an affiliate sends a visitor to site A who then clicks out on a (supposed) in-house track link to site A’s store/network site how can the affiliate know this track is an in-house account that won’t overwrite their affiliate cookie?
I’m thinking there is no way for the affiliate to know and this is why NATS has strack. Meaning if I send a visitor to site A and they click out to site A’s store/network via a strack I will then see that click information within NATS? Just guessing here but to me if they have two different methods there has to be a difference someplace between how the two work?
Re: What Is the Importance of Tracks and Strack in NATS?
Hi Kevin!
I apologize, after reading my post again I realise it’s confusing.
Strack - this is what you use when linking Site A to Site B under the same sponsor. This make sure if Affiliate X sends a member to Site A and then the member shops / joins on Site B, X still gets the money.
In-House - this is what you use when linking inside the same site. For example on Site A I might create several affiliate accounts and mark them as in-house. These can be “Blog” “Homepage Banners” and so on. If I sent a member from the Blog to the main site, via an “in house” marked affiliate account, that member will be registered under “blog” unless he’s already registered under a normal affiliate account. So if Affiliate X sent that member to the site a while ago and that member comes to the blog and back to the site again, even if he clicks a link tracked as “blog”, the original affiliate will still get the rebill under his account.
You can use in-house accounts for multiple needs, e.g. you can use one for the homepage banners to check their ratio. They are mostly used for internal reporting (e.g. how many sales we have from that banner, how many sales from the blog and so on). if you mark them as “in-house” they will not replace the original affiliate cookie. If you do, they will.
Strack is only for linking between separate sites, programs and tours. So for example if I want to see how many sales site A generates for site B, I use a strack link from an internal affiliate account. Otherwise they will all look like “Type-In” or Direct Traffic and although I can use google analytics, NATS is much better as it provides sales amounts and ratios, not only the traffic we send in-between our network of sites. Using a strack link also means the original affiliate gets credited with the sale.
Re: What Is the Importance of Tracks and Strack in NATS?
strack is for cross linking sites and maintaining the original NATS cookie back and forth. That is different from marking an internal NATS account as “in-house”. To make sure you are giving proper credit to an affiliate you need to use both.
I know we’ve had this discussion before, but…marking internal accounts as “in-house” also ensures the affiliate gets credit if the customer quits and then re-joins. When we send expired customers re-join emails the original affiliate still gets credit for that re-join sale. You’ll be able to see it in NATS as “Win-back” in our set-up.
So strack is for maintaining NATS cookie state across domains, while “in-house” ensures the original affiliate cookie doesn’t get overwritten by an internal tracking account. You need to use both…
HunkyLuke is really knowledgeable about all this, he’s the one that helped us set-up our NATS system.
Re: What Is the Importance of Tracks and Strack in NATS?
I have a possible suggestion to the moderators and for all the affiliates on GayDemon - what if there was a sub-board devoted to the topic of “Affiliate Program Self-Audits” — anytime someone is unsure if an affiliate program is working / tracking properly, whenever someone makes a test purchase, they can report the case and document whether or not it is working properly.
This board could also document “success stories” of test purchases too.
I could have done this last December when I clicked through my TIMrev links to buy a jockstrap, and which didn’t track. At least I could have documented my case here, and we can crowdsource some help. It’s like we’re always starting back over at Square One.
I don’t think affiliate programs should be always on the defensive, but on the other hand there is obviously a lack of scrutiny because we see various affiliate programs that end up not tracking properly for months/years and nobody discovers it. And usually it takes a discovery like this for us to communicate the problem to the programmers and fix it.
It sounds like TitanMen and Staxus have properly setup NATS and are implementing all of its features (customers can quit and rejoin!!!) — but not everyone has the foresight to hire Luke to do this.
Re: What Is the Importance of Tracks and Strack in NATS?
[QUOTE=desslock;147766]I have a possible suggestion to the moderators and for all the affiliates on GayDemon - what if there was a sub-board devoted to the topic of “Affiliate Program Self-Audits” — anytime someone is unsure if an affiliate program is working / tracking properly, whenever someone makes a test purchase, they can report the case and document whether or not it is working properly.
This board could also document “success stories” of test purchases too.
I could have done this last December when I clicked through my TIMrev links to buy a jockstrap, and which didn’t track. At least I could have documented my case here, and we can crowdsource some help. It’s like we’re always starting back over at Square One.
I don’t think affiliate programs should be always on the defensive, but on the other hand there is obviously a lack of scrutiny because we see various affiliate programs that end up not tracking properly for months/years and nobody discovers it. And usually it takes a discovery like this for us to communicate the problem to the programmers and fix it.
It sounds like TitanMen and Staxus have properly setup NATS and are implementing all of its features (customers can quit and rejoin!!!) — but not everyone has the foresight to hire Luke to do this.
Steve[/QUOTE]
Great idea!! NATS is quite complicated and does not have great documentation. Programs really need to bring in a NATS specialist to help them set-up and fine tune their NATS config. NATS is a great tool as long as its set-up right and you know how to use it.
We’ve had over 1000+ win-backs in the first few months of this year. There is a lot of money to be made for both the company and affiliates with win-back offers. NATS has a great system to automate the sending of the win-back emails to expired users. But, its only as good as its being used, and set-up properly to credit the original affiliate.
