Mecca Games

[loquax]

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Is it just me or is there anyone else who just can't access Mecca Games via buy.at links or directly?

I can't get into Bluesq either - I can get into Hardrock Casino though?

Also anyone seen any conversions with Mecca recently..

Jason

[Wardy]

Links work for me. It's not loaded that fast but it's loaded.
Last conversion I had was on the 10th, but as I don't do that many I can't spot any downturns sorry.

Cheers
Wardy

[loquax]

Thanks..

I've emailed Mecca Games to see if they know of any problem and also posted on our forums to see if any of our users have the same problem?

Jason

[John]

Mecca & BlueSq links are working fine for me, and we've had 2 Mecca sales so far today.

[Supercod]

Having just looked at the stats for this month I have to say it's been total pants for me this month.. 2 sales on the 7th and that is it. 328 clicks and 2 sales, something is not right.

I would like to know reasons for rejected sales, I think they would be helpful in planning what is spend on promoting or not promoting them.

Here is some stats from my site.

Percentage of clicks that become sales.

Mar 04 - 0.61% (only half way in to the month)
Feb 04 - 2.21%
Jan 04 - 2.18%
Dec 03 - 6.40%

My EPC

Mar 04 - £12.08
Feb 04 - £44.12
Jan 04 - £43.55
Dec 03 - £128.06

Percentage of sales that get rejected.

Mar 04 - 0% (rejects for Mar are done in April)
Feb 04 - 36.84%
Jan 04 - 32.43%
Dec 03 - 0%

So taking into account that March is not over so rejected commissions won't show until next month and the month is still not over so sales may pick up.

However the question has to be asked by me at least why is the percentage of clicks to sales dropping and why is the percentage of rejections going up?

This is one of these moments you would love to see EPC worked out over all affiliates for each month just to see if the general pattern is the same or not.

Jason, Wardy and John care to share the figures. Would be more handy if someone pointed this out on Friday as we could have got Malcolm to look into it just in case.. as always I reserve the right that my traffic and PPC targeted clicks might be just crap this month.. But you never know.. in the past I seen sites working on a hosting cluster that have the tracking code in 3 of the servers and missing from 1 of them so 1/4 of sales don't track but no one is any wiser when it happens as sales still show, it's just they are down a bit on normal so could be other factors but I am not saying that is what is going on here, like I said it could be nothing but worth checking.

[Malcolm Cowley]

Hi

I will look into this for you on Monday guys.

[Supercod]

Thanks will save me calling you on Monday

[DaveR]

I've posted my details below. I'm seeing a lower clicks:sales ratio over the past few months also. No problems with sales rejections however.

The latter months I'm dealing with smaller numbers of visitors (google ) so satistically more likely to show a bigger variance.

Percentage of clicks that become sales.

Mar 04 - 5.26%
Feb 04 - 5.94%
Jan 04 - 7.14%
Dec 03 - 8.53%


EPC
Mar 04 - £105.26
Feb 04 - £118.81
Jan 04 - £140.86
Dec 03 - £170.62

No rejected sales.

[loquax]

One sale in today so that's ok - reset my router, cleared cookies... can't access the sites still though.

Stats - conversion ratio

March - 0.5%
Feb - 1.25%
Jan - 0.6%
Dec - 0.7%

Now my figures are well skewed as we do deliver a lot of users just interested in the monthly competition, but in that mix are some better targetted traffic from bingo/gaming areas but that doesn't really improve things.

I did read that Mecca had found that their target audience was different to what they'd expected (guys rather than the bingo & game loving 25-40 yr old female group) and that may be a factor in conversion on Mecca vs other sites.

Most certainly I don't find the program as productive as it was under Rank at TD.

One possibility (and this may tie in with the above) is the creative is aimed at a "free £10 bet" - which suggests a betting site rather than gaming. None of the creative offers "bingo" (and iirc there was a good stack of Millionaire bingo banners when Rank was with TD).

Jason

[John]

My EPC's:
Nov 2003: £58.82
Dec 2003: £111.11
Jan 2004: £66.04
Feb 2004: £22.12
March 2004: £53.41

Percentage of Rejected Sales:
Nov 2003: 0%
Dec 2003: 0%
Jan 2004: 21%
Feb 2004: 50%
March 2004: 0%

[pericom]

DEC 2003 - EPC £ 141.18

JAN 2004 - EPC £ 81.87

FEB 2004 - EPC £ £ 55.05

MAR 2004 - EPC £ 0.00

My EPC is falling fast as well, well spotted guys!

[Malcolm Cowley]

Hi

Ok still doing some checks for you but I think I know the answers anyway just making sure first.

In the meantime here are the overall epc's

Dec - £116
Jan - £35
Feb - £23
Mar - £20

As can be seen December was way high and then it plumeted and has been fairly steady since then as £10 here or there on an overall epc is not massivley significant so overall it seems stable.

I have a couple more things to check and then Ill conclude here today - cheers for your patience

[Malcolm Cowley]

Hi ok

I have spoken to the uys at Mecca again and had a good look through all the stats and the reasons for the drop off in epc are due to a hardening at Mecca on the quality of the customers being sent through.

I will be adding some text to the sign up description to make " qualified customer " more transparent.

Basically Mecca was hit quite hard by people coming through to the Mecca site and opening an account to get the free cash on offer then withdrawing it and closing the account.

Mecca do not want to pay for those kinds of customers so if a user comes through one of your links and follows this pattern then they become rejected.

In the early days of the program Mecca let this pass and paid affiliates on those accounts mentioned above but as you can imagine this is neither sustainable or advised as it only serves to incourage the sending of more visitors who are looking to follow tthe pattern mentioned above.

There is an argument that what a user does when they get to the Mecca site is Mecca's problem but its a bit tight to expect them to pay for a user who doesnt want to join their company but just fancies taking £10 off them.

Mecca will now only pay for a qualified customer i.e one that opens and account and doesnt close it a few minutes later.

So the mystery of dropping epcs is solved and really the epcs are what they should have been at from the start but Mecca were paying on all accounts and hoping the traffic would improve in the meantime - it didnt so now they have had to change the program slightly to balance that off.

With this new information you will have to look at the program again and think is 25p - 30p a click enough to continue promoting this program or do I look elswhere.

Any questions as always fire away but dont shoot the messenger lol

[loquax]

Any clues as to why some people can't access the site - I have users on Blueyonder and Virgin Net and BT who just can't get in? Yet others can?

Also are Mecca going to do anything to encourage people to register (perhaps they need to look at the Jackpot Joy model) and start playing games to get a feel for the place before they decide to part with a few ££.

Plus any chance of some creative that doesn't promote a "free £10 bet" as that imo suggests a gambling site rather than a gaming site (ok same think, but hopefully you see my point).

Jason

[Malcolm Cowley]

Hi

Thats some good feedback Jason which I will certainly pass on to the guys at Mecca and see what can be done.