We've been using the latest Comet feed with the latest CM tracking codes since it became available last week.
Since then, our reversal rate has risen to a staggering 85%.
Most of the "not last referrer" reversals from this week are for transactions that occurred just minutes after the click-through, i.e. the minutes that it takes to complete a transaction.
It is blindingly obvious that there is a technical fault in Comet's tracking solution.
Not only is their new commission policy sorely lacking in accountability and grossly misguided, it is also broken.
It seems that allowing a merchant to assume sole responsibility for tracking their own transactions is maybe not such a good idea after all.
I am beginning to wonder at what point Affiliate Window might step in? 90%? 95%? 100%?
Just checked my stats for Comet, I've had about 12% of orders reversed since the beginning of January. If you look at the sales amount though I lost 18% as most of these reversed orders were the larger ones.
Woolworths was worse though - 19% of orders were reversed and more than 23% of the sales value. Which is annoying, but nowhere near your 85%!
If you hover over the little red bullet, you will now see some extra detail, ie. who the last referrer was. Does this show for everyone, or only a select few places?
e.g. For some it says "Not last referrer. rejected", but for others, it says:
Wanadoo, pricerunner, AOL, Kelkoo.
Is there a explanation of what these referrers actually mean?
Take the AOL one as an example:
Click: 02/02/06 05:52:43
Transaction: 02/02/06 05:57:07
So in under 5 minutes, somehow the user clicked from my site to Comet, and then amazingly reclicked via AOL, so I lost the sale? If these browsing patterns are to be believed, there are some extremely wierd people out there.
Steve
It would be very interesting to hear what other people's reversal rates are since January-ish: the transaction reversal rate, but also, more importantly, the commission reversal rate.
It seems pretty obvious to me that Comet have a serious bug in their "last referrer" tracking. It's hardly surprising really. Not only are Comet attempting to "de-dupe" across channels that no one else has ever attempted to de-dupe across (PPC and PFP), but they are also not expert in this area.
Comet is cutting out the independent experts and arbiters (the networks) while simultaneously attempting to implement the most sophisticated tracking mechanism ever attempted. It's an obvious recipe for disaster and one that will remain undetected and untraceable as long as the networks refuse to stand up and cry foul.
I'd be interested to know, for example, if our 80-90% reversal rates are typical for affiliates using Comet's data feed. One obvious candidate for the source of Comet’s fundamental "not last referrer" bug would be the complex deep links contained within the product feed. It would be all too easy for Comet's amateur tracking solution to be making serious and untraceable errors in its interpretation of these complex URLs.
It’s nonsense to suggest that Comet is erring on the side of the affiliates where there is “any doubt”. One thing computer programs are very bad at is deciding that they are not really sure about something.
The number of “not last referrer” reversals, from transactions just minutes apart from the click-through, makes it absolutely clear that there is a bug. Proving it, now that Comet has cut out the independent 3rd party networks, will be extremely difficult.
When a network has a tracking issue it is in their financial interest to fix it. Tragically, now that Comet is being allowed to do its own tracking, the exact reverse is true.
Incidentally, I've said it before but it is probably worth re-iterating:
We know for certain that their tracking software is not working. Our one test transaction, made from a freshly de-cookied machine, was erroneously reversed by Comet. The transaction was later re-instated after we chased it up with proof of purchase, etc. Was this error a one-off? In light of our 85% reversal rate, I would suggest not.
Thanks, I didn't know there was Alt text behind the red bullet. All of my Comet declined sales give the not last referrer reason, with a very short time between the click and the transaction.Originally Posted by stevebrowne
If you look at your site Steve, as an example, this seems even more implausible. So a visitor spots that the Xbox 360 is in stock that they’ve been after for months. They know they’re going to have to be quick, so instead of buying it there and then they go off to Kelkoo and do some price comparisons first and then click through on a Kelkoo link. I don’t think so.
Hardly very inspiring this is it. It a shame I didn't throw some transactions through over Christmas myself to see if they were reversed too, woul dbe interesting to have seen...
Cheers
Wardy
There is definitely something not right with the Comet program with reversals. They have been put on hold for this month to see if things iron themselves out. Not that it will bother them, but they will be £25 - £30K down on sales this month. Pretty pointless sending them any traffic when they just get reversed, might as well send them somewhere that converts.
Has the new tracking made any improvements yet, or is it too early to tell? Might put a test purchase through to see if it is confirmed before they get promoted again.
With respect thats nonsense, it is not the most "sophisticated tracking" ever attempted. I am sure many other companies have "de-duped" (if you want to call it that) sales before and im more than sure comet is certainly not the first company to of attempting anything. To be fair to comet how expert do you have to be in an area before you can say you dont want to pay twice for sales.
Handling multi referrers is simple, simply creating a referrer id and a handler, thats it. Each handler only shows when trigerred by the referrer, either by session or cookie or both.
Nothing to see here...
I have to agree with other posters who have said there definately is a problem with the de-duping issue. My % decline figures are as follows and I am getting a similar number of sales per month (data Aug-Oct on DGM):
Aug 14%
Sep 11%
Oct 8%
Nov 21%
Dec 40%
Jan 52%
What we have been told is that since Comet joined Awin in addition to DGM at the beginning of November, sales have not been de-duped before they show up in affiliate stats. This was the situation on DMG before November. If this is the case, I should have seen an increase in total number of sales as I would have got duplicates in addition to bona fide sales. But my sales have not increased. I push white goods so my sales figures have been unaffected by Xmas stuff. All that has happened for me is that my % declined figure is now four to five times higher than it was on DGM when de-duping of sales also occurred. I cannot make money pushing Comet with a 50% decline rate. This de-duping issue is faulty. Until this month's figures are available, I can't judge whether things have improved. If they don't, pushing Comet is pointless. I will write to Comet & Awin about this.
Clint
Just to be clear do you mean that 85% of transactions have been reversed, or 85% of the total value of Comet transactions has been reversed
If it's the first that does seem extortionately high, if the latter then maybe not quite so surprising as big ticket items will always see a higher rate of reversals due to fraud, credit card declines etc etc
Never argue with idiots. They just drag you down to their level and then beat you with their experience.
If ignorance is bliss then some of the people I know must be orgasmic.
Not sure about others but this is my Comet results from Nov 05. Stopped sending traffic when this all fired up and until something is sorted out, then another Merchant will be getting the sales.
Total Sales: 213
Declined/Reversed: 99
Not as a higher rate as others but one which is absolutely shockingly high compared to any other Merchant I have ever promoted before and should be fully investigated as to where these commissions are going and the ‘dedupe’ process they are using.
pricethat,
Did you even read the text you quoted? If so, why are you talking about "de-duping sales" and "paying twice for sales"?
If you think paying Google 10p for a click while paying an affiliate £70 commission for a sale equals "Paying twice", well, I guess that's a point of view. But I'm guessing you've simply not yet grasped the true significance of the recent changes to Comet's tracking policy. I assure you that this move, to "de-dupe" across PFP and PPC channels, is either unprecedented or at least extremely rare (I’ve yet to come across another example).
[QUOTE=Ste]Not sure about others but this is my Comet results from Nov 05. Stopped sending traffic when this all fired up and until something is sorted out, then another Merchant will be getting the sales.
Total Sales: 213
Declined/Reversed: 99
QUOTE]
My results since Nov 05
Total Sales 129
Decline 73
Decline % 57%
Decline % based on sales value 68%
So ok 57% of transactions declined might not seem high to you,
but I only had 20 other transaction declined out of a total of 500 sales for ALL AWIN merchants I deal.
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