Paid On Results - Valid Sales - Affiliate Screen Shot

[Supercod]

Here is a screen shot inside one of my accounts at Paid On Results to show you, if you not yet seen or been using all the features the Valid Sales List has got. For this screen shot I have used Natural Instinct only from one of my sites accounts, so no affiliate need fear I am not using your data

Points to note in this screen shot:

Where you see a - for the cookie set date, it means it has no set date, this is most common on Customer Base sales.. as you can see from this small part of the screen shot Natural Instinct makes a great merchant for customer base sales, 6 of them in this part of the screen shot alone. That's 6 sales the merchant would have got for free if it wasn't for the fact Jon at NI is really keen to see affiliates rewarded for there hard work and so takes full advantage of the Paid On Results Customer Base feature.

Other things to note is that the majority of sales actually happen inside 48 hours, this is a trend I am seeing across most merchants however do note that one of the sales visible in this screen shot had the cookie set back in September 2003 some 4 months ago.

Also as you can see you have the choice of how you wish to view your valid sales, tick the boxes and update the display and it will stay the same each time you visit, so you can see as little or as much as you like for each sale. HTTP Referer is a very popular option to view as you can see what page on your site made the sale.

You can also click on any of the columns and sort all the sales via more or least, newest or oldest. When you click this option this sticks for all pages and remembers you favourite view each time you come back to view your stats.

As ever if you think something is missing or can be improved just let us know and we will add it.

[borntoloaf]

Hi Supercod, thanks for that. Could you answer this related question regarding naturalinstinct please - if one of their customers on the 999 residual cookie originally clicked a paidonresult click from site a then a few weeks/months later clicks on another por link from site b - which site gets the commission?

[Supercod]

Hi Borntoloaf, for a start off residual (or customer base as we call it for NI as residual is actually a different type of commission) is not tracked via cookies.

This is the note in the merchant information section that we have had since day one of this program "As this is a customer base program any additional sales a customer makes will be credited to you even if they have no cookie set (only exception is when a customer returns to buy something via another affiliates link). "

So what this means is that an affiliate to get a customer to buy/take part in a competition or something like that from NI they are then linked to them for all sales WITHOUT cookies. If the user has a cookie then this used first, so always the last affiliate to send the customer is credited. However the last affiliate to get them to buy something via NI will get any future non-cookie sales (i.e. customer base ones) as long as no new affiliate sends the customer via there link, see clear as mud

[Edit: Doh! looks like I explained it wrong, will do the Q&A document later so it's clear to all, me included ]

[NaturalInstinct]

Thanks supercod that's really useful, what I noticed was that most of the cookied ones were freebies (38p) and the non-cookied ones were bigger sales. I'd thought for a while that people getting the freebie were coming back and buying proper products later , but it's nice to see it tracked and proved.

[Supercod]

Hi Jon, give me a call once your back from the get2togther so I can explain to yourself how you can see even more detail from the merchant side as there is loads of information to get, plus I can show you how you follow the flow of the customer from the first cookie sale to follow up sales.

We actually have a merchants profile report coming soon for affiliates that will show when people normally buy, for example it's all very well me saying the majority of people buy inside 48 hours but if I don't show you stats you can access when you won't you might not believe me So around the time we launch the EPC stuff we also be bringing out a more useful merchant profile, but more on that later.

I will be making a detailed post maybe Friday to explain it as we about to bring on another merchant who is offering customer base. It not an easy thing to explain to merchants why they should do it, but I think we are all agreed that it makes a program more attractive from an affiliates point of view and so you more likely to push it over the same type of merchant who hasn't got this feature. And this means more coverage and more sales for the merchant.

[borntoloaf]

Thanks supercod, still trying to get my head round this. So what happens if someone goes back to shop at natural instinct having previously clicked a POR link, but now clicks on an affiliate future link - who gets the commission?

[Supercod]

Last affiliate to set the cookie regardless of network gets the commission.