Worst day since 2007!?

[gaydemon]

yes its yet another thread with OMG bad sales.. ;)

But honestly, yeasterday is one of the worst, if not the worst day this year for me. All across the board sales are down, CCBill, Verotel, Epoch.. its all down.

Traffic is NOT down.

Funny thing is I've had a great week so far until yeasterday. Really high amount of sales.

Its not yet another public holiday in the US is it?

[gaydemon]

Actually this is really weird.

Almost all processors or programs have done really badly yeasterday. Except sites using Verotel.

Verotel sales were up by 300% compared to same day last week.

Whats going on?

[100boys]

I think it really happens from time to time that you just have a bad day. Every now and then we have a day with almost no sales and then there are some days where we see 2-3 times the amount of sales than average.

What makes me worry is that CCBill is still causing problems for many webmasters and that there are the first ones dropping all CCBill sponsors. One webmaster from another board did this and his sales grew a lot. There were also sponsors reporting very strange amounts of sales not coming from affiliates while affiliates were complaining about zero sales. If they don't fix this soon they will run into serious problems.

What I notice is that many webmasters from the hetero market are reporting about really bad sales and ratios with constant traffic. 1:3000 for TGP traffic seems to be not unusual already. I'm wondering if we will see such a huge decrease on the gay market as well in close future!

Most blame the economy but sales on gay sites still seem to be ok (on average, I know you had a bad day ;) ). So I think it's rather the "to much free porn out there"-problem than the economy. As there aren't that many huge gay tubes and stuff yet it could be that this is the reason.

[InsaneSimon]

yes its yet another thread with OMG bad sales.. ;)

But honestly, yeasterday is one of the worst, if not the worst day this year for me. All across the board sales are down, CCBill, Verotel, Epoch.. its all down.

Traffic is NOT down.

Funny thing is I've had a great week so far until yeasterday. Really high amount of sales.

Its not yet another public holiday in the US is it?

You are not alone :(

Yesterday was my worst day since... i dunno. I had ZERO sales when my usual average is x0 (where 1 < x <= 4). I didn't sleep well yesterday due to this issue. Today it seems back on track.

[gaydemon]

I dont know, I've experianced only the opposite. Sites / sponsors moving from CCBill to Epoch has done a lot worse in terms of affiliate sales.

I got clear evidence and no explenations for why it happens. Its not only 1 sponsor either.. When I've asked for explenations ive been met with total silence. Nothing. So no, i dont think ccbill is at fault.

But yeasterday just looks VERY odd, why would all other processors be down and 1 european processor up by 300%? Numbers like that often mean something.


I think it really happens from time to time that you just have a bad day. Every now and then we have a day with almost no sales and then there are some days where we see 2-3 times the amount of sales than average.

What makes me worry is that CCBill is still causing problems for many webmasters and that there are the first ones dropping all CCBill sponsors. One webmaster from another board did this and his sales grew a lot. There were also sponsors reporting very strange amounts of sales not coming from affiliates while affiliates were complaining about zero sales. If they don't fix this soon they will run into serious problems.

What I notice is that many webmasters from the hetero market are reporting about really bad sales and ratios with constant traffic. 1:3000 for TGP traffic seems to be not unusual already. I'm wondering if we will see such a huge decrease on the gay market as well in close future!

Most blame the economy but sales on gay sites still seem to be ok (on average, I know you had a bad day ;) ). So I think it's rather the "to much free porn out there"-problem than the economy. As there aren't that many huge gay tubes and stuff yet it could be that this is the reason.

[100boys]

I dont know, I've experianced only the opposite. Sites / sponsors moving from CCBill to Epoch has done a lot worse in terms of affiliate sales.

I got clear evidence and no explenations for why it happens. Its not only 1 sponsor either.. When I've asked for explenations ive been met with total silence. Nothing. So no, i dont think ccbill is at fault.

But yeasterday just looks VERY odd, why would all other process be down and 1 european process up by 300%? Numbers like that often mean something.

Well but as it seems we both agree on that there's to trend of decreasing sales, right?

So there's only the option that it's purely random or that something is wrong.
Assuming something is wrong then it would be more likely that there is a problem with the card issuer/payment processor than that your sponsors all decided to heavily shave your stats on the very same day.

The thing that you say that all sales were down and not only CCBill would indicate that is was just random after all (assuming CCBill doesn't make the majority of your sales).
If this goes for longer you should check your affiliate codes, I had some codes in ST that didn't belong to us but we just assumed that we accidentally put them inside ourselves so we didn't care any further about it ;)
I wouldn't be suprised to find more wrong codes after someone managed to redirect about 8 of our sites to a site of him which again was selling to traffic holder....

[NickG]

Funny you should mention about Verotel, because that's the one processor that's bucked the trend so far this month and is significantly higher. I wondered if maybe the sites promoting through it are cheaper, but they average about the same.

[gaydemon]

No for me the trends is that sales are up year on year.

But what I mean or pointing as strange is that why are all processors down but 1 up? What could cause a European proccessor to be up on a day where all others are down. And with such a big difference.

I'm saying that something was wrong yeasterday with most processors. Now I dont know how it works, do for example all US based processors connect to the same place like VISA or?

To me it looks as if people have had problems signing up and because of that been "forced" to signup to sites using Verotel instead. IE why there is a 300% up in Verotel.



Well but as it seems we both agree on that there's to trend of decreasing sales, right?

So there's only the option that it's purely random or that something is wrong.
Assuming something is wrong then it would be more likely that there is a problem with the card issuer/payment processor than that your sponsors all decided to heavily shave your stats on the very same day.

The thing that you say that all sales were down and not only CCBill would indicate that is was just random after all (assuming CCBill doesn't make the majority of your sales).
If this goes for longer you should check your affiliate codes, I had some codes in ST that didn't belong to us but we just assumed that we accidentally put them inside ourselves so we didn't care any further about it ;)
I wouldn't be suprised to find more wrong codes after someone managed to redirect about 8 of our sites to a site of him which again was selling to traffic holder....

[gaydemon]

Not sure, hard to say. I think Verotel has been doing better and going stronger than others this year yes. I've steadily gotten bigger checks from verotel.

Maybe its just a sign that they have fixed or made the system better?


Funny you should mention about Verotel, because that's the one processor that's bucked the trend so far this month and is significantly higher. I wondered if maybe the sites promoting through it are cheaper, but they average about the same.

[Adam Mason]

Yesterday was very odd. My new sales were well down with CCBill and I didn't even get one sale through Epoch - and that hasn't happened in over 2 years! Yet rebills remained strong.

[MiamiBoyz]

Not sure, hard to say. I think Verotel has been doing better and going stronger than others this year yes. I've steadily gotten bigger checks from verotel.

Maybe its just a sign that they have fixed or made the system better?

I hope you are right!

I am planning on launching a new site early next year using Verotel as the billing company and it will be using them for the affiliate program. :cool:

[gaydemon]

yes.. see something is fishy..



Yesterday was very odd. My new sales were well down with CCBill and I didn't even get one sale through Epoch - and that hasn't happened in over 2 years! Yet rebills remained strong.

[marcjacob]

The question is, where declines much higher yesterday. I also had a terrible day yesterday but the rest of week was great. Im thinking maybe VISA US had trouble. Im only guessing, but I would imagine all authorisations for VISA numbers go to the customers bank via VISA. If they were having troubles that would explain why all except a processor in a different banking region were struggling.

[Teddy]

If it makes you feel better, my clicks have increased but my conversions have decreased. It's all I can do to keep myself from looking at sales every 15 minutes.

[q1sites]

Its very curious.
Wonder if currency conversion is part of the answer?
There were currency fluctuations yesterday for the £ v Euro.
Verotel doesn't use regional pricing.
Is it possible that those that do put the brakes on when currencies plunge?
Just a thought

[Teddy]

this week click-throughs increased by 26% and conversions decreased by 85%!

hopefully payday on the 15th will bring more sales.

[gaydemon]

Lets all hope for a good 15th! :)



this week click-throughs increased by 26% and conversions decreased by 85%!

hopefully payday on the 15th will bring more sales.

[xstr8guy]

It was a terrible day for new sales with CCbill especially since it was a Saturday. Epoch was a little low as well but nothing other than normal ups and downs.

CCbill must have been having server issues yesterday. I was away from the computer for most of the day so I didn't check the to see if the join forms were loading properly. Did anyone else get a chance to check?

[Ben]

15th has been terrible so far. :(

I hear there's a big storm in USA and many people are without electricity. But does that explain this major slowdown? Last week was pretty good (except for the weekend).

[MiamiBoyz]

Don't forget that the holidays are here...it is the last week to shop before Christmas...the economy is in recession...and people have maxed out the credit cards.

[gaydemon]

True true, we cant expect anything but sales to take some sort of hit during these times. Holidays + Recession must = Lower sales.


Don't forget that the holidays are here...it is the last week to shop before Christmas...the economy is in recession...and people have maxed out the credit cards.