since fetishlad got me to thinking about it, i went to my ccbill admin. when i last went to change my ccbill cookies, there was a warning about some kind of issue if you changed the cookies from default. since that warning is no longer there, i upped the cookie duration to 90 days and will be interested to see if there’s any significant changes. i don’t expect there to be, but if i’m wrong, that’ll be fine, too. i will post the results in 90 days.
Re: ccbill cookie experiment
That will be very interesting indeed. Our authentication files show that large numbers of porn surfers are deleting their cookies after every visit to our site. I don’t believe this is unique to our content. I imagine that most affiliates do not really get credit for a sale unless the surfer buys on the first visit.
Is there not some other way to track surfers other than cookies? Someone once told me a very complicated story regarding java or something like that. It was all very Star Wars so I couldn’t follow.
Re: ccbill cookie experiment
You can do a follow me in the url…
Something like this
xyz.com/?affid[affid_goes_here]
Then just use some php to grab the affiliate id and you can do pretty much whatever you want with it.
Re: ccbill cookie experiment
This whole ‘cookie’ issue is interesting. I rather tend to think that it really doesn’t matter what length the cookie is set to, given how many of today’s anti virus programs include some form of cookie cleaning, not to mention programs like adaware and spyware doctor.
But i’ll be interested to see if there is ‘any’ differences. whistle
Re: ccbill cookie experiment
Yes, I had some surfers mention that to me as well. I asked if they remembered what sites they been too, but got the answer that they deleted all their cookies and history.
So its probabably a fairly common thing to do for porn surfers.
[quote=AlexManifestMan;19150]That will be very interesting indeed. Our authentication files show that large numbers of porn surfers are deleting their cookies after every visit to our site. I don’t believe this is unique to our content. I imagine that most affiliates do not really get credit for a sale unless the surfer buys on the first visit.
Is there not some other way to track surfers other than cookies? Someone once told me a very complicated story regarding java or something like that. It was all very Star Wars so I couldn’t follow.[/quote]
Re: ccbill cookie experiment
okay, results are in and affiliate sales are virtually identical. some guys made one more sale in 3 months 6 days where others made one less. in fact, i was a bit surprised when i checked from now back to june 11, then checked 3 periods of 3 months before that. even one affiliate that changed his marketing completely was virtually the same sales.
while i couldn’t tell you WHY the results are that 1 day cookies and 90 day cookies are the same when it comes to sales, i do have a guess. my guess is that when there’s a shorter cookie, webmasters don’t keep their sales of over 1 day (or 3 or whatever), but they do get sales from surfers who were referred by other sites whose cookies had expired. with a longer cookie, when you refer surfers who were referred by other sites within the last 90 days, you don’t get credit for those sales but you do get credit for your own referrals for 90 days.
does that make sense?
i’m going to leave it at 90 days - it didn’t help anything, but it didn’t hurt, either. and some webmasters will be happier, so that’s a good thing.
has any other program done similar tests with their cookies?
Re: ccbill cookie experiment
Was this 3 months of data? Your first post was in August in this thread, not June.
Jimmy
Re: ccbill cookie experiment
It is mathematically impossible to do an experiment like this unless the sample size is pretty huge.
Re: ccbill cookie experiment
[QUOTE=basschick;23420] with a longer cookie, when you refer surfers who were referred by other sites within the last 90 days, you don’t get credit for those sales but you do get credit for your own referrals for 90 days.
does that make sense?
[/QUOTE]
No. Doesn’t make sense. Ccbill’s cookies get over-written every time someone clicks on an affiliate link.