Trafficclub pretty disappointing

[jimbaggs]

phineasphog: I would stop advertising your parking company in this thread. If you want to make ridiculous promises do them in the proper place and not a thread in the TrafficClub section.

Actually this is the "PPC Companies General Discussion" section. This thread started about 2 weeks ago about a Traffic Club situation that directly effects Klickerz as well as other companies and individuals. I held my tounge then because I hadn't fully considered the situation and didn't have enough information to have an opinion. Later I realized that whether it was intentional or not the over reporting was a form of unfair competition that most definetly caused more than one company damage.

On that note I would like to see a more detailed explaination of how the over reporting came to be. I get the same type of Skenzo reports that Moniker does and I don't really see how you then wind up adding revenue to it. The only thing I can think of is they got the straight results and instead of subtracting their cut they added. Otherwise what were they doing messing with the figures to begin with. At Klickerz we don't touch the results.

Tread lightly my friend, you may be speaking out of turn. I don't know Monte, I only know these things:

1) I found Moniker through praise on this forum less than 5 months ago.
2) I was very impressed when Monte responded personally to my e-mails three times in one day to help me get set up at Moniker.
3) I now save $1 on each registration and have the option to drop names after 4 days.
4) I have some domains at TrafficClub, maybe 20% of my revenue comes from there.

I don't know what my clever "spin" was. I was only saying that I could understand your actions, given the situation. Now you've made me sorry for having said that. I suggest you do not attempt to imply that I am a paid shill for Monte/Moniker or TrafficClub. I don't even have an affiliate program in my signature.

Duck

I see. Look, I've been abit overworked lately. Its not easy managing both a large portfolio, running a small ppc outfit AND having a family life. I took the comment about "a solving a riddle thats been plauging my company" as sarcastic when in fact it I suppose now that it wasn't meant that way. I jumped to a conclusion. Sorry.

My remark about a horse in the race wasn't meant to imply that you have a financial stake, just that you have a favorite. And its ok to have favorites. I have them. Years ago Paul Staura responded personally to my emails and I've been a very satisfied eNom cusomer ever since. They were the very first registrar to give the bulk domainer what I think of as a fair shake and a well developed set of tools to manage holdings. I don't know if you were in the game during the NetSol days but they were dark days indeed.

BTW, you can do the drop testing thing at eNom for 4 days for 25 cents as opposed to Monikers $1. JSYK. And I don't get paid anything for saying that either. Matter of fact eNom has its own parking program that I might prefer you not know about.

 

[GT Web]

phineasphog: after your posts in this thread I will certainly not be joining Klickerz. You have shown you have no respect for other people's business...and you should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[nitronet]

Nitro..Are you talking about your skeenzo names doing well over at klickerz?

So far they are doing well enough to stay there, but always looking for something better.

 

[Shaggy]

So far they are doing well enough to stay there, but always looking for something better.

Well is it better then how they were performing at TC overall? Or better then how they were performing at TC after this error happened?

 

[jimbaggs]

phineasphog: after your posts in this thread I will certainly not be joining Klickerz. You have shown you have no respect for other people's business...and you should be ashamed of yourself.

BullS***!

I dont think I've shown any disrespect for Monte or TC, (I presume that's who of you speak) but I'm open to listening to your explaination of how you think I did so. I have yet to receive an satisfactory explaination of how this over-reporting occured nor apology of any kind from Monte. I don't believe the thought has even crossed his mind.

Anyway, Klickerz is ultimately controled by the membership of the coop. Bottom line: Klickerz belongs to those who care enough to band together to protect and promote their common interests. If you don't like how I run it then join up; buy your share, pay your dues, and give me the boot. OH GOD PLEASE GIVE ME THE BOOT!!! I'm anxiously awaiting the time when I can attend to other matters of interest. I started this thing and I intend to see it thru but it is a lot of work.

 

[GT Web]

BullS***!

Anyway, Klickerz is ultimately controled by the membership of the coop. Bottom line: Klickerz belongs to those who care enough to band together to protect and promote their common interests. If you don't like how I run it then join up; buy your share, pay your dues, and give me the boot.

Well, you implied TrafficClub was lying about their clients revenue to steal market share...that seems pretty disrespectful without any proof.

Isn't it something like $5,000 to become a member of your silly co-op? For that money, I'll take myself on a nice two-week vacation, keep my names with DS and that way you can stay in your beloved co-op and continue to make unsubstantiated claims against your competition.

 

[missedcall]

"This thread started about 2 weeks ago about a Traffic Club situation that directly effects Klickerz as well as other companies and individuals"

hey phineasphog
don't get me wrong but this does not effect u at all...it was a TC problem
with their feed - which happens to be the same with yours.

imagine lets say sedo has problem with stats from google , that effects all other PPC's using google feed? - meaning would be professional all other guys running the competitive PPC's starting all those replies - stating what the problem may was on their competitor - advertising that they didn't have problem - fighting with all other members here ......??

I am sure most of the members here will find your comments and the way you act at least unprofessional - It would be a good idea to end this discussion and focus on any Klickerz threads.

 

[cayars]

What phineasphog is saying is that because TC over-reported revenue it hurt his business the following way:
1) People on TC tried running their domains directly at KlickerZ
2) People compared revenue earned at TC and KlickerZ
3) People stop using KlickerZ because revenue was reported higher at TC

Some people won't ever go back and compare the revised stats of TC to what they earned at KlickerZ. Face it everyone doesn't live, eat & breath domains.

Also and probably more of an impact is that the people who "earned" more at TC will tell other people that TC did better then KlickerZ. Word-of-mouth may have the biggest impact as the people who got updated stats on TC probably didn't go back and tell everyone (they previously told) that TC may not be better then KlickerZ. So it's possible that they "lost customers" and at the same time "didn't get new" customers because of this.

Just a clarification on my part of what I think I see the situation being. The extent of it, or how much this really affected business, don't know...

I really don't want to get in this except to point out/clarify what people don't understand but I can't help but wonder how this could happen. Skenzo's reports to partners are staight forward and as Phineasphog pointed out there isn't anything to be done with them except take your cut and pass the rest on. Nothing should be touched with Visitors, Clicks, CTR. You take the revenue and subtract you share and pass on XX percent. Then just re-calculate RPM (veneue/visitors*1000), etc based on the clients revshare percentage.

We're all human and things DO happen. It probably wouldn't hurt to get some type of formal explanation from TC on what happened and why it only affected some customers and not everyone. It could be as simple as "some accounts had in impropper Skenzo percentage in their record and this caused the system to overstate their revenue".

 

[jimbaggs]

Well, you implied TrafficClub was lying about their clients revenue to steal market share...that seems pretty disrespectful without any proof.

Proof? Monte admitted the stats were in error. I said that I would like a more detailed explaination. I get the same kind of stats and don't touch them (third party handles Klickerz payments). TC handles its own and has to subtract its cut. So how DID Did they add instead? What happened?

That said I realize now that there have been a few moments when I posted on the fly without fully considering my words or especially their tone. Its likely that I have come across as reactionary and argumentative. In short I got carried away and blew it a wee bit out of proportion. Thats not how I mean to be. For that I offer my sincere apology.

I have much respect for Monte. I think Moniker is one of the best registrars out there. Personally I don't like using their account management tools, find them cumbersome, and don't have but a very few names with them primarily for that reason alone. But Monte has done a helluva lot for this industry. I'd be an idiot if I didn't recognize that.

Since he is a standup guy I hope he will return to this thread and expand on his previous explaination.

Isn't it something like $5,000 to become a member of your silly co-op? For that money, I'll take myself on a nice two-week vacation, keep my names with DS and that way you can stay in your beloved co-op and continue to make unsubstantiated claims against your competition.

Now whos resorting to namecalling?

:fencing:

Nevermind.

Yep, 5k is the entry point for full membership. Set it there to keep out those who arn't serious enough to pony up a bit of real cash. When you consider that its buying a peice of a fast growing PPC company then the price isn't that unreasonable. Not silly at all. Of course if no one outside my circle joins then that just leaves more for me. :rockon:

DNA is an EQUITY owning venture and hence it is imperative that people who join as full equity owning members pay the full value of that. Wouldn't be fair to the other members.

There is an associate membership level. Practially free to join that. But you don't get any equity. :disappoin:

Its my goal to bring together a substantial portion of the domaining community so that we can ultimately provide the advertisers of the world a single point of contact for buying our PPC traffic. One thats not called "Google", "Yahoo", or "MSN". Many have talked of forming a coop in the past. I actually did it. I did it to benefit not just myself but all of you too. Really. Together we could be one hell of a major force. Seperately even the largest of us are pissants in worldly economic terms.

What phineasphog is saying is that because TC over-reported revenue it hurt his business the following way:
1) People on TC tried running their domains directly at KlickerZ
2) People compared revenue earned at TC and KlickerZ
3) People stop using KlickerZ because revenue was reported higher at TC

Some people won't ever go back and compare the revised stats of TC to what they earned at KlickerZ. Face it everyone doesn't live, eat & breath domains.

Also and probably more of an impact is that the people who "earned" more at TC will tell other people that TC did better then KlickerZ. Word-of-mouth may have the biggest impact as the people who got updated stats on TC probably didn't go back and tell everyone (they previously told) that TC may not be better then KlickerZ. So it's possible that they "lost customers" and at the same time "didn't get new" customers because of this.

Just a clarification on my part of what I think I see the situation being. The extent of it, or how much this really affected business, don't know...

I really don't want to get in this except to point out/clarify what people don't understand but I can't help but wonder how this could happen. Skenzo's reports to partners are staight forward and as Phineasphog pointed out there isn't anything to be done with them except take your cut and pass the rest on. Nothing should be touched with Visitors, Clicks, CTR. You take the revenue and subtract you share and pass on XX percent. Then just re-calculate RPM (veneue/visitors*1000), etc based on the clients revshare percentage.

We're all human and things DO happen. It probably wouldn't hurt to get some type of formal explanation from TC on what happened and why it only affected some customers and not everyone. It could be as simple as "some accounts had in impropper Skenzo percentage in their record and this caused the system to overstate their revenue".

This is EXACTLY what I've been saying!

 

[Equalizer]

klickerz...mmm?
How many members are they in this so called CO-OP?
Are you paying 80 % ?
I don't think the good-people at SKENZO would like your
"non-sense disrespectful and accusing approach" just to stir a few people your way....
I hope they read this thread.

 

[Name Trader]

eNom has its own parking program

Who is eNom's parking program?

 

[eq78]

.tv corp parks some unregged premium .tvs with ENOM

 

[Monte]

phineasphog - The over-reporting was certainly not intentional as there was no benefit to anyone to have the stats be over reported when we were not paid for the over-reporting and therefore could not pay our customers for it.

The issue was the result of the fix that we made from when Skenzo did have a outage in their system in April where there were 3-5 days of non-reporting on their side. We implemented a fix which automatically fixed everyone's revenue when they paid us for that mishap on their side. That was money that they actually earned from Google but did not report to their partners...they paid their partners and we paid our customers accordingly. The special program we wrote to add the funds to accounts remained in place to about 40 of our customers...not the majority...just 40 of them and the system kept adding about 30%+/- revenue when it actually was not earned.

That is why this happened. It has been resolved, we did the right thing and corrected it. No one earned the money, we were not paid the over-reporting amount as the error was on our side. There is no money to pay out due to the reporting because it was not actually earned...unlike the skenzo outage in April where they were paid but failed to report to their partners. They did the right thing and paid everyone.

End of story - system has been working fine so lets move and not make up wild stories of deception and foul play. I am sure that all those that work with us will state that we are probably the most ethical and upfront company to work with - been in this business since 1996 folks and never had a question of ethics.

Thanks,

 

[Promediary]

... lets move and not make up wild stories of deception and foul play.

As suggested previously, mutual respect and restraint among competitors would have been appropriate here.

Monte shouldn't have had to explain this twice. If you have a problem with a vendor (or competitor), pick-up the phone and communicate. Problems are not solved by littering the forum with damaging supposition.

 

[Equalizer]

As suggested previously, mutual respect and restraint among competitors would have been appropriate here.

Monte shouldn't have had to explain this twice. If you have a problem with a vendor (or competitor), pick-up the phone and communicate. Problems are not solved by littering the forum with damaging supposition.

Exactly.
This is more of a " personal vendetta/self promotion" by opportunistic individuals belonging to klickerz
(a COOP that smells more like a sole propietorship)

 

[jimbaggs]

End of story - system has been working fine so lets move and not make up wild stories of deception and foul play. I am sure that all those that work with us will state that we are probably the most ethical and upfront company to work with - been in this business since 1996 folks and never had a question of ethics.

Thanks,

Please read my posts, Monte, I never accused you of deception. Others have read that into my words and responded in that vein and I have replied back. I've made it very clear that I did not belive that this was intentional and also that I have a great deal of respect for you and what you've manage to do for the industry over the years. Still, I think you can see how inflated numbers can and do effect your competitors in this space.

Anyway, I think banter got out of hand and deserves to be closed now. I appreciate you clarifying the matter. Best of luck!

 

[Monte]

If it were more than 40 people out of 1000+ (if 400 accounts maybe), it may...may have affected a few trials between PPC companies. However, the fact that only 40 were misspreported and the fact that the skenzo portion of those 40 customers was only about 20% of that total number makes this not even effective to competitors. You see, TrafficClub uses multiple feeds and only percentages of traffic on each feed. It is rare that 100% is on one feed and in this case the average was about 20% of the traffic and revenue for 40 clients for a period of about 43 days...not material but still very sorry it happened to those customers.

 

[jimbaggs]

I get that. Your numbers make sense to me. I didn't hear from that many users that there was a disparity between our respective services. I think that TC actually gets a couple more points than does K and we try to equalize that by taking a smaller cut.

But then their was an occasion where someone got on a forum and claimed that he had tried Klickerz and then tried TrafficClub and his numbers were substantially higher and he questioned whether I was might be lying about the percentage revshare I claimed to pay. I got to tell you that, personally, hurt like hell.

I thought at the time that it was mostly due to optimization being nearer to finished toward the later TC end of the trial. Now I'm presuming that it was some of that and possibly some of the accidental over-reporting. That incident more than anything else is what prompted me to finally speak up in the forums. I didn't mean to make it sound like you had any dastardly plan, s*** everybody knows that you're a good guy. I just wanted, needed, to shed light a very picaune point that even a small scale unintentional incident had greater effects then was initially acknowledged.

Peace out, Bro!

 

[Shaggy]

Well recently, my stats have improved with TC. Looking good again. Now Monte, everything is still running ok right k: Just messin.

 

[Monte]

As far as you know