Billing gurus: Sales ratios jumping up/down from day to day. Why?
 

Anyone noticed that one day you can have great conversions, like 1:500 and the next day it's 1:1200

What gives? I've seen this on several PPS programs, tested this on big volume of traffic/sales per day. Inconsistency.

For me there's been something very odd going on for two weeks, then suddenly yesterday a day which makes it look like sales are back to normal, I don't know what to expect next right now

For me it's been like this for years on many different programs.

I'm just trying to figure why this is happening.

As a sponsor we get variations in completed transactions daily -- depending on the day, time of the month and transactions approved by processors but not 1:500 to 1:1200 sort of variations -- not on a regular basis anyway. Any variation like that would case us to fix the problem.

Processors only make money when they accept transactions and earn a fee.

This is very normal, like weekends ratios are usually much better than weekdays, with Wednesdays generally being the worst. In addition it depends on the day of the month as well, at the end of the month more people's cards are maxed out. So if you have a Wednesday at the end end of the month and a saturday in the beginning of the month (like in the past week) the difference in apoval rate can be huge.

Having never even once made a sale myself I am unqualified to answer :(

As much as I want to think there is a conspiracy of sorts I think the truth is that if you look at averages over a long period of time and look at standard deviations from the average range you will see that sale in this business can just be a bit frenetic.

Our month to month sales for Yanks are very consistent yet day to day will see some odd swings. Yanks for us is a good example because we do not buy traffic for it, so the traffic sources from one day to the next are very similar and are all people that have chosen to be there, so the fact that we have had days where conversion ratio are 3x or 4x better is disconcerting, however it seems to happen enough that the swings during short time periods seem to be the norm.

Do you think Banks could be adjusting their throughoutput to balance Charge Backs across the board?

Well, I think if there is something happening it would be just that. It isn't a crazy thought really. :thumbsup

Some third party processors might do this to some of their merchants, but in general it is normal to see the fluctuations. Over the past 15+ I have been dealing with many paysites doing 100s of daily sales using various third party processors as well as MIDs at different merchant banks and traffic from all sorts of sources, and the big fluctuations are always there.

As Todd mentions, the best way is to look at the averages of longer periods (eg for a month). As long as the average is stable there is nothing to worry about. The odd days with super bad ratios just happen.

I'm just not sure if Banks have to adhere to some CB % rules too, as to not get in trouble with Visa / MC.

Todd, I see you are using Epoch and NetBilling for processing.

I guess you got your own MID for NetBilling?

Which is your primary processor and how do you like it or compare it? Do you run one MID or a few for balancing?

Processors start to get big fines if they go over the CB ratio. As for the banks, they don't want to have to pay back money lost from stolen credit cards or waste time dealing with the tidy up, they have a way of switching off high-risk sales when they wish

Our primary is Netbilling, epoch second for most traffic, but it is also the primary for some EU traffic.

We run one MID. We tried two for a while but didn't see the benefit. We love Netbilling though and some of our sites have been processing with them for 18 years I believe.

We also have a good product, don't trick our customers and offer great customer support. So our CB ratio is quite low.

The Internet is a rollercoaster.
Strap yourself in and deal with it (or get off and try another ride).