Not Last Referrer - An explanation!

[Confuscius]

Hi All

Well it's that time of the month again! Time to check my Merchant deletions and it is not good news - a trend of increasing rejections with little explanantion other than the bog standard 'order cancelled' or 'no further action' BUT what concerns me are the ones labelled 'Not Last Referrer'.

Let me use an example from a previous post, my outstanding December 2007 commissions and let me choose one simple transaction courtesy of PC World!

A sales for £79.99, commission due £2.00. The click occurred at 16/12/2007 15:45:38 precisely! The transaction occured at 25/12/2007 14:34:24 precisely! The deletion occured at 25/03/2008 10:04:25 precisely! Or should I say it has taken PC World 4 hours 29 minutes and 59 seconds short of THREE MONTHS to determine that I was not the last referrer.

So what I do not understand is that if the punter clicked and completed the transaction then how could I not be the last referrer given that for the transaction to be seen in MY account then the last cookie must have been mine.

Could somebody ( preferably either DigiWin or a PC World representative ) please explain the exact circumstances that can lead to this loss of commission?

So, who was the last referrer?

Thanks in advance.

Paul

[Bud]

Funny you should mention PC World....

Same question from me:

Click - 15:09:08
Trans - 15:11:30

Time elapsed - 02:28 (roughly about the time it takes to make an order!)

Strangely, this was declined as I wasn't the last referrer!

- Sorry, just don't believe it -


Paul - just a guess, I bet your decline rate is approx. 64%? Bang on PC World's average.

Mine always is.....(actually I'm running at 61% at present so I expect the next couple to be declined :rolleyes: )

[Bud]

... and while we're at it

Why do so many people cancel thier orders with PC World?

No-one else has anywhere near as many cancelled orders.

:confused:

[Jemma]

Hi Confuscius & Bud,

You are absolutely right to query this as the reason for these declines should in fact be “no further action”. The incorrect reason is purely down to an error on my part, when declining commissions for merchants the reason is often “not last referrer” but for these validations it should have been “no further action”. I sincerely apologise for this error, I have not made it before and can assure you I will be far more careful in future.

To explain the reason for your decline and why, as you point out, a high number of orders are declined on PC World, this is because they are Collect at Store orders.

All declined Collect at Store orders are declined because the item has not been collected, which is why the reason is “no further action”.

As you can imagine not all customers who reserve online actually collect their item, therefore a high number of collect at store commissions are declined.

Unfortunately some commissions have taken a long time to validate, this issue is being addressed by PC World and a solution to prevent it will be put in place.

I hope this answers your queries but if you require further clarification please do not hesitate to contact me and I will be happy to discuss further.

Kind Regards,

Jemma Allanson
Account Manager

Email: jemma.allanson@affiliatewindow.com
MSN: affiliatejemma@hotmail.com
Tel: +020 7553 0351

[Confuscius]

Hi Jemma

Thank you for the response. OK - so in these instances a mistake was made BUT ...

... when declining commissions for merchants the reason is often “not last referrer” ...

... which still leaves one of my questions unanswered!

So let's try again!

Could somebody ( preferably either DigiWin or a PC World representative ) please explain the exact circumstances that can lead to a loss of commission where the reason stated is 'Not Last Referrer'?

[Question amended to take account of latest response!]

Paul

[authcode]

Along the same lines I'd be interested to know what "order associated with another affiliate" is supposed to mean:

John Lewis
click: 04/12/2007 12:43:20
trans: 04/12/2007 12:50:16
valid: 02/01/2008 12:38:26

How does an order become associated with another affiliate in the space of 7 minutes? And if it was associated with another affiliate within those 7 minutes then why does it show as a transaction on my account?

I never bothered to argue it but since we're on the subject...

[Bud]

Jemma

Thanks very much for taking the time to post here.

No problem about a genuine mistake - we all make them!


I'm still trying to get my head round the PC World program so, just to clarify:


1. High decline rate is generally due to cancelled orders due to customer not 'collecting at store'.

2. Commission is initially allocated when the reservation is made.

3. If item not collected then the sale is declined as payment is only made only collection (obvioulsy).


Your reason for high declines seems to make sense to me and I'm a lot happier about PC World's figures with that being the case. It was an obvious answer that I should have thought of, sorry!


Do you have any idea why Currys (who operate an identical Reserve & Collect Service) would have an approval percentage of 96.82% though? Now I'm confused as I would expect them to also have the same problem with reserved items!

If you could shed any light on the differences I'll be able to sleep better and feel I've moved on in my AM understanding!

Thanks
:)

[Confuscius]

Hi Bud

Simply brilliant post!!! Kudos - I never spotted that coming!!!!

Made my day!

Paul

[Jemma]

Hi all,

PC World do not de-duplicate commissions against other online marketing channels, and each reservation is tracked back to only the most recent affiliate, so the only reason for collect at store orders being declined is "no further action", i.e. as a result of the order not being collected. *PC World reward in full for all genuine C@S sales, but can't pay commission on reservations for which there is no evidence of collection and payment.

For more information about the collect at store policy, view the PC World affiliate blog:
http://pcworld-affiliates.blogspot.com/2007/11/collect-store.html

To explain, "not last referrer" and "order associated with another affiliate" mean that the last referring click for that particular sale was made by another affiliate, or came from another source. The specific circumstances of this may vary depending on the programme so I would recommend contacting the account manager in order to obtain further clarification. You should not see either of these on the PC World scheme. On this occasion it was down to manual error. Orders were actually declined as "no further action."

Kind Regards,
Jemma Allanson
Account Manager
Jemma.Allanson@affiliatewindow.com