SuzyKats/Clickrewards ?

[which way did he go]

I signed in to suzykats and placed an order thru catalog city, but I rec'd notification that clickrewards were added to my account for this purchase. I wasn't even signed in to clickrewards and linked thru suzykats, does that mean I won't get the suzykats points? Do you get both? I have never shopped thru clickrewards before, I have an account because they took over for AltaVista rewards late last year so my account was transferred.

[sahammondsr]

While I can't specifically answer the question as it relates to your case, I can probably provide some insight to the potential problem being the administrator of another rewards program.

A handful of the offers you see in various rewards programs (sometimes as much as 50% or more) are what are referred to as aggregated or brokered offers. Basically, a fancy way for saying "administered by third party agencies such as Commission Junction, BeFree, LinkShare, Adteractive, and others).

The way these programs work is that when the rewards site generates the link, it adds your username or a unique identifier onto the end of that link. The aggregators receive that info, set a cookie as well as write to a log on their system.

Some of the systems have setup their tracking in such ways that even if you return 10, 20, 30 (or more) days later, they still remember who "referred" the transaction and which affiliate or rewards program to pay.

To take it a step further, some of these systems have begun ignoring subsequent clicks, meaning that if you link to a reward on one site, then later goto another site, when you link to the reward, the system knows that you've already been there and leaves the tracking information as is.

Its entirely possible for you to visit a program from one site, then goto another at a later time, visit that same site, complete the offer, and end up triggering a reward on the original site rather then the subsequent one.

There's no easy solution to this. You can always clear your cookies periodically, but there's no guarantees that the system won't remember you from local logging (though much less unlikely). You should not disable them or you may not get credit at all (remember, a lot of rewards are tracked via cookie).

Again, I'm not certain if this applies to your case, but is certainly something that could cause that sort of situation.

Hope the info helps.

Scott A. Hammond, Sr., CEO
Prima Internet, Inc.

[which way did he go]

but that can really wreck havoc with different users and/or rewards programs no? I'm not the only one here who belongs to these programs and several people use my puter. We thought that as long as you were logged out of the program (mypoints, clickrewards etc.) there wouldn't be a problem. Maybe that explains why I never rec'd pts for some offers and/or purchases?! Well, I'll just have to wait and see what happens. Thanks.

[sahammondsr]

I agree completely. As the operator of the program, it creates just as many problems as it does for end users.

Not all of the aggregators do this of course and we are trying to reduce our reliance on the ones that do.

As to points not being awarded, that certainly can be a cause. We find on our site that the number one cause of points not being awarded is simply due to a misunderstanding of the requirements to get points.

Many of the merchants who offer "points to register" only award the points after the user has logged in, or viewed the common area after registering. We always get a number of users who will simply register and never return and then complain when they don't get their points. The way that we handle this at Prima Rewards is we try to explain to the user when they visit the site what is required for points to be earned (specifically, such as register and then view xyz page).

In either case, don't think that all of the programs are just sitting back on these issues. Our program is very pro-active with the aggregators and in some cases, we've been instrumental in assisting them in making improvements that ensure members are credited properly. In those who don't, we try to use as few offers from them as possible (if any at all).

Again, I can't credibly tell you that either of these are the specific cause to your specific problems, but I can tell you from the "inside" that these certain are issues that we deal with.

Scott A. Hammond, Sr., CEO
Prima Internet, Inc.