Review: Stats Remote

http://www.statsremote.com/

$29.95 per month

Free demo and also a free 3 day trial

Stats remote is a piece of software that you download and install on your computer. It then checks your sales stats for you. The lure of this tool being that you can view all your sponsor sales and traffic stats in one place without having to log into each sponsor's stats pages. This promises to cut valuable time out of each day for us.

At $30 bucks per month it's no small investment for a new adult webmaster to make so I was keen to see exactly what the tool had to offer for the money. I'd seen StatsRemote mentioned before and curiosity got the better of me. I decided to try it out and see what it could really do. Another lure for me being that the software can track your Google PPC campaigns.

Stats remote does not let you add just any sponsor program out there. It has to be one which is supported by the software. This isn't a great problem however as over 500 sponsors are supported in there. Looking down the list, I can't see that many people would find many sponsors who weren't in there. But - it's well worth making use of the free trial to check that all of your sponsors are included. The program can also check CCBill, Epoch or iBill stats. Further more, you can email the software's creators to request a program or sponsor be added.

Download and installation

There's a free demo of the software (which shows some default stats to you) and there's also a free 3 day trial of the software. Once you've given over your credit card info, you get to download the software more or less instantly, which is always good. (I hate buying something and then seeing the 'we'll contact you within 24 hours' line!). The install file was surprisingly small (which is another good thing!) and weighed in at just under 650kb. Installation was quick and easy.

Once installed, Stats Remote runs as a tray item. A quick double click and it pops up center screen. To get rid of it, you can then click the cross to close it back into the tray, or hammer the icon again to toggle it back to it's corner of the screen. Once it's installed and you're familiar with how to bring it up, it's then time to add your sponsors. The window that contains the software looks like this:

(Default demo stats)

... But more on that in a moment.

There's really two major parts to the software that you'll need to know about. Let's look at them in order:

Part 1: Adding your sponsors

I've got to admit that I'm not a big fan of reading instructions. It doesn't matter if it's computer software or electric goods - I'd rather play around with them to find out how they work than go through a boring manual. A bit of a cavalier attitude but it's just the way I do things. I was pleased to find that this software is pretty straight forwards. There's the familiar menu strip along the top of the screen, and the first thing to do is go to File -> New Program. This brings up the following window:

And this is the part where you're going to need to know all your sponsor logins and passwords. Hopefully you've got them handy in a text file or something. Once you're here, you select a sponsor from the drop down box named 'Type', then add your user name and password - and that's it. You select how often you'd like to check stats (I set mine to 15 minutes) - and you're done. The sponsor will then appear in the main window. The only thing I could say here would be a 'search' feature would have been really welcome. There's a hell of a lot of sponsors in there and some way of jumping to the one you wanted would have saved time.

It's also easy to edit the settings for each sponsor too. Right clicking on their name, in the main stats window, brings up a menu. One of the options being 'Properties'. This allows you to edit the settings for that sponsor.

There's also support for AVS systems on this software too. This isn't going to be a tool where you feel like you're missing out on something - it's creators have obviously listened to feedback from earlier versions.

Part 2: Checking stats

The main window is where the meat of the software is. The sponsor's you've added appear down the left of the page, and then the following columns contain important information such as the number of surfers you've sent to each sponsor, the sales that you've made, your ratio for each sponsor and how much you're making from each surfer sent. This data is also tallied up into average money made per day, total money made, and your forecast sales for that month.

One thing that I found interesting with this software was that when you have a few of your sponsors added, and the format is standardized like this, you can start to see in 'black and white' which ones are doing the best. Obviously you're only getting a basic average ratio for each sponsor, but even so this could be used to help you spot potential problems in conversion ratios.

Historic information is also stored along the bottom. Once the software has gone in and read all of your stats info, you can click back over previous months and see how much you made back then also.

You can also set the stats window to FULL mode which adds in extra information such as rebills, cancels, chargebacks (shudder), email sales and cancels, and even rewards points.

Problems or drawbacks?

The main issue with this product for most adult webmasters will be the cost. I suppose you'd have to weigh up whether or not the $30 bucks each month it costs is going to be worth the time you could save checking stats. Everyone will have to decide how useful this tool is for them, and whether it's worth sacrificing one sign up per month for it (which is about what the software will cost).

I should also point out that Stats Remote's main competition is a hefty $99 per month, which makes the $30 / month sound just a little better.

It's also worth remembering that this software isn't going to stop you ever having to log into your sponsor's stats again. It's only the basic stats you get with stats remote. For more detailed information (like which page sent the surfer who made the sale) you're going to have to refer to each sponsor's stats area.

Although one VERY handy feature of this tool is that by clicking on each sponsor's name in the stats window, you are taken to their login page - with your login and password already inserted. OR you'll already be logged in there. This was a great idea.

I also hit problems adding three of the sponsors. Ibill, Traffic Cash and also Topbucks brought up an error message. But problems like this are addressed with a handy 'Send Error Report' feature, which is accessible by right clicking on a sponsor's name in the stats window. One of the good things about paying a monthly fee is that the software will be updated regularly and the support should be pretty good.

If you feel uncomfortable about adding your stats information to Stats Remote then don't. The company who make the software do not get access to this data at any time.

Mac users, unfortunately, are not supported at this time.

PPC SE Support

I was eager to see how Google's Adwords PPC program had been integrated to Stats Remote. Adding Google is no different to adding another sponsor. Once added, it sits at the bottom of the stats window and shows how much you've spent in total for that month. This amount is subtracted from your overall money made. It's an interesting addition but it is just a basic total of what you've spent at that PPC engine. Still, as an extra it's very welcome - AND clicking on Adwords in the stats window logs you nicely into the Google stats page.

Summing up

Other than the price issue and other snags I found, I really can't think of any major drawbacks to StatsRemote. If you are a self-confessed stats addict then this could be a good purchase for you. It's innovative, easy to use, robust, and really does do what it says on the tin. Checking stats in literally 10 seconds has a great deal of appeal, as does standardising the reports from each sponsor and seeing them next to each other. It's great not having to click from page to page just to see if you've had any fresh sales.

Scores:

Features: 8/10
Basic overview of all the important sales information.

Installation and running: 9/10
Easy installation and superb integration into the tray.

Newbie Friendliness: 9/10
A tool that could have been overly complex - which is actually very easy to use.

Overall: 9/10
A well thought out and time-saving tool



** StatsRemote update... **

I managed to add in the programs which I was currently having difficulty with. I had changed my sponsor username and password in some cases and that was f***ing things up. Basically it was my fault. BUT... the support from StatsRemote's people was great. A nice person got back to me twice with a very polite and helpful email.

I also discovered something else helpful. If you roll the cursor over the stats remote icon in the tray, you get a read out of:

total number of sales | total money this month | predicted money this month

I've decided to keep the software on because it's going to save a lot of time. The only thing I'd say is that it's like taking a stray dog in off the street: once he's curled up in front of your fire - you don't want to get rid of it. But credit where credit's due. This is a great little tool for anyone who spends a lot of time checking stats.

Oh and no - I'm not on the payroll!

TOM ^"^

ICQ 12616560
Email tom@tomsnewbiebooster.com

Enter TOM'S NEWBIE BOOSTER

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