If you’ve been involved in the online adult business for anytime long, you likely know of Too Much Media, the New Jersey-based company that develops and supports a powerful suite of web-based products, including the NATS software that is used to power the back-end tasks of affiliate programs.
Too Much Media launched in the early 2000s after its two founders and current principals, John Albright and Charlie Berrebbi, attempted to get a paysite and affiliate program off the ground.
One of the things we are trying to get people to realize a lot more is that NATS is not just an affiliate tracking software, it’s more of a business intelligence tool.
Frustrated with viable software products to power the venture, they built their own software, NATS — standing for Next-generation Administration and Tracking System — to track sales for their paysite and affiliate program.
As the company saw more value in its tracking software, Too Much Media’s partners ditched their proposed paysite and affiliate program and went full time into the software business, scoring its first client in January 2004.
And now NATS is used by hundreds of clients who desire a stable, scalable platform that is highly configurable.
XBIZ World in late September chatted with Albright and Berrebbi to find out more about the company in this Presidential Suite interview.
XBIZ: How did the company get its start?
Berrebbi: John came to me and had an idea of a company called Too Much Green, which was to be a paysite, and we wanted to get an affiliate program behind us. So we tried other affiliate program software, and we felt that they fell short. So we decided to write our own program at the time.
Albright: In 2003, decided to write the program, and as we were putting it together, we started making things very flexible and then that flexibility got built into the software. We put it out there, and people started asking about it.
Since it was flexible, we let people have a go at it. And they used our software for their affiliate programs. And it took off from there.
And with the speed that it took off, it pushed the original idea of the affiliate program out of the picture. So we wound up just running with that.
XBIZ: Has customer input meant a big difference to the success of NATS?
Berrebbi: We actually built our programs based on our client’s feedback. As a matter of fact, a couple years back we brought affiliates from different parts of the country to evaluate our program to see how they liked it and how they liked the flexibility of it and what it does. Then we got feedback. And from there, we went back to the drawing board and, later, we put out a new version of the software.
XBIZ: How has the affiliate marketplace changed through the years?
Albright: Obviously the affiliate marketing landscape has changed a fair amount in the last couple of years.
One of the things we are trying to get people to realize a lot more is that NATS is not just an affiliate tracking software, it’s more of a business intelligence tool. We have a lot of clients who use NATS to manage customers, paysites, media buys, traffic profitability of the media buys, customer service, split testing and to optimize tours.
XBIZ: What’s a typical work day like for both of you?
Berrebbi: I basically do the financials, make sure thing everything is copacetic with the company and make sure that there is money in the company; John takes care of the technical end.
Albright: I do a lot of communication directly with clients myself to find out if they are happy or not happy. I’m reaching out to them to see if there’s something they would like to see in the software and seeing if it can fit in the product as a whole, then bringing it to the tech team and explaining why someone wants it so they can implement it properly.
I don’t do any programming myself anymore. But I deal with the tech team a lot at higher levels, solving their problems from time to time, as well as making decisions on what areas we should be breaking ground on and new technologies we should be employing or not employing because they are not relevant to the industry anymore. I focus on the general direction of the products and dealing with the technical fires that come about.
XBIZ: Does Too Much Media have any major product updates or new tools on the horizon?
Albright: There are. One is called NATS for Networks, which is a version of NATS that is modified to work for CPA networks rather than CRM.
I see a lot of people that are coming into the industry, CrakRevenue would be an example, where they don’t necessarily have an affiliate program for their product but they have an affiliate program where they allow other advertisers to use their affiliate base to promote their product. With this software, NATS for Networks, will allow anybody in the industry to do that.
So if you don’t necessarily operate your own paysite but you have deals with various dating sites and white labels for your cams sites, you can set up your products and put them in your affiliate network.
XBIZ: When not thinking about the biz, what do both of you like to do?
Berrebbi: Basically I love to travel.
Albright: I kind of do the same things at home that I do here. I’m very into technology and looking at what is coming out, and the new gadgets that arrive on the scene. I do have a new daughter. She is our first child.
