The move was announced by CEO Ron Cadwell in a posting at adult industry message board GFY.com entitled, "CCBill WMS … The Road Ahead: An Open Letter to our WMS Sponsors & Their Affiliates"
"For years you've known CCBill as an organization full of innovation and drive," Cadwell began, moving on to the company's launch of its WMS affiliate marketing system. "Our intent for this expanded system was, and remains, to further improve the functionality and performance of the affiliate marketing initiatives of our clients and their affiliates, without the added cost of a third party solution."
The highly anticipated WMS was not without its problems however, which resulted in a string of private and public complaints, which the company has vigorously addressed and for which Cadwell apologized.
"I would like to apologize to our WMS clients and their affiliates who took the time and resources to move over to this new system only to be disappointed in the results," Cadwell wrote, explaining that while the WMS core works as intended, issues primarily related to the conversion of pre-WMS CCBill affiliate programs over to the new system were to blame for the decreased sales and other issues noted by some operators.
While Cadwell says that WMS remains the future of the CCBill affiliate system, programs wishing to return to the old system would be helped through the migration and given the option to move to the more advanced toolset at a later date.
"On Monday, March 8, 2010, at approximately 11:00 a.m. MST, anyone that had converted will have the Original Affiliate System re-enabled," Cadwell said. "It is important to note that with the re-enabling, all traffic going through WMS is still going to get counted, links will still function, and applicable sales will still be credited."
"Only after a granular Quality Assurance and testing cycle, will we once again provide the option to convert affiliates from the Original CCBill Affiliate System, over to the feature-rich WMS System," Cadwell added, noting that clients could run both systems in parallel, enabling their individual affiliates to choose which solution they would prefer.
"For 12 years, we at CCBill have taken pride in earning your business and trust with unparalleled dedication to our clients, exemplary service and innovative products," Cadwell concluded. "We will learn from these conversion mistakes so that today and into the future, we can restore and maintain that trust once again."