Sponsors play games with their sales conversion ratios, and it is sometimes not easy to compare one sponsor to another using their posted ratios. All sponsors shave, some as much as 50%, and all sponsors play with the numbers. (If there is a sponsor who says they don't, and are willing to open their books to prove it, I'll take that back.)

The sales ratio is the number of sales per the number of hits sent to a sponsor. But to understand these numbers you must first define "hits". Some sponsors will show one number for hits, some will show unique and raw, some will show first, tour and join page hits. Some tell you what their numbers mean, and what number their ratio is calculated on, and some don't.

A few examples...

Sponsor A: 1000 hits - 650 Join Page - 2 sales - 1 in 325 Ratio

Sponsor B: 650 hits - 2 sales - 1 in 325 Ratio

Sponsor C: 1000 hits - 2 sales - 1 in 500 Ratio

Sponsors A and B show a 1 in 325 ratio, and C shows 1 in 500. All three have 2 sales and all three actually were sent 1000 hits. Sponsor B only shows join page hits and doesn't disclose that. No sponsor pays you on your ratio, they pay you on your sales. In other words, ignore a sponsors posted ratios when comparing one sponsor to another, because you don't always know what their numbers mean, and I personally do not trust them.

If you are posting TGP pages, the only way to compare sponsors is by Sales-Per-Page-Posted. If during a month, you make 10 TGP pages and get 5 sales with Sponsor A, and you make 10 TGP pages and get 6 sales from Sponsor B, then Sponsor B is doing better for you, their ratio is better - regardless of their posted ratios. You must also consider how much per sale you are getting. If in this example, the 5 sales pay $40. each, and the 6 sales pay $30. each, then you can see you will make more money with the 5 sales at one sponsor than you did with 6 sales at the other.

I have also found that a sponsor's sales conversions always seem to be better on partnership programs, where they pay a percentage of the renewals each month over flat-rate programs that pay a higher amount once on the sale. On high quality traffic, partnership programs might pay better in the long run. My personal experience with TGP traffic has been to go with the flat-rate programs.

I have a few sponsors that I will always use, and I try a new one about once a month. Keeping track of your own detailed statistics will certainly pay off in the long run, like any business, the better you understand what is going on, the better you can control it.