When you set a cascade's weight field to 256 in NATS, you enable the
"autocascade" feature which causes surfers to bypass the NATS pre-join form and go straight to a biller join form. This also bypasses the authentication procedure in the NATS pre-join form.
Normal Join Form and Cascading Behavior
Normally when a surfer visits the join form link, the NATS pre-join
form will be displayed-- this form captures surfer information and checks to
see if the username and email the surfer entered has already been taken.
Once submitted, the NATS pre-join form validates the data entered
and sends the surfer to the first biller in the cascade's join form. Figures 1.1 and 1.2 provide examples of the default NATS join form flow:
Figure 1.1 - Normal NATS Join Form Flow
Figure 1.2 - Default Join Form Content
If Autocascading is enabled by setting the Weight value to 256, then
NATS will bypass the NATS pre-join form and automatically send the surfer
to the biller's join form. Normally, if a surfer hit's a NATS pre-join form,
completes the form and never fully signs up, you'll see a
record similar to that of Figure 1.3. If you use autocascading, you'll
see accounts that look more like that in Figure 1.4:
Figure 1.3 - Default Join Form Content
Figure 1.4 - Default Join Form Content
You may have noticed that the member record from Figure 1.3 actually contains a
username, password, and email address. This allows you to reference this
member's record in the future, or use the information for a subsequent never-joined
advertisement campaign. The member created through an Autocascade in Figure 1.4 contains no surfer submitted data and is essentially a useless record as it contains no important member information.
Benefits and Drawbacks of Autocascading
Many surfers prefer autocascades, as it generally reduces the amount of information necessary to sign up. When a potential member only has a single join form to complete, instead of multiple, they will generally be more receptive to completing the transaction.
In contrast, many clients and affiliates prefer the regular cascading method and pre-join form, as it is usually more practical. The regular method allows you to retain future marketing information and also have a pre-join record of that surfer that can be used for future troubleshooting.
