Affiliate Software and Reporting Tools (outsourced or in-house development?)

[pinky]

Hi Everyone, I'm new to this community and was just browsing through some of the past threads where many affiliates have clearly communicated transparency and software reputation being a criteria they evaulate when selecting an affiliate program to promote.

I'd just like to know whether reputation of software really matters. What if it's developed in-house however provides what affiliates look for, the basics being impressions served, CTRs, new signups, deposit amounts, commissions, sub affiliate commissions, monthly reports, etc.

It was mentioned in one thread that operators pay substantial amounts in hosting affiliate software, which is very true, and this in-house development would surely save operators much money which can then be transferred towards rolling out even more lucrative commission schemes to affiliates.

What's your thoughts on this, and if you could make a wish list of must have features, with would be nice to have features within an affilaite portal, what would you include?

[universal4]

We have seen so many problems from "in-house" developed software over the years, but by the same respect, a few of the programs that developed their own stuff provide some of the best stats out there....so I think a lot more of it has to do with how responsive the operator is in getting stats bugs worked out and fixing them whether the software is outsourced or developed in house.

As far as features requested, my first and foremoste request is always campaign tracking. (how many of you saw that coming?)

Any operator that doesn' think they need to offer this, well your just working in thew dark ages since almost every single softweare provider now has this in their default packages.

There are a number of operators that claim they offer this, but then the affiliate finds out later they do not get to see what campaigns are actually delivering the visitors and the operator only provides campaign details after the conversion, or only if they request the details manually by email....(this info is needed on an on-going and daily basis and should NOT have to be requested, we need to be able to log in and see it NOW!)

Over and above that I think the more info we can have on the player, such as demographics, deposit and wthdraw numbers as well as games played etc helps us pin down where to keep our marketing focussed as what areas we need to improve on....

The above is only the short list as I am sure if this thread gets active enough you will get many more suggestions as well.

Funny thing is, even from my short list above, very few operators can say they provide everything on the short list.

Rick
Universal4

[pinky]

I can see campaign tracking as a definate must have for affiliate level control.

What about player level details? I've seen some software providers that offer details up to the player username levels, and as with some of the operators out there, they do pride themselves on the anonymity of user details as part of their service promise. Do you see this feature as something that can help affiliates specially drive campaigns to players or do you see it hindering the brand? As Rick mentioned there's a level of detail out there that's missing, but where does it stop. Something to make note of is that these details are also being shared with the software providers and operators themselves will have their reservations. Perhaps another reason for operators to develop in-house software, afterall all the data is already there.

I suppose both sides of the spectrum can be explored but would be interested to hear your thoughts.

[vcasino]

First post here for me, but happy to be here!

As for what I like to see in affiliate software, most important to me is a nice clean interface with an easy to navigate portal, with detailed reports.

I think if it is an in-house software it is important that it is reliable, updated regularly and secure.

Also the level of detail that you mentioned about showing individual users, I don't think it would be that important to me, but if possible its cool to know where most members are coming from, and what types of wagering they are doing, if it is mostly casinos, or sports bets and if so which types. That way if there is a trend forming I could cater to that by changing things up a bit.

I'm fairly new to this though, so I'm sure there are others who could give a much more insightful response than mine