Bit Different - For affiliates

[Renee]

I'm putting this one out there because of the feedback I've received lately about our newsletter...

How many people actually read our newsletter?

Did you know that we started sending a new format newsletter back in December last year which shows you whats in it at the top so you can easily just click on what you want to read and leave out the rest?

Did you know that we have been pushing out a new unique marketing tool every month for the last 6 months?

Did you know that we added a geo-targeting option for our affiliate links?

Did you know that we introduced a RevShare model mid-last year?

Did you know that we have a new affiliate site on the way?

Did you know that we have over 1400 different landing pages in over 15 different languages?

Did you know that we have over 10,000 banners in over 15 different languages?

Of course there is much more, but you'll have to read the newsletters to find out

In all seriousness, how many people had no idea about the above?

In the last few months I've had conversations with affiliates who had no idea that we introduced a new RevShare model last year. Who had no idea how many marketing tools we actually have etc all because they don't read our newsletter, but just delete it..

Is there something that would make it more interesting?

[Puma]

I know there are a lot of banners

[TheGooner]

Renee - you aksed - so I'll answer

--------------------------------

How many people actually read our newsletter? I Scan it VERY quickly - looking for direct impacts.

Did you know that we started sending a new format newsletter back in December last year which shows you whats in it at the top so you can easily just click on what you want to read and leave out the rest? I don't know is it in the format I receive already? We seem to get plain text

Did you know that we have been pushing out a new unique marketing tool every month for the last 6 months? No

Did you know that we added a geo-targeting option for our affiliate links? No

Did you know that we introduced a RevShare model mid-last year? No

Did you know that we have a new affiliate site on the way? No

Did you know that we have over 1400 different landing pages in over 15 different languages? No - I've never set up a landing page for RA.

Did you know that we have over 10,000 banners in over 15 different languages? No - I know that you have a lot of old banners though - because it's hard to find current content in all the mess.

Of course there is much more, but you'll have to read the newsletters to find out

In all seriousness, how many people had no idea about the above?

-----------

(warning - straightforward criticism - read at your own risk)

In all seriousness - your newsletter needs to get above the hard sell for 60% share for French / German / whatever country is flavour of the month customers - really do you think anyone reacts to that 1 month boost as a call to action?

I know it's hard when you want to write one email to reach thousands of affiliates - but upskill the message and you might actually engage your audience. But that generic message spasm that comes out of RA is so obviously generic that it's hard to take as a targetted message.

E.g June's email contained ...
- 1) Prague conference hype - but we did not attend
- 2) Nostalgia Casino promo - but we do not promote it
- 3) French players at 60% for 1 month - but French players are just 2% of our traffic.

Result is that the email discarded in 20 seconds.

You have our stats - you know that items 2) and 3) were a mis-match and you probably also know that item 1) is irrelevant because we did not attend - so why on earth send out the generic email to us at all?

I'd suggest less hard sell to affilaites in the newsletter - instead actually engage us as professionals. If your newsletter was actually written in the same engaging tone as this thread - asking specfic questions and highlighting the tools - then you'd probably get a bit more interaction.

You're obviously a smart lady Renee - this thread shows it - but the monthly email doesn't reflect that line of thought - it's more like "generic rah rah rah 101" - and quickly gets discarded.

(Ok, ok, rant over ...)

The good news is that as a result of your post I will go and look a bit harder at the RA backend ... to make sure that we're using the tools appropriately - so this thread has obviously worked.

[thepokerkeep]

This post will be a slight derail since I have only been working with Rewards for a couple of months and can't really comment on what the newsletter was like in the past.

I do read the newsletter and find it informative.

I have looked through the marketing materials Rewards offers and found that they have more than any other program I work with. Too much? Maybe, but I'd rather have to sift through too much material than not find what I want or need.

I've also found that simply contacting Renee via PM or email will get me the marketing material I need without having to negotiate the marketing material section of their website. Renee is always happy to look at my page(s) and offer her advice regarding which material would work best.

Let me close by saying that I appreciate receiving newsletters from all the programs I work with. It takes only a few minutes to scan them for relevant info and they help keep me up to date on new promos, marketing materials, etc.

[DaftDog]

I have an affiliate account with you guys but have not used it because I hated your Wager Share model.

I've just updated my account details and would like to know how to go about changing to the Rev Share model, as I see that, according to my profile page, this model cannot be changed.

[Nandakishore]

I read the newsletter carefully and also find it useful. But I have one problem with it. I receive it much too late. I received, e.g. the August issue on 31st August letting me know that I will receive 60% in August for all new German players sent between August 13 - August 31, 2010. Well, that doesn't help me much. In fact, I was going to email Renee, but now I don't have to.

As for the RevShare, I was under the impression that this is only for new affiliates. Is that correct?

One thing I miss. There used to be a Player's Newsletter accessible on the website until 2008. I found that quite useful to know what kind of information the players are getting from Rewards. What can't we have that again?

It was a very good idea Renee to start this thread.

[Chips]

I would love to read the newsletter but I have not got one in over a year at best. I have 2 accounts with RA yet not one newsletter. If they arrive in the final days of the month listing promos for the upcoming month I could react and plan on when and how to get promos in place. I thought y'all quit sending them so I moved on to other things.

Would you please check my account and see why I don't get them?

[matted]

I'll add my two cents (I'm not a RA affiliate because I focus on sports and I beieve their casinos are not USA friendly)

I get upwards of 100 emails every day. some are essentially spam - link exchanges from "marketing companies" or looking to buy ad space on the cheap. I bet I get fewer of these than some webmasters.

But then every gambling account I have sends me newsletters (often weekly). Many affiliate programs send me newsletters too. I find all these publications tell me absolutely nothing. They are filled with marketing propaganda. It is overload.

It is my understanding your newsletter is different - so just drawing attention to it in this manner is helpful. Perhaps it is too long? I shut down when things are more than a couple paragraphs. Perhaps things need to be sent out every few weeks in a shorter communication? Perhaps it shouldn't be a newsletter? I read every email that appears personal.

[jarvi]

Thanks for taking an interest in this Renee. Always good to see programs trying some continuous improvement work.

I tend to scan all the newsletters I receive. If something pops then I will read more. I am aware of most of the features Rewards has, just haven't implemented them...

The conference stuff in all newsletters annoy me. Is it possible to have a separate list for conference stuff? I haven't attended a single one and don't see one in the future either.

Cutting down the hype would also be good. You have a good was of dealing with us here so just write the newsletter the same and more people might actually read it.

Obviously the list has affiliates who have just signed up and others who have been working for years. Whilst it would be more work, perhaps have two lists. One for new affiliates who have only been with Rewards for, say less than six months, and one for others. By way of example, the former could then concentrate on all the tools and features etc and the latter just when new tools are released.

Another possibility, and more work at your end, is to split the newsletter and give the affiliates the option for which parts they wish to receive. ie new features, new casinos, conferences, bonuses and promos etc.

[Renee]

Thanks for the feedback guys.. This is exactly what I'm looking for..

The reason I started this thread was basically because I wanted to know what content was actually read. The reason we changed the format of the newsletter was because I knew so many people weren't reading it because they lost interest at the top. So I had an "in this issue" box at the top so that you could simply click on what you're interested in reading and not have to go through the whole thing to get to something of interest. Obviously if there's nothing in that list that interests you, like any newsletter, you close and delete.. This is to be expected..

I'll go through each post one at a time so that I can address everything mentioned..

Renee - you aksed - so I'll answer

--------------------------------

How many people actually read our newsletter? I Scan it VERY quickly - looking for direct impacts.

Did you know that we started sending a new format newsletter back in December last year which shows you whats in it at the top so you can easily just click on what you want to read and leave out the rest? I don't know is it in the format I receive already? We seem to get plain text

I insert the emails into the mailing program in HTML, plain text and "AOL" format. The mailing server determines which format to send the email depending on the receiving server..
I'm not sure if there's any way to change this for individual emails but I'll see if I can find more info..

I did send the August newsletter only in HTML because there seemed to be an issue with the other two.. Did you still receive it in plain text?

Did you know that we have been pushing out a new unique marketing tool every month for the last 6 months? No

Did you know that we added a geo-targeting option for our affiliate links? No

Did you know that we introduced a RevShare model mid-last year? No

Did you know that we have a new affiliate site on the way? No

Every month there is a section called "New Marketing Tool - Name of tool"... I'm guessing you've missed that part?

The geo-targeting started sometime last year if I remember correctly.

So that the newsletters aren't too large, I try to limit the number of items in the newsletter to 3. They all have approx 2-3 paragraphs each...

Did you know that we have over 1400 different landing pages in over 15 different languages? No - I've never set up a landing page for RA.


Did you know that we have over 10,000 banners in over 15 different languages? No - I know that you have a lot of old banners though - because it's hard to find current content in all the mess.

Have you used our "Search Creatives" page to find banners? All the new ones are the first ones returned.. if you need help with that just let me know.

Of course there is much more, but you'll have to read the newsletters to find out

In all seriousness, how many people had no idea about the above?

-----------

(warning - straightforward criticism - read at your own risk)

In all seriousness - your newsletter needs to get above the hard sell for 60% share for French / German / whatever country is flavour of the month customers - really do you think anyone reacts to that 1 month boost as a call to action?

It would probably surprise you how many affiliates respond to the 60% for certain markets. That's why we continue to run them.

FYI - the 60% for French players was to help the affiliates find our program a little more appealing than the others that were left who had French traffic and nowhere to send it when a few of the other programs dropped French traffic. I know this doesn't appeal to everyone, but on the off chance that someone who has never sent us a french player in the past, or no players in the past, who has a lot of french traffic, we had to send that out to everyone. We never know who is trying to get into another country.

It also encouraged a few affiliates who would not normally target french traffic give it a try. There were some good results from that too, so it wasn't a fail effort.

I know it's hard when you want to write one email to reach thousands of affiliates - but upskill the message and you might actually engage your audience. But that generic message spasm that comes out of RA is so obviously generic that it's hard to take as a targetted message.

E.g June's email contained ...
- 1) Prague conference hype - but we did not attend
- 2) Nostalgia Casino promo - but we do not promote it
- 3) French players at 60% for 1 month - but French players are just 2% of our traffic.

Result is that the email discarded in 20 seconds.

You have our stats - you know that items 2) and 3) were a mis-match and you probably also know that item 1) is irrelevant because we did not attend - so why on earth send out the generic email to us at all?

If you had to rewrite June's newsletter, what would you have put in it that would be relevant to every single affiliate who wants to receive a newsletter?

Not every newsletter will be for everyone. I most certainly understand that. I receive newsletters for stuff where one month I'll read everything, and other months I'll read nothing.. I try to put at least one thing in each newsletter that is important and relevant to all affiliates.. In the June newsletter the Nostalgia bonus was that.

The reason I thought this was important to all affiliates is that I have come across many instances where I've had a complaint from a player who came through an affiliate showing the wrong sign up bonus. When I contact that affiliate, they've told me they didn't even realise they were promoting that casino.

I understand that this will not be the case for every single affiliate, but it's going to be impossible for me to send a personalised newsletter to every affiliate too.. That's why it's a newsletter - because it's supposed to be general, important info..right?

If I want to send you personalised stuff, I will email you directly as I have done in the past.. this is the case for all affiliates.

Regarding the part about conferences, the other reason I put that in is because not all affiliates check their accounts each month. The only other place I could put it so that all affiliates are bound to see it is the announcements section when you first log in.. At least in a newsletter you have the option of reading it right? In the announcements section you have no choice. It's there in your face whenever you login.

The other point about that is that I've had a few affiliates who have never attended a conference, go to one because of a newsletter I've sent that had info about the conferences in there.

Again, I know it's not for everyone, and not everyone attends, but if you can suggest another way that is guaranteed to get to everyone who wants to know about it, I'm interested to hear it

I'd suggest less hard sell to affilaites in the newsletter - instead actually engage us as professionals. If your newsletter was actually written in the same engaging tone as this thread - asking specfic questions and highlighting the tools - then you'd probably get a bit more interaction.

You're obviously a smart lady Renee - this thread shows it - but the monthly email doesn't reflect that line of thought - it's more like "generic rah rah rah 101" - and quickly gets discarded.

(Ok, ok, rant over ...)

The good news is that as a result of your post I will go and look a bit harder at the RA backend ... to make sure that we're using the tools appropriately - so this thread has obviously worked.

I'm glad the thread worked to its intention for you
The thing I'm aiming for is to get it through to the people who don't frequent the forums..

Of course I'd be willing to hear ideas on this too

In regards to the tools etc, our new affiliate site will have some pretty nifty reporting tools, so stay tuned for that.

[Renee]

This post will be a slight derail since I have only been working with Rewards for a couple of months and can't really comment on what the newsletter was like in the past.

I do read the newsletter and find it informative.

I have looked through the marketing materials Rewards offers and found that they have more than any other program I work with. Too much? Maybe, but I'd rather have to sift through too much material than not find what I want or need.

I've also found that simply contacting Renee via PM or email will get me the marketing material I need without having to negotiate the marketing material section of their website. Renee is always happy to look at my page(s) and offer her advice regarding which material would work best.

Let me close by saying that I appreciate receiving newsletters from all the programs I work with. It takes only a few minutes to scan them for relevant info and they help keep me up to date on new promos, marketing materials, etc.

I'm always happy to send marketing material to those who email me if they don't want to look through the site or can't find what they're looking for.

[Renee]

I have an affiliate account with you guys but have not used it because I hated your Wager Share model.

I've just updated my account details and would like to know how to go about changing to the Rev Share model, as I see that, according to my profile page, this model cannot be changed.

Ixian please send me an email and we can chat about this..

Renee@RewardsAffiliates.com

Cheers

[Renee]

I read the newsletter carefully and also find it useful. But I have one problem with it. I receive it much too late. I received, e.g. the August issue on 31st August letting me know that I will receive 60% in August for all new German players sent between August 13 - August 31, 2010. Well, that doesn't help me much. In fact, I was going to email Renee, but now I don't have to.

As for the RevShare, I was under the impression that this is only for new affiliates. Is that correct?

One thing I miss. There used to be a Player's Newsletter accessible on the website until 2008. I found that quite useful to know what kind of information the players are getting from Rewards. What can't we have that again?

It was a very good idea Renee to start this thread.

I also had issues about sending the newsletter out so late... Actually the newsletter should have gone out mid month, but we were having issues with the new tool that was coming out, and then I needed translations, so it ended up taking it's time.. The rest of August 60% for German traffic was automatic anyway (and I did post it here too ) but the newsletter should have been sent out earlier.

Regarding the player newsletters, that's my fault for not updating the link to say until 2010.. If you click on the link within the same area in the aff program (News > Player News - click on the most recent link with newsletters from 200 you'll be taken to a page to click on the archived newsletters which shows every newsletter up to date.

I'll make an effort to update that link this week too so that you wont have to click so many times to find what you want.

As for the RevShare - you can create a new account on the model for sure.. if you would like to switch on your current account, just send me an email and I'll see what I can do.

[Renee]

I would love to read the newsletter but I have not got one in over a year at best. I have 2 accounts with RA yet not one newsletter. If they arrive in the final days of the month listing promos for the upcoming month I could react and plan on when and how to get promos in place. I thought y'all quit sending them so I moved on to other things.

Would you please check my account and see why I don't get them?

Hmmm, that's not right. I'll let you know what I find.

FYI - All the newsletters can be found once logged into the aff site under News > Affiliate News.

[Renee]

I'll add my two cents (I'm not a RA affiliate because I focus on sports and I beieve their casinos are not USA friendly)

I get upwards of 100 emails every day. some are essentially spam - link exchanges from "marketing companies" or looking to buy ad space on the cheap. I bet I get fewer of these than some webmasters.

But then every gambling account I have sends me newsletters (often weekly). Many affiliate programs send me newsletters too. I find all these publications tell me absolutely nothing. They are filled with marketing propaganda. It is overload.

It is my understanding your newsletter is different - so just drawing attention to it in this manner is helpful. Perhaps it is too long? I shut down when things are more than a couple paragraphs. Perhaps things need to be sent out every few weeks in a shorter communication? Perhaps it shouldn't be a newsletter? I read every email that appears personal.

Have a look at August's newsletter and tell me if you think it's too long?

http://www.rewardsaffiliates.com/mem..._200810_en.htm

[Renee]

Thanks for taking an interest in this Renee. Always good to see programs trying some continuous improvement work.

I tend to scan all the newsletters I receive. If something pops then I will read more. I am aware of most of the features Rewards has, just haven't implemented them...

The conference stuff in all newsletters annoy me. Is it possible to have a separate list for conference stuff? I haven't attended a single one and don't see one in the future either.

Cutting down the hype would also be good. You have a good was of dealing with us here so just write the newsletter the same and more people might actually read it.

This was the reason why I added the "words of wisdom" section at the top - to add my personality in there so that people wouldn't think it was just a robot talking... With the news items I try to keep as plain english as possible just for the people who may not be as good reading english as others.. I think sometimes my way of dealing with people and injecting my personality can get lost in translation..

Obviously the list has affiliates who have just signed up and others who have been working for years. Whilst it would be more work, perhaps have two lists. One for new affiliates who have only been with Rewards for, say less than six months, and one for others. By way of example, the former could then concentrate on all the tools and features etc and the latter just when new tools are released.

Another possibility, and more work at your end, is to split the newsletter and give the affiliates the option for which parts they wish to receive. ie new features, new casinos, conferences, bonuses and promos etc.

Your suggestion about only giving the affiliates what they want, new features etc seems like the best idea.. I'll have to see if there is a way to incorporate that in easily.. We could always only just send out one newsletter for each category, but then who is going to read 3 different monthly newsletters? I know I used to get 3 newsletters from seochat and I ended up deleting them in the end because it was just too much to read..

Let me see what I can do.

Thanks again for the feedback guys. It's much appreciated.

[Renee]

I would love to read the newsletter but I have not got one in over a year at best. I have 2 accounts with RA yet not one newsletter. If they arrive in the final days of the month listing promos for the upcoming month I could react and plan on when and how to get promos in place. I thought y'all quit sending them so I moved on to other things.

Would you please check my account and see why I don't get them?

Ok so I've looked into this and apparently your email address was invalidated for some reason. This could be that an email bounced (maybe a short downtime or something).. I guess it could be for any other reason..

I've had it fixed. When we send the September newsletter I'll drop you a line to see if you received it.

If theres anyone else who hasn't received the newsletter but feels they should be, please let me know.

Cheers