Drop an affiliate program: what are the consequences?

[Sven]

Hi!


I have a newbie question and told myself that you surely know the answer. In a thread about affiliate managers, someone said that if an affiliate manager did not have time to answer his questions, he did not have the time to promote this program. As a result, he was abandoning this program.

If an affiliate is on a CPA plan, there are no problems. But suppose someone is on a rev share plan, what are the consequences? Does the program stop paying after a certain time because this account is inactive (no new players)? Or, if this is officially forbidden, does the program find pretexts for not paying?

At least, I imagine that the affiliate manager will not answer any more from this moment?

I can not find an answer to this question anywhere and I thought maybe you could help me.

Thank you very much in advance |

[Sherlock]

When you are on rev share and say this it means you tell them to take the money and stuff their ass with it.

This is why such a move is a drastic solution. Usually the program does not pay you anyways when you tell them good bye. Until they pay you, you are the hostage.

Forget about things like "officially forbidden". Nothing is official. They all can change the terms anytime and write there that they have right to sleep with your wife and daughter. Just get rid of the thinking that there is something official, that deals have value etc. That is just your false impression that will bring you to bad business decisions.

Doing affiliate marketing on rev share lately is like using a colander to fill a bucket with water. It was always like that, but now we see it finally.

[Former Member 14]

Doing affiliate marketing on rev share lately is like using a colander to fill a bucket with water.

That's a very funny analogy But ironically (as it's sadly), the real truth!

[allfreechips]

Or... you keep them live on a small site to retain your contract / agreement.

[tufty]

Remove them from your site or turn your reviews negative and remove all links to them. Don't tell them anything. They'll keep paying until they notice, which with some firms is for a very long time. I have done this with one big, crooked firm and they have still been paying like clockwork. It has been a year so far. If they contact you and query things then tell them they are a waste of space.

[Triple7]

Revenue share is paid lifetime. You should get paid for players you've delivered, no matter if you're pushing them hard or don't promote them at all anymore.

So far theory.

In reality, programs will decrease or even stop your revenue share. Some do this already if you give them less exposure. Almost every program has such a term in their t&c. It depends a bit how strict they enforce it. And if such a term is not in their t&c, they can always add it.

If you have no specific agreement with them about positions or exposure, I would just remove them. In the end, it doesn't make sense to waste time, money and traffic to non-responsive or non-performing programs. Even if this will cost you a bit of revenue share.

[Sven]

Thanks for your answers!

Traditionally, i think everyone agreed that revshare was the best plan.

Nowadays, is it possible that revshare is no longer the best option? Especially for a black market like France? And that CPA or hyrid are the best choices for someone who starts?

[Sherlock]

You are asking wrong questions trying to justify your theory.

Revenue share is **** now, yes.

CPA was always The Market of Lemons, so nothing great. (Either you delivered the traffic that had not much value for operator, so they would kick you out; or you deliver them too good traffic). This is about catching a whale(s). How many people per CPA you have to be paid for at rate 30-300 to justify one whale who loses millions?

Before the bet was obvious towards revenue share.

Now if you are so silly and do affiliate marketing you must decide and the decision must stand on concrete information. So by each program you must know why you do CPA or why you bet on revenue share.

France for example is absolute garbage. But for the garbage market for me both Unibet.fr CPA and Bwin.fr were at least bringing something and I can not decide which one is worse. But they are official, not black.

I think the blackmarkets are much better for revenue share tha whitemarkets, if there is some general advice, because they need you. But there are not strong black brands in France. Do you know any? 1xbet only through VPN and that is no good for conversions.

[q292u]

Remove them from your site or turn your reviews negative and remove all links to them. Don't tell them anything. They'll keep paying until they notice, which with some firms is for a very long time. I have done this with one big, crooked firm and they have still been paying like clockwork. It has been a year so far. If they contact you and query things then tell them they are a waste of space.

From my point of view, I'd just be happy to let them keep paying me, however useless they are! Money is money.
Just keep doing the minimum (or nothing) as long as they keep paying. Say nothing.

[Cash Bonus]

Agreed with q292u. That way, you just do the bare minimum to meet their requirements (if any) in order to keep receiving your affiliate commissions. Some programs may not require anything from you to keep paying you. On the other hand, some programs might want you to bring in say 5 new depositors every month.

[Catfish]

I agree with what has been said. Telling them of your plans is -EV. They will do what they want. Resist the temptation to tell them what you think of them. I had a program stealing from me big time (lost 6-figure amount) by untagging players. Impossible to prove, of course. I called them out on it, obviously they denied it. Nothing I can do about it. Better to let sleeping dogs sleep. Reduce them to the minimum and move on.
The only problem is, there are markets where all programs steal from you, one way or another.

Me, in consequence, I have decided to go another way. I am working on launching my own product, along with an affiliate program for it. When it is ready, I will probably be the only honest affiliate operator in that market - a market which, by the way, should be attractive for any gambling affiliate, no matter what their main focus is. You will hear all about it here in a few weeks....

[brodog]

Affiliate Managers change over time too, so there's another variable to factor into the equation. A lazy or unresponsive AM might soon be replaced by a good one if he's not performing and your fortunes will change if you hang in there.

[Catfish]

right. But the cheating part is not going to be done on AM level.
Also, one thing you need to keep a close eye on: when a company gets take over by another company. That, in my experience, is very often the moment when the stealing starts.

[Sven]

Your answers are really informative and lead me to see things differently from what I thought. Thank you so much!