iGB Awards - why we don't stand a chance!

[TheDane]

Tipico is nominated as best non-english affiliate partner. Tipico.. Let me repeat, Tipico. Not only do they have the worst affiliate-program, it is also less than two months ago they decided to steal all players from affiliates from all other markets than Germany. Yes, they have stolen players from affiliates and will stop paying rev share from 1st of jan 2017. How can they get nominated???

Also great to see that PokerStars can be nominated as best poker affiliate. Sure the millions they stole and the great 2 years of rev share is something we should all recognize. Did I mention the state of the art back end and the high rev share?

Same for bwin.party that offers life-time rev share (...).

All in all, it would be great if igb could ignore the money from programs that have ****** us over and over, and move in a direction that celebrates the few good partners left out there.

Also, best affiliate-website could just be renamed to best SEO and PPC partner. If we should celebrate some affiliates this year, it should be the casino-streamers. They sure have found a new way to drive traffic. Well done guys.

[TheGooner]

Agreed that many of the programs on this short list are not best-of-breed and have poor affiliate relations.

I would suggest to iGB that if they want the awards to have ANY standing within the affiliate community they need to have basic compliance with accepted way to do business with affiliates.

Just looking at the sports company section ...
Betfair, Betsson, bet365, Betway Partners, Evoke Gaming Group, Unibet Affiliates, 888sport

Betfair / Betway / Betsson / 888sport / Unibet?? On WHAT basis do they even get to the starting line-up?
Inferior product, unfriendly to affiliates, just all around average at best - crooked at worst.

Evoke Gaming Group? Who? No - Really ... Who?
I went out and checked ... source : http://www.evokegaming.com/about/

Evoke Gaming Ltd is based in Malta, and is a regulated online gaming company, we have been offering a thrilling and enjoyable online gaming experience to millions through brands that include Redbet.com, Heypoker.com, Whitebet.com, Bertil.com, Vinnarum.com and Mamamiabingo.com.

So that leaves a list of one ... Bet365

So well done to BET365 as the only possible winners of the section.

[Sherlock]

Betfair / Betway / Betsson / 888sport / Unibet?? On WHAT basis do they even get to the starting line-up?
Inferior product, unfriendly to affiliates, just all around average at best - crooked at worst.

Really
take Unibet out of the crook list. Especially here Unibet revenue vs. Affiliatelounge revenue per the same units of traffic in core market of Northern Europe is worse than 20:1.

Let me repeat, Tipico. Not only do they have the worst affiliate-program, it is also less than two months ago they decided to steal all players from affiliates from all other markets than Germany.

Is there some link for that so I can stop promoting them?

[LukeC]

Also, best affiliate-website could just be renamed to best SEO and PPC partner. If we should celebrate some affiliates this year, it should be the casino-streamers. They sure have found a new way to drive traffic. Well done guys.

I don't know how many judges there are for each category (and I assume there are quite a lot), but I am one for a few of the awards. Each judge was sent all the "applications" for the award they were judging, picked 7 affiliates, ranked 1-7, for each award at the first stage, and were told to explain their reasoning.

I've no interest in defending the shortlist, because in the casino/bingo/sports affiliate awards, 12 of the 21 affiliates I included didn't make the shortlists. Those tended to be affiliates who didn't submit applications. I spent a fair while trying to make sure that I considered affiliates who didn't submit applications.

I think the main problem is that judges are only choosing from the people that submit applications for the awards, and don't consider affiliates that don't. Which is a dual issue between people not submitting applications for awards, the quality of the applications being really badly written compared to the criteria, and quality of the judges.

For example, your Casino twitch streamers example is a great one. None submitted an application, and as I don't work with any, it's impossible for me to judge them against the criteria (like I could with sites I didn't work with, that do well in SEO). To be honest, they didn't cross my mind. I have no idea what their capability is for driving traffic, so can't include them regardless, like I did for quite a lot of my nominations. It may well be the case that the same happens with the affiliate programme awards.

With the affiliate programme awards, I think it also tends to be bigger affiliates who are the judges, and who aren't as exposed to the obvious issues with a number of affiliate programmes due to the bespoke deals they do with them.

[TheDane]

I agree, Unibet has done very well the last few years (very high player value).

In regards to Tipico, we got informed a few months back that they will stop all acquisition in Denmark and remove all players from our account. I am 100% sure it has never been their intention (Marc is not a rat), but something CVC has forced them to do in order to grow Germany at any cost.

http://www.onestopbrokers.com/2016/0...erator-tipico/

Tipico was also the main sponsor of the Danish national football team http://www.gamingintelligence.com/ma...otball-partner

The market will not be closed but only acquisition and our rev share (...).

As far as I remember, they will only do acquisition in Germany (and Austria) now.

In regards to the best affiliate award, I dont blame the sites who got nominated. I am 100% sure they all do very well in regards to sign ups. I would - however - like if we could focus a bit more on player value rather than NDP. I think it is a shame that the KPI for most partners listed on the stock is NDP and not money earned.

I have high quality traffic and struggle to convince my partners why they should invest in that kind of traffic. They dont really care that it takes time and money to build high quality traffic. They just want to get NDP and dont really care as long the traffic is not worth 0. I am lucky to have both volume and quality, but I still dont get paid enough for my quality traffic.

The casino-streamers has done super well (1000 of new casino players the last year), but none of them are working with bet365, WH, Ladbrokes etc. It might be the reason why they are not nominated. Many of them has more than 1000 viewers when they stream.. Super retention worth millions if you ask me.