Affiliate systems: Netrefer making it too easy to cheat us?

[Casino-Matt]

Hey guys,

I am just wondering what the general feeling is not with regards to individual programs but actually to the referral software in general.

What I mean is Myaffiliates software seems brilliant. We get to see the amount deposited, as well as a huge amount of stats, updated by the half hour or so.

Compare that to Netrefer whose data is crap to say the least and not updated regularly. Whats more is Netrefer are no help at all with complaints and rely on the casino being honest about the data they send back to netrefer.

Now Slots Guide has been online for nearly 12 months and all other things being equal the number of clicks from Myaffiliates are on average more than double those of Netrefer casinos. The number of registrations is about 10 to 1 at least and depositing customers probably about 4 to 1.

My general feeling of being shafted by affiliates is that the following are definately screwing me over on the stats:

Go Wild
Aff Utd
Mr Green
32 Red

With possible anomolies at:

Casumo
Bring It
Thrills

ALL of these use Netrefer.

Videoslots
Casino luck

These two feel iffy and use differrnt affiliate software.

My most trusted affiliates for example are Fruity, Full cream, Bonnier and IAffilaites, all using Myaffiliates software.

Let's take a case study as an example. Go Wild v Full Cream.
Both have 2 casinos, all offering very similar generous no deposit bonuses and both getting equal listings on homepage and the rest of the website. Over the same period of time Go Wild had 3 registrations compared to 100 at Full Cream. Even taking into account the platforms (MG v NetEnt) these kind of numbers throw up big red flags. Clicks are more than double at Full Cream and for income Go Wild is in the negative while Full Cream is always making earnings.

I can list many other similar case studies for groups with equal listings.

So how are your experiences? Anyone else seeing similar patterns? I would be really interested to hear from the big boys like LCB and AskG as they have the massive traffic to really see good number comparisons.

[baldidiot]

Let's take a case study as an example. Go Wild v Full Cream.
Both have 2 casinos, all offering very similar generous no deposit bonuses and both getting equal listings on homepage and the rest of the website. Over the same period of time Go Wild had 3 registrations compared to 100 at Full Cream. Even taking into account the platforms (MG v NetEnt) these kind of numbers throw up big red flags. Clicks are more than double at Full Cream and for income Go Wild is in the negative while Full Cream is always making earnings.

Go Wild v Full Cream definitely isn't a like for like comparison. For starters Go Wild have been around for ages and have been on tons of affiliate sites for years, meaning their saturation among players is much higher than Full Cream (who most players, lets be honest, probably haven't heard of and so probably don't have an account).

Plus you have differences in software etc...

[Casino-Matt]

Thanks Baldy that is a good point however my point remains that Netrefer stats vs the rest just dont add up. I can come up with a dozen other case studies where saturation isn't an issue.

[MMM]

Hey,

I agree with you on Netrefer - one of the worst in terms of transparency. I have to say I am not sure the option doesn't exist and the operators choose not to use it.

However, I doubt Netrefer users cheat more than others. I think more stats at Myaffilites give you just a false feeling of transparency.

[MrBinaryAff]

How do you know that Mr Green is screwing you over?

[Casino-Matt]

It has come to my attention that adblock might explain away some differences in the stats, in that even text links can have issues.
It is a bit strange that this isnt pointed out by any of the affiliate groups. Something I need to dig into quick.

But the feeling of being shafted still remains.

Mr Binary, with regards Mr Green, both through the ultra low stats compared to other brands and through test clicks and sign ups.

[Triple7]

You got test sign ups and deposits at Mr. Green that are not visible in your stats?

I never test them. Their stats are way worse than other online casinos, while I do like their product.

[Syndicate]

I don't know about netrefer but Income access looks a dog - Retagging seems to be a favorite past time!!

[UTG]

It is up to the individual affiliate program to decide how transparent they want to be with the statistics. Some affiliate programs show deposit figures in Netrefer, although most programs that I work with don’t do that.


I also have more clicks on average for brands using Myaffiliates, but a lot of those clicks are from bots. I don’t know if Netrefer is better at filtering out those clicks or if they don’t show all the clicks for some reason.

[NetRefer]

Hi slots-guide.eu, Hi all,


we took note of your comments above.


Transparency is a core value at NetRefer and we take the reliability of reported statistics very seriously.


We'll get in touch with you to get your feedback and look into what you mentioned above.

Wishing you all a great 2016.


Johan Zammit
NetRefer

[BitCasinoNoel]

It is up to the individual affiliate program to decide how transparent they want to be with the statistics. Some affiliate programs show deposit figures in Netrefer.

I completely agree with this, companies like NetRefer, Income Access etc are 3rd party software providers. It's entirely up to the gambling operator on how they integrate with the software, how accurate the data is and what data is made available.

Blaming NetRefer is like complaining about Adobe because an operator sent you a contract you don't like as a pdf document.

[Jokerman99]

Any brand that uses NetRefer has the ability to turn on/off player deposit stats. I've requested it at several brands who agreed and at several others who did not. Needless to say who got promoted on site. The real question is if you are on rev share, why would a casino want to hide deposit stats from you? Sure on CPA deals it makes sense, but rev share?

[MMM]

blaming netrefer is like complaining about adobe because an operator sent you a contract you don't like as a pdf document.

lol

The real question is if you are on rev share, why would a casino want to hide deposit stats from you? Sure on CPA deals it makes sense, but rev share?

I would guess to hide some use of coupons that manipulate netgaming or player untagging.

[gok]

My general feeling of being shafted by affiliates is that the following are definately screwing me over on the stats:

Aff Utd
32 Red

ALL of these use Netrefer.

Afther the migration from Roxy affiliates to TTR partners wich is using Netrefer promoting:

32 Red
Nedplay
Splendido
Roxy palace

I am reporting that players activity disapeard from the screen for Splendido, players that where active on 01 and 02 dec (same player) disapeard later in dec. from day 01, only 02 dec. is on the screen.
later on players where active on 07 dec. disappear at the end of the month.

Active Roxy palace players before migration into TTR partners, didnt show up for 2 months. On the other hand, players that signup at Roxy affiliates and never where active suddenly became active at TTR partners, those are the players that disappeard from the screen later on!

Over 500 players are sleeping here.

Affutd

- From the total players singdup here more than 500, only 1 player is active. Whorse ever I have seen.
The manager sends you mails for an extra $10 deal when sending new players. You have to replay on that mail. Then you get an mail back: "why do think we should give you an extra $10, write it for us".


Did you know?

The minimum deposit amount for many online casinos has been changed into 10 or 20. So how do you
explain players generating only 7, 8 or 9 $€£

My opinion

Online casinos became big company's this days. They can do whatever they want. Sinds they removed important information from the eyes of affiliates like:

- deposit amount, bonus amount, nr of deposits, country, gender, last played mixing this with late stats update, increasing the minimum payouts from 50€ into £100 wich is almost a tripple in € currency, linking your traffic from the casino site into Google market or App Store without forwarding your affiliate code, etc etc ...

Your job is to deliver them traffic as much as possible. They deside what part of it is yours and for how long.

Afcours, they have to "show and give" big boys and girls regularly money and player activity so they can come here and
prove otherwise.

[DaftDog]

Blaming NetRefer is like complaining about Adobe because an operator sent you a contract you don't like as a pdf document.

I disagree with you. Adobe do offer secure documents with regard to contracts that can be digitaly signed etc. These cannot be easily tampered with and therefore can be used as legal documents.

Affiliate software companies need to make sure that their software is also tamper proof. Sure the figures are only as good as the data supplied by the casino or bookie, but tamper proof software will prevent unauthorized personal from tampering with affiliate data. Case in point is the aff manager who was recently arrested.

I think most affiliate software providers aren't too concerned by the actual affiliate at the end of the day.

[Casino-Matt]

FAO Johan,

I have tried to reply to your email 5 times but it keeps being bounced back.
Please skype me next week info at slots-guide.eu and we can discuss this situation further.

In the meantime perhaps you can see if there is anything you can do regarding the addblock issue that many of your customers face? Not sure whatcan be done yet but it surely has to be worth looking into.

As for transparency in the stats, I guess this is down to the individual operator but I think a discussiin should take place between you and the operators in general regarding making more details available by default. Clearly I am not the only affiliate to have these gripes so surely it is in everyones interest to have your brands promoted more rather than less due to the trust issue?

In the long run being fair to affiliates should mean more customers, thus outweighing the revenue they like to withhold from the affiliates?

[BitCasinoNoel]

I disagree with you. Adobe do offer secure documents with regard to contracts that can be digitaly signed etc. These cannot be easily tampered with and therefore can be used as legal documents.

Affiliate software companies need to make sure that their software is also tamper proof. Sure the figures are only as good as the data supplied by the casino or bookie, but tamper proof software will prevent unauthorized personal from tampering with affiliate data. Case in point is the aff manager who was recently arrested.

I think most affiliate software providers aren't too concerned by the actual affiliate at the end of the day.

I've no issues with anyone disagreeing with me but like I said these are 3rd party software providers and they only display the data given to them by the operator. The operator has full control of what appears in the affiliate software. It's impossible for NetRefer or Income Access to verify the data they have been given on a daily basis is accurate or has been tampered with.

If we take an extreme example where an unscrupulous operator has untagged a player:

1) Affiliate refers player to operator
2) Affiliate ID is stored in operator back-end against player profile data
3) Player revenue data is sent to the operators affiliate system netrefer which the affiliate can see
4) Operator decides to untag the player and does so in the operator back-end
5) No more data is sent to netrefer and any future revenue data for that player never appears to the affiliate

So I'm confused as to what Netrefer or Income Access could do to provide a tamperproof system?

[universal4]

Would this not fall under similar circumstances to "cooking the books"?

Would not stats audits find this?

If the software vendors do not have the ability to run audits that show differences between what stats the operators see and what stats are transferred over to the affiliate panels, I see no way they can claim their stats are accurate.

If they do have this ability but then continue to show different sets of data, then the claims to affiliates that their software is 100% accurate, and is the best and all that is nothing more than marketing spin.

I tend to lean toward the third party stats vendors as having much more accurate stats and any discrepancies are the operator's fault, or if/when an issue is found that shows a problem in the actual reporting of a stat I think the vendor does in fact update their software to be as accurate as they possibly can.

You ask what the vendors could do, maybe publish stats on how often data is changed and doesn't match due to changes by operators. If the operator refuses to allow the data to be published, the vendor could publish that.

If the software vendor chooses not to publish such, chooses not to perform the audits and chooses to continue to allow the changes to take place when they know the data is being changed and not tell the affiliates, then they have become part of the actions of removing stats data before the affiliate sees it.

I understand that this is somewhat of an over-simplified view and that the vendors likely have contracts about what they can and can not disclose, which brings us back to the issue if the vendor allows a different set of data to be shown to affiliates then what is captured on the operator's servers, then the claim their software is accurate is a little less than honest where it concerns affiliates.

Once again this just proves that as affiliates we must choose the operators we work with carefully and only work with those we trust. Whether any one software vendor makes it easier to remove data or not is likely a debate that will continue for quite some time.

Rick
Universal4

[TheGooner]

So I'm confused as to what Netrefer or Income Access could do to provide a tamperproof system?

Let me make it easy for your to understand BitCasinoNoel - as quite a few AM's seem to be confused here - and it's not really a very confusing situation.

There may be valid reasons why data needs to be altered - but whenever these functions are used then it needs wide notification.
Data should not be able to be "adjusted" QUIETLY.

You can't make systems tamperproof - but you can make it impossible to "tamper" without notification.

This is a financial system that is used to determine contractual payments. As only the affiliate program has unfettered access to all the data, the only real protection is to use a notification system that documents and effectively audits all changes and adjustments.

If there are ANY manual modifications made to data, if players are detagged, retagged, cash bonuses added, deposits/play deducted then an audit record should be written that is available for interested parties to read.

Whichever system is used to detag should have to broadcast a message to these interested party systems - including the affiliate system.

This list of interested parties would include the original affiliate, the new affiliate (or default), the affiliate manager, head of affiliates, and of course the systems auditor. All adjustments should come with a "please explain" rider.

Failing to provide a data audit trail for financial details might be acceptable in a home-grown amateur CMS, but by the time you are providing game software, customer management software, and affiliate software you should be following basic accounting standards when it comes to the auditing of transactions that have a financial effect.

Currently MOST software is failing a basic duty of care.

Is that simple enough to follow?

[universal4]

Once again Gooner just says it better.....lol

Very well stated Paul

Rick
Universal4