Question for serious affiliates

Hey guys, thanks for taking the time and reading this thread.

Reading through the forum I encounter many threads discussing problems affiliates have with their affiliate programs. My question to you is what are the 10 (or any other number :) ) most critical factors in your decision to work with an affiliate program.

I'm asking this so affiliate managers (such as myself) can get a super important insight to your inner world and improve, and for new affiliates to read and think about prior to their decision to work with this or that program.

thanks a lot!
Sol

Reputation of the program
Reputation of the aff manager.

A good Aff Manager moving to a scummy program won't get me into that program. If after 6 months or a year the program and manager have a good record, i might reconsider. So, it's the operators reputation that is first on my list.

Thanks for that.

Does that mean new programs/managers have no chance doing business with you under any circumstances?

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Does that mean new programs/managers have no chance doing business with you under any circumstances?

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That is pretty much the case. A couple of recent exceptions.

In the case of Sega, i trusted the brand enough to give aff program a chance.

In the case of a manager i've known for years, he's involved with a Microgaming brand, since i trust MGS more than any of the other software vendors, i'm promoting them, even though they're fairly new.

Definitely the reputation of both the affiliate program and the specific brand, plus the terms of the program.

I also tend to favour brands that offer cross product commissions.

I agree, reputation is important. Since we've started I've seen a lot of programs come and go (and even been sponsors at GPWA as well) only in the last two years.

The sad fact is, a really good charismatic salesman will come right off the street and recruit affiliates here. Then disappear in 6 months.

As an affiliate that has happened to me a few times. I've spent a lot of time on some programs and then they stop their affiliate program and then leave me with lots of content.

I think that's why reputation is important. It's an assurance that when you invest in the time and money in placing a program on your pages you wan to be sure that they are going to yield a return on your investment.

1. How the merchant serves its clients
2. Number of complaints from players
3. How the program treats affiliates
4. Transparency of merchant and affiliate program
5. Communication to both players and affiliates (quality response + response time)
6. Rev %
7. Timely payments
8. Quality of marketing tools

REPUTATION

This is one of the hardest things about launching a new affiliate program, especially as an affiliate manager who has to report up to a VP-marketing or CEO who wants results yesterday.

Realistically, a new brand launching in today's affiliate industry has to expect a minimum 6 month latency on getting major affiliates on board, unless they are willing to splash out and prepay CPAs or tenancy deals. Sure some of the nice guys will give you a shot if you are pleasant and insistent, but to really gain traction, 6 months minimum.

And it's no cake walk once you survive those first 6 months either. That's just the minimum assuming you play your cards right, pay out on time, treat players well, have good creative, good CRM, an original product offering, etc..

Nothing sadder than watching another clone-brand trot in thinking affiliates will drop everything to promote their identical but unproven brand.

I have seen some of the most reputable gaming companies on this planet lose huge respect because they simply do not cover the basics, like pay on time and respond to emails.

There are many other aspects like a decent back end with good stats and good marketing tools etc that are just as important but if any program cannot get the simple basics right then nothing else they do will make any difference.

I have also seen some great AM's go to a company and perform poorly for whatever reason and seen some great programs become useless almost overnight when a good AM leaves.

I fear that is about to happen to one of my long standing affiliate programs, time will tell, but not hopeful and this particular program have an awesome reputation, as do some of the other AMs there, but the owners are a different kettle of fish altogether.

Reputation is important but getting the basics wrong are what kills reputations and fast.

It is too easy to get burned so I am pretty slow to join new programs ( or even old programs that I have not worked with before).

One 'defence' I use is to charge an advertising fee in advance, I always ensure the program gets good exposure and because I have charged a fee in advance that mitigates my potential losses if the program later turns out to be a dud. Likewise because I then give mass exposure to the program I can judge what there conversion rate is like reasonable quickly and if it's good they will get extra exspoure on other sites.

I know it is a contentious issue and I even had an Affiliate Manager moaning about it today but I would rather work with fewer programs that pay than with loads that will tell you theirs is the best converting in the world but won't pay for ad space to prove it.

I also look at reputation of the program, and the casino but alot has been said about that so I won't add much other than to say if the casino does not look after players I would never promote it, as an affiliate it is important that I only send my visitor to reputable casinos where I know they will be treated well.

It is not so much the reputation of the affiliate manager that matters to me but how well i get on with them and how well we can work together. From that respect once I have joined a program the affiliate manager can have a massive impact. For example there are certain AM's that I could rely on 100% to get me a fast turn around on a custom banner size so if I suddenly realise I a another casino in a prime spot that goes into negative guess who casino get to claim the extra traffic?

I also have a standard list of questions I ask. So that I can fully understand what the program is about, does it have negative carry over? If it does I won't join ( I won't sell them any ad space either I only want long term relationships). Do they bundle ( this is a much lesser offence in my book and is easily solved my me only promoting one instead of all of their casinos). Are they Affiliate guard dog approved? What regions do they accept players from? Etc

Another good reason for an affiliate to limit the number of programs they promote is that it will allow you to be a 'bigger' affiliate with the programs you do promote. Let me give you an example let's say you joined 30 different programs all with casinos powered by the exact same software. Now let's say you put them in automatic rotation on your site/s so they had equal exposure and let's say you got on average 2 new depositing players per month per program. How important are you going to be to those programs? How likely are they to comp you trips etc?

Now if you had just chosen 2 programs from that software type and driven the same traffic you would be getting 30 new depositors per month with each, that will generally be enough for you to be on of there preferred affiliates and that has benefits. Being comped things aside if you want to run an exclusive promo
These casinos will help you out and give you better help as they know you are going to deliver. Plus you will likley get a good relationship with the AM which will mean you get thing that little bit faster, get told about things that are coming up that bit sooner and thus have fresher content for your sites.

Of course you do need to be sure the two ( or three) programs you chhose to work with from each software type are the best and are not going to vanish over night hence the need for questions and research.

We aim to increase or traffic every month and I have targets for improving traffic to and conversions with programs I have worked with for years. In my exerience affiliates should never be too keen to join a more affiliate programs talk to you existing contacts first, if they have been paying you every month for years and convert well with decent player values and pay you a fair CPA or Com rate then why not devise a strategy to grow what you do with them?

If you get yourself some decent sites and traffic affiliate programs WILL contact you that is when to filter them out and if you are going to give up a prime spot that makes you money then do not be affraid to charge a fee for it. If an operator won't pay a fee it could mean they have cash flow issues and if that was the case you just saved yourself from a potential vanishing program.

Be warned though when an operator does pay a fee they will expect (& deserve) results so be honest in advace with them about the traffic volumes / expected player levels your goal ( and hopefully there's too) is to build a long term relationship that is profitable for both sides.

Ok that's my 2 cents worth lol

AMAZING posts guys, Lot's of good read!

No one seems to have mentioned aggregation of different brands and reports, is this something you guys feel has any significants?
I guess most replies here seem to be referring to working with the brands directly, or am I not getting the entire picture? (it happens to me from time to time...)

Would your suggestions be different for the medium-small affiliates that are not approached directly by the brands?

So many times over the years many many of us have seen issues arise from NOT working directly with the programs. (as it is issues can arise even when going direct, so the risk for issues increases dramatically when there is a third party involved between the affilate and the operators)

Rick
Universal4

Rick is spot on and no disrespect to third party operators but working directly with programs is by far the best way imo.

I only work with brands direct unless there is no other way. I guess in that case, the program is not really 3rd party.

New brand thoughts:

Reputable brand
Has been online >6 months to 1 year (lean more to 1+ years)

player treatment:
fast cashouts, great customer service
Fair T&C's
Retention team doing their best to keep players playing

Affiliate treatment:
On time pay, never having to chase payments
Communication lines open: IM, email, phone
Creatives, fresh, lightweight and updated
Fair T&C's
no Neg Carryover (Very few exceptions to this)

Absolutely Chips in regards to player treatment

I think i speak for mosts member on here when i say that if any programs rips a player off or treats them poorly then they are a no no.

If they treat a player badly imagine how they will treat affiliates.

I am inclined to agree with the other posters here, my advice for a new affiliate would be to choose the brands they want to promote carefully and then go direct.
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A middle man with a wide range of different brands to offer is not going to be able to offer as much help as the guys who work for the casino itself.<o></o>
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Plus there is the added risk something goes wrong between the 'middle man' and the brand, or the middle man company goes out of business.<o></o>
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Either way its one more person taking a slice of the pie so when the time comes that the affiliate is driving good traffic volumes negotiating a fair deal is going to be that much tougher and moving away from that middle man company 'might' get ugly (for example when a number of their affiliates do the same thing they might retrospectively change their terms so that the affiliate has to bring X number of players per month to earn on past players).<o></o>
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Those are just a few reasons off the top of my head, In short it is always far better to go direct.<o></o>

Having looked at incomate, I appreciate that is not what you (Sol@Incomate) wanted to hear, but it is the honest truth.

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Originally Posted by casinogod

Having looked at incomate, I appreciate that is not what you (Sol@Incomate) wanted to hear, but it is the honest truth.

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I wanted to hear what veterans of this industry think, great lessons to be learnt here!!!

thanks for the honest/informative replies :)

Third party what? No way.

I don't trust third parties.

Hi Daera, care to elaborate?

I will only work with 3rd parties with a proven track record, strong presence, a clean past and good brands. 2 that fit that model for me are Income Access and Brand Conversions.

New, independents i'm unlikely to even reply to there email or engage in a conversation. I've seen too many people get burned by these small/new independents, so i stay away.