Should I avoid negative carry over affiliate programs??

[laura@cricketontv]

Hi again ,

Ive been researching affiliate programs a bit and have found that negative carry over programs should be avoided?? Does anyone know which sportsbook affiliate programs dont have negative carryover?

Thanks

Laura

[Doolally]

The problem with negative carry overs is should you have a really big winner, say $100k and you're on 30% commissions then you have to make back $30k over the following months before you'll actually earn any money.

Obviously no negative means you start at $0 every month so any earnings for the casino/sportsbook make you some money.

It works both ways for affiliate programs. Leaving the negative in gets them 30% of the winnings back from your commissions, since thats effectively the risk/reward ratio. They lose you pay 30%/they win you pay 30%.

However, programs have gone the negative carry-over route because the chances are that a big winner and big negative will probably be the last they see of you - the affiliate would be better moving on and starting from scratch elsewhere. If they keep you promoting them, they'll eventually get their money back and more.

Hope this clears any confusion a little.

With regards to sportsbooks, sorry I can't help.

[TheGooner]

I read that negative carry-over gripe a lot.

Casino affiliates have been in a very fortunate position to have plenty of sites that would wipe any negative carry-over ... and it is a significant advantage (as Doolally describes so well above)

However, Sportsbooks have not tended to offer this option, mainly because the margins on sportsbook customers are so much tighter (between 5%-8%) and it's not really an option that leaves them with any revenue.

That being said both Ladbrokes and PaddyPower offer no negative carry-over ... but they both also have a separate issue in the cross channel activity (casino, poker, bingo) is not automatically included.

You can get no negatives also at Betsson, Canbet and Centrebet and they do offer cross channel coverage ... but I've found that these brands are not nearly as valuable - revenue is roughly 1/10th of those first two brands.

(Note all these sportsbooks are European facing which I';m assuming is your target).

Additionally, I would point out that our top three performing sportsbook partners actually all DO have a negative carry-over, and it's not something that we usually have as a problem with sportsbooks once you manage to get a 50-100+ player base .. it tends to stay positive.

---------------------
Best approach ?

For new sportsbook affiliates, I'd suggest thinking about the potential player base that you are aiming at a wee bit, and diversifying into a half dozen sportsbook partners that you think best fit your player market - irrespective of whether they do negative carry-over or not.

After 3-6 months you can sit down and review the effective rate of return for each partner, and make your own mind up on whether it's worth continuing with each sportsbook partner.

While the advice on the forums is good - it also tends to be quite general, and it's always good to verify any information with your own sites and player base.

Good luck!

[Shaun O'neill]

Dont forget NordicBet we dont have negative carry over.

Fell free to che check us out www.nordicbet.com and www.nordicbetpartners.com

Thanks

Shaun

[buyonaut]

Negative carry over might be a problem for you if you are starting from scratch - have a new website, no real value traffic and so on... Having 3 players and one of them constantly winning and dragging you down is not a happy situation for affiliate; however, as time goes by and you get more and more players you will not feel it or have problem with it.
We all prefer no negatives programs as it is helping hand from your partner and personally I would always choose NNCO over NCO.

Here are few more good brands that offer NNCO programs;

Unibet, Expekt, Eurobet

[gamblingbutler]

TheGooner said it and I couldn't agree more:

If you only promote sportsbooks without negative carry over you are missing out on a cooperation with some of the best aff programs. Best example is Bet365, they do a great job converting, cross promoting and retaining the players.

That said, many of the other brands mentioned here that actually do zero out negatives month by month are excellent and you can have a great portfolio of sportsbooks to recommend to your players without ever worrying about negatives, so it is really up to you.

By the way, VCaffiliates - no neg. carry over.

Great sportsbook and casino!

[laura@cricketontv]

Thank you all for all of your advice ,

It really means a lot especially when coming from experienced affiliates . I will definitely take it all on board.


Laura

[Adamvv]

There is some great feedback from experienced affiliates like you said.

The overall sentiment regarding negative carryover is being taken differently nowadays. Like it was mentioned, negative carryover really shouldn't affect your revenue that much unless you are promoting arbitrage (surebetting that most programs don't allow anyways) or if you have highrollers that play through your affiliate link.

that being said, if you are a new affiliate, it is worthwhile to try both methods and see how you fare after a trial period. If you seem to be getting hurt by negative rollover, you can look at your conversions and the players that you are referring to track stats and outcomes.

Luxbet and betinternet do not have negative rollover either.

Cheers

[tryme]

Personally, I'm fractionally distrustful of sportsbooks that don't carryover negatives. As Gooner said: bookmakers margins are fairly tight and I would prefer to promote a book that is financially solid than one that isn't.

On the casino side of things, I prefer to promote casinos that don't carry over negatives. However, I have to say that both the online casino group and the online bookmakers that make me the most money month on month both have negative carryover.

[MichaelCorfman]

From a pure business perspective, if an affiliate program wipes out negative balances and does not carry them forward to the following month, then the program is effectively offering a higher commission rate over time to affiliates that have that happen from time to time.

This can be risky for a program with smaller affiliates because the risk of negative balances in a given month is larger for an affiliate that has a smaller base of players. I would expect most larger affiliates would be happy with a slightly higher commission rate coupled with negative carry over. But for smaller affiliates, the revenue variation that can take place from month to month make having the affiliate program bear a larger portion of the normal statistical fluctuations makes sense.

But overall performance of a program is most important. It is certainly better to be dealing with program that generates higher conversions and revenues than one that generates much lower revenues but offers to wipe out negative revenues rather than carrying them forward. But when all other matters are equal, wiping out negative carryforwards is definitely more affiliate friendly.

Michael

[Betpartners]

Another factor to include is the sort of sportsbook that you are promoting in terms of the type of punter it takes on.

bet365 from an affiliates point of view has an excellent sportsbook risk management set up, they are for recreational players and not the big bettors and therefore even though they have a negative carry over the chances are slim that it will be a regular occurance.

Over a years accounts bet365 will always do favourably with many programs that dont do negative carry over.

One final consideration is that most affiliate managers in these circumstances will work with you, they dont want to lose a good affiliate because of one real bad month and will look at a way of negating a big carry over.

Negative carry over is a pain in the butt from a stability point of view on a month to month basis but with the right program and bet365 is a good example of a good program then you will do well overthe long run.

[gamblingbutler]

One final consideration is that most affiliate managers in these circumstances will work with you, they dont want to lose a good affiliate because of one real bad month and will look at a way of negating a big carry over.

Negative carry over is a pain in the butt from a stability point of view on a month to month basis but with the right program and bet365 is a good example of a good program then you will do well overthe long run.

Bet365 is a good example and when we started out with them we had quite a negative for some time and after having discussed this with the AM at the time, we were given the choice to delete those 2 Highrollers that we had which would have comfortably put us in the positive again, or keep them. We chose to keep them (as also suggested by the Bet365 AM) and as expected this has levelled out perfectly and I am quite convinced that it is one of the 2 Highrollers in question who deposited roughly 15,000 € in FEB 2010, only to lose it all and make us quite a comfortable balance.

That said, you can add flexibility to the assets of the Bet365 AFF program and the AMs!

[laura@cricketontv]

Thanks a lot for all your advice it's really given me a lot to think about .

I think to begin with I'm going to start out with a couple of no negative programs as my traffic is small to begin with so I don't get disheartened and hopefully see a couple of cheques come in

But Bet365 seem to be getting a good review here too so may add them in a little while too, is there a bet365 AM on GPWA much?

[James_W]

Bet365 is a good example and when we started out with them we had quite a negative for some time and after having discussed this with the AM at the time, we were given the choice to delete those 2 Highrollers that we had which would have comfortably put us in the positive again, or keep them. We chose to keep them (as also suggested by the Bet365 AM) and as expected this has levelled out perfectly and I am quite convinced that it is one of the 2 Highrollers in question who deposited roughly 15,000 € in FEB 2010, only to lose it all and make us quite a comfortable balance.

That said, you can add flexibility to the assets of the Bet365 AFF program and the AMs!

Everyone,

Thanks for your support of bet365!

Laura, please contact me on the details below, and I will talk you through the merits of working with bet365. Then you can make a decision on whether or not you would like to become more closely involved with our brand in an affiliate capacity.

With regard to NCO, we are a negative carry over brand. I'll chat to you about this a bit more 1 to 1 but basically this shouldn't pose too much of a threat to you. As The Gamblingbutler has verified, when this poses a serious threat to you I am more than happy to look at ways to solve it, but more often that not it levels back out over time.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Best Regards

James

[milesSM]

I am not sure if Negative Carry overs work ? Some programs do this and if there affiliates are making money and are happy then great but in my opinion and it is mine i believe a clean slate each month is a good thing

[Betpartners]

Yes 100% correct Negative Carry overs will always effect your income stay away!

That is not actually correct and we did discuss the positives behind a program like bet365 that operate a negative carry over.

Dont know if you read the whole thread or not but with all respect your response is not quite accurate.

[milesSM]

Apologies if I came across as being wrong that was not my intention.

I am glad your program can get value and business doing it that way then great!

I am just not an advocate for Negative carry overs as i personally feel that a clean slate each month suites my business but again thats a personal opinion and again apologies I did not mean any disrespect or harm

[Betpartners]

Apologies if I came across as being wrong that was not my intention.

I am glad your program can get value and business doing it that way then great!

I am just not an advocate for Negative carry overs as i personally feel that a clean slate each month suites my business but again thats a personal opinion and again apologies I did not mean any disrespect or harm

Absolutely no reason to apologise your entitled to your opinion, in fact maybe i should not jump in and say your wrong the way i did, so apologises from me.

I also am no great fan of negative carry overs, the point i made in my earlier post is that bet365 are damn good at negating the negative carry over based on their risk management and their working attitude with affiliates.

bet365 may be unique, i dont know, if my memory is correct they are the only ones i work with that do negative carry over and i cannot speak for other programs.

But with regards to bet365 as discussed eralier they can get away with it because they wont allow affiliates to suffer and will work with affiliates that get massive carry overs.

I do love bet365, ii think their product is excellent and their AMs some of the best around and would recommend them to anyone, but i also understand why people like yourself milesSM avoid negative carry over programs, i really do.

Finally may i say welcome to the GPWA milesSM and again i am sorry if i ppeared sharp, that was neither my intent or desire and i look forward to discussing all sorts of issues with on a regular basis

[KasinoKing]

"Should I avoid negative carry over affiliate programs??"
YES!!!

It is unbelievably frustrating to get no income for months or even years at a time despite having regular depositing players.
Been there - didn't like it one bit.

I have dumped one NCO casino (Bet365), and will ditch the others if I go into a big negative again.
Who wants to work for no pay?

KK

[Adamvv]

Kasinoking raises a point that encompasses this entire discussion.

Ultimately, it really depends who you ask.

For smaller affiliates who have less players, it is more beneficial to promote a merchant that wipes out negatives each month. As it has been mentioned, a very large negative month could impact the rest of the year, and the affiliate would essentially have to play catch-up. This is obviously not motivating, and in cases like this you usually see an affiliate give up and try something new.

In regards to larger affiliates, negative rollover would not have as significant an impact, and thus their comfort level would be raised if the commission level was slightly higher.

The question about negative rollover is really situation-dependant. Both methods offer benefits and drawbacks.

As an affiliate, I would probably want to speak with my affiliate manager about the program and ask for support to avoid large negative months. Yes, there are unavoidable circumstances at times, but generally speaking, affiliates can sucessfully avoid any commission issues by optimizing their site and providing good content that targets the kind of player that they will benefit from.

If you are an affiliate looking for immediate gains, the no negative rollover is an obvious choice, however if this is an investment and if the long term is something that you are focused on, then negative rollover really isn't a bad thing.