Smartlive affiliates are back

[eaton2003]

Dear Affiliate,

We are delighted to announce the re-opening of the Smart Live Affiliate Program!

We would like to welcome back all of our affiliates and assure you that your stats are now all up to date and commissions will be paid tomorrow.

As a result of a complete technical upgrade, we have been able to:

· Resolve many long-term issues that were preventing us from running a smooth Affiliate Program

· Develop a new affiliate website with more information and usability: www.smartliveaffiliates.com

· Provide better reporting tools - including unique ID reporting

· Update banners that are easier to locate

· Implement new incentives and promotions to reward affiliates long term

· Launch our Poker affiliate program

We have thoroughly tested the data and worked very closely with Income Access to ensure that all technical issues have been fully resolved, enabling us to provide the best service possible to you the affiliate.

All of us at Smart Live would like to thank you for your patience with the Affiliate Program this year and appreciate that due to our problems we have not yet been able to provide the service you deserve. Therefore, for all existing affiliates we would like to welcome you back by offering you a flat 40% commission for November and December. (Standard terms and conditions apply)

We are also now happy to be able to fully launch our Poker brand and have creatives and banners available for you to start promoting this straight away. This means more products to promote and more money to earn!

We very much look forward to working with you closely and in developing a successful relationship going forward.

Here's to our mutual SUCCESS!

Kind regards,

The Smart Live Affiliates Team

Interesting turn in events.

[satya]

Interesting indeed and good news for the industry. Hopefully the affiliates who have players at SL would be relieved now.

[LiveCasinoPartners]

They are still using the IncomeAccess platform. Don't get me wrong, I like IA's platform. We use it for our program. What I don't like is that they originally blamed IA for the problem and shut down the program without notice. There was no warning, just a we are not working with IA and the program is shut down. Meanwhile their sites are catapulted to the top of the SERPs.

You now know what to expect.

[Smartlivecasino]

They are still using the IncomeAccess platform. Don't get me wrong, I like IA's platform. We use it for our program. What I don't like is that they originally blamed IA for the problem and shut down the program without notice. There was no warning, just a we are not working with IA and the program is shut down. Meanwhile their sites are catapulted to the top of the SERPs.

You now know what to expect.

Just to clarify

1) Smart Live temporarily closed its affiliate program due to technical issues with our system, at no point did we state that this was in any way connected to Income Access. We stated that due to these problems it was preventing us from correctly integrating with income Access.

2) We notified all our affiliates about the temporary closure and posted on forums a further clarification stating that we would be back in October and would pay the affiliates only when they would be fully able to see their stats.

3) We did not state or imply that we would not work with Income Access again.

We hope that our stance on this issue is now clear and can assure affiliates that we have now been able to fully integrate with income Access and that our internal technical issues have been resolved and tested.

We would like to welcome back all existing and new affiliates alike

[LiveCasinoPartners]

Firstly, I'm glad you are back up and running. My original goal was not to "sling mud", but you have to understand my frustration when I see programs drop off the face of the earth without warning leaving affiliates who invested a lot of time and money into promoting your brand. I am one of them. I was personally affected, because as a former affiliate I spent a lot of time promoting your program. Here is the email you sent me on the 1st of September:

Dear affiliates,

Smart Live wish to inform you of our decision to call a halt to our affiliate program with immediate effect. This decision has been made as a result of ongoing technical issues and integration with Income Access which we are unable to resolve fully. This means that we are not able to offer our affiliates the service that we want going forward.

We have been constrained up until now with managing this on a manual basis but this is not going to be possible to continue in this way if we want to offer the best service possible.

Therefore with regret all affiliate accounts will be closed and no new affiliates will be accepted to the program.

We at Smart Live feel that this is the best option to minimise any further issues that will begin to affect all affiliates. We will notify everyone should we reach a point where we can start to re-open a program that is technically stable.

All affiliate accounts will be paid up to date with the next accounting period.


Thank you for your understanding in this matter and we hope to be able to work with you again in the future under better circumstances.


Kind Regards

Smart Live Affiliates

Just to clarify
1) Smart Live temporarily closed its affiliate program due to technical issues with our system, at no point did we state that this was in any way connected to Income Access. We stated that due to these problems it was preventing us from correctly integrating with income Access.

Sure you did, you said you had problems integrating with incomeaccess. It's right there in your email I attached above.

2) We notified all our affiliates about the temporary closure and posted on forums a further clarification stating that we would be back in October and would pay the affiliates only when they would be fully able to see their stats.

No mention of you being back in October. You just choose October because thats when you finally were able to integrate.

3) We did not state or imply that we would not work with Income Access again.

True

[GCG]

No mention of you being back in October. You just choose October because thats when you finally were able to integrate.

Smartlive you left affiliates in the cold in between and now you are telling them to rejoin. How selfish is that huh?

It took you more than 3 months to re-implement your affiliate program ...... really how difficult can it be for a few techies?

Under 3.6 of your T&c :

Also, if an Affiliate fails to refer new users / players to a promoted SLC website over a period of three consecutive months, the Affiliate will cease to generate Revenue Share by players/users brought until that time.

Are you implementing your rules as affiliates dropped the program months ago and stopped promoting and probably have not converted new players .......... LMAO

[CityGuard]

I've had some email exchange with Sarah as part of monitoring the program suspension to try and make sure it is done in a way that is as supportive to affiliates as a suspension could be. Here is some additional information based on this exchange and Casino City's experience through the suspension.

We started promoting them in mid-August, then took down the promotional materials at the beginning of September when the program operations were suspended. We had delivered several players in the time that we'd run the promotion.

The players we sent happened to have won in August, so we were in the negative. I don't know the process that would have occurred if we had earned commissions in August, but based on the messages made by Smart Live publicly it sounds like the payment would have been delayed based on their referral/commission information not being completely available in a reportable fashion at that point, and their wanting to make sure they had the correct amounts recorded before processing payment.

In exchange with Sarah when I asked her to clarify what actions were being taken to resolve the open issues, she confirmed that delayed affiliate commissions were being processed today. Based on her statement I checked out stats to see if we were owed any commission. The stats were working properly at the time, and I checked again a moment ago and they are working now as well.

Some of the players we had referred in August continued to play, and overall there was a net loss among the players -- so we earned commission in September. Sarah confirmed to me in an email that a check for our September commissions was cut earlier today, and she also confirmed the amount of the check (which I have confirmed matches the amount reflected in the stats).

While I wish were could have promoted them during September and October, I have to say I'm pleased that they are paying commissions for play that occurred when the program was suspended. To me, whether or not they used this as an excuse to duck out of payments was the critical issue and based on the information I received today it appears that they are acting responsibly on that matter.

As I think comes across based on the details Sarah provided today, I've also had good experience with responsiveness when I asked about the situation, and active communication means a lot from my perspective.


------------------------

GCG, I appreciate your raising the question about the activity requirement. I hadn't asked Sarah about this but in light of the program suspension I think I would recommend to Smart Live that they treat the time during the suspension period (September and October) as not counting toward the three months. I'll send an email to Sarah suggesting that they exclude September and October completely when evaluating if an affiliate has adhered to their section 3.6. I anticipate that they would not expect affiliates to have been promoting them when they had publicly stated the program was going to be temporarily down, so I think treating the three months as "three months while the program is open" would be a fair approach.

[CityGuard]

I emailed Sarah, my contact at Smart Live, to ask whether they would be excluding September and October from time that counts toward the inactivity period. Here is her response:

Hi Steven,

Yes of course we would not penalise affiliates for something that was out of their control. In fact we will only implement that clause from 1st November so they have a full 3 months.

Hope this clarifies the situation but if you have any other queries please let me know.

Thanks

Sarah

Based on the prior exchanges I'd posted above and the response about clause 3.6 of their Terms and Conditions, I believe all of the open concerns have been addressed. If there are other items that I've overlooked please let me know and I'll bring them to Smart Live's attention.

[universal4]

Well, I am confused as to why affiliaters were asked to RE-JOIN...

Based upon Steven's post, they continued as affiliates throughout, so why do "others" have to re-join.

Was Casino-City the only affiliates that kept their accounts?

And what happened to players that affiliates signed up before the closure?

And on top of all that, do you still plan on keeping the quota in the terms?

If the answer to the third question is yes, I do hope you will be sure to let us all know when you design an affiliate program for ALL affiliates.

Rick
Universal4

[gamblingbutler]

Was Casino-City the only affiliates that kept their accounts?

No, we kept our account as well and we also earned commission while the affiliate program was out of order.

And what happened to players that affiliates signed up before the closure?

seems as if they are there and are generating commission for us

And on top of all that, do you still plan on keeping the quota in the terms?

Good question, I also want to know about that.

I also hope that SMA does not try to apply this (predatory) term retroactively!

[tryme]

Hmm...there's some rewriting of history going on here, methinks. At the very best interpretation, SmartLiveCasino is being disingenuous in the extreme when he or she says "at no point did we state this was in any way connected with Income Access".

Clearly, this is exactly what you said as the email posted by LiveCasinoPartners points out.

I've nothing against your program. I'm not an affiliate of yours. But I'm more than a little tired of the b******t that people put out there.

Your company has been running - and let's put this kindly - interference since the affiliate program first went off line. If memory serves, there was a whole bunch of he-said-she-said about whether the CEO had walked out/resigned/been sacked as well as accusation and counter accusation about the efficacy of the affiliate program or software provider.

I tend to work with companies that are honest and honorable. Yours doesn't appear to be one of them. Gaming companies can - and do- mess up, but you have to be upfront. Try it. You may just get some respect.

[universal4]

Thanks for clarifying that Gamblingbutler, I wasn't sure of the facts.

So did ALL affiliates keep their accounts and if so, they shot themselves in the foot slightly the way they worded the email....

...but the more accurate shot in the foot is by introducing the quota in the first place.

Rick
Universal4

[TheBoyMitchell]

Looks like Income Access have something to say about this too.....

http://www.egrmagazine.com/news/indu...e-fiasco.thtml

[thepokerkeep]

So did ALL affiliates keep their accounts and if so, they shot themselves in the foot slightly the way they worded the email....

Rick
Universal4

I would be very interested in hearing the answer to this as well.

The only acceptable result in this case is to make sure every affiliate has been paid in full and will retain their player base going forward.

[Shaun O'neill]

I have worked with Income Access for over 2 years great company and they have an amazing tech team that can fix most things i really think the fault is not them Income Access.

Shaun

[TheBoyMitchell]

Have you worded that right?

[Shaun O'neill]

Thanks mate its been a long day, i was playing Call of Duty 2 until 1.30am and then hit the gym at 7am so i was up at 6am.....

Shaun

Have you worded that right?

[TheBoyMitchell]

No worries

Up at 6am?

You wanna try having a 1 year old! I start work at 7.30 each morning (granted that I dont actually get dressed until about 9 though )

[Shaun O'neill]

I know how it is with kids i have two, 1 is almost 5 yrs old and the other is 7 months. So i am with you.

Shaun

No worries

Up at 6am?

You wanna try having a 1 year old! I start work at 7.30 each morning (granted that I dont actually get dressed until about 9 though )

[CityGuard]

I notice that some of the questions raised by Rick (universal4) earlier in the thread have not been addressed fully, although I think they were partially answered by GamblingButler's reply.

I'll point this out to my contact at Smart Live in order to have hear clear up any remaining questions.

Some of the players we had referred in August continued to play, and overall there was a net loss among the players -- so we earned commission in September. Sarah confirmed to me in an email that a check for our September commissions was cut earlier today, and she also confirmed the amount of the check (which I have confirmed matches the amount reflected in the stats).

Also, as a quick update, I can confirm that this has been received.