Rant time

[Bombati]

Okay so last month was the worst month I've had since September 2016 not only financially but in being let down by affiliate managers and just general ignorance.

I have a couple of questions for you all I'd like your views on just to keep sanity.

Do you find no matter how many more players each month you submit your earnings don't grow or if they do it's very little?

Why is it on the first of the month half of the dashboards don't update last months stats and earnings, they are stuck on the same figures as the 29th?

Do you get the same statements.... Can you get me 200FTD's a month.... GET REAL!!!

I'm sick of this BS and lazy affiliate managers, im not wasting my time or money attending anymore conferences to be asked the same questions to be fed the same BS.

Bet If I took a month off they'd be contacting us then!!!


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[Biti]

1. It depends on the brands. Some brands grow month by month, of course, sometimes players have luck and me bad luck, but I see activity growing at their casinos. Other brands you keep just on throwing in players that are going to the exit almost immediately and don't come back. Some brands really have a poor conversion and/or a poor retention.
2. Many programs do have stats issues.
3. Yes, usually programs with a good conversion and retention are constructive. The "traffic wasters" are asking for more exposure to waste more traffic and players. Annoying.
4. I go to conferences to see people I work constructively with and for fun. I don't make appointments anymore with aggressive, non-converting programs...

 

[Bombati]

1. It depends on the brands. Some brands grow month by month, of course, sometimes players have luck and me bad luck, but I see activity growing at their casinos. Other brands you keep just on throwing in players that are going to the exit almost immediately and don't come back. Some brands really have a poor conversion and/or a poor retention.
2. Many programs do have stats issues.
3. Yes, usually programs with a good conversion and retention are constructive. The "traffic wasters" are asking for more exposure to waste more traffic and players. Annoying.
4. I go to conferences to see people I work constructively with and for fun. I don't make appointments anymore with aggressive, non-converting programs...

Okay thanks for your take on that, there's very few if any I work with constructively anymore.

I've cut the dead wood and now work for 8/9 in sports affiliation and 3 in casino.

Just feel like if you can't submit a stupid amount of players your just a number.

By the way we do 300FTD's a month every month across the board with these companies


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[LandofOz]

The "traffic wasters" are asking for more exposure to waste more traffic and players.

True. It's usually the poor converting sponsors that continuously push for more and more exposure and traffic.

 

[AussieDave]

I've never been one to deliver a cr#p load of players. My best to date (covering 17 years) is 139 NDP's in a single month to a casino. Where I'm fortunate, the value of each player tends to be high on average. That average works out to be around AU$1.5K drop per player, per month.

Lets side step that for a moment... What I find hard to comprehend is, logically the larger your active player base(s), it should spread the risk.

Let me use BP my largest player base as an example. I've got a memory like a steel trap - tell me something valid and important to me and, I'll remember those word. Had a bitch to my AM about 12 or so months ago, in relation to earnings. His words were, "You need to increase your player base, the more players you send, the less risk you have, the more you'll make."

Fast forward 12 months. EG - I've now doubled my player base. In April I sent 15 NDP's. Far as I could tell, they all took the 4 available (new player) deposit bonuses. So how is it, that 12 months ago I was making more, than I am now with @ least 2x the player base???!!!

There are going to be times when players win. All my players play slots. But, I have players who seem to win every damn month. I've got one player who, in a 2 year period has only done his nuts 5x. The other 19 months he wins, or gets most of his deposits back, either way, this player is a BIG liability. Then there's another player who signed up in April... He/She made deposits totally $450, won $685. From then until now (July) hasn't made one single deposit, just keeps winning, seems to withdrawal x and the remaining funds are transfered to the next month, where he/she repeats the cycle again.

I'm at a point where I detest Rev Share. If every program offered what Rewards Affiliates have with Wager Share, I'd be thrilled - I'd be a very happy camper.

Back to Rev Share...Taking an educated guess and, factoring into that my past data, 2+2 does not = 4.

But... what I can I do, what can anyone do? Not a lot, because fact is the data we need, the player data which allows an affiliate to see what comes out of each player account (withdrawals) including bonuses and fees, are not provided. They're kept away from our eyes.

The only choice an affiliate has in situations like this is to either accept that your making something, or dump the program, and try someone else. However, you could find yourself in a worse situation. IMHO until ALL affiliate programs are 100% transparent, then we're always going to have doubts and suspicions.

Edit:
The stance taken against VS, proved affiliates (small to medium) are not powerless. If enough of us band together and, with a combined voice, say, enough is enough, it can work. Reiterating, the VS coup proved it works. I've been vocal about this for years. IMHO time we, as affiliates, start replicating this action again and again. But to encourage change (yes, sometimes force it) we need the support of the affiliate forums, we support, as affiliate members. It took AGD to rogue VS for only a couple of days, to get them to address the stats issue.

Before this accountablity action took place, they (VS) had continued to side-step the stats removal data four (4) solid years.

 

[Frank]

I had one program that gets a solid amount of FTD-s daily, however month by month im making less, also the deposit size is not comparable to my regular players at other casinos, so i switched with another casino to test.. guess what? income increased by 10x per day, I would like to believe some programs are just generally bad at conversions but a little voice inside my head says they are probably shaving..

 

[Biti]

That happened to me too. With the new program after some time on a good day, I made the amount that I made with the other program in a month. The conversion was factor 4 or 5, not even talking about retention. Besides that, good brands are giving a better image to your website.

Sometimes also things are influenced a lot by a few high rollers. Players depositing ten-thousands a month do influence a lot the stats. Again we come to the point that we need complete stats to be able to make a decision. If programs do not provide, it's because they have something to hide. And that doesn't mean they shave. Some programs simply do not like to point out with clear stats that their retention is really poor. A few high rollers can make things look nicer than they technically are then. But once they stop, revenues are decimated.

Also, it's important to spread your risks. I've seen guys having 90% of their income with just 1 program. That's tricky. A high roller can trash your month, programs can become rogue, casinos can fold, etc.

Remember that it's business, guys. A lot of brands will go far to get top exposure. I've seen affiliate managers that really did not get the point: another brand was outperforming them in really everything (conversion, retention, player value, the deal, player experience, player payments, games, bonuses, etc), but still very pushy and unreasonable about getting their brand back there on top.

I also hate it when for example I got some premium, well-licensed brands on top and some Curacao brands are pushing to be there...

 

[Kadabra]

I think that from let's say 30 programs i've worked with in the past 2 years, only with 10% i see the value increase with the database.
With the rest - nothing changes.
I had 2 programs where i've sent let's say 50-100 players in past 6 months - i decided to test and redirected their links for a week - the activity stopped almost completely. only the players that i've sent at that particular month kept playing. The rest - gone.

 

[AussieDave]

Lets be frank here, there's a point where all the BS from AM's etc wear thin. What we do is essentially a numbers game. And, with that, earnings do fluctuate. But, here's the rub ladies and gentlemen... if your consitently increasing your active player base, yet your monthly commisions don't reflect that growth over a given period, then something isn't Kosher. In sheer frsutration I dropped BP last month. But figured better to reduce their expose, least this way they get 2 or 3 NPD's per month and, I keep my 25%, instead of being kicked back to 20%.

 

[AussieDave]

The other things that's always had me scatching my head is... When FA/BS/BP etc and other programs changed from commision % increases on total deposit value, to, number of NDP's sent per month. Lets look at this hypothetically...

For the life of me I can understand how, if I sent 11 NDP per/month, and each of these players only deposited $100 each, then that's a total of $1,100

Where as, if I send 5 NDP and each player drops $2,000 each, then that $10,000 per month.

How is sending 11 NDP's per/m better for the casino, than 5 large players???

Or, is the push for more players, for affiliates to earn a high %, a means for the casino(s) to get more players to cross market to other brands, without giving credit to the referring aff. There so many things that just don't make sense here.

Like if I had a mainstream business, and I applied for a loan, the bank would be more inclined to give it on the $10K's a month, than the $1,100. This switch seems to defy ALL common sense business practices; least those in any normal business, which btw have been operating a damn side longer than online casinos.

Edit:
Banks don't give business loans on how many customer you have, they give it on turnover. You could have 10,000 customers who only spend $5 a month. Yet you could have 1,000 customers who spend $100 a month. It all comes down to turnover. Casinos switching to customer #'s to increase commission %'s, makes no sense at all.

 

[Biti]

I think they use # to determine the commission% to "activate" affiliates a bit more. What programs usually don't like are affiliates that are having some high rollers, but don't promote them actively. They use this kind of trapped commission schedules to 'force' you to give them more exposure.

Remind that programs are having another goal than the webmaster. The webmaster wants to send the right traffic to the right place. The program wants to receive as much traffic as possible, no matter if they convert it, have some retention, etc.

I've suffered from this at some high-quality traffic generating websites. Some affiliate managers really didn't care about player value, just about the number of FTD's... it's just a small percentage that has good affiliate managers, convert and have retention.

Most brands are just like throwing a lot of water into hands. It escapes as fast as it's thrown... And that's no wonder because they have 13-in-a-dozen white label platforms, 13-in-a-dozen retention mails and promos and 13-in-a-dozen affiliate managers... As an affiliate, you need to cherry pick.

That also means perhaps not work with the guy that is saying hello every day at skype, or the guy that stays drunk until 8 am with you at the bar of the conference bar or the program that is hiring the hottest chick for the conference, but work with guys that are considering it at business. They offer good deals, look further than just ftd's and will just pop up if there's something to talk about.

 

[Jack Lee]

Maybe its not the affiliate managers but the affiliate programs?
Most affiliate managers I know, they get bonuses depending on FTD's and not on player value. That is probably the problem.