Quotas

[dominique]

An increasing number of programs are adding quotas to their T&Cs.

I find that very disturbing.

They take various shapes, from demanding we deliver at least 2 players a month or no pay for anything we ever did, to 2 players in 2 months and so on.

Apart from just stealing our comissions, these quotas have a terrible side effect.

Should the casino start generating a lot of player complaints, it is a major scarifice for affiliates to remove the ads until such disputes are settled. Affiliates will automatically forfeit all monies owed to them.

That makes quotas not just generally bad for affiliates, it affects the integrity of the industry as a whole.

Totally unacceptable!

[Engineer]

Good post, Dom. I agree 100%.

I will not promote any program that has a minimum quota rule. And if a program enacts a quota rule and makes the rule retroactive, I will blacklist the casinos and send a warning out to my mailing list.

I believe most programs have no intention of taking this awful route -- but for those that are considering it, please think twice. You will lose a TON of traffic (the opposite of what you're trying to accomplish with a quota rule), and even if you change the rule back, your reputation is ruined.

As affiliates, we choose to promote who we want, when we want. If someone sends a bunch of players to a particular casino, the affiliate should earn the agreed-upon commission rate for as long as those players remain active, regardless of whether or not they continue to send traffic. Remember, the casino wouldn't even have those players without the affiliate....

Now obviously, if you run a good, profitable affiliate program, the issue of affiliates not sending new traffic will never become an issue. If you make the affiliate money, you'll get more traffic. If you don't convert quite as well as another program, you'll still get traffic, because the smart affiliate knows to diversify his traffic among multiple programs -- even if it means sending some traffic to the program that converts not quite as well as his "best" performer. (I hope this makes sense.)

It would be great if some affiliate program managers would post in this thread. If you have no plans to introduce a minimum quota rule, please let us know! It will make me (and others) feel a lot more comfortable about sending traffic and building up a player base at your casino(s).

[cowboy]

What casinos are currently doing this?

[WCD Admin]

This has to be the single most aggravating change a program can make - it's clearly not based on anything other than taking from us what we have rightly earned. In the past we have named many reasons why it's unfair:

- Sudden illness or even death can stop a webmaster in their tracks. We have no pension plan, or health insurance provided by the casinos. If we get sick we are left to fend for ourselves.

- We could have a loss of traffic from many other reasons: massive shake up in the search engines. Domain theft. Our sites could get caught up in a court battle. DOS attacks by hackers while on vacation. Really there is no limit to the reasons a site can go down or lose traffic.

- Or we could, as stated above, simply be exercising our right to choose not to promote a certain program for our own reasons. WHY should we have to give up our earnings to exercise our rights?

[dominique]

What casinos are currently doing this?

We should try and get a list together.

Affiliate Club is one.

[Ryan K]

Hi guys,

Until today, Earn United was listed as a predatory program here due to having this clause in our T&Cs.

We've discussed this extensively with our affiliates and recognize the importance in honouring the 'lifetime' revenue share agreements that we share with you which has lead us to remove the clause.

As Bernie points out "there is no limit to the reasons a site can go down or lose traffic" and I agree. This is a major and unfortunate reality for affiliates - especially SEO-focused affiliates.

For some programs there is a profit motivation for the clause, but what spawned the clause at EU was the amount of resources - time and money - required to issue payments to inactive/non-responsive accounts with outdated information. Our term used to be ZERO activity (no D/Ls or no rev) for 3 consecutive months, but we never actually exercised the clause. Instead, we have decided to implement internal management procedures to minimize our resources while honouring the lifetime agreement.

As a result, Earn United is now AGD certified.

[bonusgeek]

This is why it is so important to have a forum-resource that shows the history of programs. Online Gambling will one day be legal, and you can bet that the programs playing games now will stop this garbage and be begging affiliates for exposure. At that time affiliates need to be reminded how when times got tough, these programs left us hanging.

[Guard Dog]

It is definitely troubling to see this happen. Quotas are horrible for affiliates and players (like Dom said).

The good news is:

We have a history of the last 2 years at AGD - so it's fairly easy to check out which programs have enacted a quota. Additionally, I am looking into a way to bring that information directly into the forums for easy viewing. A very good case and point:

Best Casino Partner Terms Changes

You can see exactly what happened historically since we have been tracking terms.

[Engineer]

I was chatting with Renee from Rewards last night, and she said that Rewards does not plan to add a quota requirement to their T&Cs.

[Adrian-LiveCasinoPartners]

With an affiliate background, I would never , ever previously promote a program that had a minimum requirement.

So, LiveCasinoPartners never even thought about the possibility.

WCD Admin was right, the residual income is the only stability an affiliate when there is a problem with their sites (reasons previously mentioned). A stabilizing factor. Any program who implements the minimum player rule is trying to make more money. I don't buy the "cost of administration". That's what the minimum payout is for. This is profit generated by an affiliate that would not have been there with out the affiliate in the first place. Appreciation vs. Greed.