ComeOn Connect

Do you work with ComeOn Connect?

  • Yes

    Votes: 11 64.7%
  • No

    Votes: 5 29.4%
  • Will try

    Votes: 1 5.9%

  • Total voters
    17

Stephen

Affiliate Program Representative
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Hi, guys.

Firstly apologies for my delay in replying to this thread. It has been a rather busy start to the year.

Comeon Connect Admin Fee of 38% on GGW is the highest I have heard of. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

We understand that we may have one of the highest in the industry, unfortunately a lot of affiliate programs do not publish their fees so it would be difficult for us to confirm whether we have the highest – this is why we do believe that AGD audits are a good thing, it would be great however for our direct competitors – such as Kindred, VideoSlots or indeed Betsson to also be audited as they work in our main markets such as the Nordics.

I think that is a very bold statement. I would like to know what numbers (data or research) are you using to back this up?

I'm not saying this claim is false, but when using this as an argument over your own fee structure, backing the claims with numbers should be a standard thing.

We are currently a publicly listed company and I believe our results in terms of growth are a testament to our brands and our ability to retain customers. We have paid out over 27 million to our affiliate partners in 2018 with an average Reg to FTD conversion rate of 45%.

And other multi-brand companies that charge let's say, half of those fees are not advertising heavily?

How are you measuring the "help" effect for the affiliate from advertising? In my opinion, there are two sides to this: When you have a lot of non-affiliate advertising, you have better coverage on the market by default. This could actually hurt the conversion for the affiliate, since there are too many players that search for gaming related stuff and already have an account on the brand in question. On these cases, the brand will get branding/retention for free from the affiliate, so I would say this is a more complex thing than just to jump into favorable conclusions.

Again, when justifying this cost structure by these type of abstract claims, I think they should be be very well backed.

We see a direct correlation between both non-affiliate traffic and affiliate traffic when we are heavily advertised on TV – when we have a heavy TV month, affiliate traffic naturally increases, as does it decrease when we are not on TV. You are correct in saying that affiliates are important to brand awareness - of course you are and in 2018 contributed to 40% of all our acquisition, however, I would dispute your claim that we get branding free from an affiliate – we pay for that via revenue share for the lifetime of the player – that’s the whole point of RS – continued promotion. I would also like to add here that we have No negative carryover and absolutely NO quotas – life does mean life for us.

You don't pay full fees to gaming providers when players are wagering with a bonus. Also, when justifying 18% on game royalties, it's safe to say that the real cost is not even close to that, let alone the adding this fee to bonuses.

Also, why do you deduct 7% jackpot contribution fee from all wagers, even from non-jackpot slots? Usually, this is done on real contribution basis. Jackpot contributions vary, but average around 7%. Are you saying that you take this from all wagers to cover JPC's? Don't you think this is a bit too much?

There is no transactional cost on bonuses (I assume you are talking about payment processing fees), and calculating 8% on transaction fees towards the affiliates is not ok, and you calculate all this from bonuses as well, so this breakdown seems a bit off.

These percentages are taken directly from our finance department and actual figures from our 2018 accounts – these are the figures used to report our EBITDA budgets to the market.

Our transactional costs are as you say payment processing fees and as you may be aware - in our main markets ie the Nordics payment fees are much higher than in the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, as we have said previously, we are working to reduce these if possible but it is not an overnight fix. Our different teams - be it product, payments etc control the operational deductions and it's their job to negotiate our contracts to reduce our expenditure – we as an affiliate team are unfortunately not in a position to change this ourselves – we can suggest changes but at the end of the day is a management decision.

Other than that, thank you Stephen for being transparent and responsive. I think the logic behind the free structure is ill-advised and I feel affiliates (and also competitors) should be respected more when making claims on conversion, CLTV, and retention. And further, these claims should be backed with proper data.

Overall, I like the program, but since there is a healthy discussion around this, I wanted to take part. And as it is Christmas time, there is absolutely no rush to answer. This is not an attack on the program, but I don't like the fact that casinos can do this kind of stuff and you find out about these only when a watchdog entity makes their own calculations.

Most of us promote dozens of brands and trust big operators like yourself by default. And I don't mean that you are scamming, but these fees and deductions are not something you can easily justify.

We understand yours and others frustrations but we have never shied away from explaining our calculations, this is something that we have brought to the attention of and discussed with ADG before especially as we are platinum sponsors here.

We are fully open to discussing increased deals to mitigate the fees such as hybrids / CPA’s. We are not holding a gun up to anyone to promote us, we can negotiate a deal with you to work with us but if this is not possible and you do not wish to work with us that’s also fine. It's the choice of each individual affiliate should they want to work with us or any other affiliate program. As I said we are always open to discussion with anyone.
 

gobo

Affiliate Guard Dog Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2016
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Stephen, why don't you state the 38% admin fees in your terms? It feels like these numbers are only known in some threads in forums like these.
 

Bingostarr

Affiliate Guard Dog Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2014
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To follow up on my statements above - Stephen investigated and resolved my issue with reporting - I had another account I had missed that showed all the missing activity.

If life really means life with Comeon, I would have no hesitation promoting them, regardless of fees. This is a long game for me and manageable long term gains outweigh unsustainable short-term ones.
 

Stephen

Affiliate Program Representative
Joined
Sep 25, 2017
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Stephen, why don't you state the 38% admin fees in your terms? It feels like these numbers are only known in some threads in forums like these.

We are currently working on the T&Cs of the affiliate program to be in-line with marketing regulations, such as UKGC and Sweden, We will be looking to add in the actual fees per brand then. Please note that the fees of 38% are only for some of our brands. These fees only are the legacy of "Earn Affiliates" brands but we will endeavour to make this clearer in the near future.
 

gobo

Affiliate Guard Dog Member
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We are currently working on the T&Cs of the affiliate program to be in-line with marketing regulations, such as UKGC and Sweden, We will be looking to add in the actual fees per brand then. Please note that the fees of 38% are only for some of our brands. These fees only are the legacy of "Earn Affiliates" brands but we will endeavour to make this clearer in the near future.

You mean additional "fees" such as gaming tax which the affiliates will need to soak up as well for newly regulated markets such as Sweden?
 

brett81

New Member
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Dec 21, 2018
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You are correct in saying that affiliates are important to brand awareness - of course you are and in 2018 contributed to 40% of all our acquisition, however, I would dispute your claim that we get branding free from an affiliate – we pay for that via revenue share for the lifetime of the player – that’s the whole point of RS – continued promotion. I would also like to add here that we have No negative carryover and absolutely NO quotas – life does mean life for us.
My claim was that you are claiming that heavy TV advertising is good for the affiliate, my claim was and is that it is not that simple. I was talking about the coverage and number of accounts already on the market that visits the affiliate's website. Organic and affiliated accounts, that can't be tracked the affiliate anymore, since these accounts already exist.

However, thanks for the reply. It's a bold move to post these type of claims publicly, but standing behind those, even with ill-advised math and stats (that are given to you by management/finance), it's even bolder. So hats off. Could take this one step deeper but let's hope the management does the right thing soon and gets these fees to a reasonable level. And by reasonable I mean that actually cover these fees, and not rip off partners with multiples.
 

TheGooner

Affiliate Guard Dog Member
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I appreciate Stephen giving the full detail - as much as he was able to do so.

Taking a 38% fee slice from Gross Gaming means all revshare figures are calculated on 62% of the losses.
So the HEADLINE figure of 40% net rev-share (after fees) should be considered as roughly 25% gross revshare (40% of 62% = 24.8%)

Stephen I think you are right that you are making things open and obvious - but your program would be better off with affiliates if it avoided the "puffery" of stating 40% share.

Just state 25% gross rev share and be done - people will know what to expect.
 

gobo

Affiliate Guard Dog Member
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Taking a 38% fee slice from Gross Gaming means all revshare figures are calculated on 62% of the losses.
So the HEADLINE figure of 40% net rev-share (after fees) should be considered as roughly 25% gross revshare (40% of 62% = 24.8%)

Stephen I think you are right that you are making things open and obvious - but your program would be better off with affiliates if it avoided the "puffery" of stating 40% share.

Just state 25% gross rev share and be done - people will know what to expect.

Exactly this! This is the thing that annoys all affiliates. The false advertising covered with vague terms and conditions and false promises.
 

Stephen

Affiliate Program Representative
Joined
Sep 25, 2017
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You mean additional "fees" such as gaming tax which the affiliates will need to soak up as well for newly regulated markets such as Sweden?

I mean we will be looking into adding the actual fees per brand whilst we are making T&Cs changes to be in-line with marketing regulations. The main point in these marketing regulations changes to the T&Cs is more based around making things clearer about what affiliates can and can’t do in regulated markets. When these changes are made, as said, we will look to add in the actual fees per brand to make it clearer.

Has there been any updates with the terms and conditions? These brands look very interesting.

The T&Cs changes are already being looked at and will be posted here on AGD once approved and have gone live. As always, we will share these with AGD first to get their insight and approval on them as are a platinum sponsor.

My claim was that you are claiming that heavy TV advertising is good for the affiliate, my claim was and is that it is not that simple. I was talking about the coverage and number of accounts already on the market that visits the affiliate's website. Organic and affiliated accounts, that can't be tracked the affiliate anymore, since these accounts already exist.

While I understand your side the increased brand exposure via TV ads does help the brands and make them more recognised when players are deciding which brand to go with on affiliate sites. We do see a direct correlation between both non-affiliate traffic and affiliate traffic when we are heavily advertised on TV. However, as said, we do understand the importance of affiliated traffic as this contributed to 40% of all our acquisition in 2018.

I appreciate Stephen giving the full detail - as much as he was able to do so.

Taking a 38% fee slice from Gross Gaming means all revshare figures are calculated on 62% of the losses.
So the HEADLINE figure of 40% net rev-share (after fees) should be considered as roughly 25% gross revshare (40% of 62% = 24.8%)

Stephen I think you are right that you are making things open and obvious - but your program would be better off with affiliates if it avoided the "puffery" of stating 40% share.

Just state 25% gross rev share and be done - people will know what to expect.

While I understand and see your point of view, this is made harder by the fact not all our brands are calculated this way. These fees only are the legacy of "Earn Affiliates". The old “Cherry Affiliates” brands are still calculated as they were previously. Our aim would be to have these fees the same across all brands so we can be clearer in how we can state this.

We appreciate all your feedback on our fees and as we have said this is a discussion we have been having with management prior to our migration. We are always open to answering any question that any of you may have, while also discussing increased deals to mitigate the fees. When and if changes are made to our fees we will be sure to discuss this with AGD and display them in the correct places needed.
 

danniee

Affiliate Guard Dog Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2018
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I don't work with comeon anymore, but just received this email:

As you may be aware, the UKGC have increased the Remote Gaming Duty from 15% to 21% as of 1st April 2019, affecting all referred players residing in the United Kingdom and registered to our UKGC brands; Comeon.com, Mobilebet.com, and GetLucky.com. As of 1st April 2019, we will be deducting 21% from the above players Gross Gaming Revenue prior to calculation of commissions.
 

AussieDave

24 years & still going!
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platinum sponsor.

@Guard Dog - How does a program get "Platinum Sponsor" (aka paid sponsorship) with such woefully bad commission RS. Do you not review the T&C's, and if so, did it not stand out that their GGR deductions were not 100% transparent?

The catch cry on the AGD logo is: Protecting Affiliates Interests

Call me crazy, but I would think before any program is accepted in the ranks of platinum sponsorship, not only would their T&C's be gone over with a fine-tooth-comb, but a test on the advertised commission RS, along with a complete list of GGR deductions, would be a minimum requirement.

Things like this really has me questioning if AGD is just another GPWA in sheep's clothing.
 
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