Income Access and their Stats

[JAmieF]

Hi All

For those who don't know me in the this thread I am Jamie and I am the Affiliate Marketing Department Manager.

Thanks Spika for bringing this to our attention. Is the program you are referring too in the Income Access Network or one of partners? Have you spoken to anyone to seek clarification? Feel free to email me jamie @ income access and I will look into this issue.

Simmo in regards to the data verification process we are putting it together for you and we can discuss this in detail at the BAC Show. Bonus streak you are welcome to attend too.

Hi universalcasino, it is great to meet you via the forums and we like that you asked for feedback. From my perspective we have a dedicated team of affiliate managers, like Andreea who you have been speaking with that are always trying to help affiliates grow their business. I ask that you at least try and promote one of our clients for three months and analyize the results for yourself.

I will also be attending BAC so feel free to come by the booth

 

[Aussie-Dave]

I don't wish to sound like an ass but you've held membership since 2008 and made a total of 2 posts in that time.

This being your second post.

Build up some site cred and maybe people will take you as being sincere.
All I'm seeing is you plugging your BAC stand and telling people to try your program out.

Sorry if that's harsh but I'm over reading posts like this. It shows to me that affiliates are not your concern at all.

I too think your stats/conversion are bad too. Couldn't make a damn thing.



Cheers



Dave

 

[Simmo!]

OK so we clearly differ on this one Dave, but the way I see it is if you want reps to get involved in dicussions then you should at least give them the courtesy of a fair hearing rather than just dismissing them out of hand because you don't "know" them. To me at least, that post just comes over as downright rude and makes me embarrassed to be tagged an affiliate if I'm honest.

 

[Aussie-Dave]

In two years he makes 2 posts
And just because he makes a second post we should roll out the red carpet, what have you been smoking, your socks!

Personal I don't give a rats what you think Simmo, besides try wiping your nose its got a brown tinge to it!

However your entitled to your opinion, just as I am mine ;D


Cheers



Dave

PS Your not at CM's now so you can drop the attitude, hey!

 

[Simmo!]

Simmo in regards to the data verification process we are putting it together for you and we can discuss this in detail at the BAC Show.

Thanks Jamie. Will be interesting to see that as it's the main point of concern for me. I think ultimately, if the casino has control over both data upload and verification threof then obviously ther could potentially be an issue, whereas if the verification procedure is independent then it adds validity for sure.

See you next week.

Cheers

Simmo1

 

[Adrian-LiveCasinoPartners]

I've got intimate knowledge of the IA integration process. I've integrated with two different software platforms to this point. IA is only good as the program that they are integrated with.

Before this I've promoted casinos that used IA platform and I trust them. One example is Vuetec. I promoted their brand Dublinbet for years and not once did I ever suspect any weird behavior. I later found out that the stats on their software can NOT be changed. They built these safegaurds to make sure that the operators of their other casinos operate in a transparent way. Even if I wanted to untag a player (which I would never do) I could not it as the licensee. Not every software company does this and thus that's where the problem lies in. Integrity has to be vertical.

Cookie tracking: This is all in the hands of the casino itself. IA redirects the browser using a btag, but the casino must process this info and place a cookie and relate it to the affiliate if the player signs up. It's not difficult. So, IA is a part of the process, but not really a part of the validity of the data. They relay and report.

It's true that occasionally the daily data uploads did not connect properly, but the issues were always resolved the next day. I think IA fixed these issues a long time ago and greatly reduced the frequency of this issue. I can't remember the last time this happened at LuckyLiveCasino. We have choosen IA for the CelticCasino brand that will shortly be launched.

Safegaurds that I now about at IA? Well, they as Engineer mentioned that have alerts when the data is not uploaded for a particular day. They also do not allow the operator to overwrite the same file. It has to be renamed and updated by their technical team.

In my opinion IA is a tool who's end result is based on the operator. I for on trust it only because I trust the companies who upload the info.

 

[Aussie-Dave]

FYI Simmo! I give respect when I'm given it too.

Instead I get:

"Time to put on those boots and hats! Ok, so maybe not just yet, but the weather is cooling down"....ummm I'm in Australia

If I can have them on my site the least they can do is show a little respect and send mailers, newsletters..ect..ect fitting to where I'm located in the world. At least make some effort to have me thinking you give a toss.

No one likes being treated like a number and with only two posts in 2 years it's pretty clear that's their opinion of affiliates in general - just numbers to fill the bottom line.


Cheers



Dave

 

[Engineer]

Just a quick note -- Income Access and Vegas Affiliates parted ways over 6 years ago: thread here.

 

[JAmieF]

Firstly, we would like to thank Adrian for jumping in this thread and giving a merchant’s perspective on the process. From this thread there are two concerns which need to addressed.

Concern 1: Upload of data from the operator to the Income Access platform
Concern 2: The checks and procedures we have in place to make sure that the data important is accurate

Before we go any further we would like mention that Income Access DOES NOT manipulate data from the files received from our partners.

Process for Concern 1:
• Operator generates file with an automatic script in their back-end – the average description of an operator’s procedure were given by Adrian. Each operator will have a slight variation on this procedure. This script would pull all data associated with IA tracking identifiers.
• Operator uploads the data through a secure FTP or data is pulled from secure APIs.
• The operator can only load the data through an agreed upon IP address by IA and the operator.
• Each client has a standard file format and structure, this limits the human interaction.
• File is imported into the affiliate program by scripts

Process for concern 2: failed data imports – Checks and procedures
• This can happen from time to time due to upgrades by the operator or by IA
• If the file does not get imported or the client notices that the file is not complete. We have automatic notifications that are sent to IA and the Client to notify of the failure, which prompts the client to resend us the data. The old file remains on the server and we cross check the new data against the old file.
• We check data on a daily basis to make sure that the data has been imported. If the file was not received the client will send us the new file.
• We have verification process that reports back to the client how many rows of data are imported each day for them to cross check against the data in the clients backend.
• Income Access Account, Integrations and Affiliate managers carry out regular blind tests on our clients to ensure our the data is delivered to us correctly in the files.
• Depending on the data issue we try to address and resolve the issues within 24 hours

@ Spika - I am waiting for your email. As we would like to sort out your concerns

@ AussieDave – I don’t want to derail this thread, we do hear your feedback regarding the newsletter and we ask that you continue sending feedback to us.

I have been working in this industry for over 5 years working as an affiliate manager and SEM specialist. I am now managing the affiliate marketing department at Income Access and we have awesome team that are active on various industry related forums

 

[sipka]

Jamie, please give me some time to gather all my data together and after the Budapest conference I will get in touch.
Busy times at the moment

 

[JAmieF]

Hi Spika

No problems and thanks for letting me know, it is much appreciated.

 

[bonustreak]

Thanks for coming and posting Jamie See you in 2 days to talk more. In the meantime I hope that these personal attacks come to a halt with a quickness.

 

[JAmieF]

As a follow up to my earlier post, I thought it pertinent to stress that our automated process for integrating affiliate programmes and testing tracking has been analyzed and verified by several publicly listed companies before and after we partner with them. Without proper integration processes and checks in place, we would not only jeopardise what we have worked hard to build over the past 8 years, but we would also damage our ability to work with new partners.

Being an affiliate based company, it is our business to successfully build and grow affiliate programmes and work with affiliates. It is our business to work closely with all our partners to ensure that all tracking and reporting is accurate at all times.

As you know there are always operators that come to this industry, partner with major software providers, partner with us, partner with media partners, etc. and run a dysfunctional operation. We do our utmost to make sure these operators are weeded out during the integration process.

We have always said, test your tracking link and ensure that your campaigns are tracking. If you experience any issues, please do not hesitate to inform us and we will do the tests on your links for you.

 

[UniversalCasino]

@JAmieF

Thanks for clearing out this issue. I will be contacting Andrea as soon as I can. I will be trying your affiliate and promote it, but we're also looking forward that there will be smooth flow of waters for doing business with you.

Please tell Andrea to just send me a new proposal and we'll just email or Skype me if you guys have.

Everyday is a busy day for me but rest assured that I will be waiting and replying to you guys.

Again, I would like to thank you for answering all of our questions.

Kindest regards,
J

 

[bb1webs]

This is/was an easy one for me.

Probably is for you too, if you step back and look at it from a simple man's POV.


If you were making a lot or decent amount via one method, and then changed over, and are (I'm sorry IA, but this is appropriate if its true) .... slapped in the face while being kicked in the balls via a bottom line of a lousy $10 (??? unreal, from 4 figures to $10 and we are expected to believe this all due to what?

Give me all the excuses you want, and lets say I am in a mood to throw common sense to the wolves and give IA even longer time on my sites to either 1) prove themselves, something they haven't done with their first opportunity - 2) allow them to continue bleeding me out at a rate of ... $10 a month.


...........


I appreciate what Adrian has said, and he and I have had this talk before, but why is it then that I consistently (10 yrs+) .... hear the same things about the same company?

IA sucks. I'm sorry but you do and do it immensely.

And I will gladly eat those words if you can find 10 affiliates that I have known long enough to be certain they are what they claim. ..... to step up and say they think IA is all that and a bag of chips.

I'm sick of BS, sick of hearing excuses that insult a 6 yr old's intelligence.

So any affs reading this, you make your own decisions based on what your gut tells you, and forget the excuses, never happen agains, and all the other promises that are so casually tossed around.

Those that do decide to promote them ... We'll meet back here in 12 months, and tell me of how you made a great income month, after month, steadily.


10. 10 affs. Good luck IA.

.............

I apologize to those whom might be offended as I know I was very strongly spoken here, but dang it, enough is enough and I am telling you this freakin' emperor ain't wearin' no clothes!

And so are a frightening number of other programs these days.

I hope that these personal attacks come to a halt with a quickness.

I hope I wasn't taken as that being a personal attack on anybody. I feel that way about IA long before most of their current employees were probably ever hired.

Never the less. As Dave said, you can't hide the bottom line. And their's suck and I have tried promoting them at least twice and I'm thinking 3 times over the years.

But the biggest nail in their coffin was the $10 a month drop. Come on. You really expect us to look at anything else when the only common denominator with the drop off of income is that IA came into the picture.

Considering how many times I tried them, I think its fair to say that I wanted them to prove to be a great sponsor. never came close.

 

[Simmo!]

I had a long and detailed chat with the IA team about this issue this week in Budapest. They took me through the whole process from start to finish and I asked questions to try to see if there was any obvious point at which a problem could occur - thinking like the geeky techie I can sometimes be

The upshot was this: in most cases, data is extracted by the client of IA and sent over to IA. IA then import it into their database and report to us. They send a validation report back to the client for them to check what they have is the same. But...

As a programmer myself I can see that their is room for error here. The validation *may* only prove both databases are the same and *may* not prove that the data extracted in the first place was actually full and correct. (I say "may" because I haven't seen it).

Now (and I'm open to any input on this) IMO, the answer to this is to get the client's IT department and IA's IT department to run EXACTLY the same raw (SQL) query on their databases and compare the results. IE: identify a couple of affiliates and run an independent query to pull out all their player data at both ends and compare.

IA agreed and they then spoke to at least one client (Intertops) who said they'd be happy to comply and assist. If anyone would like to add any ideas, feel free to chip in - I said I'd provide a simple overview for their respective IT departments to create the SQL query.

In theory this should prove that the basic, raw affiliate tagged data (including revenue generated obviously) held in the database by the client is/isn't the same as that held by IA which means that at least the "chasm" between the client and IA is/isn't dripping data.

Anyone any thoughts or ideas on this before I get started?

Cheers,

Simmo!

 

[Guard Dog]

I think that is a GREAT idea I can tell you that, from my experience, Intertops data was COMPLETELY WRONG. All my earnings were gone and nothing tracked well. I went back to the Intertops custom affiliate program and began generating money again.

After that I had absolutely no trust in IA software. Plus had talked to a number of affiliates who said the same about other affiliate programs using IA backend.

I would love to see a good test here.

 

[Simmo!]

All my earnings were gone and nothing tracked well.

Ah two things here: regards tracking, I believe two cookies are set - an Income Access one and an operator one. My understanding from our conversation is that it's the operator's one that grabs the BTAG info and puts it into the operator's database and of course, the operator's database is where the player tracking/revenue tracking is done before it is sent to IA. Or in other words, the tracking is largely the operator's responsibility.

That leads me onto a second conversation I had with somone totally unrelated to IA but very much related to tracking. They have worked at a fairly high level within the operator camp and although this was my first in-depth conversation with them, they seem very well respected.

He/She said that they were convinced that affiliate tracking across the industry is flaky, not through any dishonesty, but in the way cookies and database implementations work. They have been responsible for finding untagged players and tagging them to the relevant affiliates manually because some players just weren't being tagged properly. Reasons? Not sure but the conversation revolved around the fact that the way affiliate tracking is currently undertaken is not efficient.

Might be a topic for another thread discussing ways this could be improved maybe.

Cheers

Simmo!