NCO

[roey]

Hi all,

If you decide to promote a program with NCO, take your right foot and stomp on your left foot with it, as hard as you can.

Rinse and repeat.

The outcome is the same, you wish you never did it.

 

[TheGooner]

Like many statements about affiliating - they are very often subjective.

Clearly that is what you have found specific to your programs and your sites. I appreciate you sharing the fact - but I wonder if it is true across the board?
I find that non NCO operators are usually low performers, and there just seem to be mysterious deductions and stats that do not add up.

Can anyone tell me of a good NCO operator that provides six figures a year reliably?
Most NCOs that I see are "two men in a back room" with stats that go AWOL whenever the affiliate conferences are on.

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Our experience is the other way ...

Four of my of my top five programs all have NCO - and are responsible for 66% of this years income.
( BettingPartners, Bet365, Ladbrokes, Betonline)

The other one is that top five group is Rewards Affiliates (turnover share) which never goes negative because of the deal set-up (turnover).
I do note that my NCO operators are all big brands, with multiple platforms and large staff numbers - they are top player brands.

 

[roey]

Were you in a place to be aware of NCO at sign up and would you do it again with a new player base? I wouldn't, but maybe im a small fish.

 

[TheGooner]

I don't understand the first part of the question - all the T&Cs are clear - why wouldn't you be aware / understand?

As for signing up for new places I do so every year - and NCO vs non-NCO does not come into the calculations as to whether the place should be accepted. We evaluate every place, and are looking for best-of-breed programs with significant infrastructure and investment. These places tend to run on an NCO basis.

On a purely mathematical basis - it's difficult to see how a non-NCO business can stay in business unless the headline rate is far lower than the 30-35% standard for NCO. There will be losing months and a non-NCO place cannot swallow the losses legitimately and keep operating. I just tend to see that non-NCO places are "creative" with their stats and accounting. That does not engender trust.

But I'm just one affiliate - and I'd like to hear from others on the NCO vs non-NCO topic.
- Does it affect your decisions?
- After 1,2,3 years what do you bottom line numbers say? Which is best?
- Does anyone have a highly respected, and profitable non-NCO partner?

Please share.

 

[roey]

lets see, my numbers say forget NCO programs, yours differ.

 

[KasinoKing]

But I'm just one affiliate - and I'd like to hear from others on the NCO vs non-NCO topic.
- Does it affect your decisions?
- After 1,2,3 years what do you bottom line numbers say? Which is best?
- Does anyone have a highly respected, and profitable non-NCO partner?

Please share.

I don't know the size of your business - but I think that is a massive factor in this debate.
As long as you can send relatively big numbers of active players to a NCO program, you will probably be OK, because the few winners will be cancelled out by a large number of players who lose.

I didn't take NCO into account when I first started out. It was only when I started going for very long periods in the red with some operators that I realised how goddamnawful it is for "small-time" affiliates who can't get big numbers of players.
When you are still advertising and sending new players to a casino, it really hurts that you are getting NOTHING for it, for months or even years.

I vowed to never sign-up to any more NCO programs about 4-5 years ago.
As only about 5% (if that) of programs have NCO, it really makes no sense to promote them over the majority who do not.

I now only work with 4 NCO programs: Bet365, iNetBet & Club World - who have always had it, and Ladbrokes who only started imposing NCO on me in January last year (since when, I have been in the red).

These are the worst of my stats:
iNetBet $US casino: Total months promoting = 104, total months in the Red = 40
Bet365: Total months promoting = 104, total months in the Red = 57
(The first 28 months were in the Black - then the pain started!)
iNetBet €uro casino: Total months promoting = 16, total months in the Red = 13

Last year, all my NCO casinos added together only made up 3.5% of my total income - so I think it's fair to say the no NCO ones are OK for me!

KK

 

[PaaskeUK]

I have been lucky with bet365 as had mainly positive numbers and only small minus in some months and then some good figures. But this month I am getting burned as almost £250 minus So that will be going over to next month and will be hard now to get into plus again. Also still find their statistics frustrating. I got one player who made £200 revenue so must have won almost £10000 and doing over 30 bets a day?? WTF is he betting on hehe it gotta be live betting or something.

Will try ask my affiliate manager for detailed stats. But I just feel a brand like bet365 you need to have.

My thoughts about this NCO thing. In one way I feel it is actually fair they have this because if some programs keep removing minus from our players and resets every month then what if they constant have big winnings and let us say within a 6 months period revenue is around minus 5000. Then one month later they all lose around £10000. I get on 40% just example at this casino I get around £4000 payment. But 6 months before this they actually lost £5000. So in one way I feel NCO is somehow also fair.....or have I just lost my brain hehe. For your information I do tend to avoid any NCO brands but there is only few of them out there.

 

[AussieDave]

it's difficult to see how a non-NCO business can stay in business unless the headline rate is far lower than the 30-35% standard for NCO.

Agreed, it's all about how the GGR numbers are crunched.

EG - There is no-way-known an MGS program (Quickfire or Download) can offer 60% for life. But that's exactly what one program offered affiliates, whey they 1'st opened. Ran a quick calc on that offer and estimated the true rev-share % on NGR was about 29%. It was mutton, dressed up as lamb - a 31% reduction in advertised commission.

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EDIT - Gooner... your idea to setup a private GPWA members forum a few years back (when I was a member) for those who were making over $100,000 a year, got jumped on. It would have be benifical for affiliates in that league. At the time I was all for it. Pity it got jumped on by people who it wouldn't have suited.

Ironically if memory serves me right, your proposal for that forum, included the reasons why BIG-Fish and Little-Fish (smaller affiliates) are different, with totally different businesses.
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As long as you can send relatively big numbers of active players to a NCO program, you will probably be OK, because the few winners will be cancelled out by a large number of players who lose.

Pure Rev-Share, our bottom line is solely factored on player numbers and probablity. The more active players you have, the less likely you'll get zeroed-out each month. Hence an affiliate who can send decent numbers of depositing players each month, will, over time, build up a player-base which is far-less-prone to NCO, that an account run by a little fish.

The trick is to figure out where your affiliate business sits in this.

Are you a little-fish? Then listen to othere little-fishes advice and feedback. If your BIG-Fish, discuss you business with other BIG-Fishes. The two business models operate on entirely different perspectives

 

[roey]

an account run by a little fish.

I do just fine

 

[slotplayer]

I'm only interested in consistent earnings month after month. NCO is counter productive to that.

 

[AussieDave]

I do just fine

I hope you didn't take offence to that? It wasn't said in that context. It was said to try and help you, the OP

EG - Gooner owns and operates a large affiliate business and has done so since 1999. It wouldn't surprise me at all, if he was doing over $1,000,000 gross per year.

Obviously his business model it completely different to smaller-affiliates (small-fish). That was the point!

 

[slotplayer]

Agreed, it's all about how the GGR numbers are crunched.

EG - There is no-way-known an MGS program (Quickfire or Download) can offer 60% for life. But that's exactly what one program offered affiliates, whey they 1'st opened. Ran a quick calc on that offer and estimated the true rev-share % on NGR was about 29%. It was mutton, dressed up as lamb - a 31% reduction in advertised commission.



Pure Rev-Share, our bottom line is solely factored on player numbers and probablity. The more active players you have, the less likely you'll get zeroed-out each month. Hence an affiliate who can send decent numbers of depositing players each month, will, over time, build up a player-base which is far-less-prone to NCO, that an account run by a little fish.

The trick is to figure out where your affiliate business sits in this.

Are you a little-fish? Then listen to othere little-fishes advice and feedback. If your BIG-Fish, discuss you business with other BIG-Fishes. The two business models operate on entirely different perspectives

I had an AM offer me 50% life time and my first question to him was "Can you afford that?"

 

[AussieDave]

I had an AM offer me 50% life time and my first question to him was "Can you afford that?"

Exactly

I think anyone with some experience in the industry, should have some idea (knowledge), of casino operational costs. Just the basics is enough:

• Software royalities & or licencing fees;
• Proccessing & admin fees;
• Marketing (player aquisitions), comps etc.

Just a small example of possible hidden fees etc.

It's these insane Rev-share commission (in your case 50%), which are being hit by these hidden additional fees. If a program offers you 30-35% then imo it's a fair deal AND a true representation of the commission % you'll be paid on. Anything else is just AM puffery (aka BS).

 

[slotplayer]

tip of the iceberg.

 

[Frank]

All of my best earners are NCO, But I think a lot of it is down to the traffic you attract.. 1st time bettors that play conservative or at 50-100 at a time to win back 200-300 then yes stick with the NCO, You will find all of the big affiliate sites "At least in the sports industry" all push NCO brands.. and their is a logical reason for it "They are usually the best converting the big players that requier complex bets parlays, props etc", people worried about carry over are not doing enough work to offset the losses. the bookies themselves work on a NCO and they are successful doing it.

Btw, interesting idea about the forum gooner wanted to setup, what happened?

 

[inspiration]

with NCO you need a lot of traffic to even out winners and ofcourse a lot of luck.

For Casino programs NCO are usually the worst except for AE and a few others.

 

[Mark Wright]

I believe my company works well with AffiliateEdge and that is one of the only NCO programs we work with. I also believe in asking your AM if it is a 'hard NCO' as in, if you are deep in a neg. for months in a row, would they be willing to reset so you can carry on promoting them?

 

[KasinoKing]

Hi all,
If you decide to promote a program with NCO, take your right foot and stomp on your left foot with it, as hard as you can.
Rinse and repeat.

The outcome is the same, you wish you never did it.

I just had another PERFECT example of why I will NEVER sign-up to NCO again:

Last month I signed-up to a new operator after getting them to agree to waive their standard NCO rule...
This month a player I referred had a massive win taking my commission to more than - €2,300!
If I had NCO, it would probably take a couple of years or even more to cancel that out

KK

 

[BettingMalta]

totally agree with @KasinoKing , never sign-up with NCO programs! They will destroy your work....

 

[DaftDog]

If you promote too many brands at a time and as a result can only send limited traffic to each of them then I understand why you would not agree with the NCO model. I am in this business for the long term and need to maximise my long term earning potential from the players I refer and the programs I refer them to.

I find my experience similar to TheGooner as my top earning programs are all NCO and they are my longest serving programs as well. Many of the 40 to 50%, no NCO programs that I have dealt with have either folded or gone rogue. I am not currently a big affiliate, hopefully one day I will be.

Any businessman, no matter what type of business you are in, has to partner with stable and profitable suppliers and service providers if he is to succeed long term.