How many affiliates knew that ever since Rome has turned out a new brand (Diceland), that they are doing their tracking the same bullshit way as Referback and giving the first affiliate credit for the player, regardless of who made the sale on Diceland? I have always had a huge problem with doing things this way, why on earth do I want to send players to a program who pays everyone but me when I make a sale?
And why exactly is Rome Partners keeping the way they are doing this tracking a secret? Did they send out an email informing each and every affiliate the way tracking is going to work once Diceland was rolled out? Did they update their website to reflect this? Surely they would agree that this is information affiliates are entitle to know.
Here is the deal, we landed a big player at Diceland that deposited almost $50K. And now Rome is trying to tell us they are moving the player from our affiliate account over to another affiliates account because this affiliate has converted the player in the past at Rome, so we are shit out of luck. Actually they are not telling us, they have already did it. We did our job, sold the player with our review and we deserve credit, thats all there is to it. Here is the correspendence we received back from Rome Partners on this issue and I would like to get some other affiliates feedback as well as let other affiliates currently promoting them in on what the deal is now with their tracking.
First of all, I'd like to start by saying that this has not been an easy issue for us to deal with.
We've had a meeting today, between myself, Joshua, the CEO, the head of our Customer Service department, and our lead developer, so that we could receive input from every level of the company as to the correct course of action in this issue. We also investigated the matter further, in order to have a full and complete understanding of the history of this player.
In order for you to understand this matter, I must first explain to you what we have been doing to increase player value since we have opened Diceland.
Our sales department has been getting in touch with Rome players, that have either significantly slowed down their gameplay, or stopped playing altogether, and selling them on Diceland. We understand that sometimes players get sick of a brand, or believe they have bad luck at a brand. This is generally why operators create multiple brands in the first place.
However, in doing this we were faced with a dilemma in regards to our affiliates.
In the pursuit of fairness, and after discussing with and seeking advice from our affiliate friends in the industry, we decided that if a player that was playing at Rome, starts playing at Diceland, the original affiliate should receive commission for this player.
In your case, the player did in fact visit Diceland through your site when our sales team contacted the player, and referred her to Diceland. It is entirely possible that after suggesting to the player that she try Diceland, she searched google, found your site, and clicked on your link.
However, from an ethical perspective, this player belongs to the original affiliate.
If we were to allow you to receive credit for this player, our other affiliate would have a legitimate grief with us for selling the player on Diceland in the first place.
All of this was done with the original intent of increasing player value. Again, this can be proven if need be.
I can understand your frustration at the matter, however, how would you feel if you had a high roller on Rome suddenly start playing at Diceland because one of our sales staff told them to try Diceland, and yet they were credited to another player. The fair option is that once a player has signed up at any of our brands, they belong to one affiliate.
Try to look at it this way: In order for us to increase player value, which is a good thing for everyone, we try to cross-market to our various platforms. In order to remain fair to our affiliates, we've established that the original affiliate will continue to receive commission, no matter where that player plays. I am sure if the shoe was on the other foot, you would agree.
This function should happen automatically, however, TopGame's affiliate software is too slow in developing new features for us, which is why we've taken it upon ourselves to develop our own aff software, which will perform this function automatically. From what I understand, this is how every other software operates.
I sincerely hope you can understand our position here. We are only interested in doing the right thing for all of our affiliates, and do not benefit from this at all. Like I said before, the original affiliate is on a higher commission base than you are, and we actually pay 5% more on Net Gaming for this player.
Look, I sincerely apologize for the misunderstanding, I understand how frustrating it must be to be told this, however we are trying to conform to a policy that protects our affiliates and maintains their earnings across our brands, there is no benefit for us in denying you other than to protect that policy. We enjoy and hope to continue working with you, and will do the same for you if any of your players moves to Diceland.
I of course understand you may want to talk to Josh directly regarding this issue, and he has said that he is more than happy to speak with you about this over the phone if necessary.
Best Regards,
Gabriel Ehrlich
This is what Gabriel said in that above email: I can understand your frustration at the matter, however, how would you feel if you had a high roller on Rome suddenly start playing at Diceland because one of our sales staff told them to try Diceland, and yet they were credited to another player. The fair option is that once a player has signed up at any of our brands, they belong to one affiliate.
Well I don't really give a shit what their sales team attempted to do to get this player to convert over at Diceland. Obviously they didn't do a good enough job or the player would not have gone to our site to read our review. I mean they are answering their own question here. The player did not start playing at Diceland because their sales team told them to try Diceland, they are playing there because we sold them on the casino and got them to take the plundge. If the cross promotion attempt had been successful, they would have gone directly to Diceland and downloaded and began playing instead of going to our site to genuinely get sold on the casino.
To even further my point he goes on to say say the following: In your case, the player did in fact visit Diceland through your site when our sales team contacted the player, and referred her to Diceland. It is entirely possible that after suggesting to the player that she try Diceland, she searched google, found your site, and clicked on your link. Or maybe the player had our site bookmarked. It really doesn't matter, he came to our website for information which he found which pushed him over the edge to convert.
This way of tracking is great for the big affiliates who pushed the shit out of Rome initially and are going to get paid on all of our hard work when we convert them on their new brand.
But lets get down to the nuts and bolts of the issue here. Is it common knowledge with affiliates that Rome does their tracking this way? No, as a matter of fact I would venture to say only the big affiliates know this is how things are done now because they are who benefit the most here. Does rome partners have this information anywhere on their site or their terms that once a player is tagged to an affiliate, that this player belongs to that first affiliates account for life across all brands? Again nothing, I can't find anything on this.
Gabriel says from his understanding this is how every other software operates. Well no its not , there are maybe a handful of programs that do tracking this way. Most affiliate programs know this shit doesn't fly and most affiliates wont work programs that pay the first affiliate for every conversion no matter who makes the sale.
So they are literally taking $16K out of our pocket and giving it to another affiliate who didn't lift a finger to bring this revenue in the door. This is the bottom line. You can take the sales team cross promotion garble out of the equation because they didn't convert anyone to the casino, we did. So then it boils down to is this way of tracking common knowledge for their affiliate or is it anywhere in their terms. The answer is no. As a matter of fact their terms say just the opposite in 3.2 which states that "You shall have no claims to commission or other compensation on business secured by or through persons or entities other than you".
So please explain to me why you feel justified in doing this Josh? Is it because your sales team made a lousy phone call and still didn't get the job done, hence why they came to me? Or is it because when you rolled out this new brand that you alerted each and every affiliate, as well as updated your website to reflect the new way your going to do tracking. Which is it because neither holds water here, this is about as black and white as it gets.
This is not right Josh and I can't just let you reach in my wallet and take $16K that I rightfully earned and just give it away to another affiliate. It's like me buying a new corvette in Orlando, and the sales manager telling my salesman they are not paying him the commission because I bought a corvette 3 years ago in Atlanta and are going to pay that salesman because he first sold me a corvette. I mean its absolutely fucking retarded and it is not going to fly.
I am hoping by bringing this to the forums that other affiliates will chime in here and the guys over there at Rome Partners will see how out of line this move is and reattach this player to our account. Looking forward to a positive outcome. I am sure the big affiliate won't like it but its the right thing to do here.
And why exactly is Rome Partners keeping the way they are doing this tracking a secret? Did they send out an email informing each and every affiliate the way tracking is going to work once Diceland was rolled out? Did they update their website to reflect this? Surely they would agree that this is information affiliates are entitle to know.
Here is the deal, we landed a big player at Diceland that deposited almost $50K. And now Rome is trying to tell us they are moving the player from our affiliate account over to another affiliates account because this affiliate has converted the player in the past at Rome, so we are shit out of luck. Actually they are not telling us, they have already did it. We did our job, sold the player with our review and we deserve credit, thats all there is to it. Here is the correspendence we received back from Rome Partners on this issue and I would like to get some other affiliates feedback as well as let other affiliates currently promoting them in on what the deal is now with their tracking.
First of all, I'd like to start by saying that this has not been an easy issue for us to deal with.
We've had a meeting today, between myself, Joshua, the CEO, the head of our Customer Service department, and our lead developer, so that we could receive input from every level of the company as to the correct course of action in this issue. We also investigated the matter further, in order to have a full and complete understanding of the history of this player.
In order for you to understand this matter, I must first explain to you what we have been doing to increase player value since we have opened Diceland.
Our sales department has been getting in touch with Rome players, that have either significantly slowed down their gameplay, or stopped playing altogether, and selling them on Diceland. We understand that sometimes players get sick of a brand, or believe they have bad luck at a brand. This is generally why operators create multiple brands in the first place.
However, in doing this we were faced with a dilemma in regards to our affiliates.
In the pursuit of fairness, and after discussing with and seeking advice from our affiliate friends in the industry, we decided that if a player that was playing at Rome, starts playing at Diceland, the original affiliate should receive commission for this player.
In your case, the player did in fact visit Diceland through your site when our sales team contacted the player, and referred her to Diceland. It is entirely possible that after suggesting to the player that she try Diceland, she searched google, found your site, and clicked on your link.
However, from an ethical perspective, this player belongs to the original affiliate.
If we were to allow you to receive credit for this player, our other affiliate would have a legitimate grief with us for selling the player on Diceland in the first place.
All of this was done with the original intent of increasing player value. Again, this can be proven if need be.
I can understand your frustration at the matter, however, how would you feel if you had a high roller on Rome suddenly start playing at Diceland because one of our sales staff told them to try Diceland, and yet they were credited to another player. The fair option is that once a player has signed up at any of our brands, they belong to one affiliate.
Try to look at it this way: In order for us to increase player value, which is a good thing for everyone, we try to cross-market to our various platforms. In order to remain fair to our affiliates, we've established that the original affiliate will continue to receive commission, no matter where that player plays. I am sure if the shoe was on the other foot, you would agree.
This function should happen automatically, however, TopGame's affiliate software is too slow in developing new features for us, which is why we've taken it upon ourselves to develop our own aff software, which will perform this function automatically. From what I understand, this is how every other software operates.
I sincerely hope you can understand our position here. We are only interested in doing the right thing for all of our affiliates, and do not benefit from this at all. Like I said before, the original affiliate is on a higher commission base than you are, and we actually pay 5% more on Net Gaming for this player.
Look, I sincerely apologize for the misunderstanding, I understand how frustrating it must be to be told this, however we are trying to conform to a policy that protects our affiliates and maintains their earnings across our brands, there is no benefit for us in denying you other than to protect that policy. We enjoy and hope to continue working with you, and will do the same for you if any of your players moves to Diceland.
I of course understand you may want to talk to Josh directly regarding this issue, and he has said that he is more than happy to speak with you about this over the phone if necessary.
Best Regards,
Gabriel Ehrlich
This is what Gabriel said in that above email: I can understand your frustration at the matter, however, how would you feel if you had a high roller on Rome suddenly start playing at Diceland because one of our sales staff told them to try Diceland, and yet they were credited to another player. The fair option is that once a player has signed up at any of our brands, they belong to one affiliate.
Well I don't really give a shit what their sales team attempted to do to get this player to convert over at Diceland. Obviously they didn't do a good enough job or the player would not have gone to our site to read our review. I mean they are answering their own question here. The player did not start playing at Diceland because their sales team told them to try Diceland, they are playing there because we sold them on the casino and got them to take the plundge. If the cross promotion attempt had been successful, they would have gone directly to Diceland and downloaded and began playing instead of going to our site to genuinely get sold on the casino.
To even further my point he goes on to say say the following: In your case, the player did in fact visit Diceland through your site when our sales team contacted the player, and referred her to Diceland. It is entirely possible that after suggesting to the player that she try Diceland, she searched google, found your site, and clicked on your link. Or maybe the player had our site bookmarked. It really doesn't matter, he came to our website for information which he found which pushed him over the edge to convert.
This way of tracking is great for the big affiliates who pushed the shit out of Rome initially and are going to get paid on all of our hard work when we convert them on their new brand.
But lets get down to the nuts and bolts of the issue here. Is it common knowledge with affiliates that Rome does their tracking this way? No, as a matter of fact I would venture to say only the big affiliates know this is how things are done now because they are who benefit the most here. Does rome partners have this information anywhere on their site or their terms that once a player is tagged to an affiliate, that this player belongs to that first affiliates account for life across all brands? Again nothing, I can't find anything on this.
Gabriel says from his understanding this is how every other software operates. Well no its not , there are maybe a handful of programs that do tracking this way. Most affiliate programs know this shit doesn't fly and most affiliates wont work programs that pay the first affiliate for every conversion no matter who makes the sale.
So they are literally taking $16K out of our pocket and giving it to another affiliate who didn't lift a finger to bring this revenue in the door. This is the bottom line. You can take the sales team cross promotion garble out of the equation because they didn't convert anyone to the casino, we did. So then it boils down to is this way of tracking common knowledge for their affiliate or is it anywhere in their terms. The answer is no. As a matter of fact their terms say just the opposite in 3.2 which states that "You shall have no claims to commission or other compensation on business secured by or through persons or entities other than you".
So please explain to me why you feel justified in doing this Josh? Is it because your sales team made a lousy phone call and still didn't get the job done, hence why they came to me? Or is it because when you rolled out this new brand that you alerted each and every affiliate, as well as updated your website to reflect the new way your going to do tracking. Which is it because neither holds water here, this is about as black and white as it gets.
This is not right Josh and I can't just let you reach in my wallet and take $16K that I rightfully earned and just give it away to another affiliate. It's like me buying a new corvette in Orlando, and the sales manager telling my salesman they are not paying him the commission because I bought a corvette 3 years ago in Atlanta and are going to pay that salesman because he first sold me a corvette. I mean its absolutely fucking retarded and it is not going to fly.
I am hoping by bringing this to the forums that other affiliates will chime in here and the guys over there at Rome Partners will see how out of line this move is and reattach this player to our account. Looking forward to a positive outcome. I am sure the big affiliate won't like it but its the right thing to do here.
