Thread: Open Letter to Affiliate Programs

Dear Affiliate Manager,

It is coming up on the Holiday Seasons and the start of a New Year, and I thought it would be a good idea to start off on a good note in 2005. So, I have listed a few suggestions from several webmasters I hope you will see as a positive step to improving your fine program.

1 - Paying affiliates on time is important. We value timely payments just as much as you value receiving your pay on time.

2 - Responding to emails and phone messages could mean the difference between a sale, or even prime placement. You never know where your next whale is coming from.

3 - Telling one affiliate one thing, while telling another something different is a ticket to disaster. We talk to each other.

4 - Detailed stats that show which hits, downloads and deposits are coming from where, improve targeting of advertising campaigns. Not everyone will take advantage, but for those who do, it is a very helpful tool to have available.

5 - Programs that use certain form of "coercion" to "against" affiliates will see fewer webmasters taking them up on their offers: e.g. Extremely high minimums for payments, requiring a minimum number of new players each month before payments are made on existing players. These tactics are offensive, and narrow your exposure, when the idea is to increase the number of affiliates advertising for you.

6 - If an affiliate program promotes more than one casino, combines the negatives from one casino with the profit from another, and then carries over negatives, do you wonder why more webmasters don't carry your casinos? Guess? Why bother sending depositing players somewhere that is basically throwing money down a hole, when you can send the player to a place where they will have the same games, get paid just as quickly, have as good a customer service, or better, and the webmaster makes money as well?

Webmasters have initial expenses to advertise your product, with no guarantee of return on that initial investment. That's the name of the game. But making it harder to stay in business, where your product gets less exposure, hurts affiliate programs, the casinos they represent, and the webmaster as well.

Since the major search engines are now banning gambling advertising, I'm sure you know how difficult it is now to get targeted traffic. For this reason, webmasters are having to work a lot harder to send hits to you. Hits are more expensive, as well.

Don't be surprised if webmasters narrow the number of casinos they advertise, to the ones they feel will make the most return on the money invested in advertising, and time spent gaining traffic.

Those that convert the best, will get the traffic. Those casinos that don't seem to convert, for whatever reason, or whose results are hard to measure in dollars, will be moved to back pages, or be removed altogether.

This is an unfortunate part of any business. The products that don't show a profit, don't get prime placement, in your local retailer, or on the internet.

Paying on time, and making lower minimum payments, $100, for instance, gives the impression an affiliate program is working with affiliates, rather than making it harder on them to promote your product.

Hey, believe it or not, there are affiliate programs who, right now, have $500 minimum payments, advertise for more than 2 casinos, combine them the profits from one with the losses from another, and carry over negatives!! And then email webmasters asking why they can't get front page spots!!?? Or any spot at all!! Others are always explaining why webmasters' payments are always late! They were out sick, or there was an earthquake, or the dog ate the checks.

My Mom used to tell me that

"with a closed fist, nothing can get out...but nothing can get in either".

4 - Detailed stats that show which hits, downloads and deposits are coming from where, improve targeting of advertising campaigns. Not everyone will take advantage, but for those who do, it is a very helpful tool to have available

That would be a great thing to see.... referrer stats CAN, and should be available... it would benefit the program as well as the affiliate. If you can see what works, you can expand on it! ;-)

Thank you, Professor.

There are many, if not most, affiliate programs who are excellent, and work very hard at working with affiliates, and are responsive as well. Those programs are to be commended for the excellent work they do. And are rewarded for their efforts.

I hope this post will be taken in the light it was intended, for programs who need to work on upgrading their programs.

For all those Affiliate Managers who have gone the extra mile to work with affiliates, to make money for everyone, I say, keep up the good work.

Happy Holidays to All!!

I agree. Great post.

I would add one thing that she covers but I'd like to make sure the aff managers understand that

quote:
. Those casinos that don't seem to convert, for whatever reason, or whose results are hard to measure in dollars, will be moved to back pages, or be removed altogether. unquote:

this also means the casinos that always seem to mystifyingly have winners month in and month out. Those that have unlogical or unreasonable chargebacks, bonus handouts, and whatever else might be used as a reason for a bad bottom line. Because in the end, that's what we look at.

I wish that were true with some of the sponsors. as Amature points out, hits are getting harder to come by, and I'll add to that: especially quality hits.

so just because our traffic hits # might fall off, it doesn't mean necessarily that we've lost all avenues for gaining traffic. In my case I'm having to filter much of my traffic before it reaches the sponsor and that means less hits sent but I'm still seeing about the same number of real players at the end of the month.

But for some reason I'm not seeing as good of income. It could be because I've just run into some rough seas but I felt it merited mention because what is going to happen is if things keep up in the same fashion is I'll have little choice but to cut out those programs which are under-performing. So if for some reason your aff program's bottom line payout is effected by hits sent rather than income earned I would re-think my structure to reflect what counts most; and that is income brought in, and not hits sent.

I would imagine there are many affs who get smaller numbers of traffic but it comes from the search engines which is the best traffic need I mention? So I think it would be a big mistake to do anything but pay on the income brought in and not on the quantity of hits sent.

I know that it could be a temptation because you see those big numbers and think what could be? To want to reward affs that are sending those bigger numbers moreso than you would reward an aff who is sending small quantity but fair quality traffic but it is a mistake.

Those bigger numbers are nothing more until they prove themselves at the bottom line.

Fantastic post Amateur. Nice work.

Hello to all,

I hope they read it over and over.