Online Casino

[Anonymous]

I have a question to affiliate managers – when a customer download a casino – then register several days later a real account (for example he/she plays in guest mode for some time), how the tracking is done at this point? I mean, is our affiliate tag embedded in the executable file? Or at this point are cookies still used to determine which affiliate made the sale when the real account is registered?

Downloads, if they work as I think is something that help us against this problem, because people can download freely any casino to try them and if the affiliate tag is embedded in the exe file, then we always get the sale – however, it does not remove the problem completly. But for other affiliate networks like CJ, where cookie-tracking is essential, I am sure it’s something that needs to be considered. No?

The entire affiliate industry, run around that little piece of code, a cookie.

But more and more users know that they can delete them, more and more spyware/adware companies are replacing cookies of users for certain affiliate programs by theirs, and spybot/adaware are removing them. That mean, when cookie-tracking is essential, the entire affiliate sheme for rewarding sales is starting to get weaker. People know that they are tracked and they do NOT like that at all, even for a cookie. Result, affiliates lose lots of sales.

I think the affiliate industry should point out new and better solutions for tracking sales or at least reinforce the importance of cookies and legitimate organizations must deal with anti-spyware program to get their cookies excluded from deletion.

[Anonymous]

excellent post Max!

I know i’ll be waiting to hear some input from sponsors.

also; if a spyware detector shows something as being “potentially placed on your PC without your knowledge” then I’m sure some people will think that the anything to do with Microgaming is bad, and therefore will either choose to not finish the sign up process or if already signed up, they might choose to uninstall the casino.

I do know that MG shows up on at least one of my spyware as not only a threat; but as an “extreme threat”. This program I speak of is called “SpyHunter”.

I’ve no idea how credible it is; as it was the first one I came across and so I bought it. I don’t think it isn’t one of the better spyware out there;

but anyway, if the casinos would do a little preventive damage control much of this problem would go away because the players could choose to not delete the cookie; because they’ll quickly find out when they do; its a small hassle to go look up your account info again because that’s what they’d have to do. or at least that’s my experience.

So if the casinos (if we do it; then it starts to look fishy- so I don’t think its the affs place to post this disclaimer) would just put up a small disclaimer somewhere on their site; stating that this is a likely possibility and for the player to look out for it and to choose not to delete the cookie; I think most of them would. At least after they figured out that if every time they delete the cookie – they have to have their account info made available to enter the casino.

I do something similar on my sites that tells players

notice: when downloading a casino, it is likely a message on the download box will start out saying: “some files can harm your computer….” that does not mean the casino download will harm your PC, they are totally 100% safe.

anyone that wants it; is welcome to copy the above and use it on their site.

I think this is something that is often over-looked and could influence people more than it is given credit; therefore meaning it scares away potential players before they’ve ever even seen the download start.

The more we get out the word that its safe to download the casinos; the better things are going to be for all of us. Even the vets will get a reassurance from this message therefore giving them one more incentive to download from your site where they are told its safe to do so.

[vladcizsol]

Excellent post Max. Do you have any idea how much or how little this is effecting affiliate commissions?

[Anonymous]

Hi Max,
Great post! I had noticed that my spyware removal also was deleting cookies. This is not a good situation for affiliates. I wonder how much this is affecting our earnings? Still what is the solution to this problem?

[Anonymous]

Professor wrote:

Excellent post Max. Do you have any idea how much or how little this is effecting affiliate commissions?

Thank you. I don’t know exactly but it is surely affecting affiliate commissions *if* cookie tracking is so essential in the entire process.

1) We talk about ongoing, second-shot sales. For sales when people get through your site to a casino, download and register at least a guest or a real, all in the same session/hour, then the problem does not exist. So, a first number would be to know if impulse buyers are a majority of our customers, or if ongoing sales (people that visits multiple sites/casinos then do the sale some days later) are taking over impulse buying. By definition, online casinos/gambling are impulse buys, but as I said there is lots of information out there so I do think that a good part of our sales are these sales. Let’s say that 40% are second-shot sales.

2) This depends also on how the different software companies track the return customers for affiliate programs. For downloads, if affiliate tags are hardcoded in executable files, or if after the downloads cookies are still used. Also, if a person register a guest, then register a real account – is the guest account data comprises the affiliate tag? For return visits to casino websites: for how much lasting time a cookie is set?

3) 35% of people have their cookies acceptation set off. So 35% of ongoing sales are lost in the case of return visits to casino websites. If my first percentage is right, 14% of sales are naturally lost when a people return directly to a casino when cookie-tracking is the only manner to track return sales.

4) We should now how often people use anti-spyware programs in general and how widespread are these programs.

I know what I say is very vague and nobody can really put numbers on this. A first thing to know to study how it is affecting us is to know exactly how the online casino software companies track return users. But am not sure they want to disclose this.

The problem is that anti-spyware programs are also a benefit for us and reduce the shares of people stealing our commissions or running ads on our sites.

I have talked with some other webmasters and we have come to the conclusions that some anti-spyware programs exclude some casino cookies from deletion while deleting others… So that would mean that there is a list of “bad” cookies and “good” cookies… And casino software companies as wel as affiliate program should do something to get their cookies excluded from deletion – the study is not here but this first solution can be a reality and could help sales. Second thing is obliging all software companies to put persistent affiliate tags in the URLs of the casinos (every pages), especially for PlayTechs so bookmarking can also help the problem.

But, I don’t think it’s in the interest of online casinos – they are at the end of the line and whatever happens in the middle, they still get the customers.

I also can be wrong on some things so I would like to see people with knowledge about that answering here and pointing me if I have made errors or not missed some points.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

So if the casinos (if we do it; then it starts to look fishy- so I don’t think its the affs place to post this disclaimer) would just put up a small disclaimer somewhere on their site; stating that this is a likely possibility and for the player to look out for it and to choose not to delete the cookie; I think most of them would. At least after they figured out that if every time they delete the cookie – they have to have their account info made available to enter the casino.

Good idea! :Nod: Yes, something can be done at our level – just educate players about what are really cookies and suggest to not delete them – I think a lot of webmasters have articles about anti-spywares – so, we can all add a new paragraph and say that even if the programs are catching those cookies, to not delete them.

However, it’s a second-level solution. It can help, but a little. Lots of people won’t care a lot of this and lots will not distinguish if they select a cookie or not for deletion in those programs. The best way is that our cookies don’t appear at first in the major anti-spyware programs.

Since it costs us nothing, we can work on a 5 lines paragraph and everyone will use it in their articles.

[Anonymous]

yes I’m very upfront with my surfers and I don’t have a problem with telling them I’m making a commission but some people like to hide that fact and some even go to the trouble of cloaking their links to not show the aff code.

Having said that: personally I don’t care to drum it into the surfers ear either about the way we make money, I try to just mention it and move on, so as to cover my butt about being upfront; but not to keep sticking in my surfer’s face that I’m making money off them.

So what I think is that it looks much more professional and beleivable if its the casinos that are the ones to post a disclaimer about the cookies and as I said; its in their own best interest to do so; IMHO you can never go wrong by being honest with the surfers no matter what the possible cost might be; so in my mind there is little to be lost by the casinos for putting something like this up on their websites; and much to be gained because as I stated earlier if people see their cookie come up under the “severe” column on a spyware program they might decide the whole casino is a risk and uninstall it.

I am however going to go ahead and put up something about this on my sites; but it will have much more impact if done on the casino sites IMHO. But like Max says, it ain’t costing us much to throw up a small paragraph.

[Anonymous]

I just thrown up a diagram showing graphically where you can technically lose a sale even if the visitor was yours. I am currently doing the second diagram which focus on after the download event.

This diagram suggests that the cookie is lost at any time before the sale due to three possibilities:

– The user has run an anti-syware program and deleted the cookies ;
– The user has deleted the cookies himself ;
– The user has cookies deactivated.

For this last point, 35% of users have cookies deactivated, so statements in diagrams are at least true for 35% of our visitors:

-> http://www.sortonlinecasinos.com/0scheme1.gif

As you can see if the cookie is lost, there is 75% of chances to have the sale not tracked back to your account if the user directly return to the casino he/she is interested in (by any way) and doesn’t use back your site.

Also one thing to note is that for the ending statements I suppose that uppon returning and downloading, the user register at least a real account.

Let me know what you think!

[Anonymous]

The second diagram:

-> http://www.sortonlinecasinos.com/0scheme2.gif

It concerns download casinos only. For no download casinos, the cookie/anti-spyware problem is important as the sale is tracked only via web and cookies and/or aff tags in URLs. So for no download casinos the diagram 1 should be used.

We assume on this diagram that the guest account data is not linked to the affiliate ID on the casino servers. If it is then the sale is tracked even if cookies are deleted (if cookie-tracking is still used after downloads).

Now I think I talk really too much… lol :shhh:

[Anonymous]

Important!

From CasinoMeister, posted by players themselves… Topic titled “Microgaming-Malware”

Quote:

Or you can buy the pay version of Ad-Aware (the free version only removes tracking cookies) which can block all those bad cookies from being put in your computer in the first place. Or you can go with GM’s suggestion of course!

So, the problem is here. It seems that people are aware of cookies more than I was thinking and tend to *want* to delete them…. As I said they don’t like being tracked, and those anti-spyware programs revealed the cookies story to users!

-> xhttp://www.casinomeister.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6517

[Anonymous]

though oversimplified to put it in these terms: do we need the sponsors to find another way of tracking our commissions, is that what you’re saying Max?

[Anonymous]

Quote:

do we need the sponsors to find another way of tracking our commissions, is that what you’re saying Max?

Not completely, in fact there isn’t an other way to track our return sales apart cookies. The diagrams show well that if cookies are deleted, which is something that is going to happen more a more often, then you have lots of chance to lose a sale.

I compiled a list of suggestion that can help to get the affiliate tracking more robust against anti-spywares, or at list more efficient to get our sales more tracked – it can lead a natural increase with our conversions (and those are our sales):

SUGGESTIONS TO “COUNTER” THE PROBLEM: :shooter:

1. PUSH all affiliate programs to put our aff tags in ALL URLS of the casinos websites – for example like Casino Blasters casinos or Fortune Affiliates casinos. This will help with return bookmarks. Some are doing this only with the homepage, and for some the affiliate tag never appears in the urls, for example lots of PlayTechs.

2. PUSH major online casino affiliate programs to get in touch with the major anti-spyware companies (at least Adaware and SpyBot) to have, at least, their affiliate tracking cookies removed from deletion (if some haven’t already done that). Those cookies are NOT harmful for the visitor, they are not infringing the privacy – they have a simple purpose, rewarding a sale to an affiliate. So I am sure those companies won’t have any concerns for excludind those cookies from deletion.

3. I am not sure if this one can be efficient. I understand lots of webmasters don’t want to annoy people with cookies stories. But if you have articles about anti-spywares, then explain to your visitors to don’t delete cookies, because for them it can make the loss of their login information in casinos. In simply two lines you can at least tell that cookies are not harmful and help THEIR interests. Not doing garbage or “alerting”. Just be sure that you run these two lines at the beginning of your articles.

4. To follow bb1webs’ suggestion. But I am not sure on how we can do this or if casinos will be OK. We should point out an interest for the casinos to help us with this. IMO, they can also “warn” customers to don’t delete cookies because customers will lose their login information. It can be inserted on the login page of each major casino software, under the “Remember my password” option. One line.

5. We, or at least I, have to do a study about cookies. We can test something. Delete all cookies, visit a group of casinos through aff tags. Then run adaware/spybot, and see which are removed. We can compile a list of this. Each one can do that for for example 5 casinos and let me know the results. This way I won’t have to do this for all online casinos myself. If someone is OK then let me know which ones you plan to test. I want also to study the efficacity of the tracking if cookies are deleted at two different levels of a purchase (before download and after download).

[Anonymous]

Hi Max,

well I’d do it but I gotta reread and see if I understand what I’m suppose to do. .
if I think I have a handle on it; I’ll send a list of who I’m checking., or rather I guess post it here in case somebody else wants to help, they can know what not to check.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

or rather I guess post it here in case somebody else wants to help, they can know what not to check.

Yeah, good idea. :Nod:

I think we can organize something for the beginning of 2005. I know December :letsparty is not the good month to talk about that – between casino promotions, the last run of the year and holidays…

But Professor, bb1webs (and all the other who haven’t participated… :rasberry: ), I am sure it costs us sales. The things I have suggested can help us to have a safer affiliate environment to work in. So, I think for early 2005, something should be organized.

I will be back here and start the study when I will have time. Professor :wavey: , is it possible to get this post sticky? I think it will help to don’t forget this matter. Thank you!

[vladcizsol]

Got it! Shes sticky.

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