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@Dominique 199424 wrote:
This is about affiliates communicating to other affiliates which programs they consider trustworthy, beneficial for affiliates to promote and free of issues that affect affiliates in a negative way.
Surely in that case Dom, you don’t need anything. Affiliates just do what they do on forums and other affiliates read, digest and make their own decisions. Like what most experienced affs do now anyway.
Wow, I think this thread went way off track.
@Spearmaster – right now AGD will certify you free. Does the certification hold no weight in your eyes? You stated about checking software, due diligence on the program operators, meeting certain requirements, etc, but did not mention any guidelines. I was just putting in my 2 cents, that if a AFG said, hey this takes time, and throw us a couple hundred bucks to cover it, there is then nooen thinking they in it for the money.As far as forum advertising, that is a whole other ball of wax. After reading this thread, I feel this has lost the spirit of what Dom was trying to convey, or I missed the mark completely. Lets try to get back on track:
What do you think these criteria should be?
Then they need what? A certain standard for stats? banners? Responsiveness? And? Or?
@Dominique 199424 wrote:
Easy: So I can tell my fellow affiliates I recommend the program. That is all we are talking about, not advertising fees or whatever. This approval has nothing to do with advertising fees. We are not talking about past models of certification, we are shaping possible future models that will better serve affiliates.
No one will pay for this. If you want to pay for advertising, you can do that. It has nothing to do with what affiliates think of your program.
This is about affiliates communicating to other affiliates which programs they consider trustworthy, beneficial for affiliates to promote and free of issues that affect affiliates in a negative way.
Boy, I feel I am having a real hard time getting across what I am asking here.
thank you for this – I was confused as to the impact of a certification and its relevance to a group, thinking this was more of a watch dog, paid inclusion program
Whenever you offer something for free there are going to be those people who say “yeah, sure, gimme one” without any intent to use it or any respect for the impact that it has on the other party. Also, it would be too inviting for some ‘slock’ operator to just say “what the heck, it’s free – I’ll try – no harm, no foul”.
If you are running a casino program a couple of hundred dollars better not be breaking your budget. If so, you’ve got bigger problems than certification. To be sure, things are always tight in the beginning. But at what point in their development do you expect or want outfits to be seeking some sort of legitimacy through certification.
This brings up another point which I think is critical. I believe you need to look at their ‘financial capacity”. If there is a new “crook” in town with lots of money, you don’t want them to be able to “buy certification”. However, if there is a “great new outfit” you can’t just certify them because of “good intentions”.
“Good intentions” and ethics always seem to be the first casualty when things start to go awry.
I would like to see a certification. But I would also suggest that if they are not certified, that they are not allowed to advertise. If I see and ad from “crook #1” in any site, I assume the site approves of it.
Anyway, that’s my two cents, for what it’s worth.
@casinojack 199440 wrote:
@Spearmaster – right now AGD will certify you free. Does the certification hold no weight in your eyes? You stated about checking software, due diligence on the program operators, meeting certain requirements, etc, but did not mention any guidelines. I was just putting in my 2 cents, that if a AFG said, hey this takes time, and throw us a couple hundred bucks to cover it, there is then nooen thinking they in it for the money.
With all due respect to AGD, which is a really good service, what they do is only part of a proper certification – that is to ensure that your T&Cs are fair to affiliates, and to notify whenever there is a change.
Absolutely useful stuff, don’t get me wrong. However, this is not really a certification of anything other than the fact that the T&Cs of the program are fair in the eyes of AGD.
As AGD says on the site:
Quote:Our certification relies solely on verifiable metrics. Our metrics include: Affiliate-Friendly Terms and Conditions, Payment of Affiliate Commissions on time, Responsiveness to Affiliate needs, and casinos that are not considered Rogue by the industry-leading Casinomeister™.* The first metric is what made AGD what it is, and is arguably its strongest selling point.
* The second metric is an indicator of sorts since it is based on payments to AGD – also useful but not really part of a standard certification process.
* The third metric is very general, and undoubtedly subject to various issues, problems, and other things that make this more of an advisory.
* The fourth metric – is not a metric. The fact that someone else is responsible for determining whether some program is rogue or not essentially carries no weight in a normal certification, despite the fact that Casinomeister is clearly an industry-leading portal and I happen to volunteer as a moderator there.
I’m not trying to determine what elements are necessary for a proper certification, but there are usually industry-standard measurements that should be used to provide a certification in any industry. This is why it’s called a certification – such as an ISO 9001 certification, for example – anything else should really be called “recommended”, “approved” or “verified”.
Frankly, I would love to see AGD’s T&C metric become part of an industry-wide standard certification. But again, with all due respect, I cannot see this being a certification on its own. And please note that the difference between Certified and Platinum Certified at AGD is “pay for placement”. In my mind this is an inaccurate way to represent a certification, though to their credit AGD actually states this clearly on their site.
At least AGD does carry out some kind checks, think about the T&Cs changes AGD provide, I am sure these updates have saved a number of affiliates serious money and time…
I would like to see CAP/PAP have a real certification proccess, I feel it would be a very a bad idea to have advertising on the site for un certified sites, by allowing them to advertise on the sites/s it is almost saying we approve this room.
Shaun
Again, some good points. But I think Dom started this thread by asking what points / concepts / ideas you have.
My concepts are based on anyone starting gets a fair shot, some basic checks and balances and then……..?????????
So i think the idea, the more time you spend on forumS (note the S), answering emails, the phone ,etc, and in addition, have some people double checking, making a phone call, firing off emails etc.
I gave some points to mix in a certification with the ideas that the affiliate community keeps the owners honest and accountable. Was just a starting point, but I think the concepts are there. I would like to see some posts like:
New program must have xx cash reserves in banks
Letter of good standing
Business refs’Something like that.. anyway at least we have the juices flowing !
PS, I was using AFD, as a START / EXAMPLE of how this does show some merit, but of course is a good thing, but not a true certification.
but think about if you had 3 – 5 forums, all has a piece of the puzzle,a nd you need all 5 to be “certified” ?
spread workload to a few people, and then has checks and balances also?
@PayNoRake 199448 wrote:
I feel it would be a very a bad idea to have advertising on the site for un certified sites, by allowing them to advertise on the sites/s it is almost saying we approve this room.
Shaun
I don’t necessarily agree with that. As long as CAP is clear it doesn’t endorse the programs, it puts the onus on affiliates to research themselves via the feedback in the forum, which they have a responsibility to do anyway in my eyes.
Another benefit is (hopefully) keeping a channel of communication open with all operators. If you start to distinguish between programs and close the door to some, it becomes harder to get them to acknowledge potentially valuable feedback aimed at improving their program.
It may be better to welcome all programs in (with equal rights) and make it a condition that they feedback to affilaites and maintain an open communication channel.
Advertising & certification fees should not be related. They should be kept separate and I agree with Simmo that the forum should have the freedom of taking any number of advertisers.
AGD’s certification is a good starting point but we need to understand the depth of Ted’s suggestion. Since we are discussing this topic we might as well discuss the parameters of a full certification. The affiliate program audit goes hand in hand with the audit of the product offering (software, games, payout, treatment of players etc. from a player’s point of view). One can argue that this can be covered in the profitability of the affiliate program, but it would be good to have it done independently. Ensuring compliance on an ongoing basis, providing arbitration combined with the initial cost of audit, would definitely cost money.
Let’s hear some ideas from members on the parameters they would like a program to be certified. I think this is the basic objective of Dom’s thread.
Simmo
Think about the affiliate that comes to the site for the first time, see a banner ad for XYZcasino.com not that room could have long history of being a rougue but because they are willing to X amount of $$$ they get a banner ad, that first time user affiliate will not know that ads are paid for they will see the on CAP and belive that CAP endorse them.
That then brings up another point, let say casino like GP wanted to advertise that has a history of bad dealing with affiliates will you allow them to advertise on CAP????
Shaun
Simmo!;199461 wrote:I don’t necessarily agree with that. As long as CAP is clear it doesn’t endorse the programs, it puts the onus on affiliates to research themselves via the feedback in the forum, which they have a responsibility to do anyway in my eyes.Another benefit is (hopefully) keeping a channel of communication open with all operators. If you start to distinguish between programs and close the door to some, it becomes harder to get them to acknowledge potentially valuable feedback aimed at improving their program.
It may be better to welcome all programs in (with equal rights) and make it a condition that they feedback to affilaites and maintain an open communication channel.
Spearmaster, I am not talking about an industry type certification like ecogra does.
I am simply talking about a way to let newbies see which programs are friendly to affiliates in all the aspects we as affiliates consider important.
How about we call it rating?
Anyone can buy ads, and there is nothing wrong with that IMO.
But we affiliates need to be able to rate programs in some way so others can see which programs give it the extra effort and which do not.
Most places let programs buy a platinum or gold or whatever status. I don’t like that. As affiliate, I can see one program buying more exposure than another maybe, but that doesn’t make them platinum.
What makes them platinum is the way they conduct business with us.
We shouldn’t get hung up on wording of the status here, we can all vote on what to call it later.
I just want to hear ideas on what criteria matter to affiliates, what is important to us, what makes one program better for us than the next one.
I feel like the days of a simple rubber stamp of approval are long gone.
Why not have a points system, set some criteria, give each a value, and score programs?
The trick is finding the right mix of things that really matter to affiliates. I guess that’s what you’re looking for here?
What should CAP measure to determine what make a program certifiable or not?
@pocketable 199476 wrote:
What should CAP measure to determine what make a program certifiable or not?
The first thing that should count to any process like this, were it to be a part of CAP, would be “how do the casinos treat the players”. That is the mainstay of our business. If they do that well, everyone wins. You needn’t have a seperate certification process in fact – if its good with AGD and good with Meister, it’s probably good period.
PayNoRake;199448 wrote:I would like to see CAP/PAP have a real certification proccess, I feel it would be a very a bad idea to have advertising on the site for un certified sites, by allowing them to advertise on the sites/s it is almost saying we approve this room.Shaun
I agree 100% the certification process needs to be transparent, authentic, and most importantly accurate!
I’m not sure about the advertising aspect, as the certification is as much about the placement of the certification seal on the actual branded site, and not the CAP website?
Or am I wrong here, is the certification more important on the CAP site than the actual operators brand or affiliate program site?:sarcasm:
