Private Freerolls

[CakeManager]

Hi folks,

I have a serious question to ask all affiliates and I'm hoping you can shed some light on this for us.

We've been offering affiliates who want to show their members a glimpse of CakePoker some private freerolls, with the obvious password attached. After a few weeks, we were unpleasently surprised to see a number of the SAME people in each of the different private freerolls. A few of our affiliates voiced their anger that the freeroll money that was intended for their players were going to players that were not tracked to them. One affiliate had 100 tracked players and over 500 people in his $1,000 freeroll.

So, we quickly built a new system called Private Hosted Tournaments. This system ONLY allowed players who were tracked to a certain affiliate to register for the tournament. While a few of our business-oriented affiliates LOVED this (and still demand we keep the HOSTED extra security feature on), a larger number of "fun" sites got angry because their freerolls were getting cancelled due to not enough tracked players signing up.

We of course realize that there are "professional" freeroll whores out there who are probably on every damn site to get passwords (which our HOSTED tournaments helped point out), some affiliates were not happy to discover their "500 members" were simply members of other sites and were already tracked to other affiliates.

In the end, we removed the HOSTED requirements for smaller $100 freerolls and have stuck to our guns that any site that wants a $250 and up intro freeroll MUST have the min. required downloaders sign up for it to roll.

Are there any thoughts on this? We want to insure that each affiliate gets as many players tracked as possible (otherwise, why even offer a freeroll for your players on Cake?), yet some of the e-mails we got were just brutal. We're serious about the success of each affiliate, yet it baffles me why an affiliate would want a freeroll to run when 60% of the players in it are not tracked to them. We'd rather make certain that the 40% tracked to them are the only people battling for the cash so the affiliate knows that all the freeroll cash went to their players.

Help?

[SunPoker.com]

Cake,

You have three types of players in a new freeroll with an affiliate.

1. players tracked to that affiliate already
2. players not tracked to that affiliate, but will be when they register for an account to play in the freeroll
3. players not tracked to the affiliate that is hosting the freeroll, but tracked to either the poker room or another affiliate.

You basically do not want number 3 in a private freeroll if you an affiliate. I would suggest keeping the private tournaments going for the specific affiliate.

I have heard the argument that even players not tracked to the affiliate can add value to the poker room because they are playing at your poker room regardless, but as an affiliate, I would not want this.

Also, you should be tracking EVERY private freeroll to determine if it adds value to your poker room and to the affiliate.

Regards,

Mark

[Arnoldpalmer]

I would want just players tracked to me to be able to play in the private freerolls i offer.

I've run freerolls on 2 different sites so far; on Poker.com i had 30 or so players, only 2 of which had signed up under me, the rest being freeroll whores. I've run a few on Poker.co.uk (boss software) and only had about 8 players in each but all were tracked to me as only those that sign up under me can even see the tournament.

I would much rather have a smaller amount of players who are tracked to me than loads with only a couple if any tracked to me.

Arn

[Holis]

Id love to discuss this in detail I know a bit about freerolls!

I prefer that everyone in my games are under me, however .. Most sites are already downloaded unless its a newer site (like yours). I run games on 5to 10 sites and prefer to keep the members returning to the FORUMS where i list the games.

I like where you are drawing the line and feel that the bigger freerolls might even require a DEPOSIT first before being allowed into the game.

We have yet to run a game with you due to my lack of eagerness to add new sites as well as already having almost 25 games a month now.

I am trying to get 100 downloads before we schedule one, and look forward to that time

[CakeManager]

Thanks Mark, I appreciate the advice from an experienced person. =)

Any affiliate who believes like Arnold does are those that Cake is keen on dealing with. This is because we're so new and we purposfully didn't want to become part of a network to allow affiliates the chance to make sure another skin didn't suck their players into the network first.

We're happy to stay under the radar and get to know folks first prior to hitting the marketing gas, because it also helps us plug the holes with smaller events before we hold larger ones and have expensive mistakes happen.

Too many affiliates it seems have been burned in the past and they're very wary of dealing with an unproven, new, small traffic site. Completely understood. Cake has to prove we're worthy of the attention.

My issue though is the idea that Cake somehow can get a bad rep with affiliates due to the fact that we're trying to guarantee that only their tracked players are given free cash. I understand that players are on multiple forums and that they might indeed have clicked on a banner at Site A while being a huge contributor to Site B and they feel burned when they can't play in Site B's 1st event. But if a site finds that 40-60% of their "downloaders" are tracked to other sites, we're getting the brunt of that wake-up call for the affiliate.

I just wondered if I was way off base here.

[CakeManager]

Originally Posted by drawdead

Id love to discuss this in detail I know a bit about freerolls!

I prefer that everyone in my games are under me, however .. Most sites are already downloaded unless its a newer site (like yours). I run games on 5to 10 sites and prefer to keep the members returning to the FORUMS where i list the games.

I like where you are drawing the line and feel that the bigger freerolls might even require a DEPOSIT first before being allowed into the game.

We have yet to run a game with you due to my lack of eagerness to add new sites as well as already having almost 25 games a month now.

I am trying to get 100 downloads before we schedule one, and look forward to that time

Thanks DD. The deposits is a natural next step after holding a first freeroll for the site it seems. We're trying one now where we're offering a $250 freeroll with this site for any tracked player...then we're going to do another $250 freeroll for any depositor from the site with the password (doesn't have to be tracked). Let's those that missed the first one get into the second with a little effort.

[SunPoker.com]

My issue though is the idea that Cake somehow can get a bad rep with affiliates due to the fact that we're trying to guarantee that only their tracked players are given free cash. I understand that players are on multiple forums and that they might indeed have clicked on a banner at Site A while being a huge contributor to Site B and they feel burned when they can't play in Site B's 1st event.

I wouldn't worry about getting a bad rep in this case. You are ultimately looking out for your affiliates. If a player is part of a community and can't play in a FREE freeroll, that shouldn't be an issue. The poker room is putting up the money for free specifically for that affiliate.

If the player already has an account at that poker room, and they complain about not getting into a private freeroll at another forum, they're just looking for free money and are not looking to add value to the freeroll or poker room. If they truly want to try out the software for free, they can play at the free tables.

The freeroll is an added bonus for players.

Mark

[adioking]

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[bettingchamps.com]

Being an affiliate manager with a site just starting out, I have some of the same issues and concerns that i have read in this post.

You are trying to offer affiliates "the best" service such as promotions, freerolls and great customer service, and so forth. I still find that we are having complaints and issues about the perks or promotions we offer to the affiliate.

At BettingChamps.com we have not offered exclusive freerolls to affiliates players, but after reading this forum it is something worth while looking into and trying to do in the next coming months.

I can understand both sides of the arguement, how affiliates only want their players, and some affiliates do not mind freeroll whores.

I think by offering "private" and "non-private" freerolls to affiliate players, maybe the way to go. Like mentioned before, having private freerolls for X amount of dollars and above and public ones for X amount of dollars and below.

I am hoping to try and setup some affiliate player freerolls for affiliates with a X amount of signups.

Any suggestions as to what amount of signups should qualify an affiliate for an affiliate player freeroll? As well would a sliding scale for freerolls be a good idea? such as 10 signups = $100 freeroll, 20 = $200 and so forth?

Comments would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[Holis]

We require 20 posts and usually 30 days to join the games.

We also run a league where folks must signup and download like 6 sites to participate.

We are starting a buy in league in sept where specific freerolls will be only available to our buy in league members..

Originally Posted by adioking

I can see both sides of this one. In terms of affiliate revenue, private freerolls are best when only players signed up under the affiliate are allowed to play. However, I don't mind letting some password whores in if they do other things that benefit me in order to play. What I've noticed is that when my sites were smaller, I only had 20 players playing in the freerolls, but then I decided to open it up to the freeroll whores (and for good reason). I was scrutinized by a few other affiliates here for doing so, but they didn't see the strategy that I was using.

First, I was trying to collect their email addresses. When they sign up for my forums, they are opting in for when I send emails / newsletters. I try not to spam them and send some strategy articles in the emails as well.

Another reason that I let the freeroll whores in is to get more people in my forums. Most of you are thinking "who cares, they don't contribute anyways" But you are wrong. What I've done is post a minimum 10 post requirement (and I stand by it) so anybody who has less than 10 posts cannot get into the freeroll. This helps stir up the forums by getting people to post, which is of value to me.

Of course, I don't just base credibility on number of posts. Lots of spammers come in and there are even some people who copy / paste their posts over and over. I've installed a custom one click spam killer that makes banning spammers and their IP's super easy.

So thats both sides of the story and is why I don't mind opening my private freerolls to freeroll whores. As long as you mod your forums, only people who deserve to get the password, get it!

dAn