Question for Incentive Affiliates

[Jeremy]

We get several emails, as does every poker affiliate company in regards to this.

The classic arguement from affiliates has always been "It is just our job to send depositing players. It's the poker sites job to retain them and keep them playing."

Fair enough. However since this argument is usually only presented by CPA affiliates and even more often by those offering incentives, I ask the folowing question:

How does a room retain the same players that the affiliate is encouraging to play the minimum requirements and then bounce to the next room for another gift? Also if you have earned say (10) $150 CPA's for the month, but your overall rake on these players is less than $100, should the room be responsible for paying the affiliate 100% of the CPA's?

I would love to see all the rooms go strictly MGR for incentive sites. This way once your chip set cost (or whatever) is covered, the affiliate can still make money (even more than a CPA) and the poker site is not stuck for 90% more than they paid out in CPA's to an incentive affiliate.

Hopefully this thread doesn't come off with the wrong tone. I am just honestly curious to know others thoughts on this, regardless if you're an incentivising affiliate or not.

[haynesey]

so how about, setting up incentives on mgr. Such as 1000 raked hands and receive ...... etc.

[the27offsuit.com]

First let me say i am strictly mgr

Jeremy while you and the rooms have a point , then the tos must be changed.

When a room says your player needs to deposit $50 and play 100 hands for you to be paid , then those are the rules . if they do not like paying cpa to affiliates who send the players who meet the t&c , then they should change the t&c. Lets reverse this example , say im on cpa at "insert Poker Room " I send a player he deposits 100 then plays 100 hands and i get my $100 cpa . Say the following month this player blows $250,000 playing blackjack . will i get any extra? i dont think so ? so when the player just plays the minimum the room has to eat it and if they do not like it they should change there cpa requirements

Just like some rooms i will not name who give bonuses , give playthru , then do not pay players when they follow the t&c to the letter.

[Jeremy]

Thanks for the feedback so far. yes I agree with you 27, rooms do have to follow their T&C's.

I think the problem with the standard T&C's is that most don't address incentive sites directly. This leaves too much open to interpretation. Also the problem isn't really the programs having to eat a few players here and there on CPA. This is actually expected. It is when they are eating a loss for EVERY player sent through one affiliates trackers.

Usually what happens is a new affiliate will sign up, send 30+ players before the AM realizes what is going on. Then all the sudden the affiliate is owed $3000+ when his/her players have raked a couple hundred dollars with no sign of ever raking more. I.E. all were minimum deposits, minimum requirements met, all cashed out.

Back when Party took U.S. players they would probably get 30-50 of these each month. Hence the reason you would see all the posts about Party not paying CPA's. Regardless of what a T&C says, if these are the exact type of players you are sending, you can't in good faith think that the poker sites should pay out the full amount month after month, can you.

I encourage all the affiliate managers and rooms reading this to consider adding a clause in your T&C's directly addressing incentive sites in respect to affiliates on your CPA plan.

Anyways, good discussion going on here, thanks for the added input.

[losercore]

I just wanted to say that I agree with you Jeremy. There are a lot of good minded affiliates and a handfull of "bad" affiliates looking to just rip off the poker room and make a quick buck.

With that said there are also the sites like pokersource.com that are in the middle. The are not being trying to be "bad", nor are they good hearted towards the poker rooms. They are just trying to send as many players as possible to meet the bare requirments. Once the player does meet these they get there books, DVD's, Chips or whatever and go sing up for another room for another "prize" At least they pay the player with their "prize"

This is the fine line. If a "good" affilite offers a special, for a month, where they give away a free T-shirt for one particular room after the requirements are meet does he fall in the same category? 200 players jump on and sign up and 100 of them meet the requirments and the rest don't and 50% stop playing at the end of the month. This affiliate sends out 100 T-shirts and viola he should get his 100 CPA's



Anybody telling visitors to sign up, do the minimum and then come back and sign up for another room and do the same for a prize should be looked at differently. i'm sure pokersource gets some good CPA's but they should be getting the smallest as their player values are far less. I've seen members here that have forums telling players how to "cheat" the system somewhat and play the minimum and move on. it's sicknig really.

In your case Jeremy regarding PAW. I would look at adding it to my own T&C. If you can see a pattern I would would say they get a warning and then they are removed if this pattern does not stop. In your case you risk loosing a whole room from the PAW network because a few A-holes go around and spam bonus codes for free DVD's or chipsets that they never send out anyway.


It would not be hard on your side to spot this. I say one warning and then banned. That's it.

In otherwords a strictly incentive site should be looked a differently and make a smaller CPA's or not be allowed. The sites that might put a promo one once in awhile are totally different.

[Kyle]

I think 27 has a valid point if we are dealing only with regular affiliate sites, that send normal traffic. Then, depending on what the site is geared towards, the poker rooms will see various limit players and the cpa will even out.

When it comes to incentive sites, such as the party free bankrolls, they do nothing but hurt the poker rooms in most cases. They are attracting people with no money, scam artists, and underage players. If a pokerroom added terms about incentive sites, I think that would be perfectly understandable because incentive sites (especially free bankroll sites) send low quality players period and lower the player value for everybody else.

[the27offsuit.com]

The easiest way for the rooms to fix this woud be for all rooms to get rid of cpa's.

Listen business is money , if the rooms werent making more in the long run with cpa they wouldnt offer it . if any room was losing $$ with cpa they would remove it instantly .

Any room that says they lose money on cpa is lying.

As for Special Promotions players and affiliates are just following the rules given by the room . If the room says $50 an 100 hands and i tell my players , $50 and 100 hands just like it says in the terms , and ill throw in a free shirt , then it is no ones fault but the rooms . They must pay.

The rules these days are getting sickining , send us players and if they make us more money then we would have given you for cpa and all is good , but if they follow the terms we impose , and they only play the minimum we say they hae to play to pa you , then we do not pay

P.S. for all you new affiliates take note - I am 100% rev share as 1 good player will make you more then 100 cpa's

[Beanie]

I have been tempted to do an incentive site and ultimately I never do because I see it as a bad deal for my partners. You could argue the same about rakeback. Ultimately we all have to find our own course. If you are going to build the Taj Mahal of websites you will have some attrition but ultimately you will prevail with your quality approach.

Incentive sites start fresh every month. I was a speaker at a conference once and there were 3 people on the panel. Only 2 of us are left. The third guy was an incentive site.

Sites always say to me that they get good return, I think it depends on the site really.

[edmc]

I think the Hybrid deals like Mansion are the way forward

[Jeremy]

Any room that says they lose money on cpa is lying.

This is true if looking at it from the overall normal affiliate base. But when looking at individual affiliates on CPA that offer incentives, this is very true.....they do lose money on this group.

Take away PSO and a few of the other big sites sending 1000+ players a month. I think you will have a hard time finding any site to say that their average incentive marketer sending say 20-40 RMP's a month on CPA is anywhere even near profitable.

Although I agree with you 27 , I also don't think any affiliate department has one goal and one goal only.......to get the exact # of raked hands in the T&C's.

Keeping the requirements lower in T&C's is meant to help the normal affiliates even out the player values and let the bigger players we send compensate for the small ones.

It is not meant to "set the bar" for incentive marketers on what the minimums are for all their players are.

incentive sites (especially free bankroll sites) send low quality players period and lower the player value for everybody else.

This is not just opinion, this is fact. I encourage any of you guys offering free bankrolls, chip sets, or whatever else to argue this fact........

This could get interesting.