Predatory Change in Terms - Ultimate Bet

[Janet]

Ultimate Bet has changed its terms.

4.2 ...All affiliate accounts must sign 10 new real money player account each 90 days or payments due under this Agreement may be suspended and/or this Agreement may be terminated without further compensation or further notice to you.

8.3 If termination is initiated by you or is by UltimateBet as a result of a violation of this agreement or is due to activity ceasing to generate 2 new depositors per month for a 2 month consecutive time period, you will not be entitled to unpaid referral fees, if any earned by you on or prior to the date of termination. Nor will you be entitled to referral fees with respect to play occurring after the termination date.

Pretty disgusting.

[JohnG]

That's brutal, I do not see how they can justify that, there should not be any requirements to keep your affiliate account active. Just because you don't send a player for a few months doesn't mean you didn't originally bring them to the website. They would not be players there unless they found UB through your website, I think the rooms forget this sometimes. Anyways that's a horrible policy and makes it definetely not worth promoting for anyone who is new or starting out. Why risk not being paid for a slow few months lol......BRUTAL!

[CoolDog]

You are right JohnG, not only do some non and low-converting affiliates bring them some traffic, affiliates also brand the poker room on their sites, free of charge. Isn't that worth something?

I guess some rooms just don't think.

I dropped these guys a while ago, when it was impossible to get the stats working, so I am glad I did after seeing this.

CoolDog

[Notspot]

Well spotted - thank you. Pulling them tonight.

As a new affiliate, terms like that are ridiculous.

[AlanAces]

Ultimate Bet and Absolute get worse and worse every day........

[ThePokerBank]

Now thats horrific, there is no chance I will be able to do that for the time being. Going to have to replace them with another room instead. Maybe they will change their minds when people stop affiliating with them.

By the way, whats so bad about the absolute program?

[JohnG]

This continues to piss me off the more i read this thread so I will add that I could understand them doing this in 2 situations:

1. With an affiliate who offers incentives and has really bad player values.
2. An affiliate with a record of sending players who meet min. requirements and then don't play anymore.

Other than that this is really unacceptable, definetely will not promote their program at all and don't think they will have a lot of love from any affiliates after this. Great business decision....not!

[Dave]

You have to look at it from the companies point of view.

20% of their affiliates probably produce 80% of results.

Over worked affiliate mangers have to prioritise.

They can't waste valuable time answering emails and setting up private tournaments etcetera for affiliates who aren't producing profitable results for the company.

The problem is anyone with internet access can sign up for an affiliate program in just a couple minutes and then do little in the way of promoting. The numbers add up.

I'm certainly guilty of this, I get emails almost daily from programs I signed up to years ago in every niche under the sun..... stating that I am being dropped for not producing decent results.

It's fat trimming time in the entire online business world as competition increases and profits are tougher to achieve than in the past.

Never forget that as an affiliate....... you are in a business partnership with the host company.

As a business owner would you use your companies limited, valuable resources on relationships that were semi-profitable....... or those that are highly profitable?

I don't like it any more than you guy's but that's the bottom line, and the wave of the future for affiliate marketing in my opinion.

Janet, where are you on V.I?

I'm in Victoria on the Gorge.

[JohnG]

Dave, well I understand your point of view there is no strain on the affiliate managers themselves for having lots of accounts that aren't producing as long as these affiliates aren't harassing them for private tournaments, etc. The only way this could be argued is that the non-producing affiliate accounts are taking up too much space on their servers or something that is resulting in increased costs, which I highly doubt is the case. I realize that it is a business relationship and agree with that statement, however if you were selling a product for me and I said if you don't sell 10 a month I will not pay you I am sure you wouldn't be happy. All in all it's not a good term to promote a good relationship especially with new affiliates.

[Graham]

Could this be a way for them to get back at pokerlistings? (http://www.pokerlistings.com/ultimate-bet)

Meanwhile screwing everyone else over in the process.