Key Questions When Joining a New Affiliate Program

[footballaffiliate]

I hate it when you get advertisers bugging you to join their programs, but when you delve into the detail in their T&Cs they're not playing fair. So, I've started to tell advertisers this when they email me or ask me to join their programs at conferences. If we could all agree a set of questions to use to pressure advertisers then this would really make them have to think about their T&Cs and change them to attract new business:

Key questions to ask (please add more - these are just a few I ask):

• Does your program pay cross-product rev share?
• Does your program have a minimum player requirement after which an affiliate starts to earn? e.g. do you need 5 "active" players, what is an "active" player.
• Does rev share drop if you don't provide new depositors over a certain time period?
• Does your program reward affiliates for the lifetime of a player (not 2 years like Sportingbet, Betfair etc)
• Where are you based? (I try not to deal with programs in areas of the world I've had bad experiences with, areas that don't have much in the way of a legal framework i.e. areas where programs could easily cheat you, not pay without much in the way of reprimand, or break the rules further down the line)
• Who will be my affiliate manager and will they be available for regular communication?
• Have you ever operated under a different affiliate program name? (some programs have relaunched themselves and have a bad history)

If they can't answer these questions favourably I just tell them I'm better off advertising a host of other programs that do meet these requirements.

 

[footballaffiliate]

Certainly cross-product rev share is key. If you're not getting it you're getting seriously robbed! Think about it - you sign up a sports player - most sportsbooks now operate on very low margins, so you're only going to earn about 2% at best of turnover on a rev share deal. However, at the same time, if you're not getting cross product rev share then the advertiser can be pushing the customer hard to join their poker, casino, bingo and other products, for which you would get a much better margin. Margins on these products can be 30%+

 

[Guard Dog]

I've added a few to the list:

Key questions to ask (please add more - these are just a few I ask):

• Does your program pay cross-product rev share?
• Does your program have a minimum player requirement after which an affiliate starts to earn? e.g. do you need 5 "active" players, what is an "active" player.
• Does rev share drop if you don't provide new depositors over a certain time period?
• Does your program reward affiliates for the lifetime of a player (not 2 years like Sportingbet, Betfair etc)
• Where are you based? (I try not to deal with programs in areas of the world I've had bad experiences with, areas that don't have much in the way of a legal framework i.e. areas where programs could easily cheat you, not pay without much in the way of reprimand, or break the rules further down the line)
• Who will be my affiliate manager and will they be available for regular communication?
• Have you ever operated under a different affiliate program name? (some programs have relaunched themselves and have a bad history)D

Added Questions

• Admin / Network Fees - Does your program charge/deduct Admin or Network Fees from the revenue sharing? What is the percentage?
• Casino Bundling - Does your program bundle all casinos together such that negative earnings at one property affect positive earnings at another?
• Negative Carryover - Except in the case of fraud, does your affiliate program carry negative months over to the next month or start earnings at $0 each month?
• Minimum Activity - Does your program have a 'minimum activity' requirement such that the amount of clicks/impressions/wagering per month can result in earnings not being paid?
• Assholitis - Are any of your management team personnel complete assholes?

ok, the last one is a joke... but it is veiled in some truth. What I tend to find with some of these companies is that they will have positive terms and then change them to crappy ones after several years of building a player base. Then, of course, blame upper management. It is a technique used, I believe, to line their own pockets while cutting out the affiliate.

 

[footballaffiliate]

Forgot about casino bundling - plenty of rogues out there that cross promote other casinos about 10 seconds after your referral has landed on their page, and then don't pay you commission for referrals to other casinos. iAffiliates are bad for this - I can't believe how they give it the big presence at LAC and BAC when they're thieving off affiliates.

Here's another question:
What is your cookie/tracking length? - far too many advertisers are still using session cookies. So, if your referral doesn't sign up there and then and perhaps goes off to their bank account to deposit money, then comes back, you don't get the referral. Paddy Power, Boyle Sports, Betway all do session cookies.

Admin/network fees are always a black art. Most advertisers state something like this in the T&Cs. It's basically a free licence to take off any sort of fees from your commission. Some advertisers even state "software fees" as a deductible. So, you might actually be paying for their website development team, or contributing to the cost of their gaming licence. Your great 30% rev share deal may actually only be about 10%!

On the last point - Assholitis - a great example of this was Blue Square - they sold their whole player base to Betfair and paid the affiliates nothing. It happened over night. Now they're contacting people under the Mecca brand and asking for ad space. It's amazing how some of these companies think affiliates are so stupid not to remember the history behind some of these operations.

 

[jopaa]

You can add this one too: At the end of the month I will be paid or I will have to beg for my money?

 

[footballaffiliate]

You can add this one too: At the end of the month I will be paid or I will have to beg for my money?

Too true! For about half of my advertisers I have to beg for payments, keep a close eye on earnings so that they do get paid, and chase down issues all of the time. On the other side, the people who do work well and pay on time are very reliable, friendly, and have the time for you

 

[pinkytoe]

Semi related to this and I am wondering what peoples thoughts are on it.

If you are promoting say X program for an increased rev share of 35% (when the standard is 25%) for casino and they actively cross promote to sports and poker for which you get paid for too - should you be getting 25% or 35%?

 

[CaseyM]

Semi related to this and I am wondering what peoples thoughts are on it.

If you are promoting say X program for an increased rev share of 35% (when the standard is 25%) for casino and they actively cross promote to sports and poker for which you get paid for too - should you be getting 25% or 35%?

I think you should get what you agreed on, if you agreed on 35% for all - casino/sports/poker or 35% for casino 25% for sports/poker. I think both are fair as long as the operator is sticking to their original agreement