RA/CR Audit???

[inspiration]

This has now been corrected. As of yesterday, all of the links in the "welcome to CR" mailer point to casinorewards.com, which means that if a player had your affiliate tag previously set at casinorewards.com, the player will be tagged to you if they decide to visit casinorewards.com and click any of the casino links on the page.

There are a LOT of casino + download links on the casinorewards.com site and assuming all these links carry our BTAG is a mistake just like everybody thought for years that all links in mailers and sites did track.

Changes made by CR are very modest.

Until audited I would say : some links track as I still see TYPEIN in stead of my BTAG when I click on links to casinorewards.com at ANY CR casino.

Stating mailers are the only issue right now is not correct IMO.

 

[inspiration]

Important to add :

When I am referring to links to casinorewards.com these are from the MENU links at ANY CR casino.

 

[Aussie-Dave]

I was referring to the massive thread at GPWA titled "All 22 casinos in rewards player emails and links to CR website," which ran from March to August 2011. It's in the private area, which you had access to before you were banned in July.

The only admendment notes I can locate in that massive thread is:

From APCW Anthony (7'th July 2011)
All 22 casinos in rewards player emails and links to CR website - Page 13

Rewards Affiliates has been considering how to address the situation in a way that would work for everybody for some time now.

They view that the primary issue is the logos on the bottom of the newsletter coupled with the fact that the current casino promotions are featured under each logo.

Based on affiliate concerns Rewards Affiliates has decided they would change the newsletters to remove the bonuses under the logos and replace them with the word “Reinstall”. With the bonuses gone they feel there would be nothing to entice the player to click the logo unless they are reinstalling.

Rewards Affiliates looked at multiple solutions to get this situation to a better place. They know this solution is not perfect, but with all of the complexities involved, they felt something that they will be able to implement quickly and in a straight forward fashion to help makes the most sense.

I do feel that it is a substantial improvement over the current situation where there is active promotion of deals at other sites.

Rewards Affiliates has implemented the newsletter change:

XXXhttp://casinorewards.com/main/newsletters.asp

So, I'm still at a loss to your reference of two (2) months ago. Especially given nothing else is mentioned in the "All 22 casinos in rewards player emails and links to CR website" thread.

Where this becomes messy, the GPWA, instead of keeping it public (where it should have stayed), moved discussions to the private forums. And as we both know, what's said in the Private Forums is out of bounds to the public members, guests and SE's.

In so far as my banning (one good way to shut me up), you may also recall I was given a holiday (6 weeks or there abouts) previous to that. I only had access for about 2 weeks and was suspended again.

Effectively my access to anything at the GPWA was setchy at best, especially the Private forum discussions.

Anyway, where does that leave things now in relation to ALL the cross marketing minus aff tagging and what's the word on affiliates receiving compensation for loss of income as a result of these unethical practices by Casino Rewards and Rewards Affiliates?

Or is it merely, we've fixed the links and back to business, even though we've probably purchased 20+ casinos from what we've scammed from affiliates.

 

[dominique]

Compensation would be impossible to figure out and I am not asking for this for myself.

All I think should be done is that the links on the bottom of mailers just be print logos (for branding as rewards stated they wished to do there) and that they not contain any live links. That since it appears to be impossible to add a tracker there.

 

[Guard Dog]

Compensation would be impossible to figure out and I am not asking for this for myself.

All I think should be done is that the links on the bottom of mailers just be print logos (for branding as rewards stated they wished to do there) and that they not contain any live links. That since it appears to be impossible to add a tracker there.

I agree. Anyone asking for compensation is just looking for a handout... there is absolutely no way to quantify this.

As for the links, they should be removed entirely and images are ok. That should include any mailers to affiliate-tagged players, IMO.

 

[Engineer]

So, I'm still at a loss to your reference of two (2) months ago. Especially given nothing else is mentioned in the "All 22 casinos in rewards player emails and links to CR website" thread.

I never said "two" or "2" -- I said "a few" months ago. July -- when Anthony made the post that you quoted above -- is "a few" months ago in my mind. Semantics....

In any case, the part you quoted is the part I was referring to. For some reason I thought that thread was in the private area, but I guess it isn't.

 

[Engineer]

There are a LOT of casino + download links on the casinorewards.com site and assuming all these links carry our BTAG is a mistake

This took all of 5 minutes to check. I went to CR through my affiliate link -- i.e. I visited a casino through my link so that the tag would be set, then I clicked the link to CR. Then I viewed the source.

As I suspected, every single link to a casino on the page had my affiliate tag intact. I did the same test on multiple pages of the site and I found the same thing -- tags are present.

Check that one off the list....

Or not... Maybe Andy could build a spider that will crawl the entire CR site every 5 minutes to make sure everyone's tags remain intact 24/7. LOL.

 

[Engineer]

Until audited I would say : some links track as I still see TYPEIN in stead of my BTAG when I click on links to casinorewards.com at ANY CR casino.

When I am referring to links to casinorewards.com these are from the MENU links at ANY CR casino.

Can you give a specific example, step by step, of what you are finding? Casino names, etc.

Once your tag is set at casinorewards.com, it should stay in place unless you click another affiliate's link, which would overwrite the cookie.

Your statement seems to imply that sometimes the tag is there and sometimes it isn't, which doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Aussie-Dave]

I agree. Anyone asking for compensation is just looking for a handout... there is absolutely no way to quantify this.

That's total BS, MAN (as you like to put it).

As far as quantify what's owed, whilst I agree mapping players to their rightful affiliate(s) would be a total nightmare. However If CR didn't scam affiliates in the first place withg their dodgy, underhanded trickery, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Obviously this mess has had zero impact on you and anyone else who holds the same mindset. However there are other affiliates who have had their rightful income fleeced from them. I for one heavily promoted them for over 3 solid years. What am I and others like me to do? Just go, oh well, too bad, bye bye.

These crooks have more than likely used the renenue they stole from us to buy more damn casinos to fleece us even further

It's times like this, with responses like this "anyone asking for compensation is just looking for a handout", when the AGD catch cry "Protecting Affiliates Interests" makes me go what tha ???

Maybe since you've had to take on a full time job your concerns for affiliate matters and issues are not a priority. I could see how this would be so. However, saying the above statement is both insensitive to people who still earn a living from their affiliate business and something IMHO a person in your position, operating an affiliate haven shouldn't even be thinking, least of all saying.

Obviously your judgement is clouded by the alliance AGD holds to CR/RA (what ever that is), it must be something otherwise you'd have done the right thing and pulled their advertising when all their dodgy, underhanded, scallywag activities were brought to light by members here.

But seeing you didn't, kinda makes one wonder what contra deal you got going with this mob (cough affiliate clip joints).

That's me speaking my mind. If you don't like it, you know what you can do, hey!

Edit: You'd probably be doing me a huge favour. I could then spend my time actually helping affiliates and supporting them in times of need. Unlike yourself who just talks the talk.

 

[Aussie-Dave]

I never said "two" or "2" -- I said "a few" months ago.

Sorry, my bad. A few months albeit is more than one (1) but July.

 

[pdjoe]

I'll say that I have worked with Rewards dating back to August of 2002.

Have managed to pay off my house, car and many other bills off with them. For me they are the best program I have worked with over the years. Always helpfull, always in contact, never have to fight to get paid and above all take care of players.

Wish I could say the same for the many other programs I have worked with.

No program is perfect but I feel they are heads above the rest.

 

[FictionNet]

As far as the CR tracking issues goes, I have been silent and for the sake of my sanity, that ain't changing anytime soon. I'm going nowhere near the thing but I'm really glad that Dave is on top of things like this, even if there are questions over the style of delivery

I know Dave drives some people up the wall (okay, lots of people) and tempers can flare. Reading a thread that Dave has started can feel like walking into a room with a grenade waiting to go off but I am so feckin' glad to have him on my side and I'd hate to silence him. Not that I'm saying anyone here wants to do that.

Why am I piping up about this now? Well, although I voted to keep Dave 'in' at GPWA, I didn't really make my voice heard and I feel a bit guilty about that. I've also had a few beers and I feel fluffy and soppy.

People like Dave are the reasons that most casinos don't do terrible shit to us - they know they'd be called out on it. People like Dave just don't let go when they feel they've been wronged (I'm glad he's not my enemy!) and love him or hate him, I admire his passion for sticking to his own integrity.

I firmly believe that Dave is doing this not just for personal reasons, but also because he is on the side of the casino affiliate community as a whole. And for that, I owe him a beer.

Group hugs and all that

 

[dominique]

I agree that Dave brings up good issues, and I have been agreeing with him all along.

But, delivery is everything sometimes.

That is, if you really want to FIX something, and not just vent and offend people and make them walk off the table and leave things unresolved.

I am RESULT oriented, this is business. If things bug me, I have other places where people listen patiently when I need to vent.

I have promoted Rewards for some 10 years. They have always had great support. They still have great support. I have some players there that have been playing for years and years. And still are. While their cross promotion policies do entice players to another casino without my tag, they also entice players to return to the original casino where they do have my tag. They tend to stay in the group a lot longer. Consequently player retention is stellar at Rewards. Players may not play under your tag all the time, but they do return and hence I have them for years and years. So, there is a silver lining in this cloud. Still, I wish there would not be a cloud at all. But that is because I tend to have long term hobby players, and Rewards does bring them back around to me after they have looked for other casinos. Players switch after a string of bad luck. At Rewards, they stay in the group and tend to come back around.

If you have "hit and run" type players, the policy may work against you, they will play their way through all the Rewards casinos and then be gone. But - this type player would not stick with you for long anyplace.

Having faced US until UIGEA came about, I lost big time with Rewards (and everyplace else) when that happened. But I plugged along and slowly built up traffic from other countries.

So I feel Dave's pain at having lost Australian traffic. It's horrible seeing everything tank that you worked for so hard. There is really nothing one can do, unless one wants to become politically active and change the laws. Going after the programs that cannot perform for you under the political circumstances doesn't help at all.

All of that said, I still think the logos on the player mails need to be not linked at all if they can't carry tags. That is industry standard, and we fought for a decade to bring some decent industry standards about. Without standards, affiliates will be screwed left and right.

The affiliate industry has changed a lot, and not for the better. There is no cohesion at all now. We brought these standards about by sticking to our guns, collectively, in years past. This sort of cohesion is totally gone, and the results are clearly visible. That is why I think a place like AGD is so very vital - programs will sneek strange or rogue terms into their T&Cs constantly if not watched. Affs need a place to find out about these things - who has time to read and re-read all the T&Cs of all the programs weekly? Not me.

At least this way, despite the lack of cohesion, we can be knowledgeable and pick and choose based on facts. Affs will not stick together anymore, they haven't for years. Trying to get them to act in unison and actually achieve something is like herding feral cats, and I for one am done trying.

I am very grateful that AGD provides timely and correct info regarding T&Cs, and that is why I volunteer here. T&Cs are only one aspect of a program, but it is the most harmful and elusive one. So I opted to concentrate on that.

If anyone wants to create a place that concentrates on other aspects, that would be great. But don't knock AGD for what it does - it picked one vital aspect and monitors that and it does very well with it.

Back to the issue - Yes, there are also links at the casino websites that carry no tag. So, a player picks a casino from your site and arrives at the casino website. What do you think the percentage is that scrolls to the bottom and picks yet another casino from there? I figure it's minute. And most players never return to the casino website after having downloaded. But yes, there are untagged links there, as well as in the mails.

So, can we stick to the actual issue here and forget about lashing out at peripheral issues and contaminating the thread and ending up nowhere again? It would be nice to see a productive thread here.

 

[Guard Dog]

That's me speaking my mind. If you don't like it, you know what you can do, hey!

Edit: You'd probably be doing me a huge favour. I could then spend my time actually helping affiliates and supporting them in times of need. Unlike yourself who just talks the talk.

Request granted.

And, for the record, AGD has no association with CR/RA. None. Ask anyone, including RA. Never taken 1 single penny from them.

We will continue looking at this. This audit is going to turn more into a linking and tagging audit, btw (i.e., cross-promotion).

 

[slotplayer]

All I know is I had a really big player playing since the 1st and now all the earnings and wagering are gone. I can't wait to hear this reason.

I guess just like betfred and C-planet all my good players are self-excluders or some how fraudsters. f-me.

 

[FictionNet]

Dave has been banned from here now? That doesn't feel good at all.

 

[slotplayer]

bit of clique over here I noticed. CM is even worse.

 

[inspiration]

Dave has been banned from here now? That doesn't feel good at all.

Feel the same.

I am thankful what AGD has done for affiliates but frankly I am not enjoying forums anymore with all this BS going on.

 

[Guard Dog]

There is no clique or whatever, Dave had it coming over a lot of comments over a long period of time. I was the one who brought him back from being banned the last time. I did this with the understanding from Dave that he would not name call and act more professionally. He hasn't. Simple as that.

While I enjoy some of the things Dave says, he has made veiled and rude comments to a number of people since he has come back.

So - I do my best here at AGD... we don't sell out for sponsorships... we take everything said to heart... and we help affiliates any chance we get. Everyone doesn't have to agree with what is done here, but it will always be done with the intentions of making this place a good, professional, fun place to hang.

 

[slotplayer]

There is no clique or whatever,

So - I do my best here at AGD... we don't sell out for sponsorships... we take everything said to heart... and we help affiliates any chance we get. Everyone doesn't have to agree with what is done here, but it will always be done with the intentions of making this place a good, professional, fun place to hang.

are you kidding me. I've asked questions in the forum and all but had to beg for a reply.