Trick.... Or Treat?

[Guard Dog]

Haunted HouseBats


It's that time of year... But in this case, I am talking affiliate programs. Do you feel more like you are getting tricked these days??? Or are programs treating you fairly.

This is part of the 'RoundTable Discussion' forum, so the purpose of this thread is to start a discussion on how we feel, as affiliates, lately. Are the majority of the programs trying to trick us? What do you do when you feel tricked?

Example: Affiliate Program X has implemented retroactive bundling of their casino properties. You were making $xx,xxx. Now you are making $xxx. You are obviously being tricked in this situation - do you:

1. Stop sending players and hope they don't 'trick' you more?
2. Blacklist their Affiliate Program?
3. Blacklist their Casinos?


What programs are 'treating' you? I want to talk about this too because it is even MORE important that affiliates know what programs are making that extra effort!

Let the discussion ensue muahahahahahaha...... muahahahahaahaha

 

[Engineer]

jackolantern

Good thread!

Lately I feel like I've been tricked more than I've been treated.

Recently I signed up for a few new programs, and then I found out they don't even track clicks! It's impossible to properly monitor a campaign this way. They could easily be shaving. Tricky, tricky affiliate programs....

Vegas Affiliates definitely "tricked" me (and everyone else). This is one of the biggest scams of the year, IMO.

1. Stop sending players and hope they don't 'trick' you more? -- I did that.
2. Blacklist their Affiliate Program? -- I thought about it, but I think most affiliates already know about the issue.
3. Blacklist their Casinos? -- Not unless I want to be sued have have my players confiscated.

I feel as though Rival tricked everyone when they went on their player banning frenzy earlier this year. Alienating hundreds (or maybe thousands) of paying customers isn't smart. Definitely a "tricky" move....

Top Game was full of tricks this year, too, weren't they? Wow, what a year for them! The "unwinnable progressive jackpot" had to be the biggest player trick of all.

Okay -- moving on to the treats....

A good number of programs are treating me very well. Conversions are good, retention is good, and the affiliate managers are responsive and helpful. A few examples:

Rewards Affiliates
Brightshare
CWC Affiliates
Virgin Games
Fortune Affiliates
Red Returns

There are others, of course -- my apologies if your program isn't included above -- but if I wanted to set my sites on "autopilot" today and walk away for 6 months, I'd trust the programs above to convert, retain, and not go out of business (or retroactively change their T&Cs) while I was away. ;D

Bats

 

[Guard Dog]

There are others, of course -- my apologies if your program isn't included above -- but if I wanted to set my sites on "autopilot" today and walk away for 6 months, I'd trust the programs above to convert, retain, and not go out of business (or retroactively change their T&Cs) while I was away.

The 'Mantra of the Year'..... I love that comment.

As affiliates we should always think like that.... if I was going to walk away for 6 months, what program/casinos would I trust??

My Answer:

Platinum Sponsors here, of course, because I don't allow those up I do not trust.

+

Villento Affiliates
Brightshare
Rewards Affiliates
CWC Affiliates
Regal Affiliates
Casino Coins
Best Casino Partner

and even Uffiliates (now that Miko is involved)


That's about it for me, though.

 

[WCD Admin]

This industry is dirtier than ever for affiliates. Sick of the lies, sick of the stories, sick of everything but the paychecks. I think they should have to give me a picture of the casino owners houses / cars / boats, etc before they start talking to me about how hard it is to be a casino. It's not like they have billion dollar buildings, parking lots, slot machines to buy, etc. Maybe they should invest in management lessons or cut out some of the parties and conferences every three months.

They have a piece of software that accepts bets that are mathematically calculated to make them $$. You'd have to be stupid or a thief to run that in the ground.

We've been tricked. We are paid just enough to keep them on our sites. They probably have a program that they run to keep us at the lowest possible earnings without us kicking them off.

Skull Skull Skull

 

[sipka]

Haunted House

Great thread.

I think these days brought me some treats too beside some fearful tricks. My sites finally started to generate some serious money, making me think about to expand more in the industry. I was at my first conference and it was a real eye-opener that I miss out on so many great ideas (so I implement them now one by one involving other people too - bigger cake has bigger parts lol), so it definitely was a treat.

The tricky part is that I see how immature this industry still after these years of existence, how we are dependent on stupid politicians and their more stupid decisions making life more complicated instead of simply regulated.
I see how some affiliate programs that were reputable during the years are going nuts and shoot themselves in the foot by alienating their partners - the affiliates. I know that this industry is a roller coaster and you like it or leave it but recently I am thinking about to diversify more.

The 6 programs I could leave my sites to are:
Revenue Giants
Brightshare
Market Ace
Joy of Bingo
Fortune Affiliates
Virgin Games

(And this is not my top earners' list, but I know they handle my players and me well.)

And now I fly away on my broom :d

Witch on Broom

 

[WCD Admin]

Don't you love it how the casinos provide us with everything except withdrawal amounts?

Casinos: you have all the stats. Do you want to explain why we can't see the withdrawals? Or is it just an easy way for you to eliminate the piece of data we need to make an audit if we think you are shaving us? Tell me please, the other logical reason.

Calculating commission should be easy, not a mystery.

Deposits - Withdrawals+Bonus+Chargebacks = Casino Profit
Casino Profit * commission% = affiliate check

Pretty easy, huh? Makes you wonder why stats ever got complicated. Of course one can never solve the equation if the data is missing. And of course it was never missing, its just purposely omitted. You don't think the casinos forget about withdrawals or don't have access to this data, do you? In fact why even tell us about charge backs and bonuses when we can't see withdrawals? What is the point? You can't do the equation with the missing data.

I would love to know programs that show this data, I think that really says a lot for the program. Playtech must have a simple toggle switch in the backend, because Casino Blasters (good for them!) show the withdrawal amounts still - I just checked.

Skull

Trick or treat

 

[greek39]

Definitely more tricks than treats. I retain stable earnings but see others being tricked too often.

greek39

 

[Guard Dog]

I would love to see more programs adopt withdrawal and chargeback information. I prefer transparency and do not promote programs that have crappy stats.

Rival programs have some of the best stats, IMO, but I love Brightshare's stats.

 

[bonustreak]

Tricks and Treats- The good equals out the bad for me I guess this year. My never to let me down places are...( not in any order and if I forgot any I am sorry I am still on my first cup of coffee )
Intertops
Villento
CWC
Red Returns
Casino Rewards
Brightshare
Fortune Affiliates



MY WORST STATS EVER!
Partnerlogic
Paddy Power
Party Partners
Blue Square
Casino Extreme
Hollywood Affiliates
Rushmore

These are just a few that have managed over the last few months to get it would see totally free advertisement from us but they can be warned that we are having our stats remote clean house for us in the next few weeks! We are talking all trash out to the bin but months end!

 

[tryme1]

I very much like the positive aspect of this thread. The "if I was going to walk away for 6 months, what program/casinos would I trust" part of this is interesting and worthwhile.

So for me, here are my top three that would keep paying me, converting and keeping my players (no particular order):

Revenue Giants (for bingo - if you're not pushing these, then, well, you're leaving money on the table)

Bet365 (for sports betting - they cross promote better than any other gambling site)

CWC Affiliates (for casinos - too many bonuses, but they convert and keep players and you can't fault them for that)

 

[mings]

How to make sure if the programs are tracking your sales properly?
Simple, just pay your friends to do a deposit of $500 or $1000.
The price for this is very high, you have to lose to see 30% of your money credited.
That is why nobody do it.

There's 1 website which revealed all the tricks/scams in this industry.
You'd be surprised some of the names mentioned, according to them, all the programs are rogued.

In this world where there's big money involved, theres greed.
Even politicians will trick in some way.
What i can do is to hope i get treated more than tricked.

 

[Guard Dog]

I've always thought that the testing that's been done has mostly been easily 'handled' due to the small deposits that are used to test. I would suspect that true audits would involve dollar amounts of at least $500 or more initial deposits.

I'll take the bait, though.... what site are you talking about?

 

[mojo]

I noticed a high number of programs changing their updating their stats programs. I always get nervous when this happens. Tricks?

We've had a lot of retro changes but I think some good came out of that too. However, it seems it will never end.

Someone told me - I think Joe - a long time ago when I first started aff'ing that all programs do something to affect our earnings negitively. The trick is to find out which ones do it the least.