Future of Poker Strategy Affiliates

[addz123]

Here is an interesting question over the future and the possible needs of development of poker strategy affiliates.

Firstly, everyone is accepting poker is becoming a tougher game and in general it is becoming harder to win more. This is because players are continually becoming more knowledgable and erudite about the game and profitable strategy.

This has been down to several reasons, to name a few: the increasing availability and resources of online strategy, published books, online poker tools, and more recently dynamic videos and poker training.

My question to poker strategy affiliates is: Do you feel or intend to make adjustments to your poker strategy website in leu of this, or how much do you think it will impact our sites in the future?

For example, your basic 101 poker strategy site might become continually low value for players (if you are targeting the vast majority of the poker market that is learning fastest).

Ofcourse this wouldn't make a difference to sites who have always targed brand new players.

But to everyone else, maybe in the future poker strategy articles simply won't cut it in the mainstream market. Maybe we will start needing to feed our players with videos and more dynamic/intelligent means of educating them to keep our value - because they already know about the stuff we're feeding them at present and don't "need" us.

I have already seen many sites (in my extremely short-lived life as an affilaite) begin to add new dimensions to their site in the form of videos, reviews of training sites, reviews of the best online tools etc.

I guess I have answered my own question in this thread really, but i'm really interested in what your take is on the above?

More and more people will be looking for "extra" information and ways of being better than their opponents. Perhaps this time next yr everyone will need videos on their site to keep their traffic happy - my opinion.

[addaminsane]

in my opinion most strategy video sites at the moment are not super great for new players. You need a foundation for learning the game, which is reading and practice, before you can understand what most guys are even talking about. From that point, the video quality comes down to the teacher communicating why they are making certain plays and their thought processes. Alot of videos are terrible at this. Alot of videos say what they're doing and act like its correct and working, but don't expound on the "theory" of why it works, if in fact what they're saying is credible at all. If they do expound then it requires the learner to have some other foundational academic knowledge of the relating poker theories

as an affiliate, text controls the search engine marketing. I think a well written article with relating images can be an effective learning tool just as much as a good video.

As far as games getting harder, i'm not really sure about that. Everyone acts like they are winning players and the truth is there is only a small amount. Tom Dwan still destroys cash games consistently while multi-tabling.

sngs are definitely not hard to have a positive roi at most levels if you play the right site and times of day with a specific system consistently

[Squizzel]

Games are definitely getting harder. Ive got consistently better over the past 5 years and earnt the most amount of money in my career in 08. If i knew what i know now in 07, 06, 05 i would have made alot more money.

In regards to writing content and videos and such. You just need to know your audience, if your not a great player and are trying to make training videos for your winning regular who visits 2+2 everyday your gonna fail.

[pokerextras]

I think the question is a little redundant for the simple reason that we, as affiliates, only get value from beginners visiting our sites. I'm really not interested in providing a great strategy resource for experienced players to come and use it for free, then go and sign up at a rakeback site.

[Squizzel]

I think the question is a little redundant for the simple reason that we, as affiliates, only get value from beginners visiting our sites. I'm really not interested in providing a great strategy resource for experienced players to come and use it for free, then go and sign up at a rakeback site.

right, so how about provide rakeback to these players or create a different site targetted to advanced players and offer them rakeback. then have your other site for green newbies, dont offer them RB and get your CPA or revshare.

[addaminsane]

i really don't know a whole lot about rakeback, but if i was previously unaware of it, and you offered it to me on your site. I would probably google more info about it and end up signing up for stuff via rakeback.com or pokersavvy.

This actually did happen when i was a new real money player in 2004. I ended up finding "pokerinside". I thought this was the coolest thing ever but it was right before the uigea and then i ended up not being able to play at any of their rooms anymore. The new equivalent to me is pokersavvy, but there community aspect isn't as good as pokerinside's at the dawn of the poker boom

[kushmoney]

I don't know if the games have gotten tougher since I always been a losing player until recently. As for strategy sites, since I am working on one I thought Ill give my opinion on this. If you going to run one and are running one. Why not provide as much content as you can in all formats text, images, and video.

For example, do a video on 3 betting pre flop with text below it explaining what 3 betting is with a image of a 3 bet.

As for providing rakeback or not is a personal choice. However, you want to maximize profits which would be to provide rakeback because your players are only going to become better poker players, play more poker, and make more money.

[kushmoney]

i really don't know a whole lot about rakeback, but if i was previously unaware of it, and you offered it to me on your site. I would probably google more info about it and end up signing up for stuff via rakeback.com or pokersavvy.

This actually did happen when i was a new real money player in 2004. I ended up finding "pokerinside". I thought this was the coolest thing ever but it was right before the uigea and then i ended up not being able to play at any of their rooms anymore.

This could happen unless you provided all the information about rakeback on your site. Don't give a player a reason to leave your website unless he or she is clicking on a link to sign up to a poker room or buy a poker tool.

[addaminsane]

well i think alot of people are different. I think more and more people are apt to research the the best deals and even more importantly look for the site that presents their service the best or most creatively...at least a majority of the players that will be playing alot and completing signups.

Unfortunately everyone decided to deem sponsorships as rakeback so they all had to compete in the search engines for a cut-and-dry term. PokerInside did it right the first time by just saying "we'll sponsor you" and "earn money with "pokernibs" and offering alot of community incentives and stuff. This was before the rakeback boom and as a new player i didn't even care about how they were making money or how the process worked. I just viewed it as getting points or rewards for play, much like pokersavvy does with their strait up rewards program.

PokerInside is interesting to me, they don't try to compete in the search engines, they largely get word of mouth referral because its actual a pretty fun site.

I think the word "rakeback" just makes the whole process seem so boring and straightfoward. You end up calculating it all out and it just seems like rakeback is pretty secondrate compared to just trying to be a winning player. Its not enticing like saying "we'll sponsor you with $20 free for every 30 earned pokernibs" "Oh, i can add $20 to my bankroll now and then? that seems cool!"

i don't know, i feel like im ranting about rakeback and why it just seems boring and uninteresting to me. I know that its worthless for sngs. i have to play 1000 40+4 sngs to earn $1000. Wager 40,400 and get $1000 all the while maximizing my winning ROI. i'd rather not even think about it unless there is some sort of fun community and competitions with other players.

on the otherhand, with pokersavvy, i know that i can sign up to rooms, play a bit, check out the site, and basically get most of my own CPA for completing a sign up. That definitely sounds more fun as a player. On top of that i'm not worried about the fact that most rooms deduct bonuses from rakeback anyways now.

Basically, VIP programs had most of the goodies for serious players in place to begin with. Therefore, as a strategy site, i think the best thing is to focus on the value of the good VIP programs and a potential cpa rewards system like pokersavvy points. There is no reason to mention rakeback at all unless you have in place a super legit looking program or can have good affiliate incentive to recommend the player to another enticing program.

basically everything i just ranted about is shown on what is currently my Online Poker ED site. I only mention rakeback on the site a few times just incase the visiting player already knows about it and wants to check out pokersavvys service. Which they seem to do ...because i know that pokersavvy also has a rakeback affiliate program for the program which is just as legit as any other rakeback service.


By the way, before i was ever an affiliate with sites, i referred 30 players in one month to pokerinside just through a facebook poker group before the UIGEA. This is largely what made me excited about experimenting with the poker savvy affiliate program on one of my current websites. PokerSavvys program is sweet because you can get a bonuswhore sign up and say complete the full tilt, bodog, and doyles room signups and you just made a few cpa's. Additionally, you get commission if that player pays for savvy-plus, as well as commission if that player signs up for rakeback. Alot of ways to convert and retain a player through one program.

I think the pokersavvy program, possibly pokerstrategy.com program, pokersource.com program? these are all decent monetization resources for the "strategy affiliate" who doesn't want to worry about seoing or combating all the rakeback propaganda....and a chance to earn CPA type payments rather than a tiny percentage of MGR per player.

focus on seoing for the real keywords you want to produce good useful content with and take advantage alternative monetization that you don't have to seo for or do player support for....or come up with creative ways to send players straight to rooms and expound on the qualities of their bonuses and vips.

I know that alot of people are concerned about rakeback, but alot of newer players have no idea what it is. There is no reason in my mind to actively talk about rakeback unless you yourself can offer great services that will convert. It seems like alot of people follow suit of what everyone else on the forums seem to do, talk about, and worry about.

[jdwanchalk]

I don't know if the games have gotten tougher since I always been a losing player until recently. As for strategy sites, since I am working on one I thought Ill give my opinion on this. If you going to run one and are running one. Why not provide as much content as you can in all formats text, images, and video.

Until you win over 100k hands, you are not a proven winner. Beyond this, the games have not only gotten tougher, they have gotten infinitely tougher.