Small poker affiliates and operators

[Jeremy]

Satya made a great post over on CAP, but I figured since many here do not post there, we could have our own discussion here in respect to poker affiliate programs.

Personally I have seen so many small affiliates over the years turn into big producers. That attitude of some affiliate programs that it's cool to just ignore emails or or not worry about the small affiliates is piss poor long term planning.

Anyhow, here's the post, feel free to discuss.

Do the operators really care for the small affiliates?

This is an interesting area which needs more attention. In last few weeks we have seen quite a few changes by some operators and an important issue that was raised during the posts was - Do they need the small affiliates?

Yes and No.
It depends on the decision maker’s experience, expertise and understanding of the online affiliate marketing and his KPIs/objectives set up by top management.

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear the following argument from guys in charge.

1) I get most of my new players from select 5-6 big affiliates. Why should I care about the smaller ones?
2) We should only look for big affiliates.
3) Big affiliates are low maintenance.
4) Once they get going and start making money, they don’t need any support and they will never leave my program.
5) It’s a waste of time and resource trying to work with small affiliates. I can’t afford one extra staff. Get the customer service to manage them. Can we hire a new affiliate manager at minimum wage to manage the small affiliates?
6) These small affiliates create too much noise on the forums which we don’t feel comfortable answering. On top of it we have to pay the forum to be able to officially answer questions.
7) I have spent $1 million on my favorite campaign on TV last month and still haven’t got ROI. But the affiliate traffic has shot up. Can we tax  the suckers and salvage the cost of the TV campaign?
8) How can we pay such high revenue share to affiliates with no negative carryover? Let’s not annoy the big affiliates but for the rest let’s introduce some new clauses to pay less.
9) FD says the affiliates are getting paid 5% more than last quarter. The affiliate cost in on rise, we need to address it.


Why I disagree and why operators should focus equally on the smaller affiliates? Some feedback on these points –

1) 5-6 big affiliates (tier 1) may account for more than 60% of traffic of some programs, but the rest 40% are still driven by 150-200 smaller affiliates (tier 2 and tier3).
2) Quarter on quarter I have seen big affiliates emerge from these small affiliates. Therefore the best place to look for big affiliates is your own affiliate program. It is highly likely that there most big affiliates have signed up to your affiliate program, but don’t promote you and may have ended up in the pool or tier 3 category.
3) Very true and you always have to look for new sources of traffic which can deliver high volumes.
4) In rare cases if a big affiliate leaves, the program will lose a substantial % of the overall traffic overnight. This doesn’t happen when a small affiliate stops promoting. In addition the pool of small affiliates put together provides a cushion in such scenarios.
5) Point 2 and 4 list the reasons why it is important that you take care of the small affiliates.
6) Community is very important for affiliates for learning and sharing their experiences. Plus there is no harm if a few difficult issues are discussed in black and white. It benefits either party. I agree it can be a pain at times for some operators when they are deliberately confronted are harassed by a group of affiliates. But these cases rarely happens and most of the times it is a genuine issue which triggers an intense discussion.
7) ROI from campaigns have to be worked before making a decision to go ahead. TV takes time to generate ROI and doesn’t happen overnight like a CPA affiliate. Increase in the players clicking your banners on affiliate sites is definitely influenced by the TV campaign, but imagine a scenario where none of the affiliates had your banners on their sites. You can’t tax the affiliates to recoup losses.
8) You should have thought about that when you launched your affiliate program and tried to recruit affiliates by offering higher revenue share for life with no negative carryover.
9) The affiliates are getting paid 5% more because they have got more business or their players are losing more money. They are paid a % of the net revenue, so there is no worry if their payment has increased.

This is my experience and everyone maynot agree with this. But the reality is very close to what I have stated.
Questions welcome, but don't crucify me
__________________
Cheers,
Satya Mahapatra

[Mark]

Great post.

Indeed affiliates WILL remember you 3 years later when they are a big affiliate and they first emailed you about how to set up a tracking link. First impressions are everything and everyone remembers their encounters with various affiliate programs.

Mark

[pokerprop]

My top reason small affiliates are important is without them PAL wouldn't exist and we'd have no place to debate the existence of God, report on Afghan martial law share opinions on swine flu debate if hooker and strippers can be converted into decent wives or just discuss other important issues such lolcats, Asian girls, politics etc. etc.

[Zujo]

I've never operated a poker site but have been a rakeback provider and operated a referral program - and I can say that a big regret I have is not taking great care of all of the little guys from the very start. Many of them have indeed turned into very big fish or very big affiliate operators - and my ignoring some/many of them in the beginning has certainly cost me a lot of money - as they just went looking elsewhere for better service.

Paying an extra customer service rep or part-time work from home AM to work with smaller affiliates and give them great customer service has got to be a profitable long term move for nearly every affiliate program.

Even as a somewhat large affiliate I am shocked at how many programs either ignore my initial requests for info or are very slow about getting back to me and answering all of my questions. CarbonPoker for instance I have contacted at least 3 times and have never gotten a reply! The same with MermaidPoker.

[PokerDude]

My feeling on this is, that today's small affiliate could become tomorrow's large affiliate, by bringing in several big players. Hence, it behooves vendors to treat all affiliates with respect and superlative support. Those vendors that just treat the "large" affiliates special, may be looking too much to the short-term, and not enough to the long-term.

[Davidtoweraffiliates]

I hate to repeat myself lol - but the post was very good and well thought out.

I do really believe that we are all partners big or small. Success comes from helping others succeed. I and my team believe and live this philosophy.

(from cap)
I would like to share my experience when I first started up as an affiliate manager for Towergaming / Toweraffiliates

When I started I took all my experience from my work outside the gaming world (had no experience in gaming)- I wanted every single affiliate I worked with to feel like they were part of my team and a true partner. If an affiliate only brought in 1$ or $100,000 I would give them both the equal amount of respect and help were I could. I actually learned from new and old affiliates.
When I first started I started to chat with a new affiliate who was only making $100 a month - we started to share information and trying new things. We both worked very hard and put in a ton of effort to make things happen. Communication and hard work paid off - and with in 90 days the affiliate was making over 6k per month and now makes 30k+ per month and has hired 3 people.
It was never about how much money the company(mine or his) would make - it was about how can we help each other succeed.
I try to install this attitude in all my affiliate managers and the affiliates we work with. It's not just talk
It truly is a two way street - effort must be made by the affiliate and by the affiliate manager. My first question is always - what do you want to achieve? Then lets work together to help you get there.

The cool thing is, that the affiliate that grows because of hard work on both sides it becomes a friendship.

So if the effort and the hard work is there - it's the foundation of success.

We all started out small

[LadyHoldem]

I heard a stat when I was abt three years in Noah Englenick told me that 1% of all affiliates EVER profit. I don't know if the number is accurate, but after working as an affiliate manager for a short period, I can say very few actually ever get paid as compared to how many sign up.

Sites like PAL, GPWA, CAP, PAP, etc etc etc.. change that statistic of course. A banner farm was perfectly acceptable to me when I first built a website. (my first ever website's still standing, MzCathy's Place note the awesome banner placements on the random pointless pages) 10 years + and that site's (is it a site really?) has still never made a penny!

So the point is that .. most active members and plenty of inactive members of all these forums DO make money. The majority is probably in the small/medium group, but hundreds of small affiliates, even if they never become super affiliates, do add up.

I'm not sure if my theory here is really accurate for the sites that aren't really active on the forums, and that the majority of us never really realize exist.

[Davidtoweraffiliates]

I totally disagree that only 1% of gaming affiliates make money. It really depends on what the affiliate deems as success. Being an affiliate takes a ton of discipline and communication. I have a ton of respect for affiliates - they are true entrepreneurs. It takes good work ethic and inner motivation to realize success.
Forums like this are such a huge asset for affiliates. Please no matter what program you work with create a relationship with the manager - make sure that they have your interest in mind. Also from the beginning share what you want to achieve. Affiliates and affiliate managers work for each other. Both sides need to understand each others goals.
Don't be afraid to share your business plans with the people you work with - It makes it a reality.

If I can just add one piece of advice " ego kills success"

[gooderpoker]

Small affiliates are #1 in my book when I was an affiliate manager. You build a business from the bottom up not the top down.
I would rather have many small affiliates than one big one.
Building a quality base of small affiliates will in time grow and grow. Smaller affiliates have no where to go but up, As an affiliate manager you need to work with your affiliates and help them grow as you are a team. You also want your brand to be seen so having it on multiple different sites compared to one big site is also a plus.

It comes down to a word some affiliate programs seem to hate... WORK!!

[Ridge]

Small affiliates kep this business creative. New ideas, new motivation, etc. Keep us older affiliates motivated IMO. With rakeupdate we get new partners daily and they deserve to be treated just as good as our big partners. They need more help of course, and have a lot of questions and guidance. I know I was lucky enough to get guidance form many people here over the years, and I enjoy being helpful to new affiliates. One day they will be us with all the paranoid, cynical, jaded issues we all have