Online Poker Rewards Systems

[WSOPforFREE]

Hi guys,

Thanks again for all your help on my first thread and convincing me that WSOPforFREE.com wasn't the best idea for my first affiliate site. Of course, now I'm stuck with that moniker on the forum to remind me of my stupidity.

I have a question regarding existing affiliate sites using rewards systems. I'm working on a system that would work with rev. share in a similiar way to rakebake, but using points in lieu of cash.

I've been searching for the biggest competitors in this market and have found:

Poker Source (Online), Pokersavvy, and Boogster

however, these three sites seem to base their revenue off of CPA deals.

I haven't been able to find any affiliates websites that are based on alternate rewards system using rev. share (other than rakeback) and was wondering if anyone has been somewhat successful in setting such a site up.

Do such sites exist? If so, have any of them been successful? Am I just setting myself up for failure?

Thanks in advance for any comments/advice,
Aaron

[Planet Mark]

Its a common enough first idea (also thought of something like this years ago!), it could work, though you have some massive hurdles to overcome including:

- The poker sites who do not offer rakeback will probably not allow you to do this, you'll need to get written permission individually from the programs before you even think about starting...
- You will find it hugely difficult to compete in % terms with established market players (rakeback being your key rival, however you name your scheme), since rev share is almost always tiered and the bigger sites already get far higher rates than you will be able to offer. You might be able to grab a few novices for customers with lower rates... but the kind of player who is interested in a reward scheme will usually move when they (inevitably) find a better deal.
- Trust... hard to build until you have a user base, which is hard to build without trust!

You have a medium-sized mountain to climb here IMO. Not saying this is impossible... though finding a niche and creating a valuable resource for it might be a far better way to get started in the business... once you have a loyal community / readership then you could always use it to start some kind of reward / loyalty scheme after all!

Mark

[pokerprop]

We could probably have a debate now on whether poker affiliating is "solved". Reference for anyone who reads 2+2 garbage.

Basically years ago when we were all looking for an edge or something unique this was an idea many sites tried to pull off. Its a lot of work, and I agree mostly with what Mark is posting.

As far as the user name if you don't want it PM an admin and get it changed that shouldn't be too tough.

As far as a first site, personally I'd strong advise you to start with an exact match domain for a niche and then work on how you can become an authority of that niche and then work from there on all the learning curves associated with figuring out how to make that niche profitable. This is much easier to go about doing than trying to reinvent the wheel. It doesn't have to be a new niche.

For example recently i picked up the domain holdemodds.net really cheap. Something like this would be a better first approach for a new affiliate imo. You could start with holdem odds, basic content and really breaking that down into many different sections. Next you could look and see who is your existing audience and what is the best way to market to them. From there you can begin to think expansion how can you expand capture additional traffic. That initial term helped give you your immediate start and it will be easier to get that initial group of themed traffic.

From there don't get too attached. You might learn a ton along the way and maybe you find yourself later with nothing special but a $500 per month affiliate business if you struggle. Well while it might appear worth more to you because the effort you put into it you'll still probably have the option of selling that website for $7K-$10K down the road because the buyers would likely be on a higher CPA or Rev share deal than you, they are also experts and no how to better monetize it. Poker Sites are not as easy of sells as they once were but that possibility still exists.

Now next time around perhaps you're equipped with $10K and a lot of knowledge and experience. Maybe this time you go find a much bigger potential domain pick something up for a couple grand, spend a couple grand on better design, quickly invest a little into content and have a few grand to hold you over while you're aggressive working this new site.

Now when this site is ranking you have options. Keep building it, add expansion sites, sell it for big money etc.

No matter which direction you go the start is the hardest part of affiliating. Once the momentum gets going this becomes rather easy. I find way to many people trying to push a massive bolder from the get go which results in very few ever really getting momentum started. That's probably the biggest hindrance to success in affiliating, outside of laziness and lack of confidence most affiliates experience.

Start with small battles ones that will work. Build experience, confidence, worth and get some small success under your belt while growing in knoweldge and the odds of being very successful in this have you as an overwhelming favorite.

kiss = keep it simple stupid.

I realize this isn't what you asked and would say do what your passionate about. But if your looking to make most money start with a domain in your budget 2 word exact match and work from there. That will give you some decent leverage during early stages and link building to the term of your official sites name will be much easier than generic. Later you'll have the experience to pull off big brand and big ideas.

[WSOPforFREE]

Thanks guys,

Actually, I am working with a fairly decent budget (10kish), a fortune 500 marketing consultant who's in the family, and a high end web designer, though to stay within my budget we'll be using a WordPress platform. Looking at Randy Ray's site on Poker SEO it looks like I'm headed in the wrong direction right off the start.

To try and get ready, I've been reading through as many of these threads as I can and trying to learn as much about the business as possible. I've also been getting consulting from a friend who has been in the gaming affiliate game since the early days of Party Poker and have weekly conversations with an Affiliate Manager he set me up with on a major non-rakeback network.

Our rewards program, without going into detail, is focused on a specific niche and designed to:
- appeal to newer and recreational players
- help convert low/mid-volume players into higher volume players
- give players challenging yet achievable goals in order to accomplish the above

The AM I've been detailing this to is pretty excited about the potential, but I have to agree with Mark on all his points. I will obviously be competing with rakeback and can only compete for the highest volume players if I can secure comparable deals (which is unlikely). Likewise, players I've described it to usually start with, "Well, why shouldn't I just take rakeback," but after listening to the program completely have been quite interested in signing up. As a semipro/pro player for the past 6 years, I feel I've created a program that would appeal to players like me.

To be honest, I did find one site doing what I plan to do, but it has been pulled down recently either due to it being a seasonal site or because of an iCann dispute due to it having a trademarked acronym in the URL. They had an amazing deal for players (60% rakeback equivalent), so I don't know how they negotiated the deal or made a profit.

So other than the CPA sites (PSO, Pokersavvy, Boogster), there have been no successful alternative rewards programs (my initial question :-)?

At prop: Are any of the sites from years ago that tried these unique ideas only to be abondoned still online? I'd love to check them out. I agree that this structure will be a lot of work, but I'm willing put in the effort. Though I plan on keeping it simple. Hopefully it will pay off.

Thanks again for the advice,
Aaron

PS - Also, thanks prop for the advice on the name change. I think I'll keep the moniker. It's good to be reminded of our own stupidity sometimes.

[pokerprop]

Do such sites exist? If so, have any of them been successful? Am I just setting myself up for failure?

Many sites have existed in this format. Give away merchandise, free poker books etc. Some point based others not. This was a common marketing strategy during the poker boom. One of my friends ran a site that used a points program where players got credit for winning WSOP seats. Basically what would have been there rakeback was points. He then bought them into WSOP events or if they didn't have enough had there points convered to Bodog satellite coupons for the purchae of qualifying for a seat through Bodog site. he later sold that website the new owners changed the format to rakeback and then later killed the site. It only just went offline maybe last year.

To respond to other post:

No I have nothing rewards based still online - in fact I even want to get away from Rakeback and I was onboard with that extremely early.

Basically the overall point of my previous long post is that affiliating is EXTREMELY easy! There is a guaranteed system anyone can follow to make well more than they could in a traditional job - yet very few follow it. I had made that post as i sensed a little doubt in your "Am I just setting myself up for failure?" question.

To comment some more further, I'm also fairly well convinced starting budget is of little importance and the average joe with not a dime to his name stands just as much as someone coming in with $200K and perhaps a better chance depending where the $200K came from.

Most want to take short cuts on the learning curve. Meanwhile they'll follow advice coming from those who are not very qualified to give it. If you go back and read forum posts from 2007 and 2008 everything was web 2.0, web 2.0 etc. etc. When affiliates came asking me about this I used to say "how many web 2.0 websites do you know making big money?" After seeing typing for a bit no response than a one liner response after a 2-5 minute delay the answer was telling enough.

Some sites obvious do make a lot of money pushing big boulders. I'm just making this post because it seems like your in the process of doing a lot of research making contacts etc. From my own personal experience and watching many affiliate fail is that most the advice out there even from well respected "industry experts" sucks and probably holds as many people back as it actually helps.

If your excited about your idea go for it full force. I'm not at all meaning to distract you from that. What I'm saying though is if your ideas and marketing plan relies on a lot of advice from others throw it out the window. Rolling up sleeves going to work and learning along the way is by far the best way to learn.

In online affiliate based marketing: fire ready aim works far better than ready aim fire from my experiences. Feedback from others is however extremely valuable. However once your in the process you'll start to recognize the areas where feedback is required and in time discerning that feedback will become even easier.

[ramchip]

As far as a first site, personally I'd strong advise you to start with an exact match domain for a niche and then work on how you can become an authority of that niche and then work from there on all the learning curves associated with figuring out how to make that niche profitable. This is much easier to go about doing than trying to reinvent the wheel. It doesn't have to be a new niche.

For example recently i picked up the domain holdemodds.net really cheap. Something like this would be a better first approach for a new affiliate imo. You could start with holdem odds, basic content and really breaking that down into many different sections. Next you could look and see who is your existing audience and what is the best way to market to them. From there you can begin to think expansion how can you expand capture additional traffic. That initial term helped give you your immediate start and it will be easier to get that initial group of themed traffic.

I don’t want this to look like I’m having a go a Prop again but I do think this is bad advice for a new affiliate. I have said before many times that many over valuate exact match domains. Now I’m not saying that all exact match domains are a waste of time but the truth is many are.

Using Prop’s example holdemodds.net, this has a low volume search but high competition. Unless you rank this top 3 you are only going to get at the very most a dribble of traffic. I know others will say that they will build dozens are long tails around the domain but even this is more difficult since the May Day Google update. Looking at the competition for “Holdem Odds” I simply would not bother.

If you read this forum or any other affiliate forum you will find that many are having problems with new sites. They are struggling to get them indexed but most of all they are struggling to get decent traffic due to the May Day update. I have over 70 sites which range from 1 page sites to sites with 100,000’s pages so as soon as the new algo update kicked in it was clear to see what was happening.

Getting back to exact matched domains some do have power plus of course can be good earners. I like to look for uncompetitive phrases though. Believe it or not there are still many unregistered domains that can still pull in decent traffic but you have to “think out of the box” a little.

These are the stats from an exact match domain that I launched just the other week.

ScreenHunter_01 May. 31 15.38.gif

The only link building I did was to my network of directories, of which most links have not even kicked in yet. The site is already generating on average 3 RMP’s a day although the site is to say the least crap as I have not have the time to develop it. Better still the site is in the casino niche! This .com domain cost under $10!

So I can understand what Prop is saying about exact match domains but think “out of the box” a little. Many have experienced exact matched domains even struggling to hit page 1 of Google then end up wasting months on end struggling for a top 3 spot which in many cases they are not going to achieve.
I now prefer to build big brand sites but I not going to go on about the power of these sorts of sites today.

[pokerprop]

I had done no research on the example, I just threw that one out there because I picked it up for $20 the other day.

I don't disagree with what you're saying here either. I'm simply saying targeting a specific niche and an existing term and building all around that is a better starting strategy for most, than starting out with the goal to be the next PSO, or CardPlayer. The exact short length exact match domain even if having no inherent SEO value gives you a decent start in other ways. It is natural to link to a site by its name. It is not natural to link Online Poker to PokerListings.com though they still do okay ranking for it. Getting started though that specific niche specific term while you'll build from and then make a qualty site surrounding it is an added boost.

I'm not 100% sold on that now am I a complete exact match junky. In fact I'd like to sell bestpokerbonus.com so I can instead build onlinepokerwatch.com. Neither is developed at the moment but because I paid so much for bestpokerbonus.com i feel compelled to choose that over the domain I actual prefer - because with good news, regular sections people are interested in etc. I think online poker watch is something I could get people to remember and return to. I'm also not a starting affiliate either though and for a starting affiliate if they owned both i'd say go bestpokerbonus.com and aim to be the best site about poker bonuses. Again was just some general advice.

[ramchip]

Yes onlinepokerwatch.com is not bad but I would prefer a 2 word brandable domain if possible. I still believe there are many available if you look hard enough. Any site I build now I’m thinking long term. I have seen the value of having some kind of mascot / image people can associate with a site. This is of course worth its weight in gold when you get to the stage of getting an operator to design a custom landing page as this really does push up conversions.

So I agree that online poker watch is brandable but I would prefer something shorter. Just had a quick look at what is available so I guess I would go for something like pokerwyse.com or something along those lines. This domain I could easily brand, I have a good idea of a mascot I could have produced plus the domain could apply to every poker sub niche. From experience I would prefer this sort of domain to an exact match domain which could struggle to get any traffic from the exact match phrases anyway.

Not everybody’s cup of tea I know but I’m having a lot of success with these sorts of domains. You do though of course have to work your balls of to develop a brandable site.

[pokerprop]

Again I'm the same as you. I have not yet to this date ever built a three word domain, I've built a lot of sites so i can't say for absolute certain that is true however none I can recall and pretty sure it is true.

However a strategy I use is to find a topic I am interested in and then build out a very detailed heavily researched 25 page site that adds a lot of solid information on a topic to the web. I usually do this where I find a need as opposed to analyzing the competition. I am interested in many topics so I end up doing quite a lot of these sites and i enjoy making them. From there i identify which have the potential for expansion and later I might kill an entire site rolling it into another I've now identified to be a brand i'd like to develop.

Recently I was searching for best slot machine terms, the results I found in google were depressive. As a result I acquired bestslotmachines.net and when I get motivation for this topic I'll near certainly build it at some point.

onlinepokerwatch.com I don't think is anything special in a domain. However it describes perfectly an idea I have for a website and the domain first the exact idea. When I seen it i grew fond of it right off the bat.

So its likely I'll be doing a lot more three word domains soon. I also have howtobingo.com and i really seen this as memorable and a site that could be build as how to be a bingoer, how to do bingo - chat games, bonuses, jackpots, multiple cards etc. etc. all the ins and out of bingo. Its a domain that while three words sparks me to get excited about the topic.

Glancing over the list of all my other ideas I'll likely never get to: 75+% is a two word domain.

My strategy allows me to both spread myself really thing, but also to stay focused at the same time. Sites that don't work get moved into bigger sites that do, or sold, while bigger ideas naturally develop. I generally from the outgo avoid anything that gets me really excited if I feel it is high risk and more effort as i quickly get burned out and board. I'm at the stage now when I do start a small brandable domain I am confident it is going to work because it is an extension multipe things already working and there are 1000+ existing visitors per month to push now into the centralized location I'm going build.

[WSOPforFREE]

Hey guys,

Thanks for your input, though this thread has been slightly derailed by domain and branding concepts. :-)

Still looking for examples of an successful "alternate" rakeback systems or rewards systems ran at the affiliate level, no involving rake races, chases, etc.

Something using points similiar to PSO, Pokersavvy, or Boogster, but based on MGR as opposed to CPA.

Thanks again,
Aaron