Deciding which poker rooms to promote is one of the key decisions a new affiliate is faced with. With that in mind, here are three things that will hopefully help to ensure that you get your promotions off on the right foot.
Choose an established partner:
When new poker rooms are starting up with names like Chocolate Poker, FatBet Poker and A-Winning-Hand (completechoices with dashes!), it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the poker market is becoming saturated.
Everyone wants a piece of the action, but unfortunately not everyone is going to be able to get it. And if a poker room is getting short on cash then you can be fairly certain that as an affiliate you’re not going to get paid – the Cardspike debacle of 2008 was proof of that.
Therefore, make sure that any merchant you chose to partner yourself with has a proven track record in the industry. Every affiliate has their own requirements, but personally I won’t consider working with a poker room until they’ve been around for at least 18 months.
Communication:
I can’t stress how important communication is when it comes to working with a poker room. Whether it’s sorting out problems or simply keeping abreast of upcoming promotions, you need to be working with a program that will get back to you quickly and accurately.
Therefore before you sign up to anything, write the program in question an email. Ask them some questions about how their program converts, what promotions they have coming up … anything that needs a response, and then wait to see how long they take to get back to you.
After all, if a poker program doesn’t get back to you quickly when they’re trying to sell themselves to a potential new affiliate, you can be pretty sure they’re not going to be keeping you up to date with things when they really matter.
In short, if you haven’t heard back from a program within a couple of days then move on.
Payment Processing:
Receiving payment each month is what it’s all about, so make sure you’re happy with the arrangements. First up, there are a number of different payment methods out there, so choose a program which pays you in the manner that you suits you best. Make sure you’re aware of any charges that you may incur by using these methods. Equally, if you prefer to be paid by check, then you may well want to find out how long it’s going to take for that check to reach you.
You’ll also want to ask when the program aims to pay you each month and then do some research on the various affiliates forums to see how reliable the program is at paying you on that date.