GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 15 - January 2011

Making the case for poker affiliate networks By Jeremy Enke O ver the past year I have further diver- sified my affiliate business outside gaming and into more mainstream verti- cals. During this time, I have able been to examine and contrast the main differences between the poker affiliate market and the retail market. Whether you are marketing poker, casi- nos, weight-loss products, preciousmetals or any other product for that matter, the fundamentals of affiliate marketing remain the same. Drive targeted traf- fic to your Web site or landing pages, and effectively convert the traffic to new customers through your affili- ate links. Most superaffiliates I know could promote in any niche and be successful. This is because they have mastered the fundamentals in their given affiliate expertise (SEO, PPC, Social Media, List Building, etc.). Once affiliates have made it to this level in their career, it becomes in- creasingly more important to be se- lective as to which affiliate programs and affiliate managers they work with. Typically at this point as well, the successful affiliate will be convert- ing traffic through several different affiliate programs and platforms. What I have found through my af- filiate adventures with large non- gaming companies is that very few operate stand-alone affiliate pro- grams. Although some of these com- panies will have an in-house affiliate manager, almost all run their affiliate program through a network model such as Commission Junction. At first glance many poker operators would probably envision this as being too costly, or giv- ing up to much control. However, when you look at the bigger picture, there are exponential benefits for both the opera- tor and the affiliate. Personally, in the months and years to come, I would love to see the poker af- filiate industry embrace this type of business model. When reading the top industry forums such as GPWA or PAL, the three most common com- plaints you see on a monthly basis are: Poor affiliate manager communications Bad tracking Late payments When operating on a network model, especially if the poker operator chose to use “network affiliate managers,” most of these issues could be alleviated. I realize there are poker affiliate networks such as PAS (PokerAffiliateSolutions.com) and PAW (PokerAffiliateWorld.com). However, outside of rakeback, we have yet to see poker affiliates and operators fully embrace the model as other more mature verticals in affiliate marketing have done. • • • The current poker affiliate networks are aggregate-type networks; you can pro- mote several rooms on the network, but the networks still pull affiliate track- ers directly from the individual affiliate programs, and then redistribute them to their affiliates. Regardless of whether the networks are scraping data or using data feeds, their stats are only as good as the operators’ internal affiliate programs and tracking. Likewise, the networks get paid each month by the operator and then re- distribute the commissions to affiliates. Outside of gaming, in the traditional affiliate marketplace, networks oper- ate a bit differently. For example, with Commission Junction, many compa- nies will outsource 100 percent of their affiliate program and manage- ment to CJ, which not only supplies the affiliate platform but also uses its own tracking system, which must be integrated into each of its customers’ sites. This ensures that CJ is always in control of tracking with their own internal links and that scraping er- rors won’t affect tracking. Furthermore, affiliates are always guaranteed payment from each com- pany they promote on the network. In the traditional space, companies are required to hold a reserve bal- ance with the network that is always greater than the amount owed by the network to their affiliates. In the future I would love to see the existing poker affiliate networks take on a larger and more comprehensive role with the poker operators. There is a rea- son many companies in the traditional space outsource their entire affiliate pro- gram to networks; the top networks are experts in every aspect of affiliate mar- keting and already have a robust data- base of affiliates who trust them and ex- clusively promote products and services on their respective networks. “ What I have found through my affiliate adventures with large nongaming companies is that very few operate stand-alone affiliate programs. ” 14 The case for poker affiliate networks