GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 19 - February 2012

“ What happens when you give players something that they can’t get anywhere else? They come, click on your affiliate links, keep playing and actually want to get your newsletters to see what’s next.” The third reason for your new faith in de- veloping a private tournament strategy is increased player retention. Often you will find that you send players to an op- erator, only for them to become inactive and stop playing with that poker room, or they move somewhere else where they may not be tagged to you. The worst case is that they just stop playing altogether. Some affiliates argue that retention is the job of the operator and that an affiliate’s job is simply to get players to come to the operator. Here is a thought every affiliate should have: “If I can retain my players on any given operator’s site, how much more do I make through rev share or increased CPA rates?” Hosting private tournaments is one of the best ways an affiliate can keep players ac- tively playing on any given operator, es- pecially if those private tournaments are in the form of a series or league. Bottom line: Increased retention ultimately means more affiliate revenue. The fourth reason for developing a pri- vate tournament strategy is for increased loyalty. This is different from retention, and we’ll explain. Retention is when your players keep playing on any given opera- tor’s site. Loyalty is when they keep com- ing back to your site to see what’s going to happen next. This is a simple but often overlooked concept. If you can consistent- ly provide a sense of value for your play- ers, why would they not come back over and over? Many top gaming communi- ties started this way, and private tourna- ments are still a great way to get players to an affiliate site on a very regular basis. Bottom line: private tournaments cre- ate loyalty and keep players coming back to your site, where they are exposed to all of your offers. Just like Charlie Sheen, you’re winning! So you have identified the need for some private tournaments. What’s next? There are a few options that we will explore. The most obvious one is to speak to the af- filiate managers and request some private tournaments. Simple, right? You have the site, you have some traffic and you want to perform better for the operator. Unfortunately in the real world, some- times this just isn’t enough. Operators have fairly strict rules and guidelines when giving away private tour- naments. After all, they are looking for ROI and are most likely held accountable for the results they bring in from the affili- ates they work with. Every cent of money or every promotional item they give away comes with a calculated and well thought out approach. Long gone are the days of operators throwing money around and hoping it sticks somewhere. For those of you who have recently ap- proached operators requesting a private 45