GPWA Times - Issue 20 - March 2012

How important is brand recognition when choosing affiliate programs to work with? W ith the changes over the past year in the online poker market, and the exit of some of the largest online poker sites in the industry, many poker affiliates have been actively looking for new affiliate programs to work with. In my last GPWA Times Magazine article I discussed five areas of im- portance to consider when choos- ing new poker affiliate programs to work with in 2012. These areas are: 1. Industry trust 2. Affiliate manager & communications 3. Terms & conditions 4. Payment processing 5. Future outlook One area that was not discussed, however, is the role that “brand rec- ognition” should play when exploring new affiliate programs to promote. It’s easy to say, “I only want to pro- mote rooms with great brand recog- nition.” However, when we explore the topic of brand recognition in re- spect to online poker rooms, there are advantages as well as disadvan- tages to affiliates when promoting poker sites with varying levels of brand recognition. Before we dive into the topic fur- ther, though, it’s important to un- derstand exactly what brand recog- nition is. The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s goods or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” In the online poker industry several poker sites have done a spectacular job building their brand recogni- tion over the years. For example, if I were to say that I played in a tour- nament at Party today, every online poker player in the world would know I was referring to PartyPoker. Likewise if I were sitting at a pok- er table in Las Vegas with a hat on that contained nothing but the PokerStars red spade logo, every other player would know that this was a PokerStars hat. In the global industry of online pok- er, brand recognition is extremely important for operators who are looking to build trust and attract new players. Let’s examine the ad- vantages and disadvantages in re- spect to affiliates when promoting the various poker sites. Promoting poker sites with strong brand recognition There’s an old saying in business: “Surround yourself with successful people.” Well, the same holds true for websites; however, it should state, “Surround yourself with suc- cessful brands.” One of the great- est benefits of having recognizable brands on your website is that it lends credibility when your traffic first arrives. Additionally, most affiliates will agree that player retention rates are far greater with the sites they promote that have stronger brand recognition. Player conversions will often be higher as well, simply be- cause there’s a good chance your traffic will recognize the poker site’s name or logo and be more willing to follow through with a call to action on a recognized brand versus an un- recognized brand. Because of the higher conversion and retention rates with highly rec- ognized poker sites, it usually makes sense to begin promoting with reve- nue share versus CPA. Anytime you can take advantage of the opportu- nity to build a long-term residual income stream, it’s worth it. Although there is never a sure thing in the online poker industry, you can usually be assured that these highly recognized brands will have superior payment processing, es- tablished industry trust and a posi- tive future outlook. This is especial- ly true in the European market. Nevertheless, there are indeed disad- vantages for affiliates when promot- ing rooms that have strong brand recognition. With the strong brand recognition many of these operators enjoy, their need for affiliates often becomes diminished. This frequent- ly leads to poor communications between the smaller to mid-size af- filiates and the affiliate department. Typically you will also see lower starting commission rates among these operators as well. If you look at the poker affiliate programs over the past two years that have B y J eremy E nke How important is brand recognition when choosing affiliate programs to work with?