GPWA Times - Issue 20 - March 2012

GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES Tell us about your sites and the differ- ent markets they are focusing on. They all feature information on poker bonus- es, promotions and – most especially – rakeback offers. How did you decide to concentrate on rakeback? From the beginning I’ve been concentrating on rakeback and I’ve had a lot of success with it. Meanwhile more and more poker sites have been removing this offer. So now I too have to look forward and concentrate more on bonuses and promotions. There is a lot of debate in the online gaming industry over rakeback. What are your thoughts on rakeback, and how it affects the industry? Well, there are several ways to look at it. Players love it and take advantage of it. Affiliates get lower revenue per player, but there is still significant income! When did you launch your sites? I launched the first site at the end of January 2009. I started the second one in August 2009. And so on. Many of your sites have a similar look and feel. What is the SEO strategy be- hind having so many sites with similar content but slightly different domains? Everyone is talking only about SEO these days. Yes, SEO is maybe good but it is not my priority to have my sites online. The similar look comes from the PAS software, which is very effective. So . . . PAS Team, thank you for your perfect software! How much traffic does your Serbia- focused site get compared to your oth- er sites? How big is the poker market in Serbia? My Serbian traffic is about 1 percent of my whole traffic. There are a lot of Serbian sites that I follow, and it seems to me that there is a good, but maybe not big, market there. You list Serbian as your native lan- guage. How did you end up living in Vienna? My parents have lived in Vienna for about 40 years, and so after my mili- tary training I decided to move there at the end of 1990. There was unrest in the former Yugoslavia. I was a young guy (21) and didn’t want to die for some political ideology. I think one or two years after I moved, war began. The upcoming war was the main reason why I left Yugoslavia. How much of your traffic is mobile traffic? Do you have a strategy when it comes to attracting mobile users? Right now I’m not focused on mobile traf- fic. This is on my “to-do” list. How did you become involved in the in- dustry? Through a friend from Vienna. I had to script something for his rakeback site but it was not possible as his data was unusable for creating MySQL tables and queries. Because there is never enough money, a few weeks later I started to in- vestigate online gambling after my friend told me how much money he was already earning in the industry. I thought to my- self, “Why shouldn’t I try?” How long did it take for you to start earning money? It took me more than six months to get my first revenue into Moneybookers. What traits do you look for in an affili- ate manager? How about in an affiliate program? Always be available for affili- ates. Don’t keep us waiting one, two, three or more weeks to get an answer. I per- sonally don’t like affiliate managers who only want higher positions on the site. And I really hate it when affiliate links are changed or are disabled or new sites are added, with affiliate managers promising you a lot and then if you want something they just don’t reply to your e-mail. And DON’T sell our e-mail addresses! What advice would you offer someone just starting out in the industry? This is really a good question. Maybe this ad- vice will help. You need a lot of patience if you want to be successful. Don’t take too many different gambling sites into your offer, like I did when I started. Hire a Web designer to build your site for you if you can’t. Don’t spam around. What prompted you to join the GPWA? Did it have anything to do with the stolen-content issue that you were in- nocently caught up in, thanks to the un- scrupulous actions of an affiliate man- ager in October 2010? Yes, that was the reason I joined the GPWA. By the way, I have to confess that I didn’t know about the GPWA before then. I found a backlink from the GPWA in my site statistics so I looked into the thread about the stolen content. I had already had a few e-mail conversations with the complaining person, so we both contacted the affiliate manager to clear up this issue, and it was settled satisfactorily. Some of your sites carry the GPWA Approved Portal seal. Why did you make the effort to get these sites ap- proved by the GPWA? The reason is that with the GPWA seals I get more effective players. Players have more trust in ask- ing via e-mail or private messages via my forum for good deals, tips and help when they have trouble with some gambling sites. I’m really proud to have the seal – and of course the T-shirt, too! What do you like about the industry? You can do your job without any pressure. If you do more, more (money) will come back – and all of this without a fixed loca- tion. So it’s a win-win situation. If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be? Eliminate all those barriers and limitations that exist in some countries. Example: If I play online in NiCKY NickyV Managers: don’t keep us waiting! Affiliates: don’t spam around! Age:42 Hometown:StariBanovci,Serbia Living in:Vienna,Austria FavoriteFood:Scampiallabuzzara,beefsteak Sites: bestpokerdeal.org,best-poker-rakeback.org, rsrakeback.org,affmoney.net,poker.in.rs,1x2.rs, bookmaker.rs,morebest()deal.org–coming GPWA Affiliate Interview Series