GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 28 - April 2014

bet365 to receive as we have never won this award before. It shows how far the bet365 poker product has come in terms of development and attracting affiliates to promote the product to their users. It’s a massive marketing tool for bet365 to use as affiliateswill nowwant topromote the poker product evenmore due towinning this award. This award is testament to the hard work put in by the affiliate team; myself; Alexander Carr, who was the poker affiliate manager before I started; and the poker product team, who all strive to ensure the bet365 PokerAffiliate Program is thebest it canbe. bet365 is part of the iPoker Network, which ranks anywhere from second to fourth in PokerScout's online traffic report inanygivenweek. But evenso, the iPokerNetwork'spoker trafficamounts to just10percentofwhatPokerStarsdraws. How difficult is it to compete in online pokerwhen there isonedominantmarket leader? The online pokermarket is a very competitivemarket to be in, but in order to be the best you have got to compete with thebest. I feelwinning theBestPoker Affiliate Programwill give bet365 a big- ger foothold in themarket asaffiliateswill recognize this and it could therefore help to attract new players to bet365 through additional promotion. With winning this awardbet365nowhas tokeepup thehard work that has been done over the past 12 months and continue to improve the poker product. We’re confident that we can emulate thepast year and surpass the successwhichwehave already achieved. What were your first impressions of the GPWA as an affiliate manager? And how does the GPWA fit into bet365'smarket- ing efforts? My first impression of the GPWA is that it provides a valuable and crucial platform for affiliates and op- erators to communicate with each other. Forums are a very important tool for affiliates andmany affiliates use a forum on their sites. The social aspect of forums acts as a genuinely unique selling point for affiliate websites and this is the same for the GPWA. Having a place where both affiliates and operators can have discussions about related topics is crucial for the success of the industry. A good example is very recently I responded to a query from an affiliate on the GPWA website in order to assist them with an issue they were having. Communicating with the affiliate was quick and easy, allowingus to resolve the issue ina timely manner, which the affiliate appreciated, especially due to all of the information I was able toprovide to them. It's one thing to bring in a new person to a site. It's another thing entirely to get them to stick around. What does bet365 do to retain players sent by affiliates, particularly in regards topoker? At bet365 wehaveagreatCRMmodelwhichallows us to retain players on all platforms. One of the key aspects to the success of bet365 is not only our ability to attract players but also retain them once they have first played at bet365. Each product has its own unique ways of retaining customers with different promotions and processes. We also have a fantastic customer reten- tion team inplacewithin thebusiness. In regards to poker we have numerous ongoing promotionswhich appeal to our customers.Oneof themain retentionpro- motions bet365 offers is the VIP Scheme. “Beingnamed theBest AffiliateProgram for Poker at the iGBAffiliate Awardsshowshow far thebet365poker product hascome in termsof development andattractingaffiliates to promote theproduct to their users.” 69 AffiliateManager InterviewSeries

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