GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 36 - October 2016

An affiliate wants to make money just as much as the affiliate manager. I love it when an affiliate manager is pro- active. Contacts youwith newpromotions, gives you the right images and keeps you up to date. This also applies to the affiliate network. For an affiliate program, it is very important to send newsletters. Some of the casinos sendus newsletters everyweekwith a nice amount of text in it thatwe can rewrite; that’s the easiest thing for an affiliate that way, if they can do it. And above that, in my opinion, it is important that both affiliate manager and network are honest with you. What’s your preferred method of com- munication with affiliate managers? The best and easiest way of communicatingwith affiliate managers is Skype. I have all my contacts on Skype. And every time we add a new post for a certain casino brand, we communicate it on Skype, so they know what we are doing for them. The majority of managers finds this to be a positive thing, and that means we have a good connection with them. Of course, we cannot always deliver the numbers, for some casinosmore than other ones, but I always want to have a good connection with them and be honest with themandhave thembe honest withme. What prompted you to join the GPWA? How has it helped you? I am always in- terested to read about actual stuff in the in- dustry. And above that, I want be informed about changes in the industry and if there are problems with affiliate networks or ca- sino brands. It’s always good to read about it, because you can then act on it. And, of course, it is fun to read the off-topic stuff that comes around, about movies and about conferences and the parties that are orga- nized and the giveaways you can get, that kind of stuff. When I can or when a topic interests me I will step in to the discussion and try to give my opinion on it. It has helped me with some SEO stuff, and also with choosing some good con- verting brands. What do you like about the industry? I like theway it changes all the time.Almost every week there are new casinos — and casinos closing, of course; that is not themost lovely thing because you just build up some play- ers and then they stop. But I like that new casinos are coming in, with new techniques and new live casino things. Some people I knowhate changes. But I like it when things change because you can jump on it and at the end, if you jump on it and you do it well, it will bring you some profit.We are online for just 15months, and the bigger players have already got a good reputation onGoogle, so the only possible waywe can score is when things change, we can step into it and try to get inposition on things. The casino industry is also interesting because of the unlimited information you can write about. There is never a dull moment in this industry. And don’t forget about the conferences and the people in the industry. It is always nice to see all of them again when you visit one of the conferences across the world. If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be and why? I think I mentioned it before. The pushy affiliate managers. And the ones that keep on sending me e-mails or Skype messages when we already talked about a deal; it works the opposite way. It’s one thing I don’t like. Say when you go to a conference, and affiliates in general are very good and I like them, and then you go to the binary options section, for example, and it makes you crazy — ranting and ranting and pull- ing you into the stands. I don’t like it. And I amwaiting for the moment the list of restricted countries gets shorter. Ev- erybody wishes that the list of restricted countries gets shorter and shorter. But I know that is just a dream. Maybe step by step, some countries will stop. But I think I can always dream about it. I think of new interesting posts every minute. I wake up in the morning with 10 pages in my head I want to write, and in the end I can only write two or three a day. Despite a busy work schedule, Sneekes (middle) always manages to find time to hang out with friends and attend industry conferences. Dave Sneekes – BBCasinos W W W . G P W A T I M E S . O R G 41