I suppose an “About Me” page is where you would expect to read a third person professional write up on myself. Hmmm…. well that’s not really my style, so I’ll just go ahead and tell you “about me” in my own words. 
The Expectations from Poker Affiliates for Poker Affiliate Programs and Affiliate Managers
August 22nd, 2007 by Jeremy Enke
Exactly one year ago I wrote an article about The Expectations of Poker Affiliate Managers For Poker Affiliates over at PAW. Wow how things have changed over the past 12 months with the UIGEA, the restructuring of many companies, and the massive turnover in affiliate departments.
Lately it seems many affiliates have expressed a fair amount of dissatisfaction with several different poker affiliate programs. Just as affiliate managers expect certain expectations from their affiliates, so do the affiliates who are the ones out marketing and bringing in the players. I was inspired to write this post after coming back from vacation and seriously not being able to count on one hand how many poker affiliate programs are having big issues right now with one of the points below.
In this blog post I hope to share some insights into what a professional affiliate expects from their affiliate managers and affiliate departments. Essentially being an affiliate manager and running a good affiliate department is not that difficult. So let’s get right into it.
As you read through this, many programs may come to mind. I felt like being nice today though and not singling anyone out. If you must know just take a quick scan of the forums at PAW, CAP, or GPWA and you can probably figure out real quick which programs are struggling.
1. Communication - This is the fundamental most important element in any business relationship or partnership. Yet in the poker affiliate world lately, it seems to be one of the biggest complaints. Affiliates realize that affiliate managers are very busy individuals and cannot necessarily respond within minutes or even hours sometimes. But a 24 hour response time is more than reasonable.
There is absolutely NO reason that affiliates emails should go unanswered. If a room cannot provide a 24 hour response time to their affiliates, then they are either under staffed, or they need to re-evaluate their staff. Often times what happens is that emails stack up and the non important ones, or the triple replied to open emails get pushed to the side and forgotten. One of the things the PAW affiliate team did was set up a help desk to organize and keep all the documented support issues in one ticket.
I don’t say this to pimp PAW’s affiliate department, instead to help others. I highly suggest every affiliate manager set up a help desk for your main support email address. It organizes the entire departments queries and support issues into one platform. Simply communicating in a timely manner with affiliates can double or triple your business very fast. And vice versa, ignoring emails and being non-responsive can decimate your program. Not only do affiliates expect an open line of communication, most medium sized and all big affiliates demand it.
2. Payments - With the UIGEA it understandable that some programs may have stumbled upon some payment issues initially. However it has been long enough that there is surely a way out there for every program to pay their affiliates. None of the big rooms have any problems paying U.S. affiliates anymore. Affiliate departments must realize that many poker affiliates depend on their affiliate payments as their main source of income. Delayed payments or getting the run around is just bad business. It’s no different than if your two week paycheck from a traditional 9-5 job bounced or was delayed. This would be unacceptable to almost any traditional worker in any country. Affiliates expect to be paid on time and properly for the players they refer each month, this shouldn’t be that difficult.
3. Tracking - This has been and will always be an issue in the poker affiliate industry. I tend to side with the AM’s many times on tracking issues. Often a tracking issue is not the actual programs fault, instead it is the affiliates. Yet at the same time, affiliate managers have an obligation to the affiliates to check if players tracked when asked.
Likewise in many instances, if a player didn’t track but the affiliate is legitimate and the player looks legitimate, what is the big deal about adding them under the affiliate tracker. Believe me, it will usually pay off dividends in the future versus losing 100% of this affiliates business. Sure if the affiliate is brand new and it is their first player then maybe investigate it more.
Again, tracking is an issue in every affiliate industry. But affiliates have the expectation that the players they send should be tracking properly.
4. Avoiding Issues Does Not Make Them Go Away - I bring this up because over my years as a full time poker affiliate, I have seen this happen countless times. A major issue will come up either from an individual affiliate, or even worse in an industry forum. And the affiliate managers or affiliate departments completely ignore the issue or don’t offer any explanation. This is bad business and it amazes me that it happens so often in our industry.
If an affiliate program or affiliate manager wants to be respected in this industry, they need to realize that it is O.K. to admit a fault, fix it, and then move on. But ignoring issues and thinking affiliates will simply forget is pointless. Affiliates simply expect their affiliate managers to be honest.
5. Small Affiliates Can Become Big In The Future:
Affiliates expect to be treated with professionalism and responsiveness no matter what size they are today.
6. Communication - No this is not a typo. This is also #6 because it is just that damn important. And as I mentioned, it IS the biggest thing lacking in this industry with respect to the affiliate programs. How can any affiliate department simply just ignore emails? And trust me, I am aware of PAW Network or PokerNews accounts that do several thousands of dollars per month in revenue, and even we occasionally have a hard time getting responses. Answering emails and providing support should be the foundation of any affiliate managers job. Not to mention, out of all the poker and casino affiliate programs, how many AM’s post in forums on a regular basis or even monitor the forums? I have never worked as an affiliate manager, but if I was consulting a company on the most important tasks for their AM, this would be at the top of the list. An A.M. showcasing their customer service and knowledge in a public forum can go a LONG way.
At the end of the day, affiliates have a tremendous selection of affiliate programs to choose from in this industry. Of course the main rooms are always going to get the lion share of the business. And it amazes me that none of them have stepped up and became the Gold Standard of poker affiliate programs. If a room like PokerStars, PartyPoker, Absolute, or FullTiltPoker really wanted to, they could dominate the poker affiliate market and probably increase their revenues by over seven figures each month. The ingredients are all there, yet not a single program has baked the cake. Affiliates are waiting for one program to surface as the “Gold Standard” of poker affiliate programs.
In many cases, the executives of these poker sites need to stop seeing the affiliate programs as a “marketing expense”, and start seeing them as a profit center. To the defense of many affiliate managers, this is often the overall problem. However I think every poker and casino affiliate at all the industry forums would agree; there is no excuse for poor or absent communication.
As always I encourage both affiliates and affiliate managers to leave your comments here.
Jeremy
Oh I suppose I better give an obligatory plug to the PAW Network. Our A.M. Mitchell in Australia is one of the best A.M.’s in the industry. In fact he has been known to send out cases of “undrank” Australian Fosters to our top affiliates. <———-Fact of the day…..Aussies hate Foster’s but actually like Budweiser. Strange world indeed!
August 22nd, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Good post Jeremy. I completely understand what affiliate managers are going through. Some programs get stuck in binds, lose managers etc. but the ones you know are ignoring you or not doing anything to rectify the problems are such a pain.
When people say, if you don’t like them don’t promote them it only works in some instances. Unless you’re pokerlistings and don’t mind losing mega bucks just to make a point.
Great post.
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:23 pm
I think a lot of the problems stem from people higher up in the company that dont understand the importance of the affiliate program. It trickles down, and creates problems at every level.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Great Post! And it really summarizes a lot of frustrations that both the rooms and affiliates experience on a daily basis.
I would add this though:
3.1 Flexibility.
Rooms need to have the flexibility to absorb costs in the event that they had made a mistake on a deal or an allocation of a player.
Likewise, like you mentioned, a room with the flexibility to allocate a player that may not have tracked, goes a long way in keeping the affiliate promoting their product.
Thanks for the nice little plug! Just might need to get your facts straight about the beer - it’s practically a crime to send out beer.
We Aussies love to share it in a pub with good company!
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:09 am
Nice comment Mitchell. Don’t worry, I can ship that nasty beer from the states, providing the USPS worker doesn’t get to it first :). Better yet I’ll bring home a ton of Crown next time I am in Oz.
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:12 am
Good post Jeremy, in fact good blog overall. I will keep my eye’s on it as I’m sure more good articles will follow.
PS: Liked to see the archived version of PokerNews, this definitely keeps me motivated!
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:09 am
The archived versions of those sites was cool to see. Great post. It’s about time one of the bigger poker affiliates speak up about how bad the communication can be with some of the affiliate programs.
For the amount of money online poker sites bring in through affiliates you would think they would want to invest money into good staff. Great post