Hi Affiliate X,
Apologies for not getting back to you sooner, but I wanted to take the time in-house to discuss the option of offering CPA deals at Affiliate Program X. Up until now, at least on the sportsbook front, it is not an area that we have looked at solidly.
In principle and provided that we can get the mechanics right, I believe this is something the board at Affiliate Program X would entertain on a trial basis.
However, having looked at the activity of the 216 players you have sent to Affiliate Program X in the past 9-10 months, 93 of these players have clearly come to us in the hope of claiming and winning from their bonus. It is evident to me that players you have sent, on the whole, are very much hunting the bonus. Only 8 of the 216 players you have sent since October last year have deposited anything other than £50, and only 2 have deposited more than once. As you know, the bonus most bookmakers is set up to act as a starting point for a player’s association with the company, rather than an end point.
Unfortunately, given the ever increasing number of bookmakers out there offering welcome bonuses, it is easy for players (and indeed affiliates to send their players) to go to bookmakers with the sole intention of claiming the bonus, and reducing a player’s risk below the 100% margin mark that natural bookmaking tends to go 6 or 7% above to maintain a profit – hence why your account is in the red. Working with an affiliate on a revenue sharing basis is therefore the most beneficial form of commission structure from my point of view as you are also sharing in any losses – which you should expect if you vehemently promote the welcome bonus.
Had we be paying you on a £20 CPA basis for every player that has met a £50 deposit release, you’d be a pretty wealthy man and it would have left us in the red on both the player and affiliate front. If it were clear to me that a pattern of the players you have brought in was not in line with simple bonus abuse (I am not suggesting that this was ever your intention) and indeed that more than 8 of your players had deposited anything other than £50 on a one-off occasion, then I would look at a CPA. The fact is, only 2 of your players have ever redeposited and therefore it can make no sense to us to pay a CPA on this.
If you were to show me ways in which you do/could promote Affiliate Program X aside from pushing the welcome bonus rigourously and in ways that might allow for players, as is the norm, to ‘try’ the sportsbook with a £10-£20 deposit (90% of depositing players tend to join in this way), like what they see (that’s our job), come back in line with our expected redeposit rate from retention campaigns and remain loyal in line with our expected player lifetime and value, then we can look at a CPA payment. That being said, I’m sure a revenue share deal might suit you better when/if it came to this.
I do hope that the companies you do work with on a CPA basis are making a long term profit, or else you might find that the model you are working to will not last too long. If you would like to discuss ways in which you can compare bookmakers aside from a free bet comparison through your affiliate network, I would be more than happy to work alongside you to create a more sustainable business model which would see Affiliate Program X play a sizeable role on your site.
Kind regards,
Tom Galanis
Affiliate Program X Affiliate Manager
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