[10:02:58] Affiliate X: Hey Tom, how are you? Jsut a quick follow up with you to see if you had chance to go over the email with the offer we discussed for our facebook tipping page last week?
[10:03:14] Tom Galanis: hi mate
[10:03:20] Tom Galanis: I don’t think I received it
[10:03:26] Tom Galanis: could you send again?
[10:04:09] Affiliate X: Sure, give me a few mins. Will let you know when I have sent it
[10:08:56] Affiliate X: Resent, please confirm you received it. Cheers
[10:09:25] Affiliate X: From XXXXXXXXXXXX@gmail.com
[10:11:55] Tom Galanis: received – could you tell me the following: how big is your email database? how many are active?
[10:12:25] Tom Galanis: bottom line is this – from your proposal, any one of my clients is going to want to work on a CPA basis if you are “guaranteeing 10 customers”
[10:12:53] Affiliate X: It is basically people off the page who have signed upto receiving the horse racing email tips from us. There is around 200 at the moment
[10:12:53] Tom Galanis: I can’t see anyone going for the £500 flat fee
[10:13:19] Affiliate X: Ok mate, I can’t do anything on a CPA basis as we have a few prepaid deals on there and obviously they take priority
[10:13:27] Tom Galanis: to give you an idea, I get anxious about signing off £500 flat fees for a mailshot to 200k databases
[10:13:52] Tom Galanis: 200 potentials is not going to excite them, I’m afraid
[10:14:09] Tom Galanis: so tough to monetise facebook traffic
[10:14:13] Affiliate X: Sure, but it is not just the email that they will be being promoted on mate
[10:14:36] Tom Galanis: I appreciate that, but I can’t see anyone getting 10 customers from the facebook page
[10:15:08] Affiliate X: bxx3xx have with us and Wxxxxxx Hxxx have been working with us for about 2 weeks and have 4 new depositors
[10:15:59] Affiliate X: Not sure why you don’t think any new depositors will come from it. You can’t get anymore targeted to people on a tipping page, can you?
[10:20:10] Tom Galanis: well, how are you generating traffic?
[10:21:07] Tom Galanis: I could get 1045 people to like my dead dog’s funeral page – the question is, how active are they?
[10:21:49] Affiliate X: Mainly through liking comments on other betting related pages which results in them coming to our page and liking ours. You can see how active they are by looking at the page mate
[10:23:00] Tom Galanis: If you’re confident, why not work on a CPA or a revenue share?
[10:23:16] Tom Galanis: I could even give you a percentage of the turnover with one of my clients
[10:23:21] Tom Galanis: far more lucrative
[10:24:07] Affiliate X: The only reason is because I have prepaid deals with 3 other clients and obviously I want to keep them happy and deliver more players for them so they renew with us
[10:24:14] Tom Galanis: I’ll be honest with you. Most affiliates wanting a £500 flat rate – and I’m not labelling you as one – do nothing to warrant it and operators rarely see a return
[10:24:32] Tom Galanis: If you were using the funds to personally fund prizes, then great
[10:24:52] Tom Galanis: so your clients include bxx3xx?
[10:25:30] Affiliate X: I am running a campaign for bxx3xx through a betting portal and I am working with Wxxxxxx Hxxx direct
[10:26:04] Tom Galanis: which portals do you have? I notice a few linked to
[10:27:07] Affiliate X: I don’t have any sites but we have a few being built as we speak. I mean it is a guy that owns a betting portal that is running the bxx3xx campaign through us
[10:27:18] Tom Galanis: Jxxxxxx Bxxxx?
[10:27:41] Affiliate X: Not with the bxx3xx campaign but the racetips and bettingon sites we promote yes
[10:27:56] Tom Galanis: how does that deal work?
[10:28:04] Affiliate X: Flat rate for a month
[10:28:56] Tom Galanis: so how do you make money from bxx3xx?
[10:29:40] Affiliate X: The guy who has the betting portal paid us for 10 new depositing players, like the deal I mentioned to you. We delivered the 10 players and now he has renewed with us for a further 10
[10:29:56] Tom Galanis: ah ok
[10:29:58] Tom Galanis: I see
[10:30:23] Tom Galanis: surely, my interest is dealing directly with them then?
[10:30:37] Tom Galanis: I’ll be getting traffic from their site and also from you
[10:31:00] Affiliate X: Not sure what you mean mate?
[10:31:43] Tom Galanis: well, if I already have a deal in place with the betting portal, I should mention that we’d be keen on seeing some more Facebook traffic
[10:31:48] Tom Galanis: and he’d do the deal with you
[10:31:56] Tom Galanis: takes an element of risk out for me
[10:33:40] Affiliate X: I am not sure he would as I asked him if he wanted to run one of his other brands and he said he just wants to run one at a time
[10:34:25] Affiliate X: It’s totally your call mate, if you want to speak to your clients and see what they say then do it but if you don’t feel comfortable with it then leave it. As I say mate, it’s totally your call
[10:35:48] Tom Galanis: if you’d consider a CPA deal, it’s workable
[10:35:58] Tom Galanis: from your perspective, I can’t see how your model is sustainable
[10:36:10] Tom Galanis: and operators won’t pay an affiliate who isn’t going to hang around
[10:37:32] Affiliate X: I am here for the long haul mate. What makes you think I am not going to hang around?
[10:40:09] Tom Galanis: I can see that’s your intention – but your model isn’t sustainable
[10:40:21] Tom Galanis: bookmakers won’t keep paying you £500 a month
[10:43:01] Affiliate X: It is not necessarily every month. It is when each 10 new punters have been delivered and if we continue to deliver the punters I can’t see why the bookmakers wouldn’t want more?
[10:43:50] Tom Galanis: Surely you would prefer a £51 CPA?
[10:44:55] Affiliate X: Yes, but not while we have prepaid deals in place as they take priority for obvious reasons
[10:45:10] Tom Galanis: but you would earn more money from that CPA?
[10:45:34] Tom Galanis: my point is – eventually, this model will stop delivering players
[10:45:48] Tom Galanis: and you’ll be indebted to bookmakers
[10:45:56] Tom Galanis: I assume you’d pay them back
[10:46:05] Tom Galanis: but others might be a bit more sceptical
[10:46:23] Affiliate X: Yes, but I am not sure why you think it will stop delivering players when there is between 30-50 new likes coming in per day?
[10:46:36] Tom Galanis: a CPA deal offers them security, build trust and a sustainable partnership
[10:48:40] Tom Galanis: the way a lot of affiliate managers will see this is – £500 – that’s not a lot of my budget is it? But if he gets 6 of those deals in every month, that’s a £50k salary
[10:48:49] Tom Galanis: let’s be honest here – the page isn’t a lot of work
[10:49:00] Tom Galanis: 1045 likes doesn’t get me a return
[10:49:24] Tom Galanis: I’m turning down upfront deals for websites that rank 2 or 3 on google for some unbelievable keyword terms
[10:49:57] Tom Galanis: they are far more stable and get considerably more (roughly 1000x) traffic than your page
[10:51:29] Affiliate X: Sure mate, as I mentioned it is totally your call. I am not forcing you into anything but just trying to get my point across by telling you the punters won’t dry up with more new people coming on the page on a daily basis and they are all targeted not just people that are interested in other things but they are interested in betting
[10:53:10] Tom Galanis: I’m sorry. It just won’t work for any of my clients. It’s an unsustainable model and I cannot believe Wxxxxxx Hxxx and bxx3xx are paying to be sat there. Best of luck, but I’m out
[10:53:26] Affiliate X: No worries at all mate
[10:53:33] Affiliate X: Best thing for us to do mate would probably be, if we have any CPA deals become available then to give you a shout but at the moment I can’t run a standard CPA deal over prepaid deals when I have promised players to those that have already paid me
[10:54:42] Tom Galanis: Realistically, you’ll be looking at a £10 CPA from most bookies – customer value from Facebook is so low
[10:55:26] Affiliate X: For what reason is it low?
[10:56:31] Tom Galanis: Customer Values from Facebook are low
[10:56:40] Tom Galanis: bookmakers have stats on all of this
[10:58:42] Affiliate X: Ok mate, we have had a couple of good redepositors across the 2 brands we are working with
[11:01:51] Tom Galanis: 2 redepositors isn’t going to cover £500 though…
[11:02:17] Tom Galanis: you need to remember that bookmakers will be expecting to make at the very least £1500 from a £500 spend
[11:02:39] Tom Galanis: 2 good redepositors won’t do that for anyone, on average
[11:03:10] Tom Galanis: you’ll need to be very lucky – and some of the best affiliates I know have not made that luck through facebook
[11:04:42] Affiliate X: It is 2 good redepositors over a 3 week period, what if another 2 good depositors come in another few weeks, then another 2 and so on?
[11:05:21] Tom Galanis: what if indeed
[11:05:34] Tom Galanis: why not work on a revenue share deal?
[11:05:47] Tom Galanis: this is my point – if you’re confident, you’ll earn more money that way
[11:06:39] Tom Galanis: you’ll also have the bookmakers’ support on any future work
[11:06:43] Tom Galanis: the site, for instance
[11:06:56] Affiliate X: We are confident but we are tied to these deals at the moment as I mentioned and as I said if we ever have any room for a CPA/Rev Share deals then I will contact you but for now we are tied to these deals and our priority is to deliver for them
[11:08:08] Tom Galanis: sincerely, best of luck with that – my advice would be to focus on delivering for Wxxxxxx Hxxx. Those guys are pretty ruthless when it comes to getting money back
[11:09:17] Affiliate X: We are over halfway to delivering what we promised to them mate and they have only been running with us for 2 weeks, in another 2 weeks the first campaign will be done and dusted
[11:09:28] Tom Galanis: great stuff
Category: Sports Betting
Escalation: Argentine style
This is my story of the week. The UK sends Prince William and a f*ck off destroyer to the Falklands and the Argies, realising they do have a considerably weaker armed force (unlike 30 years ago) have decided to hit us where they know they can beat us. Football.
They have renamed their football league the General Belgrano League. Superb.
Now watch the UK bookmakers hit back with specials on last year’s General Belgrano Division 1 runner-up Lanus’ Copa Libertadores clash with Brazilian side Flamenco:
“If Flamenco sink General Belgrano side Lanus, we’ll refund all losing bets”.
I’m copyrighting that one by the way…
Entry for Email Put Down of the Year
Hi So and so,
No it is not. You are not allowed to bet through your affiliate account, which I will now be closing with immediate effect.
Regards,
Tom Galanis
—–Original Message—–
From: So and So [mailto:soandso@soandso.bg]
Sent: 09 December 2011 06:03
To: Affiliates
Subject:
Hello! I have a personal betting account with you and affiliate account with user name soandso. I want to ask is a possible to recieve any commissions / negative or positive/ and from my own bets that i made in my betting account?
Thank you!
Why I will not work with you on a CPA basis
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
Paddy Power – Effing Brilliant
I would like to meet the funny clever clogs over at Paddy Power who comes up with ideas like this
BoogieBet launching on PartnerMatrix
GameOn Affiliates‘ partner BoogieBet, operating off the OddsMatrix and Net Entertainment platforms, is one of the first operators to adopt EveryMatrix’s affiliate management software, PartnerMatrix.
GameOn Affiliates consulted in the development of PartnerMatrix and the system offers fantastic reliability and accuracy to affiliates and licensees. PartnerMatrix unites the functionality of a solid affiliate reporting system with BanaMatrix, EveryMatrix’s fantastic banner creation and serving tool.
Eric Yonce, CEO of BoogieBet said “The power of the PartnerMatrix software gives us the confidence to use it for all our online marketing and affiliate campaigns. We are excited about using live odds and fixtures in our dynamic sports betting banners and attract new players across all of our products.”
BoogieBet is the latest partner to receive GameOn Affiliates’ affiliate management service. Newly live, the BoogieBet Affiliate Program launches officially at LAC 2011 at the end of January with a unique, invite only experience for a number of leading sports and casino affiliates – an exclusive Limo trip to Nike Town on Oxford Circus to design personalised training shoes with Nike iD.
Tom Galanis, Director, GameOn Affiliates, is hugely excited about working with both BoogieBet and PartnerMatrix. “Having been involved in the development of PartnerMatrix, we have witnessed the system’s progression towards an industry-leading reporting tool. BoogieBet have made a wise choice in working alongside EveryMatrix and we are incredibly excited by the prospect of launching the BoogieBet Affiliate Program in style at the London Affiliate Conference with an exclusive trip to Nike Town.”
Calling Sports Betting Affiliates – World Cup Tipster Application to use
Tell Gaming, the forward thinking online gaming operation has just launched a World Cup tipster competition called Liga Football.
I feel the competition provides a great opportunity for affiliates to generate not only fly-by visitors, but repeat visits to their sites over the course of the World Cup. If you visit www.ligafootball.com, please take a look through what the concept is all about in general and then consider the opportunity of running your own league, with prize money fronted up by Tell Gaming (minimum €100 to use as you wish – this can be increased once discussed).
If you run a forum, it’s a great opportunity to have a tool for your punters to compete for a prize pool. If you run a search traffic driven portal, running this on your site is going to significantly increase your chance of repeat visits, bookmarkings and future loyalty to go alongside the great content you no doubt produce and plan to produce over the World Cup and it’s fantastic if you’re a social media focused affiliate, as it certainly provides a strong platform for conversation. We are also prepared to run leaderboards for every affiliate who promotes Liga Football, adding to the social aspect that most other World Cup advertising falls short of.
Tell Gaming use the Oddsmatrix sports betting platform and are relatively new to market, meaning that not only will your visitors be entering the tipster competition, by default, they will also be opening a brand new betting account, and depositing funds within it, of which you will earn your revenue share. Entrants pay for entry and must also make a minimum deposit – totalling about €20 in total.
Beyond that, Tell Gaming has been built on the logic of rewarding both players and affiliates with shares in the business. The more you bring, the more ownership units you own – and this is on top of your revenue share package – just name your price – we can be pretty flexible here.
I see this as being great value for money, and whilst you may have much of your ad space filled for the World Cup, this will provide your visitors with genuine value, and give you the value in terms of repeat visits, ownership and revenue. Down the line, the plan is to run Liga Football throughout the upcoming football season and beyond, so this is a tool that will provide you revenue for longer, increasing player values and lifetimes.
If this appeals to you, please, get in touch! If you’re ready to join the affiliate program, please click HERE
GameOn Affiliates partners with BetWize
GameOn Affiliates, the leading iGaming outsourced program management agency, has partnered with BetWize to provide affiliate recruitment and management services to the Oddsmatrix and Net Entertainment powered operation, using the Income Access software platform.
BetWize offers the ultimate online gambling experience backed with market leading customer service, design and unique client/company access. The operation provides high quality online gambling that features optimum technology and software, plus reliable online infrastructure.
Tom Galanis, Director of GameOn Affiliates, said, “I’m delighted to be working with BetWize and the team there on the continued development of a fantastic brand and product suite. GameOn Affiliates is delighted to have been selected to build up the BetWize affiliate program and has been encouraged by the vast understanding of the affiliate environment at the company and its determination to place sports betting and gaming affiliates at the spearhead of its marketing efforts.”
The Tens – Decade of the Sportsbook?
If the last few years of the Noughties saw sportsbook’s market leaders shifting their focus towards the cutting edge technologies of in-play betting and live streaming, the first few years of this decade should see affiliates reap the rewards. Since online sports betting first evolved, betting affiliates have never received the same levels of respect and support as their poker and casino counterparts. However, this should all be about to change.
As businesses look to diversify, adding a sportsbook to their product suite is an ever appealing option. Affiliates find themselves in precisely the same position. Opportunities in the casino space are becoming far more competitive and we’ve all heard more than enough poker affiliates state claim that “there’s no money in poker anymore.” Whether you agree with the latter, what is certain is that extending sideways by adding a sportsbook, is certainly more appealing to businesses on both sides of the fence.
Whilst the likes of the operator Mangas and the affiliate Pokerlistings are striving down the acquisition route, it simply isn’t an option for most operators and affiliates at the moment. This has led to an increased focus and success of the white label solution, such as those offered by the B2B arms of 888, Bwin, Paddy Power and Partygaming, as well as the rapid emergence of specialist sports betting solutions available with the likes of OddsMatrix.
Affiliates are doing precisely the same thing. They are seeing the need to not only diversify, but to lower costs in the short to medium term as they fight for space in ever competitive markets. It is no secret that the acquisition cost of a sports bettor is significantly lower than that of acquiring a casino or, even still, a poker player. Traditionally, sports betting-centric operators have been reluctant to share lifetime rewards of their cross promotion strategies, but with the growing international success of fair, cross product paying, sports betting-focused affiliate programs, such as bet365, Victor Chandler, Stan James and Ladbrokes, this landscape is changing. This means the affiliate is being rewarded, over the lifetime of a player with a brand, across the entire product suite. In essence, lower acquisition costs for increased returns and this means the rise of sports betting as a viable affiliate marketing channel.
This has taken a while to come to fruition. Sports betting affiliates have long been viewed with suspicion by many bookmakers and betting groups, particularly those whose margins are tightened by high overheads and unreliable trading patterns. This is largely due to the large amount of quality information affiliates can feed to players via odds comparison feeds, quality content or tipster forums, pushing such margins to the brink. Poker rooms and casinos have nearly always welcomed the education of players and affiliates in those arenas have reaped the rewards.
Sports betting is not ready for a PokerStrategy.com-type model just yet, but there are a number of projects on the horizon that seek to bridge the ‘education v margin’ conundrum. Tipster forums have long been havens for groups of serious ‘bookie breakers’ and survived on a fragile equilibrium between bookmaker and affiliate. Now, some highly innovative groups of affiliates are looking to take on social media and take a tipster-like conversational model from a finely-tuned group of professional bettors to the masses, and this should massively appeal to the bookmaker concerned about his margins.
Bingo has grown hugely on the back of its social connotations in a past life, but the next few years should see sports betting become the first mainstream online gaming channel to conquer the social network and monetize it effectively. As an event driven hobby, betting is far more contextual and naturally reaches out to more people than any other form of gaming, with the result of one person’s bet carrying significant importance, albeit more in an emotional sense than anything else, to many others in his or her network of friends. People brag about winning far more and bemoan a loss on a far greater scale than a poker player on the end of a bad beat and nowadays, their first habitual venue for a brag or a whinge will be via a social network, where they will not always be met with an appropriate congratulation or commiseration.
It’s the responsibility of the affiliate of the 2010s to monetize sports betting’s emotional drivers and social networks are where affiliates such as Flutr.co.uk seek to tap into people’s unerring passion for sport and entertainment. With the FIFA World Cup 2010, the largest ever betting event approaching in June this year, now is the time for sports betting affiliates to take the lead in cracking social media.
announcing new partnerships
GameOn Affiliates is delighted to welcome on board four new partner affiliate programs. From October 2009, we will be managing and developing the Purple Lounge casino affiliate program and the 1LiveCasino.com program, plus recruiting affiliates to the the US-Blackjack.com and the DevilFish Poker and Casino affiliate networks.
I would like to take the opportunity to welcome these programs to GameOn Affiliates. We’re very much looking forward to taking these programs to the next level and beyond over the coming months!
More information on these programs can be found HERE
Tom Galanis 