We all work in an industry where we have to blindly trust the statistics that are given to us by the programs we choose to partner with and I don’t know an affiliates that hasn’t at one point or another had concerns about the ROI they are receiving from some of their partners. The problem is that each of us individually – even for the biggest affiliates – has too small a sample size to draw valid conclusions.
ThePOGG Network is looking to counterbalance this by compiling a large scale survey of the value affiliates are receiving from the programs they work with.
Historically the biggest barriers to this happening have been that affiliates are reluctant to share performance information with their competitors. That is understandable, we wouldn’t want to do that either. As such we’ve put together a system that will anonymise the information submitted so that even we won’t be able to tell anything specific about your figures.
To this end we are looking for affiliates to take part in a survey.
How it works?
Selection Criteria
Firstly, we don’t just want any old affiliate contributing to this project. Allowing that would significantly devalue the data collected. There are two main groups we want to restrict from the data gathering process:
1) Operator representatives – for obvious reasons any person actively in the employ of an affiliate program has an active incentive to try to make player value appear higher than it actually is.
2) Unreasonably small affiliates – any site with low traffic or that only works with a small number of brands will produce data that is unreliable.
For the above reasons, any affiliate that wishes to take part will have to be vetted before they will be included in the survey. The factors that will come into consideration are as follows:
- Amount of unique content on the site
- Range of programs the affiliate works with
- Alexa traffic rating
Only sites which we believe to be genuine well established affiliate sites with a reasonable array of promoted programs will qualify for consideration. There will be other criteria but we don’t want to publicly discuss this as we don’t want to signpost how undesirable affiliates can get round our procedures.
The Survey
There are two aspects to the survey itself:
1) An approximation of the total traffic your site receives:
0-10000 unique visits/month
10001-25000 unique visits/month
25001-50000 unique visits/month
50001-100000 unique visits/month
100001+ unique visits/month
2) A rating for each program you work with.
The rating you award a program will be decided based on the average player value you have received from that specific program compared with the average player value you receive across your site/network as a whole.
Personally for this purpose I’d suggest StatsRemote, where I can look at the stats for the entire year and at the bottom I can see the average player value for our entire network over all programs and beside each program I have the average player value for that program. The rating should be established as follows:
5 - Average program player value is 50% or more higher than average network player value
4 - Average program player value is over 10% higher than average and less than 50% higher than the average network player value
3 – Within 10% of Average
2 - Average program player value is more than 10% less than average and less than 50% less than the average network player value
1 - Average program player value is 50% or more less than average network player value
Participating affiliates will be provided with a spreadsheet of affiliate programs and should fill in a rating for each program that they have had more than 10NDPs at this year.
How the results will be used?
Once the survey has been returned each result will then have a weighting applied to them based on the approximate traffic level listed in the survey (obviously a site seeing 100k unique clicks per month is more likely to produce more reliable information than a site with 5k unique clicks per month).
At this point all surveys will be collated and the scores for each program will be averaged. This will allow us to produce a single figure between 1 and 5 for each program to indicate the value that affiliates industry-wide receive from that program that will be far more comprehensive than any individual affiliate could make on their own.
How will the data be shared?
After the data has all been process we will compile a report that will be published on ThePOGG.com. We will also email a copy of the report out to all participating affiliates.
We will not publish results for any program where we receive less than 10 responses. For each program that we do publish a figure for, we will also publish the total number of respondents that were used to derive the figure.
We will not EVER publish or share the individual responses of ANY affiliate.
How do I take part?
Applying to participate is as simple as emailing me at webmaster@thepogg.com with details of the sites you represent for verification purposes. Please use a domain specific email address when contacting me. I’ll then review your sites and confirm whether or not you are eligible to take part.
Please note that the survey will be issued at the end of December and we will NOT go ahead with this unless we have at least 100 acceptable applicants.
Comments and feedback welcomed
ThePOGG Network is looking to counterbalance this by compiling a large scale survey of the value affiliates are receiving from the programs they work with.
Historically the biggest barriers to this happening have been that affiliates are reluctant to share performance information with their competitors. That is understandable, we wouldn’t want to do that either. As such we’ve put together a system that will anonymise the information submitted so that even we won’t be able to tell anything specific about your figures.
To this end we are looking for affiliates to take part in a survey.
How it works?
Selection Criteria
Firstly, we don’t just want any old affiliate contributing to this project. Allowing that would significantly devalue the data collected. There are two main groups we want to restrict from the data gathering process:
1) Operator representatives – for obvious reasons any person actively in the employ of an affiliate program has an active incentive to try to make player value appear higher than it actually is.
2) Unreasonably small affiliates – any site with low traffic or that only works with a small number of brands will produce data that is unreliable.
For the above reasons, any affiliate that wishes to take part will have to be vetted before they will be included in the survey. The factors that will come into consideration are as follows:
- Amount of unique content on the site
- Range of programs the affiliate works with
- Alexa traffic rating
Only sites which we believe to be genuine well established affiliate sites with a reasonable array of promoted programs will qualify for consideration. There will be other criteria but we don’t want to publicly discuss this as we don’t want to signpost how undesirable affiliates can get round our procedures.
The Survey
There are two aspects to the survey itself:
1) An approximation of the total traffic your site receives:
0-10000 unique visits/month
10001-25000 unique visits/month
25001-50000 unique visits/month
50001-100000 unique visits/month
100001+ unique visits/month
2) A rating for each program you work with.
The rating you award a program will be decided based on the average player value you have received from that specific program compared with the average player value you receive across your site/network as a whole.
Personally for this purpose I’d suggest StatsRemote, where I can look at the stats for the entire year and at the bottom I can see the average player value for our entire network over all programs and beside each program I have the average player value for that program. The rating should be established as follows:
5 - Average program player value is 50% or more higher than average network player value
4 - Average program player value is over 10% higher than average and less than 50% higher than the average network player value
3 – Within 10% of Average
2 - Average program player value is more than 10% less than average and less than 50% less than the average network player value
1 - Average program player value is 50% or more less than average network player value
Participating affiliates will be provided with a spreadsheet of affiliate programs and should fill in a rating for each program that they have had more than 10NDPs at this year.
How the results will be used?
Once the survey has been returned each result will then have a weighting applied to them based on the approximate traffic level listed in the survey (obviously a site seeing 100k unique clicks per month is more likely to produce more reliable information than a site with 5k unique clicks per month).
At this point all surveys will be collated and the scores for each program will be averaged. This will allow us to produce a single figure between 1 and 5 for each program to indicate the value that affiliates industry-wide receive from that program that will be far more comprehensive than any individual affiliate could make on their own.
How will the data be shared?
After the data has all been process we will compile a report that will be published on ThePOGG.com. We will also email a copy of the report out to all participating affiliates.
We will not publish results for any program where we receive less than 10 responses. For each program that we do publish a figure for, we will also publish the total number of respondents that were used to derive the figure.
We will not EVER publish or share the individual responses of ANY affiliate.
How do I take part?
Applying to participate is as simple as emailing me at webmaster@thepogg.com with details of the sites you represent for verification purposes. Please use a domain specific email address when contacting me. I’ll then review your sites and confirm whether or not you are eligible to take part.
Please note that the survey will be issued at the end of December and we will NOT go ahead with this unless we have at least 100 acceptable applicants.
Comments and feedback welcomed