Quitting Playing and going into affiliates

[Nicola]

First post in this part of the forum, hope this is allowed

After 7 years of playing at casinos and gaining a lot of experience along the way I have decided to stop playing and move into the affiliates world by investing a substantial amount of my winnings into a new venture with a well known figure from the TV quiz world.

The plan is to set-up a brand aimed at the UK marketplace which not just lists licenced casinos but tests on a monthly basis support response times and withdrawal times of those casinos. There will be a dedicated FREE telephone helpline to players, an office open to the public which provides assistance with disputes and most importantly helps problem players by providing information on local counselling and how to stop for good.

Any pointers from members of the CM community would be appreciated

 

[lotusch]

WoW Nicola,that is probably a great new step in your own life's path.
Very brave decision and I really hope this pans out well for you.
Hope you stay around on this forum and keep us posted about your progress.

Good luck.

 

[AffGency]

First post in this part of the forum, hope this is allowed

After 7 years of playing at casinos and gaining a lot of experience along the way I have decided to stop playing and move into the affiliates world by investing a substantial amount of my winnings into a new venture with a well known figure from the TV quiz world.

The plan is to set-up a brand aimed at the UK marketplace which not just lists licenced casinos but tests on a monthly basis support response times and withdrawal times of those casinos. There will be a dedicated FREE telephone helpline to players, an office open to the public which provides assistance with disputes and most importantly helps problem players by providing information on local counselling and how to stop for good.

Any pointers from members of the CM community would be appreciated

This sounds very good

Do you already made plans how to monetize it and how to get the word out ?

 

[vinylweatherman]

This is the kind of venture that could succeed. It's not just another amongst thousands of affiliate sites, but offers something rather unique in terms of an actual office where players can drop in for a chat as well as a phone helpline. The regular testing is good, but this really needs to be done by people who play there as "mystery shoppers" so that you avoid the problem of an operator "putting on a show" for you because they know they are being tested. Past experience is very useful, but things do change, so someone still needs to "mystery shop" the brands on a regular basis in a way that they can't tell the difference between your mystery shopper and one of their ordinary players.

 

[Simmo!]

This is the kind of venture that could succeed. It's not just another amongst thousands of affiliate sites, but offers something rather unique in terms of an actual office where players can drop in for a chat as well as a phone helplin.

I agree. Best of luck with this Nicola.

My one bit of advice would be, don't stop playing. That ongoing experience will shape your site so that it remains current and genuinely helpful. I have played at every casino group I represent and I go back whenever I can to see how the operations have changed and it can be eye-opening in both good and bad ways.

 

[Wild Reels]

I tend to agree that you carry more validity if you actually play, you can generally spot an affiliate site a mile off that is run by people who don't play, have no real slot knowledge, and don't tend to care where they send players, apart from those which gets them the best deals.

A couple of other things, I really wouldn't focus purely on UK players, I don't see how you can run an affiliate site packed with sign up offers and a service for problem gamblers at the same site. It seems almost like you'd be dangling a carrot without intentionally doing so.

And finally what relevance is a TV quiz host to the site, purely marketing? I didn't see the relevance.

These are all just things at sprung into my mind when I read the thread, they aren't intended to be taken in a bad way, and good luck with the site

 

[Nicola]

Thanks for all the feedback and advice both on the thread and via private messages.

Will be checking in everyday on CM as usual

 

[Tobias.R]

That sounds like a great idea Nicola!

Signup at Casumo affiliates and lets get to work

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Thanks for all the feedback and advice both on the thread and via private messages.

Will be checking in everyday on CM as usual

 

[conker]

Best of luck Nicola. That dedicated support line sounds interesting and at the same time daunting. I hope it doesn't eat up too much of your time, so you can work on your website.

 

[Nicola]

Thanks for all the suggestions and private messages. Really appreciate

My last ever shift at the BBC tonight and then plenty of time to get down with the nitty gritty of the affiliate site idea early next week. I'm hoping to meet with one of the directors of GamCare to work together on new responsible gambling ideas. I was informed today that my local MP is actually chair of the committee that oversees the UK Gambling Commission - should give me a fighting chance.

Thanks to Simmo for some help on affiliate ads for one of my existing UK sites. This one should be active by 19th July. With over 10k visitors a day, I should make something from that!!

 

[suzecat]

Much good wishes to you Nicola on your venture. Have fun!!

 

[winbig]

PM sent, but I wanted to publicly wish you good luck as well

 

[Captain Chaos]

This is an idea that absolutely deserves to succeed. Best of luck to you Nicola!

 

[Nicola]

First full month (September) out of the way and ended up with money at 32Red and Casino Rewards.

Took a massive hit on Energy Affiliates when a Russian player cashed out big time, leaving me with a -€838 balance LOL

Enjoying the journey so far and a healthy click rate in recent weeks.

 

[Nicola]

Does anyone affiliate with 888, is it worth it? Everytime the updated UKGC list comes through, their number of sites grow!

 

[jshort]

Does anyone affiliate with 888, is it worth it? Everytime the updated UKGC list comes through, their number of sites grow!

I hear that they're excellent at screwing players. If that's the case, you might be able to make a lot of money with them!

 

[KasinoKing]

Does anyone affiliate with 888, is it worth it? Everytime the updated UKGC list comes through, their number of sites grow![/IMG]

NO - please don't go there. Very bad news for players and affiliates alike

Just because they are a big well-known brand, that doesn't mean they are any good. In fact, most of the very biggest operators are bad news with unfriendly terms. These guys spend fortunes on TV and other advertising, they are not really interested in affiliates, no matter how big. If you want proof, just look at CM's accredited list - do you see 888, William Hills, Ladbrokes, Bet Victor, Betfair, etc...?
Nope. And there's good reason for that.

KK

 

[Nicola]

NO - please don't go there. Very bad news for players and affiliates alike

Just because they are a big well-known brand, that doesn't mean they are any good. In fact, most of the very biggest operators are bad news with unfriendly terms. These guys spend fortunes on TV and other advertising, they are not really interested in affiliates, no matter how big. If you want proof, just look at CM's accredited list - do you see 888, William Hills, Ladbrokes, Bet Victor, Betfair, etc...?
Nope. And there's good reason for that.

KK

Thanks. It's been decided that 888 will not be promoted on any future sites I'm involved with.

This is why I left 888 to last (aside from the number of sites they have) because I knew it was a complex issue!

 

[maxd]

Does anyone affiliate with 888 ...

I'm sure you know about this: 888/Cassava: all related properties are ignoring player complaints.

And you surely know what comes next: if they're willing to treat players this way why would you expect it to be any different for affiliates? And what about the players you would send their way?

 

[Nicola]

Finally, a launch date! All being well, my new venture will be live on 1st June 2016

It's been a crazy year and everything is now in place in terms of licenses and staff. The biggest challenge has been responsible gambling and achieving certification.

The only change from the original plan, is will now be aimed at the UK and European market. Therefore, staff will be based in the UK and Malta both providing 24-hour telephone support.

 

[kahntrutahn]

NO - please don't go there. Very bad news for players and affiliates alike

KK

What kills it for me, with regard to 888, is that they only offer CPA. Some of you guys might love CPA, but personally, I hate it. I'm in it for the long haul and I want as much of the player revenue as I can get, not a paltry payment up front. When I hook a whale, I want to be compensated for it! I'm willing to catch a thousand minnows first too, no worries

 

[Nicola]

Approaching a year now since I started with affiliates and the launch of my first site - now up to five in total. There has been a lot of positives and as you'd expect a few negatives.

Thankfully, I've only had one issue with receiving payment. Traffillions completely ripped me off after I spent a lot of money promoting their brands only for them to ignore me once I requested rev-share. To this day, they owe thousands and have never responded to a single e-mail or post on GPWA.

Bell Fruit Casino continue to refuse to do any business with me. Have no idea why, but have now removed their 'free' link from all my sites!

Chargebacks have affected me at some of the bigger brands which is expected in the industry. Always disappointing to get a message saying I won't be paid commission due to this. I hope the casinos manage to catch up with them and give them a lesson!

I've been busy the past few months and having met some fellow affiliates at ICE this year who I can trust handling certain aspects of my future plans - stage two is ready to go! From next week withdrawal times of 558 UKGC casinos will be publicly available alongside customer support times. All being well, 300+ extra MGA casinos will follow in August or September.

The good news is that from next weekend I can take it easy for a while and get back to playing slots like I used too. Glass of wine, DoA and Netflix will be my summer as well as getting some sun. Even my mum said to me yesterday 'Nicola, do you ever see daylight'

 

[dunover]

Approaching a year now since I started with affiliates and the launch of my first site - now up to five in total. There has been a lot of positives and as you'd expect a few negatives.

Thankfully, I've only had one issue with receiving payment. Traffillions completely ripped me off after I spent a lot of money promoting their brands only for them to ignore me once I requested rev-share. To this day, they owe thousands and have never responded to a single e-mail or post on GPWA.

Bell Fruit Casino continue to refuse to do any business with me. Have no idea why, but have now removed their 'free' link from all my sites!
Chargebacks have affected me at some of the bigger brands which is expected in the industry. Always disappointing to get a message saying I won't be paid commission due to this. I hope the casinos manage to catch up with them and give them a lesson!

I've been busy the past few months and having met some fellow affiliates at ICE this year who I can trust handling certain aspects of my future plans - stage two is ready to go! From next week withdrawal times of 558 UKGC casinos will be publicly available alongside customer support times. All being well, 300+ extra MGA casinos will follow in August or September.

The good news is that from next weekend I can take it easy for a while and get back to playing slots like I used too. Glass of wine, DoA and Netflix will be my summer as well as getting some sun. Even my mum said to me yesterday 'Nicola, do you ever see daylight'

You've missed nothing there the shittiest programme I ever joined and I closed my account and booted them from my sites.

 

[nickg]

First post in this part of the forum, hope this is allowed

After 7 years of playing at casinos and gaining a lot of experience along the way I have decided to stop playing and move into the affiliates world by investing a substantial amount of my winnings into a new venture with a well known figure from the TV quiz world.

The plan is to set-up a brand aimed at the UK marketplace which not just lists licenced casinos but tests on a monthly basis support response times and withdrawal times of those casinos. There will be a dedicated FREE telephone helpline to players, an office open to the public which provides assistance with disputes and most importantly helps problem players by providing information on local counselling and how to stop for good.

Any pointers from members of the CM community would be appreciated

Hey there, well done for getting into the world of affiliate!

I stand in this odd position where I'm both an operator and an affiliate… Anyway, obviously the reason affiliates exist is because they handle risk on behalf of the operators. In return affiliates get commission (you know that of course)

I have a few suggestions:
Read the Google quality rater guidelines.
These are written for manual reviewers at Google to evaluate the quality of websites. In turn this information is (probably) used as a training set for artificial intelligence algorithms that judge the 'quality' of a website.
The important part: it's a complete guide to how Google evaluate quality and therefore how users evaluate the quality and relevance of a website.
Link to the source PDF:

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I've talked about this over the years on calvinayre and iGamingBusiness amongst other places. If you search here are several videos and articles on quality rater guidelines:

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Ranking on brand
I did a presentation on this London affiliate conference 2017
link to presentation:

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Very simply, if you're a casino without much brand equity then affiliates are massively important for building confidence in that casino brand. In my own casino, we've accepted that affiliates are important and so they rank around brand phrases. That's okay because it's third-party validation that were a good casino. We've also made a big thing about asking customers to to honestly review us, so anyone checking us out can see a balanced view of what were like.

As an affiliate, if you can rank on brand, you know these customers are seriously considering joining that operator. Therefore conversion rates are going to be higher and that's a good thing.

It's very tempting to say every casino is good, or the casino which pays you the most money is the best but if you reference Google quality rater guidelines, you'll appreciate that you exist on Google's search results because you are fulfilling a need on behalf of customers. That's why for example AskGamblers is so important to us because of the huge body of user reviews and information about us. It's also why it ranks number two after our brand phrase and therefore why we pay them more money than any other affiliate. But that's okay, because we help each other.
(Aside: this is a strategy casinomeister should be pursuing and I don't know why they don't)

SEO/links et cetera et cetera
links don't work like they used to. Because the cause and effect of link acquisition is so loose, it's very easy to be sold into the idea that buying loads of links are suddenly going to get you rankings. It just doesn't work like that any more.
The cycle is now:
- You build a website
- Google evaluates algorithmically for quality and relevance
- You get links into your website that have good page rank and TrustRank (remember page rank and TrustRank are not advertised by Google , so it's important to use a proxy like majestic CitationFLow/trust flow and make sure sites you acquire links from other kind of sites you be happy to present to a Google employee from the spam team.
- Google detects the links coming in and based on how they've evaluated your website they will 'audition' you on the search results
- If you get suitable click through rate and engagement, Google will see your website merits its rankings. If not, you go back down
- If you have another inflow of links, you will probably be re-auditioned, but you only have so many chances before Google distrusts you and you are consigned to the bottom of the index

tip: when you're evaluating sites for link placement I always use SEMrush data as a metric. If a site ranks on Google, it's more likely Google actually likes that website... Then I use majestic CitationFLow and trust flow as a secondary metric to evaluate the power of a domain. Finally the basic premise of pagerank i.e. more page rank on homepages than in some random content page still holds because the pages which have the most links to them within a website are typically the most prominent. There is a variable which is external pagerank of course. But whatever way it cuts, you can evaluate all of this 'pagerank/TrustRank'stuff using a tool like majestic.

And that's about it. Think about the utility you offer to someone making a decision about which brand they go with and everything else should sort itself out.

 

[dunover]

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
(Aside: this is a strategy casinomeister should be pursuing and I don't know why they don't)

Possibly because CM is a bit more than just another SEO'd dumping ground for affiliate and casino links and has different objectives. Ask Gamblers promotes some absolute shite and just proves that despite dressing themselves up as a player watchdog, they are primarily concerned with raking money in. Maybe Bryan is they type of bloke who can earn say 2k a week without scruples and prefers to earn 1.5k a week with scruples. Ask him, but some people aren't as greedy as others, and no I don't confuse greed with ambition either.

There are reviews here in a way, the feedback over the years contains all you need to know, but it's a forum so you have to look for it. The Minions are also a collection point for relevant data players are primarily concerned with. The content on this site comes up front page Google for nearly everything I ever type in regarding online gaming, except possibly slot reviews. I know there's stuff I've posted here on new games that comes up first because I got the game before most other people so CM is one of the first with the details.

That every little snippet or comment on CM doesn't come up with an affiliate link when you find it in Google is possibly why we are all members here, it ain't that sort of place. Yes, if someone other than Bryan owned CM it would undoubtedly become an aggressive marketing site ready to be taken over by one of the 'super affiliates' for a quick buck.

I write content myself for people and let me tell you that in many cases I see stuff on huge affiliate sites clearly written by people that have no understanding of the product/games they sell and certainly no enthusiasm for them. You will probably have read some of my work without realizing it because I do it anonymously in most cases for confidentiality reasons. I am aware of how I am preferred to use internal and external links as you mentioned above and how to construct in such a manner that it's 'good' SEO stuff for the relevant keywords and yet make it sound authoritative for the reader and not contrived for Google.

So like Nicola I am learning still and have had much good and welcome advice from seniors on here for which I will always be grateful, plus help by PM from others. I seriously doubt I'd have ANY of this elsewhere where the site's primary concern is using members' contributions for SEO reasons and not helping potential rivals!

The only thing I'd say to Nicola is that the cash-out times info has been provided by hundreds of other affiliates years before her. You can get it all by spidering a few big affiliate sites but it is a searched-for bit of info as I found out so always in demand if the pages have something else to offer too. Customer service response times I'm not so sure about - I am not aware of any player who looks for a casino to play at based on the premise of 'customer service response times' in a search. Maybe 'quick cash-out casinos' or 'casinos with IGT games' or 'casinos with xxx slot' but 'UKGC casinos with quickest customer service responses' is odd to me. It's all very good embellishing your product with useful information but it has to be targeted at search terms too?
In some instances keywords can be king.

 

[Nicola]

The only thing I'd say to Nicola is that the cash-out times info has been provided by hundreds of other affiliates years before her. You can get it all by spidering a few big affiliate sites but it is a searched-for bit of info as I found out so always in demand if the pages have something else to offer too. Customer service response times I'm not so sure about - I am not aware of any player who looks for a casino to play at based on the premise of 'customer service response times' in a search. Maybe 'quick cash-out casinos' or 'casinos with IGT games' or 'casinos with xxx slot' but 'UKGC casinos with quickest customer service responses' is odd to me. It's all very good embellishing your product with useful information but it has to be targeted at search terms too?
In some instances keywords can be king.

The difference this time around is that they are real withdrawals from real players (myself included) and the process will be repeated every 6 months or less, so players will always see the current and past times. Having made 558 withdrawals in 30 days (not an easy task for a small group), it shows a true spectrum of how casinos treat players once they have requested a withdrawal. It certainly shows the true colors of 888 casinos with an average around 100 hours pending.

In terms of customer support, again testing 558 casinos - this time in the space of 24 hours - gives an idea of how quickly the casino moves along.

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[dunover]

The difference this time around is that they are real withdrawals from real players (myself included) and the process will be repeated every 6 months or less, so players will always see the current and past times. Having made 558 withdrawals in 30 days (not an easy task), it shows a true spectrum of how casinos treat players once they have requested a withdrawal. It certainly shows the true colors of 888 casinos with an average around 100 hours pending.

In terms of customer support, again testing 558 casinos - this time in the space of 24 hours - gives an idea of how quickly the casino moves along.

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I could manage it when I was 21.....

Seriously that is the point I was making, context. It comes down to how it's presented and referenced with other relevant material too. You can never have too much info. I won't pretend to know how Google's algorithm works and truthfully nobody does, despite their offers of SEO services to sell you. They make generalizations of which 90% will be mentioned somewhere in Yoast anyway and the truth is (IMO) that what we hear or are advised is based simply on trial-and-error combined with Google Analytics being second-guessed.

I believe that it's a combination of mainly 5 things:

1. Content
2 .Authority/Knowledge
3. The above correctly aligned to keywords and research thereof.
4. Chronology - your being first or thereabouts to provide certain material/info may affect your ranking for (2) above.
5. Third-party popularity (links, and maybe to a small degree non-spurious internal links).

Then again, that's my opinion and I could be talking utter shite, people will disagree.

I am also of the opinion that over-use of links to commercial sites isn't too healthy (which you cannot avoid when promoting hundreds of casinos!) unless diluted correctly with sub-pages and enough content, of which (as he said above may come in the form of customer reviews) whether that is of games or actually casinos.

Put is this way - aggregated, the far most common searches are for individual slots. There are thousands of them and ALL the top (non-sponsored) sites that come up on Google are review ones usually. Relevant and original content through which casinos are sold. If you think a lot of work has gone into any site you have made, or most affies on CM, then think again! These have a colossal amount of tagged images plus the info in those reviews and the man hours and costs must be huge over the years to construct them, but they are top and tend to remain there for a substantial number of search keywords, but unfortunately for us the ones we want to get traffic from not merely slot names! If you can displace them, good luck to you!

 

[nickg]

Possibly because CM is a bit more than just another SEO'd dumping ground for affiliate and casino links and has different objectives. Ask Gamblers promotes some absolute shite and just proves that despite dressing themselves up as a player watchdog, they are primarily concerned with raking money in. Maybe Bryan is they type of bloke who can earn say 2k a week without scruples and prefers to earn 1.5k a week with scruples. Ask him, but some people aren't as greedy as others, and no I don't confuse greed with ambition either.

Without wanting to digress from the main thread here i.e. advice on becoming an affiliate, if you assume the job of an affiliate is to act as a service provider to customers i.e. giving them information they can action, then there are two parts you can take:
- have a list of casinos with latest bonuses (benefit: it's a shortcut for users to see who is giving away the most money)
- have information which helps users make good decisions.

AskGamblers may not necessarily as tight on accurate information as casinomeister, but they rank and they are prominent and unless you're a serious casino player, it's fairly unlikely you will have come across casinomeister.

In my view the sad part about Casinomeister is that it doesn't have the search prominence I feel it deserves.

I have generated 2 SEMrush overview reports looking at aggregated rankings on Google:

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These reports give you a pretty good idea of the comparative search visibility of each domain. Bearing in mind that for Google, it doesn't care which website ranks, it just cares that users are happy with the results from the keyword search. The harsh reality is that based on this metric the general user is happier with AskGamblers.

Personally I don't like it. I go to casinomeister for expert opinion and I go to AskGamblers for more 'mainstream' opinion. And it has to be said that AskGamblers has been massively important to our brand and they've always been very reasonable in how they conduct arbitrations and so on. For an end user AskGamblers is much more digestible.

The principal question the casinomeister is whether Bryan and the community are happy with where it's at, or whether they feel the casinomeister mission of truth giving is unfulfilled. If people aren't happy, I'm sure change will come along.

Back to setting up a new affiliate site, my best advice is think very carefully about how you are going to help customers. So for example real cash out times is a great metric. However bear in mind a huge proportion of end-users don't even know that this is an issue.

I think one of the biggest issues for end-users is how gambling actually works. A friend of mine is a game developer and she did some usability testing with 'noob' gamblers, where she got the most popular slots there is i.e. starburst and on average it took about a hundred spins before people began to understand how slots actually function. As a result of all of this, she is focusing on ease of play and intuitiveness.

When budget allows, within the next two months, I will probably find somebody to write up a proper help guide on how to play slots, explaining the whole thing in great detail using an interactive framework i.e. "you click on this and it tells you that"and from that it should help 'noob' users get their head around slots. The business reason for this is simple, every operator is chasing users who know what they're doing and they've implicitly assumed that any education is a waste of money...Despite CPAs of $250 plus.

If the framework gamifies learning in some way i.e. you go through an education process,you get extra rewards...it could work very well. Just a suggestion. Here are some examples:

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As an affiliate, you would have a landing page, a learning journey and extra awards for users who get through the journey, per operator.

I think if an affiliate site beats me to it, I would love to work with them.