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eGaming Affiliates – Join a brand or an affiliate network?!

I have worked for many brands, as a media buyer & as affiliate manager and now have gone over to the dark side (I became and affiliate) mwah-ha-ha-ha.

I launched an affiliate website called casinowho – a online casino portal with a difference and I focus on online casinos and casino related games, reviews and promotions.
When I first launched, I found it very difficult to get anyone to take me under their wing and mentor me on the in’s and outs of being an affiliate. One person that stands out for me is Robyn – you all know her as “Gamtrak” (what an amazing woman, great affiliate and mentor) – Thanks for your help! One of the biggest stumbling blocks were knowing whether to join a network or straight with the brand, and then another important factor was the SEO & content.

But lets start by talking about affiliate networks & affiliate programs.

There are few things I believe you need to consider before joining a affiliate network.
-Payments
-Multiple brands
-Support
-Marketing Materials
-The reputation of this network and their brands

I believe that some other factors are important too, but lets start by talking about the ones above.

Payments –
Many affiliate programs & networks make huge emphasis on their ability to make payments very quick and on time, but only a hand full of them do.
If you decide to go for a network – depending on their depth and resources some of them do, but some do rely on the fact that the brand first pays them before they pay you, these networks normally pay their affiliates towards the 20th of the following month. (now I always ask myself – when do these affiliate managers get paid at these networks?!! hint hint)
In the case of going directly with the brand your payment should be pre the 10th of the following month, which is good, but many of them first pay their VIP’s, their marketing and then make up some lame excuse about why they are late with their payments (this is normally the smallish brands).

Multiple brands -
To go with a network, means the luxury of being able to select from a multitude of brands – now here’s the trick – some networks actually own the brands – this is good and bad (for example if you have all the brands on your site from a network that owns on the brands, the chances are that your 1 player would only be counted once, even though he may register at all the brands, because they share the db). But in the case of a network that does not own the brands, your results will look a lot different, for instance, that 1 player could register at all the brands and let say there is 9 brands – you will have 9 accounts from 1 player “WOW”. In this category a network will come up tops over a direct deal with individual programs. A network then gives you the comfort of 1 payment from 1 place for multiple brands and you don’t have to run all over the net to find your results, this is like a 1 stop shop. Go Networks – BUT- make sure it is a reputable brand, surf the forums.

Part 2
Support
When deciding to join an affiliate program compared to joining a network it becomes a bit tricky based on whether you would enjoy quality support from your affiliate manager/account manager.
For example: lets say you joined a program it means that you potentially would have to settle for some stretched resources in terms of support from the brand. Most often you find that many brands only assign 1 affiliate manager or an affiliate manager by region – and this leads to stretched resources and a lack of quality support or longer periods before you would get any support or feedback. In this regard I would say – join a network, they more often assign more affiliate managers/ account managers to a region as the volumes are higher in terms of the number of affiliates who join.

Marketing Materials
Often enough you find many new casino/poker/sportsbooks that launch affiliate programs that have no or little revelant graphical material and no html mailers or no reviews, already when joining this kind of program you find once you log into the system, theres nothing happening – Hello!!!! dammit, wake up and smell the coffee – if theres nothing in the system in terms of relevant marketing materials you can sure believe there is probably not even an affiliate manager for you to relate to, just support from the brand itself (player support).

Network or Program Reputation
This is hugely important, Think Buddy Think – would you invest in a No returns policy. More often than enough times you would find that there are reviews on google if you search: “(brand/network name) reviews. Now beware of doing this, because there will be a few affiliates that tend to use this as a form of marketing to drive traffic to their site, because you will click on the link to read the bad review, I often try and do my homework by ticking off all the above sub-titles as I go through the process of deciding where I join. Some networks & brands I would recommend are: Income Acces, AffClub, Intertops, Unibet & BrightShare

You decide for yourself!