The idea for this topic came up while I was trying to get some people to review my site over in the site review area of this forum. After a couple of suggestions to post my frustrations here I decided it would make for a good discussion if people were interested. Here it goes....
Basically I am well aware of that this is a forum largely populated with regular affiliates, promoting the big non rakeback sites such as Party, Paradise, Pokerstars, etc. Us rakeback affiliates are clearly the minority here but there are a lot of things that I think are unfair on the way we are viewed in this industry, and the way we are flat out disrespected in this forum for what we do to try and earn a few extra bucks. Basically I felt like I was disrespected in that I posted a request to review my site, and I feel that because its a rakeback site I did not get as many suggestions as I thought a regular affiliate would have gotten for his site.
I am sick and tired of hearing affiliates say how rakeback affiliates are bad for this industry. Us rakeback affiliates are scraping and clawing for literally 1/10 of the income that regular affiliates are making for doing extremeley little for their players. Lets keep in mind that a rakeback affiliate makes anywhere from 2-5% per sign up, while a regular affiliate makes anywhere from 25-45% per sign up. The difference in pay checks is astronomical.
So why is there so much hate for rakeback affiliates? Is it because more and more players are finding out about it? Is it because it increases competition in the market? Regular affiliates through out this forum talk about how they love and care for the players they sign up. Well my question to you is what have you done for your player lately? You give them the same deposit bonuses / reload bonuses that the site would give them regardless of whether they clicked your banner or not! So what service are you providing for these players? Yes you may provide reviews of the poker rooms, or fun articles to read, whatever, is that really enough? These are the players we are talking about that are the reason you affiliates are taking in 25k checks per month. So my question is, what are you giving back?
I must say that I really love PPCOMPS site, it is brilliant. Here is a guy who is going to get sign ups, and big players because he is offering something out of his own pay check back to his players. He is looking to take care of them, and treat them like a VIP, a true baller building a reputation for himself.
Rakeback affiliates are actually providing a service for their players, they provide 24/7 customer support through IM communication if their players need anything, and in my case, the rakeback affiliate who I am partnered up with pays our players directly out of his own pocket when our players want to be paid! He provides instant cashouts, and then gets re-imbursed by the pokersites once a month. Again we provide a service, we are paying our players essentially 95% of our "payments."
This is not to say that regular affiliates do not work hard, because I believe they do. Coming up with great new niches, and building content, and getting their site out there, this is a VERY grueling job. And I am amazed by the effort that affiliates are making to really succeed at what they do. So I have nothing but love and respect for the affiliates at this forum and in this industry.
One more thing I am truly sick and tired of hearing about is "oh well party/paradise/pokerstars are the 3 biggest sites and they dont have rakeback and they are the biggest because they dont offer rakeback." This suggests that somehow rakeback is bad for this industry. I think this is a load of crap personally! They are the biggest because they are the ones putting themselves on regular prime time tv ad spots, and getting their name out to NEW players with big time advertising. These new players that these sites target probably dont even know what rake is, let a lone rakeback, so why tell them? It is truly genuis marketing plan, why give something extra to the player when they don't need to know that something like rakeback exists. Let them think the deposit bonus is the greatest thing in the world!
I hate to make this post so long, but I would like to finish my ranting with one final comment. And it is that I believe rakeback is where this industry is headed. As poker expands every year they play the WSOP on ESPN and all the other events, the poker boom just keeps exploding. And before you know it word gets around. People want this extra incentive to play online poker. They are literally risking their funds with offshore companies who could withold payments, they need to feel like they can trust these sites. Sorry for making this post long, but I just had to get some stuff out there off my chest. I do not mean to step on anybody's toes here, just looking to see what other people think about this. BASH AWAY.
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