Cookies.....reasonable amount of time

I have been thinking about this issue a lot lately as it seems the biggest issue facing this industry as a whole. The issue is tracking and cookies. If you understand how affiliate codes and tracking works, in most instances either the system is not working at all or it is working 100%.

You then can throw some other varables into the mix such as browser issues and improper links from affiliates, but for the most part the main issue becomes cookies. If a player comes through on your affiliate "tag" and the site has the other side of that "tag" embedded in the page, then the two will undoubtebly connect. Think of it like a magnet. The reason players don't get tracked is becasue something interferes with that magnet, such as a cookie. Be assured though that every homepage on these sites Hhas the proper code embedded in them to connect those tags and track your players if there is no interferences.

Many sites have 12 month cookies however which interfere with the connection of the tags and in my opinion is way too long. In fact I think a 2 to 4 week cookie is sufficient. Let's say I have a player that clicks through to abcpokerroom.com from my site, checks it out and decides not to play there. Then 4 months later you are promoting the heck out of this room and running a special promo which finally gets this player to sign-up and deposit strictly because of your efforts. As much as I would love to have that player, I really don't deserve him, you do. It was your efforts that got that player to sign-up, not my banner farm or garbage site.

For those of you that sign a guy a up at a new room and you "just know" he is your player but yet doesn't track, the odds are there was a cookie attached to him. Especially the big sites, think of this......you may not be a player at paradise or party but I bet in the last 12 months for whatever reason you have clicked through or visited the sites at least once.

With that said as the largest assembled group of poker affiliates in the world, I think we should decide what a "reasonable" amount of time for cookies are and let the card rooms know what the "standard" should be. Not that they will all change the way they do things, but instead of complaining amongst ourselves and to AM's lets offer up suggestions to make all of our jobs easier.

Listen, all these poker sites and affiliate managers want to do what is in the best interest of us. For an AM on commission, he or she doesn't like it when your players don't get tracked either. But sometimes I think we only complain about tracking and don't offer up a solution. Extended Cookies are a major issue in my opinion, especially for the bigger sites and it needs to be addressed.

This has been discussed here before, but I would love to hear ALL of your thoughts on this issue and what a reasonable amount of time for a cookie is. Leave the bonus code argument out of this as I want this discussion to be strictly related to raw links and cookies.

Discuss...............

[RMalone]

I seriously can't believe someone could keep a certain cookie on their computer for 12 months, or even one month. There is increasing awareness of spyware and whatnot and most spyware removal programs clear your cookies and internet cache also. This is if they dont clear there cookies regularly.

[Kyle]

3 Weeks is good. 12 month period is ridicolous someone could have been at the site 6 months ago without even knowing it or before they played online poker and were just checking out the site's look. I think that the affiliate who most recently referred the user, the one who actually got the player to deposit in the pokerroom should get credit.

The reason I think 3 weeks is sufficient, is because it gives someone enough time to check out a site, decide they like it, decide they will play in 2 weeks when they get their paycheck and have extra income to gamble. In that case the affiliate is still the one who got the player to deposit because it is just a matter of waiting to get a paycheque.

[PPP]

3 months is the bare minimum. The reality is that a very large amount of players make a bullshit play money account, which they delete/uninstall before they make a real account. Anything less than a month would be silly since it takes near two weeks to even set up Neteller.

The original affiliate should always have preference over the most recent one. The most recent one likely did nothing to find the player.

Personally I'd love to see a sharing of a player if two affiliate interests are in conflict, but apparently no one in the industry is prepared (or able) to do that.

3 months is the bare minimum

I might agree with this for the reasons you mentioned. 3 months probably is a fair amount of time for a player to decide if because of your site they are going to go back and be a real money player. After reading your point with Neteller and everything I agree 2 weeks is a bit short. Thanks for pointing out the obvious that I overlooked.

The original affiliate should always have preference over the most recent one. The most recent one likely did nothing to find the player.

Disagree. If I click on some dipshits link off of recpoker and see a fancy banner or automatically get redirected to a poker site with their aff. link........... Or even more realistic if I am just surfing the web and end up clicking on a banner and quickly X out of the site. 11 months later if I am at someones site that has a great review and some strategy articles that convinces or sells me on why I should download that software and play there.........then this affiliate deserves the credit in my opinion.

I'm not saying your wrong PPP. I guess it's just my sales background that makes me feel that I should be "closed" by somebody, and that the salesperson who closes me deserves the deal. I agree there are a lot of players that download and become play money only to erase the software and then start a real money account a few months later. I think you and I would both agree that a recruiting campaign of these play money players or freerollers is not going to produce amazing results anyways. I want the folks that are gonna DL today and deposit today or within the week.

Personally I'd love to see a sharing of a player if two affiliate interests are in conflict, but apparently no one in the industry is prepared (or able) to do that.

Yea you and me both..............but can you imagine being the person employed to litigate between two whiny affiliates. :P

[PPP]

I (if I was a cardroom) don't care what salesman closes the deal. I care about who put the flashing neon sign on the freeway that got seven zillion people to take the exit and pull up for a look.

More importantly, an affiliate who does nothing but poach players brought by another affiliate is totally useless. If such animals didn't exist, then secondary affiliates would have more of a leg to stand on, but since some massive percentage of "second" affiliates are basically useless manipulators, that unfortunately impacts badly on genuinely useful "second" affiliates.

[absentx]

I really don't think selling someone on a poker room is any different than selling a car.

The salesmen who does the best job gets the deal, Last in first out, that's how I see it.

I am a centrist as well on this, and I think splitting a player is an amicable solution. Many times, the combined marketing of affiliates will sway a player to a given room.

This player might have clicked on your banner first, investigated the site and not deposited or created an account. But the banner they saw a month later that said "$200 deposit bonus plus a poker help forum and monthly freerolls when you join XX site now" is what really convinced them to start playing on this given site. I am sorry but affiliate one in the above scenario didnt close the deal...the second affiliate did. Who gets credit??? A split is amicable, but I think most would see there are many ways this could go.

[goldog]

Good points on both sides. The first site hooks 'em and the 2nd reels 'em in, who gets paid??? :unsure:

In fishing, landing the "fish" is all that really matters. "The one that got away" doesn't count.

Creating a relationship and guiding a player to deposit at thier first site after they've been "just looking around" should in my opinion get the $$$. If the fish doesn't care you'll most likley lose out to the "hooker" so to speak.

Of course bonus codes can help insure the closer get paid but that's not always possible.

I guess this argues for a shorter cookie. 1-3 months seems reasonable so I'll vote 60 days.

[PPP]

It is like selling cars, but you are missing the point of that. You are looking at it like we are talking about someone wandering onto a lot, talking to a lame salesman, leaving and coming back to talk to a second one.

The greater realities are first that a salesman got someone to the lot, is walking him around, then a poacher smacks the first salesman on the head, runs up to the customer, lies that he is the legit salesman, and finishes the deal. This person is useless. Secondly, it's not just salesmen here, but also larger advertising. people are brought to the lot. Ignoring that is just not smart. If TV commercials brought thousands to the lot, that is the valuable thing, not the drone selling the cars -- and that is where more of the money goes in car sales too. Or, suppose one of the offline marketing types left business cards in urinals or books or wherever they do for poker, which brought tons of customers to the lot. The contribution of closing salesman again is next to nothing.

If a cardroom were foolish enough to focus on the closing salesman, no one would ever go to the room. Terrible business model. The closer of the deal here will 95% of the time be the cardroom itself. Rules should not be made for the relatively few times players fall through the cracks.

And most importantly, what you guys advocate is nothing but the death of affiliates, as all it takes is a final signup screen from the cardroom that trumps the last affialtes bonus code or whatever. Now the cardroom "closes the deal" and by your logic all affiliates are cut out of it. You better hope that cardrooms never adopt a policy like what has been suggested.

[gumbajohnny]

100 days
If you cant close a date in a 100 days maybe your just not a closer