Ethics & Affiliates
I often find other affiliates accusing me of “killing the industry” becuase my %s are too high or as a consequence of these high %s call for a cartel or networks to set a network cap. If these people have their own best interests at heart I can understand why the bigger companies are calling for this but, for ethical reasons I just don’t get it.
These guys follow or at least pretend to follow the school of thought that ‘your players rake x and at the moment you only earn 3% of x but, we earn 10% of our x’.
The the conversation goes something like:
Me: “So what would seperate me from you guys in terms of new customers ?”
Them: “Customer service”
I honestly don’t know if they really believe this themselves but, I’ve never heard such a pile of BS.
FTP has a capped network % and its literally impossible for new affiliates to break-through as a consequence.
If you look at the major players when it comes to capped network RB they’re not the ones with the best service, they’re the ones who give the most value (see: Cardrunners with HEM and Coaching, RakeTheRake with freerolls and huge rake races). So when these people come to me and say lower my deals becuase its killing the industry and its fair I don’t see why I should when what they’re doing is just as bad.
Another problem with this whole cartel or capped % thing is it needs to be heavily policed – so what I agree with a bunch of sites not to offer x% ? That just leaves on affiliate to clean up offerring a bit more.
Operating with thin margins is just good business sense in this industry. At the end of the day I’ve got an asset in all the relationships I’ve got with my players (even if they don’t play anymore), their contact details and more leverage with the skins to work with better margins myself becuase of the player base I built up.
In fact to anyone starting out as an affiliate struggling to compete I’d probably go as far to reccomed taking a minute % to begin with (granted you will make pennies in the 1st few months) and when you’ve got a decent player base, go to the skin and ask for a higher %. Then your cut will be comparable to that which you would have recieved offerring standard deals at the beginning and your player base will be twice the size.
Again I’m sure I’ll edit this and add to this post as I go along.
