Welcome to Poker Week on the Income Access Blog. This week, we’ll be focusing on a variety of topics, all Poker related, from informative pieces, tips to improve your business model, to promotions. Whether you’re a new affiliate interested in the space, a seasoned affiliate or an operator wanting more insight, you’ll want to check out Poker week on the Income Access blog.
About Rakeback
Rakeback is a strategy that’s especially popular among poker affiliates. It consists of giving players back a percentage of the rake. Rake is defined as a set percentage of every pot that the House, or online poker site, takes as a commission for every hand of poker played. Rakeback is a form of incentive that offers players a “condolence prize” or, a small return on the money they lost, in the hopes of increasing player loyalty. The benefits of rakeback include (a) repeat play (b) higher commissions on a consistent basis because a piece of the rake is paid out and (c) it gives players the sense that they are part of a members-only club.
While there are positives, there is also a fear among operators and affiliates this marketing technique is actually quite harmful to affiliates and operators alike. With rakeback affiliates mixed in with “regular” affiliates, players are sometimes eager to abandon their existing “regular” accounts to create new ones through rakeback affiliates who will pay them. For this reason, rakeback is banned within a lot of affiliate programs, so as to preserve relationships with non-rakeback affiliates.
Who gives Rakeback?
Rakeback payments can be disbursed by the affiliate or the operator; it just depends on the business model of the affiliate and poker room. Payment frequency varies by poker rooms too. There are poker sites like paynorake.com which pay daily rakeback payments, where as some poker rooms pay weekly rakeback payments and the rest of the rakeback payments are paid on a monthly basis. Some affiliates choose to offer their players rakeback even if their operators do not, out of their own pocket or from their affiliate commissions.
How to set up Rackback through the Income Access software
By tracking player stats individually, data can be gathered that is used to allocate rakeback to players accordingly. An essential part of optimizing your marketing campaign and maximizing its return is having the right tracking in place so that you can determine the lifetime value of the players you’re attracting. Although search engines provide excellent analytics on click-through-rates, they cannot track the lifetime value of a player. Tracking the lifetime value of a player allows you to see if your strategy is working, and to tweak it accordingly. Optimizing your campaigns requires that you have detailed reports on all your key-performance-indicators (KPIs). As an iGaming operator, these include players referred, deposits, long-term revenues generated by each Adwords ad, and which types of players are coming through on which keywords.
Effective Monitoring
An effective way to gather analytics on player conversions is with an integrated marketing platform, such as an affiliate program powered by the right software. Affiliate tracking is about tracking referrals from third parties straight through their entire lifecycle.
For instance, the Income Access affiliate management software features a Player report, which allows affiliates to track the stats on the lifetime value of a player. They can then view full detailed reports on the players, deposits and revenues being generated and then tweak rakeback strategies accordingly. This may mean paying out more of the rake to affiliates who bring in a certain sort of traffic, or deciding that rakeback is attracting the wrong type of players and revisiting the strategy.
Rakeback, Trust and Tracking
Rakeback is generally used to add more value to the players and encourage loyalty for a particular poker brand and affiliate. The perception is that offering something to your players translates into repeat play and higher commissions. However, others feel that this marketing technique is actually quite harmful to affiliates and operators alike, and for this reason, it’s banned within a lot of affiliate programs.
If you intend to leverage rakeback as a strategy, then, you might want to check which affiliate programs do not accept rakeback affiliates, and then make sure that you don’t register your rakeback sites with non-rakeback affiliate programs. If you are going to use Rakeback, it’s also important to have effective tracking tools in place so that you’re effectively monitoring the quality of players you’re attracting – and can modify your marketing efforts accordingly.
Be sure to check back every day this week for more tips, tools and promotions, as we celebrate Poker week on the iGaming Affiliate Marketing Blog. And, be sure to take part in our celebratory freeroll, happening November 13th on betweendrinks.com.
Be sure to check back every day this week for the next installment in this informative series.
- Ways iGaming Affiliates Can Earn Money: Rakeback
- Why Is Rakeback Still So Controversial?
- Emerging Markets in Poker
- Affiliate Programs an Essential Part of Your Online Poker Business
- The Rise of Women in Poker
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