When I first started of promoting gambling programs I only promoted casinos/poker/bingo rooms which had their own affiliate program rather than ones which go with network programs such as affiliate window. The main reason is because of the stats issue, you wan’t to see exactly how many people are playing, how many times the client has been download, how many registrations have been made, the total amount of deposits made etc and you can’t access that information on networks like Affiliate Window etc.

Another reason and a much more frustrating one is that a bingo/casino/poker room may one day just decide to drop their relationship with an affiliate network, this happened recently with Sun Bingo dropping their relationship with buy.at, my main reason for signing up with buy.at was to promote Sun Bingo, I made a lot of sales mainly due to their TV exposure etc so I signed up on a commission basis. It was frustrating enough that I only earned commission on sales for 6 months rather than a life time but if Sun Bingo drops buy.at then I make absolutely nothing. After getting no reply from buy.at I can only assume I won’t be recieving any commission after Sun Bingo drop buy.at at the end of the month. If Sun Bingo ran their own program like many excellent bing rooms do (Crown Bingo, Think Bingo etc) then I would expect to earn commission for the 6 months initially agreed.

As such I will find it hard to ever promote a gambling affiliate program through an affiliate network site and instead will rely on the gambling only affiliate networks, most of which are still paying me commissions from players I refered 4+ years ago!

What I’m drinking now - Scrumpy Jack

It might just be me, but when ever I’m out and about wether it be in a pub or a park I always see things through the eyes of an affiliates. For example a while back I came up with the idea of promoting truck rentals rather than car rentals after seeing hired truck drive past, after some minor research it seems that a) the competition is lower (42,000,000 for ‘car rentals’ 2,400,000) for ‘truck rentals’) and b) the commissions are substantialy higher. So I went on a bit of a PPC mission promoting this and made a decent profit.

I find it hard to even go out for a drink without thinking of things from an affiliate marketers prospective and I highly suspect I’m not the only one!

What I’m drinking now - Old Rose Cider

The world series of poker 2008 got underway a few weeks back and the main event is due to start in a few days. The main event winner could become and instant millionaire or add to his/her existing poker bankroll, one thing is for sure the WSOP is always good news for affiliates. In 2003 Chris moneymaker won the main event for a tasty $2,500,000 after getting his place in the main event via a $39 sattelite, this is said to be the catalyst which sparked the online poker boom with millions of poker newbies hoping to be the next moneymaker. Either way affiliates cash in through a number of ways such as creating sites solely for the WSOP (which is heavily televised), general poker affiliates gaining cash players throughout the event, and sports betting affiliates promoting paddy power bookmakers who are offering 100/1 odds on many pros making the final table.

The main event final table has now been moved all the way back to november this year, giving you extra time to cash in. Some ideas to gain extra players include sites dedicated to each table finalist (their are bound to be some unknowns giving you 0 competition) and creating a site dedicated to WSOP final tables. Start creating those sites now, the final table will be aired in just  a few months!

What I’m Drinking now - Vodka/Dr Pepper

As any reader of the af4u forums will known sunshine.co.uk have been running a series of amazing affiliate incentives such as giving away holidays worth in excess of £2,000. The best thing about these incentives is that it’s open to everyone, sunshine.co.uk have created the competition in such a way that you don’t have to send £1′000s in commissions to even be considored, in order to win the latest competition all you have to do is a blog or write about your ideal itineray on any of the sunshine.co.uk’s destinations. IF you don’t have a travel site it’s the ideal time to get started.

I have never worked in the travel industry but decided to give it a shot despite the competition, I have always fancied a trip to india and noticed one of the destinations listed was Goa, a popular beach resort in India. I will post the URL of my site once launched, although I don’t expect to win with all the competition it’s still worth a shot not to mention the possibility of earning descent commissions (sunshione payout 7%).

One of the previous incentives was for affiliates to create a blog or website about any location on the sunshine website, not only was this an incentive for affiliate to get involved in the industry they gave full blown instructions on how to do it! checkout David Friskes excellent post here

Checkout the thread on AF4U or the excellent affiliate resource and blog section of sunshine.co.uk

If only other affiliate programs would take this sort of route more often!