Affiliate Marketing Blog from UK Offer MediaWelcome to Kieron’s blog - the life and times of an Internet Marketeer

How to create the perfect Bingo affiliate programme and sign up new Bingo affiliates

As many of you know I operate a bingo site at Bingo.org.uk. The site does quite well, and I have just employed a link building agency to help with backlinks and drive it further up the organic listings in Google.

It seems that over recent months there has been a huge increase in the amount of bingo sites that have sprung up and are wanting me (and no doubt other bingo affiliates) to promote them. I’ve been inundated with emails on a weekly basis. The problem is that 90% of them are just terrible, really really awful. Let me give you a couple of real life examples and tell you why they are so bad:

HI

We are interested in having a presence on your site can you please supply the rate card as well as what products you offer

our site is http://www.biggestbingo.com we would aslo be grateful if you would insert us in your review section

Regards

Maurice

OK so on one hand this guy wants to know my rate card, OK no problem with that. Then he asks me to “insert” a review of his site into my review page. Does he think I will do this for free? Why doesn’t he tell me anything about his site? I.e. what’s good/different about it? What % commission can he give me? The only action that his email prompted was for me to delete it. There was nothing in it whatsoever that held my interest. Remember I get a few of these a week.

Here’s another example of bad communication to potential bingo affiliates:

Hello there,

I am Ravi, Marketing Manager for BingoMagiX.co.uk. We are looking to advertise in your site and would be very much interested to start a campaign with you. Please join our affiliate program to avail from the best promotional offers or contact me directly at affiliates@bingomagix.co.uk and we can start the campaigns immediately.

Best Regards
Ravi Raghav

Again, Ravi hasn’t given me any reason to promote Bingomagix whatsoever. Why not just tell me a little bit about why Bingomagix rocks or at least what they can offer me in terms of commission. Don’t expect me to sign up to your affiliate programme just so I can see what you can offer me. That just won’t happen.

I could go on and list loads of crap emails here but I’ll save you, I’m sure you get the gist of what I’m saying. If you are going to email potential affiliates then why not give them as much information as possible about your programme? Make it easy for us to make an informed decision. Remember we get tons of these pitch emails so you really need to make yours stand out from the crowd.

Another huge problem in the gaming sector is currency and payment options. Let me explain:

Currency: There are loads of bingo sites that are set up to target UK customers living in the UK yet they only let you play in $US Dollars. I’m sorry but we live in the UK and our currency is £UK pounds sterling, if you can’t offer games in £UK then don’t bother. UK players laregly don’t want to play in dollars, it puts them off big time.

Payment: Some bingo sites insist that you have a Neteller account to pay your commission into. I don’t and don’t want one. Same goes for PayPal. Please either pay me via bank deposit or via a cheque, and please do it on the same day each month. Also, don’t ask me to raise an invoice for my commission every month. Why should I? Every affiliate network in the UK manages to pay me monthly without having to create and submit an invoice so don’t ask me to do it. I hate paperwork and don’t want any more, thanks very much!

But by far the biggest problem in this sector is that most bingo sites don’t OFFER SOMETHING DIFFERENT. They all have a “deposit £10 and we’ll give you £10 free” and/or “100% match deposit up to £100/£200″ but that’s all! Where is the angle? What makes your site different to the many, many others? I’m sorry but you really need a unique selling point that makes you stand out from the crowd.

So, here are 10 questions that I ask potential Bingo partners who email me asking if they can be featured on Bingo.org.uk. Some are specific to my site (i.e. a 90×90 .gif image) but most of my “rules” can be applied to all potential bingo affiliate sites.

1. Can you provide me with a UNIQUE review of your website, of at least 400 words. (Readers - before you start commenting, I usually edit these reviews and add my own opinion to them, but it’s nice to have a starting point).

2. Is £UK pound sterling the main currency that your players can use to play bingo?

3. Can you provide me with a static (non animated) 90×90 .GIF or .JPEG image to place alongside your review on http://www.bingo.org.uk/reviews/

4. Will you pay me every month for any commission earned WITHOUT me having to raise an invoice. I.e. you automatically deposit any earnings into my bank account on a specified date every month or you send me a cheque the same day on every month. I don’t accept Paypal, Neteller or any other payment methods apart from UK bank deposit or cheque.

5. Is you backend reporting system in £UK pounds sterling?

6. While we’re on, will you pay me in £UK pounds sterling?

7. Can you provide me with a plain html text link to promote your bingo site? I.e. no Iframes, no Javascript and nothing that “expires” every month and has to be renewed. I just want a plain text link like http://www.yourbingosite.com/affiliatecode1234 that lasts forever.

8. Do you have a unique angle? There are so many bingo sites out there now that you need a USP. What is yours?

9. I don’t deal with CPA’s, only rev share please. And a minimum of 35%. 40% to 50% is even better

10. Can you supply me with unique offers? I.e. £5 free for my users. Can you also supply me with regular content, i.e. details of any new games you have, special offers and promotions, winners stories, etc etc. The more content you can supply me with then the more you will be featured on my site, forum and newsletters.

If you can answer all of the above positively then yes I will be happy to feature you on my bingo review site. The above measures may seem a bit much but with there being so many new bingo sites sprouting up you really do need to apply some level of quality control otherwise you end up with a list of 1000’s of ”me too” bingo sites that offer nothing unique or special to users looking for a quality online gaming experience.

Looks like Jason is experiencing the same frustrations too.

What I’m listening to right now: Donnie Klang– “Doctor Love”

Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.