Affiliates recently learned of fraudulent behavior at C-Planet where players were being untagged from affiliate accounts. Unfortunately, this unscrupulous practice is something affiliates need to guard against. Here’s what to know about how to track and deal with the headache-inducing scenario of affiliate managers untagging players from your account.
Monitor Suspicious Activity
The folks at Casinomeister originally assumed that when all player activity at C-Planet came to a halt it was because no one wanted to play there anymore. However, after a C-Planet rep started a thread on their forums which generated multiple responses from active players, they became suspicious. Casinomeister contacted forum members to determine they were still active on accounts at C-Planet created through their affiliate links.
Here are some tactics and warning signs for determining if an affiliate program is untagging your players:
- substantial player activity diminishes to nothing
- build and maintain relationships with loyal players
- have a trusted friend keep a test account at sites to track affiliate program integrity
- question affiliate managers regarding suspicious changes to account
- maintain presence on gambling affiliate forums to monitor industry trends
Speak Up
If you have reason to be suspicious of an affiliate program, don’t be afraid to speak up. It’s better to perform some due diligence and find out you were wrong than continue to advertise for a rogue affiliate program that is stealing revenues from you.
Once you are certain an affiliate program has gone rogue and is untagging players from you, there is an industry counting on you to kick and scream like a child on a temper tantrum. Well, not literally. But that’s a much better approach than remaining mum.
As an iGaming affiliate, you are a player in a larger industry whether it always feels like it or not. There is a responsibility on all affiliates to do their part by creating objective reviews of gaming sites and reporting rogue activity to the community at-large.
The iGaming industry must collaborate to send a loud message to affiliate programs that practices like untagging players is completely unacceptable. There are a few ways to deal with this behavior:
- post on forums providing full evidence to support your claim (include screenshots, call logs, and anything else that legitimizes your assertion)
- update your reviews and gaming testimonials with the new information you have about the site
- stop sending players to the site (remove all affiliate links)
- call to action other iGaming affiliates to create community cohesion in blacklisting the rogue program
The extent to which affiliate programs will attempt to get away with shady practices is directly related to how careful gaming affiliates keep an eye on their revenues and the industry as a whole. Do your part to prevent untagging of players by making it clear to affiliate programs that such behavior will go noticed.