PAS is pleased to announce that we have launched Geo-Targeting to PAS publisher sites effective today at 21:00 GMT. You should have all received a newsletter today informing you of the changes but just in case, we thought we would also provide some information here as well. About Geo-Targeting Wikipedia defines Geo-Targeting in the following way: "Geo targeting in geomarketing and internet marketing is the method of determining the geolocation of a website visitor and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location." As online poker affiliates, the benefits of Geo-Targeting are quiet clear, especially for those catering to players in a variety of regions. With regulation and online poker room rules, many of our offers are not available to players in every country. This means that when a user visits your site from a country that has few offers (for instance Italy or the United States) they have to wade through a bunch of offers/content that aren't really relevant to them. U.S. players will no longer see Party Poker offers, European players will now have offers more relevant to them at the top of the list, and the ability to cater to specific regulated markets will be much easier. In our trial run of the service on our retail rakeback brand, RakeTracker, we were able to improve optimization, while increasing conversions and profitability for targeted offers. The feature will be actively managed on an ongoing basis by PAS for FREE, using our industry knowledge and tried and tested methods. Even though the feature is not required for PAS publishers it is highly recommended given the obvious benefits. Changes you will notice: The first change you may notice is a new offer order on your affiliate websites. In addition, if your IP is from a country that doesn't have many offers, you may notice fewer poker rooms on your website. This is based on the new country lists we have created for each segment. Coming very soon we will be adding a drop-down box so you or your visitors can manually change what offers are displayed. In the publisher admin, you will see a new section under the "Website Management" tab called "Geo-Targeted Offer Management" which will allow you to administer or monitor the Geo-Targeting feature. How you can participate The service was launched on 21:00 GMT Tuesday and for most publishers the change should be automatic with no additional action required. Some publisher sites are set up uniquely so the feature may not automatically be applicable to your site and will require further action on your part, if you wish to participate. You can monitor/manage the Geo-Targeting feature by navigating to the "Geo-Targeted Offer Management" section in the publisher admin, as mentioned above. You will also be able to see our offer order for each region segment as well as control whether you or PAS manages the service. If you choose not to use the service, you can control that here as well. If you decide to manage the service, make sure you are keeping up with industry happenings and actively optimize your lists. Questions: What if I don't want this service? Even though geo-targeting is highly recommended, you don't have to participate in the feature. Under "Website Management" in the publisher admin you can change who manages the service. I can't see some of my offers. What is going on? Geo-targeting is at work and you are in a country which doesn't provide many poker room options. We will be launching a drop-down box in the near future so you can view the site live for any country. Selecting a country that's very friendly to online poker, such as the United Kingdom, will be the best option to view all offers. I want to take part in this service but don't think it's working. Contact Seb. Who do i contact if I have any questions or issues? Contact Seb with any questions or concerns. Feel free to share any comments you have in the forum. Screen shots of Geo-Targeting Management: Geo-Targeting administration in the Publisher admin: List of country segments: Control who manages Geo-Targeting:
Update 5/8- Geo-Targeting has launched. For full information on this feature, please see our updated post. With regulation and ring fencing becoming more rampant in the online poker industry, it is increasingly necessarily to target your offers, content and site towards the specific users that are visiting your sites. As a user of your site, who wants to wade through dozens of offers that aren't relevant to them? PAS's solution -- Geo-targeting! PAS's Geo-targeting system recognizes the IP of your vistors and displays only the offers that are relevant to them. With geo-targeting implemented, your U.S. members will no longer see unnecessary European offers like Party Poker or Titan Poker. Your German players will have more relevant rooms at the top of their offer list. You can show your PartyPoker.fr offer just to French players! Upon launch, geo-targeting will come in two basic forms: enabled or disabled offers and offer order -- both customized by country. Each room will be customized and managed by PAS based on our hours of research and testing for the correct and most optimal placement. This new feature will automatically be available for all new and existing default publishers. If you don’t use default content, instructions will be posted shortly on how you can take use the feature as well. We're extremely excited for this new feature and its future possibilities. Stay tuned to PAS for more info coming soon!
A common question that Brian, Cena and John receive in customer service revolves around the subject of default PAS pages and how they work. Quite often these inquiries are related to a page that hasn’t been updated on a PAS publisher’s website but that has been made on other default PAS sites. With a recently introduced Default Content Identification feature (DCI), PAS publishers will now be better equipped to manage and monitor the content of their websites. Some Basics of Using Default PAS Content When an affiliate registers a basic website through PAS, they are given the choice of using PAS default content on their websites. Here is an example of my very basic test site using 100% default PAS content. To what extent you use the default content is completely up to you, however. Your PAS sites are flexible to fit your needs or wants. The PAS default content is updated on a periodic basis as changes are warranted, so if you prefer, you can just let your site sit as you focus on other ways to bring players to your sites. Or you can pick and choose which content to use and what to update yourself. Of course, you can also use none of it. One important item of note is that whenever you update a page that is using the PAS default content, the page will no longer be updated by PAS in the future. Other pages on your site will still use the default, but the specific page you updated will not. Note that tokens and other dynamic content will still function as normal, provided they have not been updated as well. You may also “Restore to Default” at any time and use the most recent PAS version of that page. Restoring to default will remove all revisions. Introducing Default Content Identification A previous major problem for PAS publishers who choose to use a mix of default content and their own (which is a common practice) is recognizing or remembering what pages are being updated by PAS and which pages have been updated by you, which effectively make you responsible for future updates. With the introduction of the Default Content Identification feature, recognizing and managing your pages just got a lot easier. Navigate to your CMS in the Publisher Admin. Pages containing PAS default content are listed in gray, whereas pages in regular black text are using your custom content. Make sure that these pages are maintained if you strive to have an updated site. You can always restore to default or create a 100% default site for your reference. Here’s what the new feature looks like in all its epic glory: Any questions about Default Content? If you have any questions about this new feature of anything related to default CMS, don’t hesitate to contact our customer service department. For more information on the CMS, you may also refer to the FAQ.
One of the most important aspects of any business is knowing your customer. That's particularly true in the online poker world, especially now as the market is becoming more fragmented. One of our goals at PAS in 2012 is to provide our publishers with tools to allow them to address their diverse membership. Last month, we implemented the IP Country feature, which enables you to know the IP country of your sign-ups. Before this new feature was added the only way to tell the location of your players was when they manually inputted their country upon creating their account. The new IP Country feature will not only allow you to know where your customers are coming from, but you can also use this information to target them in a more specific way, enriching player experience in the process. Want to send a mailer to all your German players promoting a specific offer? Don’t want to bother sending a Party Poker offer to U.S. players? You’ll get benefit from PAS’s new IP Country Feature You will be able to reference this new information in three locations at this time: 1) Member Search Page (including Advanced Search) 2) Export Member Emails 3) Under a specific member page Please let us know if you have any questions about this new feature.
Inspired by a question on the PAS forum regarding 301 Redirects, I thought it might be helpful to give a basic run-down on a handy tool available for PAS publishers that makes redirecting page a breeze. First of all, you will mostly likely find the need to do a 301 redirect when you have moved a page. When you “move” a page (for instance to a more SEO-friendly URL) there may be links on your site or even back links to that original page. Of course, you want to avoid broken links at all cost so you developing a redirect to the new page is usually recommended. The process is quite simple (heck, no techs were even harmed or bothered in the making of this post) through your CMS via the publisher admin. Example I will be using: Original URL: yourpokersite.com/your-terrible-url.html NEW URL: yourpokersite.com/your-brand-new-awesome-url.html Step 1 The page that you want to redirect from (yourpokersite.com/your-terrible-url.html ) should either be “Moved” to a new URL or deleted. Make sure the page you want to redirect to has been created (yourpokersite.com/your-brand-new-awesome-url.html). The easiest way to do this is via the “Move” feature in the PAS CMS, seen below. Click “Save” when done. Note: the page you are moving to does not exist until you “Move page” and then “Save” Step 2 At this point your new URL is functional, but your original will yield a 404 error. We want to avoid that, so let’s create a new redirect. Click “New redirect Page” from the upper left of the CMS as seen below. Step 3 From this page, enter your original URL that at this point is a broken link. Secondly, enter the new URL you want this page to go to. Click "Create" and you should be now be finished with your redirect. Step 4 Confirm your redirect by going to the path of the old page. You should notice a small icon with a yellow arrow over a globe. This represents that the page is being directed to another page. In my example, you can see the new page just above the redirect (yours may not be, depending on your URL path). I recommend testing the new redirect via your internet browser until you are comfortable with the process. Good luck with your redirects and please let us know if you have any questions.
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