In the fast-paced world and instant gratification of social media, email marketing can often get overlooked as a bit of a relic of the past. However, despite the hype on the death of email over the last couple years, the bottom line is that email is still prominently a part of our lives and will be for the foreseeable future. As online marketers, we attempt to engage our users in any way we can. As long as our customers are using email, it will likely continue to be used by marketers as an effective tool to reach customers. So while many of us focus on staying ahead of the trend, sometimes using what has worked in the past can be a viable strategy (ideally, to be used in conjunction with some of the more cutting-edge strategies). So enough about the death of email; how and when should we use it? Monthly Newsletters (or at regular intervals) If you’re a PAS publisher, you’re likely familiar with our monthly newsletters. We feel it’s important to keep our publishers up with the latest news and tips that are most important to them. Our newsletters also serve as a reminder of our products and services. We attempt the same regular engagement with users of our retail properties, most notably RakeTracker. Our RakeTracker mailer allows us to interact with users and keep players familiar with the best available offers. Through these interactions, our goal is to meet the needs of the recipients while also promoting our brand(s). We feel it’s extremely important to not “spam” our players and publishers with useless information. Obviously, we won’t meet the needs of 100% of the target audience, but by knowing our customers, we should be able to minimize the “spam” label and provide a genuine service. So try not to take it too hard when that first user labels you as spam or unsubscribes, despite your best effort. Advantages: Reach a large audience easily, can be informative, engaging(lags behind social media, however) Disadvantages: Impersonal, may be seen as “spam” PAS Recommendation: We recommend publishers send a regularly scheduled mailer to your players. Special Events/Promotions/News There is some news that can’t wait for an appearance in a monthly newsletter. Or maybe you just want to give special attention to a particular bit of information that may otherwise get lost. Our retail property campaigns have covered a variety of recent current events including the Eurobet move to Coral Poker, Merge Gaming’s reentry into new markets, Minted Poker’s $1 Rake Caps, as well as special new offers: all of them worthy of a unique campaign. Like our monthly newsletters, these special newsletters are sent to a large number of users in an easy way, but are often targeted to a specific segment of our userbase. Advantages: Can give extra emphasis to a particular topic, Can reach a large audience easily. Disadvantages: Impersonal, Perhaps more likely to be seen as spam if the mailer is different from what is usually sent. PAS Recommendation: Use relatively infrequently. Make it count so when a user receives a non-regular mailer from you, it has extra impact. If these mailers are used for topics that you and your users care a lot about, they will look forward to receiving your mailers. Personal Emails One of the disadvantages of a mass-mailer is they are by nature impersonal: the same message being sent to hundreds or thousands of other people. Plus, with as many emails as we all receive on a daily basis, your messages may have difficulty standing out from the other commercial email your customers are receiving making it difficult to make that all important connection. Obviously our goal is to avoid contributing to the noise as much as possible. One option is a personal mailer that doesn’t contain your fancy logos and attempts to reach the recipient on a one-on-one basis. The challenge is finding the words that speak to the player in their language while coming across as professional. The goal is to instill trust, rapport and to avoid acting like you are trying to sell them something. I like to try to think of the customer as a good friend and try to relate to them as much as possible. This can come easy if you really believe in the product you are trying to “sell.” For PAS publishers, a good way to use this strategy is with your VIP players. Maybe even give out your instant message contact details so if the user is skeptical of your intentions, they can feel better by an even more personal contact with you. Advantages: More direct contact with your player, seen as less “spammy” Disadvantages: Time-consuming, finding the correct “voice” for your personal connection can be difficult PAS Recommendation: Because of the amount of time involved, using this option for your VIP players is the most effective way to get value out of this method. If you find the right formula and More Information Final PAS Tip: PAS publishers can export an email of their players via the “Export Members” function in the publisher admin. This feature is available under the “Users” tab. Stay tuned to PAS for more posts on effectively using email marketing in today's environment. If you wish to receive help on your email marketing campaigns, the PAS team is available to assist you, whether it’s simply helping you devise an email marketing strategy or PAS doing all the legwork for you (creating, designing and sending the mailer). If interested, feel free to contact Seb, PAS Brand Manager about these extra services and more.
It’s pretty safe to say that when many people in the industry think of PAS that “white label rakeback provider” is one of the first things to come to mind. Indeed, rakeback is a large part of our business and our identity, but as the traditional rakeback model has faded to some extent, we realize it’s very important to stay ahead of the trend and offer the products that our publisher partners desire. While many easily recognize the benefit of having PAS as their rakeback provider, the thought may dawn on some: “Do I really even need to go through PAS to get the revenue-share or CPA deals that I seek? Can’t I just sign-up directly to get the same thing?” Certainly, getting a revenue share deal directly from a poker site’s affiliate department is fairly easy, but we believe that we can provide you as an affiliate with many additional services and benefits that will save time and make you more money – at no cost to you – in addition to the high value rev-share and CPA deals that we offer. “Everything Under One Roof”: Managing a business is difficult enough without having to manage all your affiliate accounts. With dozens of offers available at over 30 rooms – and the number of offers growing weekly – we can offer publishers deals at almost any type of room they can imagine. If you have existing affiliate accounts at certain rooms, such as any of the Merge Gaming revenue-share offers we have added, you will have the ability to transfer these offers over to PAS to more easily manage all of them (regardless of whether they are rakeback, rev share, etc), not to mention taking advantage of the services we provide. In most cases of affiliate account transfers, you will maintain existing rates with tiered opportunities for higher commissions. PAS publisher partners can also easily view stats in a centralized location, allowing you to conveniently view your numbers and results, which mean that managing your business financials, analytics and support has never been easier! Customer Service: PAS is fortunate to have individuals on staff who have years of experience in the online poker industry and affiliate marketing. So whether you have a question about an offer, how to market a product, or if your players have a question on a variety of topics, we can get you and your players quick, educated answers to all questions. PAS handling your customer service means less overhead and dealing with tedious tasks, allowing you more time to expand your business and enjoy your profits. Dealing with Affiliate Managers: Not only can it be time consuming to work with a bunch of affiliate managers, but getting timely answers and adequate attention can be difficult, especially when you are a new, small affiliate. Our prominent position in the industry allows us to go to bat for you, effectively giving you the power of a large affiliate. That can go a long way in many areas. Superior Commissions: Similar to dealing with affiliate managers, PAS can use our high volume to negotiate the best commissions available. When you sign-up directly to a new affiliate program, you are likely getting default rates. With PAS, you can rest assured that we have negotiated the best deal possible using our weight, reputation, and established relationships with poker rooms. In addition, PAS publisher partners are also able to cash out their commissions at lower limits. Exclusive Player Deals: We are constantly in discussions with our poker room partners about ways that we can make it more attractive for players to sign-up through PAS publisher sites. For CPA and revenue-share deals, this sometimes starts with exclusive bonuses. With revenue-share and rakeback offers, we are increasingly adding exclusive PAS promotions, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars each month that are in addition to the standard promotions a player receives for signing up directly to the poker room. Due to our size and large publisher base we can offer promotions that many small or medium sized affiliates simply can’t provide. Large exclusive deals means more sign-ups, which translates into higher returns for PAS publishers partners. For your convenience, all promotional payments (not to mention rakeback payments) are facilitated by PAS. Marketing/Tech Service: We have been an industry leader in affiliate marketing for many years and during that time we have learned how to effectively market a site, which we pass on to PAS publishers through multiple channels. Our Tech and Design is also among the best in the business helping you optimize your business and marketing efforts through cutting-edge technology. Check this blog post for some of the latest features to be added for PAS publishers, which include Click Tracking, Group By Country information and Special Content. Affiliate Payments: If you're an existing online poker affiliate, you know how difficult it can be to deal with affiliate payments. PAS makes affiliate payments a breeze. That's because each month, PAS makes a single, timely payment to your PAS account for all your commissions. No more chasing down payments from dozens of affiliate programs. We are also proud to have a monthly stat checking and auditing process to confirm the accuracy of the stats and ensure that you are paid precisely what you earn. Final Thoughts As you can see, there are many reasons why we believe affiliates should be using PAS not only for rakeback and CPA deals but also for revenue-share. If you are an affiliate who handles a lot of your business yourself, we’d love to help you manage your business more effectively and add additional dollars to your bottom line. If there is any reason you are not using PAS, we would love to hear from you and perhaps we can work together towards a mutually beneficial partnership. Let our scale, experience, contacts and networks go to work for you! Contact Us: You can also contact one of our three experienced affiliate managers on staff to assist you and discuss what PAS can do for you. Seb: seb [at] pokeraffiliatesolutions.com Alex: agardiner [at] pokeraffiliatesolutions.com Jordan: jkordosky [at] pokeraffiliatesolutions.com Check below for some of our hottest rev-share, CPA and rakeback offers: Revenue-Share: . CPA: . Rakeback: .
Recent Comments
