Start with how your platform reports players
Nothing else matters until player data reaches the system. Find out first what your casino or sportsbook platform can send, because that is rarely yours to change.
- Real-time events. Your platform calls a URL when a player registers and when they deposit. Affiliates see conversions within seconds. Ask how requests are authenticated, and what happens when the same event is sent twice.
- Daily files. Many platforms can only export a registrations file and a sales file once a day. Ask whether the system reads the file your platform already produces, or whether someone has to reshape it.
- A ready-made connector. Some vendors have integrations with specific platforms. Ask whether yours is one of them, and who maintains it.
- What is kept at registration. Whatever the route, your platform has to store a tag from the landing URL on the player. Ask which tag, and what happens to a player who arrives without one.
List the commission models you really pay
Write down the deals you have today before you look at feature lists. Most programs run on a few models, and the details are where systems differ.
- CPA. What qualifies a player: a first deposit, a minimum amount, wagering? Is it paid once per player?
- Revenue share. A share of net gaming revenue per player. Ask how a corrected figure is handled, and what happens to a month in which the players won.
- Hybrid and tiers. CPA and revenue share on the same deal, and rates that rise with volume. Ask only if you use them.
- Holds and chargebacks. How long a commission waits before it is approved, and what happens to it when the deposit is charged back.
- Changing a deal. When you change the terms, do past commissions keep the terms they were earned under?
- Sub-affiliates. If your affiliates recruit other affiliates, ask how many levels are supported and how the commission is split.
Ask how a player is attributed, and whether an affiliate can read the rule
Most disputes with affiliates are about attribution: which click got the player, and why a player got no affiliate at all. A system that records a reason for each decision makes these disputes short.
- Is it the first click or the last click, and inside what window?
- Can the affiliate see the rule that applies to them, in plain words?
- When a player is not attributed, does the system say why?
- Are flagged clicks, such as bots and repeats, kept and shown, or silently dropped?
Look at it as an affiliate would
Affiliates choose which programs to push. They stay with the ones where they can check the numbers themselves and get conversions into their own tools.
- Their own portal. The deal, links, clicks and every commission with its status. Ask to see it on a phone.
- Postbacks to their tracker. Media buyers run campaigns in a tracker such as Keitaro, Binom, Voluum or RedTrack. Ask whether each affiliate can set up their own postback, whether failed deliveries are retried, and whether the affiliate can see what was sent.
- Reports and exports. By day, link, sub-ID and country, as CSV, and by API for affiliates who keep their own reporting.
- Languages. The portal in the languages your affiliates work in.
Follow the money to the end of the month
Commissions become a payout once a month. Ask to be walked through one month-end in the product.
- Currencies. If you deal in more than one, ask in which currency a deal pays, at which rate deposits in other currencies are converted, and whether past totals move when rates change.
- The close. How a month becomes a list of what each affiliate is owed, and what happens to amounts below the minimum payout.
- Who moves the money. Some systems only produce a file for your bank or payment provider; some connect to payment providers. Neither is wrong, but you need to know which you are buying.
- The record. Can a commission be edited after the fact, and if so, is there a trace? A ledger in which a correction is a new row is easier to defend than one in which rows change.
Check the fraud basics
No system finds all fraud. Ask what is checked without your doing anything, and what happens to the commission while a case is open.
- Affiliates who refer themselves.
- Bursts of clicks, bots and repeat clicks.
- A second "first" deposit for the same player.
- Whether a flagged commission is held until someone decides, and who decides.
Hosting, price and how you would leave
These decide what the system costs you over years, not on the first invoice.
- Hosted or self-hosted. Who runs the servers, and who is called when a tracking link is down.
- How the price is worked out. A fixed fee, a fee per brand, a share of your revenue, a set-up fee. Many vendors do not publish prices: ask for the full number in writing, including set-up and migration.
- How long until you are live. Days, or a project of weeks.
- Getting your data out. Whether you can export clicks, players and commissions at any time, as files or by API, without asking anyone.
- What is built against what is planned. Ask which items on the feature list you can use today. We keep ours on one page, with the plans on a separate roadmap.
How RevRake differs from the systems you know
We compared what RevRake has built with what other vendors publish about their products. Each page states facts with their sources and the day they were read, and says "not published" where a vendor's pages are silent.
RevRake, in detail
- What's built today: every feature, and what is not built yet.
- The integration guide: how a platform reports players, step by step.
- The API reference: every field, limit and error code.
- Tracker guides: how affiliates connect Keitaro, Binom, Voluum, RedTrack and others.
- Fair use: what "free for operators" means.
Questions
- What is an affiliate system for a casino or sportsbook?
- Software that gives each affiliate tracking links, records which players each affiliate brought, works out the commission for those players from their deposits and revenue, and closes each month into payouts.
- What is the difference between CPA and revenue share?
- CPA is a fixed amount paid once for a player who qualifies, usually by a first deposit. Revenue share is a percentage of the net gaming revenue the player produces, paid for as long as the deal says. A hybrid deal pays both.
- Does my platform need real-time events?
- No. Real-time events show conversions to affiliates within seconds, but a platform that only exports daily files can run a program too. What matters is that the system accepts what your platform can send.
- Why do affiliates ask for postbacks?
- Media buyers optimise campaigns in their own tracker. A postback tells that tracker about each registration and deposit, so the affiliate can see which ad produced which player without logging in anywhere else.
- How much does an affiliate system cost?
- It varies widely, and many vendors do not publish prices. Ask for the monthly fee, any share of revenue, and set-up and migration costs. RevRake is free for operators and has no paid plan.