Come Away Come Away From William Hill
7 Comments August 5, 2009 / Posted in Affiliate Marketing, NetworksHow many times have you had a merchant who for a while was good, but perhaps not so now, on your site and you’ve thought “well, I’ll leave them there for a bit longer, perhaps it’ll pick back up”, even though you should listen to your head and work with other merchants instead? We’ve done that far too many times and whilst occasionally commissions or relationships have improved, in general the initial gut instinct of abandon ship is usually right.
This week, William Hill finally moved their affiliate program from Netrefer, a simple and easy to use CMS, to Affiliates United, quite possibly the slowest and worst system I’ve encountered in over 10 years in affiliate marketing. In short it’s awful and I just don’t understand the thinking behind using this set up. Anyway, as all the old links now won’t track it means picking up new ones and changing them over to the new ones… oh joy!
Poor CMS + Extra Work = Not a Happy Affiliate!
Which got me thinking!
Why switch links to a network with whom I’m not 100% happy with when I can promote merchants, like Paddy Power, Blue Square or Skybet who I like working with and seem to understand affiliates and want to have a good working relationship with them?
So that’s the answer – work with merchants which aren’t a problem! There’s a temptation to muddle on with Affiliates United and William Hill, but my instinct is that it’s just not going to work out well. So the big affiliate tip of the day is don’t be afraid to walk away from a merchant – sometimes you just have to do it!
Of course there’s a downside and that’s in the form of potentially losing lifetime revshare issues and old links.
The revshare issue is a concern – will old players still be tracked properly? You’d hope so, but here’s an interesting point. AU casino links go to William Hill Casino Club where players are told that their William Hill accounts don’t work on this casino and that they must register a new account.
That to me sounds like any casino players previously sent to WH on the old system now can’t be tracked for revshare as they’re essentially entering a new casino? Maybe that’s not the case, but it doesn’t look good and hopefully clarification of revshare tracking for old players will be made available.
Old links can be addressed in two ways. We could change some links to the new ones, but what’s more probable is that we’ll add some code that will basically remove all links to William Hill.
In terms of work it’s probably as much effort, it may lose us commission (but I have a feeling that would happen anyway), and it does mean a well known brand being removed from our site. However, it means we’re not going to have hassle in the future (it’s expected), we don’t have to waste time with a network who we’re not happy with and we do get to work with merchants who are a joy to promote.
Good news all round!
Finally the title of this blog relates to the William Tell Overture “Come Away Come Away with William Tell” – and so to end on a fun note, here’s a cool Youtube video of a guy drumming what was also the theme to The Lone Ranger.
Now it’s time to get changing those links!
I never used the old platform so have no comparison, but the affutd platform, I agree is very slow and cumbersome to use and I can make no sense of the reporting system. Dont get me wrong I think it looks pretty good, its just the bones of it that dont add up.
Why William Hill cant see fit to run an inhouse program I dont know – even one on an Income Access platform would be better.
Personally as I only started promoting them after they moved to affutd the changeover has been no probs, but I can see you beef with changing links. It would not be hard for the to use re-directs from old links now would it?
Ta
Barry
If you’ve used Mecca Games, Paddy Power, Blue Sq lately then that’s the system they’ve swapped for the excuse that is AU. I disagree that AU looks good… in fact I’m struggling to find anything good about it.
Admittedly my experience of AU (see here) may be clouding my judgement slightly.
If you’re happy with the set up then good news and hopefully it’ll work out for you… but be wary. I just don’t trust this set up and am far happier to walk away – I’m just astounded that a huge brand like William Hill would take this path.
Great article. This is no surprise.
Do some googling for “cPays” and see what you get. Affiliates United is just cPays with a new name, as their reputation as scumbags who rip off both players and affiliates got the better of them. Looks like William Hill just bought cPays/Affutd and handed over their affiliate operations asap.
Interesting that the William Hill affiliate manager who tried so hard for so long to defend the company against the anger from affiliates was recently told to find a new job.
Or how about Joyland casino (in the same cPays/Affutd group) recently paying only half of a progressive jackpot win and pocketing 2m euros instead of paying it to the player:
http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/online-casinos/31033-stipulations-playtech-progressive-win.html
These guys are scum of the lowest order, so if you choose to continue working with them, don’t cry later because you have been warned.
Nice post, I have a sneaking feeling that merchants/casinos like to change systems every two or three years because they can lose a little bit of data here and there ~ which all adds up to less payouts to affiliates. I have no proof of this! it’s just that every time a merchant changes system, I seem to get less monthly rev share, 18 months solid £1000 per month averages on one system and then like magic after a change over I’m down to £500 per month!
Like to know if anyone else has had this happen?
The Affiliates United Website and the AUAP is owned and operated by William Hill Credit Limited of 2 City Walk, Leeds, LS11 9AR, England, William Hill Gibraltar Ltd and William Hill Gibraltar 2008 Ltd both of 57/63 Line Wall Road, Gibraltar and William Hill Malta Ltd of Valletta Buildings, Fourth Floor, Suite 19, South Street, Valletta, Malta together to be referred to as William Hill (”William Hill”) and therefore any reference to Affiliates United or the AUAP is also a reference to William Hill and vice versa.
Will Hill Sports Betting recently went live on CJ.
We have been promoting Willhill sportsbook for 3 years and finally had to dump them today. Zero signups in August, normally 50 a month and no sign of any recurring income either. What a disaster!..i have never seen such a cock-up in 12 years of affiliate marketing.