More Great News From Activewins.

**mickyfu** · 14 July 2014, 3:56 pm

Just received this email from them.

We would like to introduce you to the new ActiveWins affiliate system. This new system will make the promotion of our brands easier than ever. The system will give you the ability to pull creative, view your stats and manage campaigns for all ActiveWins brands in one comprehensive account.
The brands already live are Betfred Australia and mobibet, and from 24th July, the Betfred brand will be transitioned into the new system with Totesport to follow.
What does this mean for you?
This transition will enhance creative targeting, offer easier reporting across all brands and ultimately make the promotion of our brands much simpler. You will be able to manage campaigns, obtain creatives, and view stats for multiple brands from the same account - giving you a much better opportunity to make the most of your traffic.
What will happen?
From July 24th, you will be able to log into your new ActiveWins account with the same details you use for the current system. You will then have 2 months to change all tracking links and ensure all previous data is pulled from your old account for personal record. During this 2 month period, all tracking links will continue to track player traffic. All the information you need will be provided by your affiliate manager.
Important Dates to Remember:

24th July 2014: You will be able to login to the new ActiveWins Affiliate system.
30th September 2014: All tracking links must be changed.
31st October 2014: all historical data must be pulled from your old accounts.

So now we must change all our links or lose out. Well great news for people running one website, but what about the ones of us who have thousands upon thousands of pages?

Glad I stripped most my links out a few months ago, as it just keeps getting worse.

**baldidiot** · 15 July 2014, 4:55 am

To be fair to them they always said this was going to happen after they took over the programs for Betfred and Totesport.

It's a mild annoyance but plenty of programs do it - at least we're getting a couple of months notice about it.

**mickyfu** · 15 July 2014, 5:09 am

A mild annoyance? Yes maybe if you have a couple of websites. There is absolutely no way I could change every link I have made for BetFred, well never mind hey, just a bit of free advertising for them. Another way to shave a bit of money from their affiliates.

As for other affiliate programs, the decent ones make sure your links still work.

**-Shay-** · 15 July 2014, 5:14 am

Since we're being fair...

It appears as if all the brands that Activewins currently manage use the ever so famous and highly reliable Income Access software.

Now, I'm not intimately familiar with how exactly their wonderful software works behind the scenes, but... I can't help but wonder why they cannot simply do something similar to the "stats central" thing? You know, that option you have to get all your stats to show up in one place.

To me, if the email was telling ActiveWin affiliates THIS was happening instead of everything migrating and everyone changing links (or else) - then that would truly "enhance creative targeting, offer easier reporting across all brands and ultimately make the promotion of our brands much simpler" - thus allowing affiliates "to manage campaigns, obtain creatives, and view stats for multiple brands from the same account" and henceforth "giving you a much better opportunity to make the most of your traffic."

Glad I'm not working with them in any capacity.

**JackTenSuited** · 15 July 2014, 5:18 am

Surely if they have the ability to track players through old links for 2 months, they can make it permanent, how much server resources does it require to handle the redirect, unless ofcourse they had ulterior motives....

**baldidiot** · 15 July 2014, 5:29 am

Originally Posted by mickyfu

A mild annoyance? Yes maybe if you have a couple of websites. There is absolutely no way I could change every link I have made for BetFred, well never mind hey, just a bit of free advertising for them. Another way to shave a bit of money from their affiliates.

As for other affiliate programs, the decent ones make sure your links still work.

I'd recommend using redirects so it only takes 30 seconds to update all links on a site - that's why it's only a mild inconvenience for me.

Guessing you've hard coded them then... you could use a find & replace in phpmyadmin to do it quickly (super quickly if they're all on the same server).

**mickyfu** · 15 July 2014, 6:18 am

No my problem is I have hundreds of websites. As mentioned, if they can leave the links live for two months, then why not permanently? The only answer is because it benefits them in free money to not leave them live.

**RacingJim** · 15 July 2014, 2:07 pm

These migrations are always a worry for me based on previous ones and what people have said in the past. Let's hope it is handled well.

**casinovegas** · 15 July 2014, 2:43 pm

Wonder if they are moving totally away from income access or just a newer/different version.......

**Asim** · 16 July 2014, 5:19 am

Iam worried about this migration also. In my experience about 50% of these migrations turn out bad for affiliates. Suddenly existing players stop playing/depositing, site stops converting etc.
And then theres the problem about existing aff-links. If you are running many websites like me, its a time-killer. Time that you could have used on adding content, getting visits/players to your site.

Strange that they can only track aff-links for 2 months. It should not be a big problem if they really wanted to resolve it

**Cherelle ActiveWins** · 17 July 2014, 11:05 am

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your comments regarding the move to the ActiveWins affiliate programme. We understand that that there are always concerns when it comes to transitions from one affiliate system to another. This is why we are taking all steps necessary to ensure that this transition is as smooth as possible. 

You guys are correct, some programmes in the past have left the past links active. However, in our case this would not be the best course of action. We understand that this means some work on your end, and apologise for any inconvenience. We are asking affiliates to switch over their links for the following reasons:

Reporting:

Usually when programs allow affiliates to continue to use outdated tracking links, in depth reporting functionalities are lost. This is due to that fact that some sort of mapping is usually done at the database level. The mapping requires certain data to be fixed or omitted completely.
In some cases, clicks and impressions no longer register due to being linked to outdated banners that are not displayed in the new system.
New traffic could be associated to a banner strictly set up to facilitate tracking of outdated links. This would mean you will not be able to see how your banners are performing. This could impact your traffic.

New Functionalities:

ActiveWins uses the new Income Access Ad Serving tool.
This new functionality allows the affiliate team to set up ads specifically targeted to your traffic.
These highly targeted ads can display targeted images and re-direct to landing pages based on your players’ time of day, location, device, operating system and even browser. What’s more, your mobile traffic can be directed to mobile friendly landing pages, whilst web traffic on the same creative can be forwarded to web focused landing pages. These highly targeted ads can significantly improve your conversion rates.
You will only have to pull banner code once – the system will power the banner and landing page targeting automatically.
In addition to increased targeting capabilities, the ad serving tool also allows ActiveWins and Betfred to track additional customer information, such as location, operating system, browser, etc. which will help affiliates understand their customers to better target their marketing efforts.

Active affiliates who are still directing traffic, will be contacted by their affiliate manager prior to their links becoming obsolete. They will be provided with new links in order to continue promoting our brands.

We hope this addresses your concerns and that you are looking forward to using our new system, if you need any help at all with the transition, please inbox me or email hi[@]activewins[dot]com.

**universal4** · 17 July 2014, 2:18 pm

Having to change links, links that will be sitting in search engine caches for months or longer, because they will stop working is NOT a good thing for affiliates, no matter how it is spun.

New Functionalities:

Not if we serve our own images.

Rick
Universal4

**mickyfu** · 18 July 2014, 4:26 am

Originally Posted by Cherelle ActiveWins

Active affiliates who are still directing traffic, will be contacted by their affiliate manager prior to their links becoming obsolete. They will be provided with new links in order to continue promoting our brands.

Well good luck with that, because when the links become obsolete, I will be switching them to another brand. As I guess many others may do, before yet more problems arise. You know like the stats issue which you have had since October, or shaving smaller affiliates commission to practically nothing. You really do seem to be going out your way to make BetFred a brand that no one wants to promote. Take a look around, this is not just my opinion.

**webanalysissolutions** · 18 July 2014, 4:16 pm

Originally Posted by mickyfu

Well good luck with that, because when the links become obsolete, I will be switching them to another brand. As I guess many others may do, before yet more problems arise. You know like the stats issue which you have had since October, or shaving smaller affiliates commission to practically nothing. You really do seem to be going out your way to make BetFred a brand that no one wants to promote. Take a look around, this is not just my opinion.

Mask your links using something like ISAPI Rewrite - https://www.isapirewrite.com/ There are other rewrite technologies depending on your web server solution.

That way you can switch an advertiser within a second to redirect to another advertiser of your choice. Even if your links are cached on Google or on external sites, if someone's linking www.yoursite.com/betfred/ but you redirect that to bet365 instead, you can get over the issue of cached links. This is the most efficient way of dropping advertisers when they pull out rogue tactics - better than dropping them is to refer all of their previous traffic to their biggest competitors!

**webanalysissolutions** · 18 July 2014, 4:21 pm

Originally Posted by mickyfu

You really do seem to be going out your way to make BetFred a brand that no one wants to promote.

Betfred, Mobibet, Totesport, Bwin, 888, Titanbet, William Hill, Ladbrokes - all in the same category now. ROGUE.

It's good to see more and more people are dropping these brands. One day the industry will learn.

Fact - Some companies - the good ones, get 40% of all their revenue from affiliates, so being honest and reliable is key to the success of their business. Other companies overlook this fact and think that the affiliate model should make up only a small part of their business, to their loss.

**universal4** · 18 July 2014, 6:01 pm

Masking links using htaccess is NOT necessary.

Although it may seem like the most efficient way for you to redirect affiliate links, I disagree. A page on your site, containing the affiliate link (in my opinion) is much more efficient and much easier, and your htaccess file doesn't need to contain a few hundred extra lines for affiliate links.

I do agree though, that with either method changing links is easier.

Here are a few discussions on the masking (or hiding) of affy links.
https://www.dietistaktuellt.com/forum/redirects...ks-198631.html
https://www.dietistaktuellt.com/forum/masking-urls-182822.html
https://www.dietistaktuellt.com/forum/masking-a...ks-174527.html
https://www.dietistaktuellt.com/forum/hide-affi...le-215224.html

Rick
Universal4

**webanalysissolutions** · 19 July 2014, 11:54 am

Originally Posted by universal4

Although it may seem like the most efficient way for you to redirect affiliate links, I disagree. A page on your site, containing the affiliate link (in my opinion) is much more efficient and much easier, and your htaccess file doesn't need to contain a few hundred extra lines for affiliate links.

I do agree though, that with either method changing links is easier.

That was the point though, although there are easier ways to redirect/mask, having stuff in htaccess allows you to redirect the bad guys within seconds if you don't like them. If you have raw affiliate links all across your thousands of pages on your site then cutting out a bad advertiser can take a long time, and sometimes you never get them off your site as links and pages have been cached across the web. For example, let's say someone liked or shared my masked link on Facebook/Twitter to thousands of people to a bookie who then ripped me off. I could then quite easily change where that link goes in my htaccess and send people to someone I like instead. It also helps when advertisers move affiliate systems and tell you with only a few weeks' notice that all your old links are now obsolete. With masking you will never have an obsolete link.

Nice post though, thanks for the links to previous discussions. Realise some webmasters may not have the levels of access or skills to do htaccess too as on shared hosting you may not be able to do it. The code is pretty tricky too, but some form of ability to redirect traffic away from rogue programs when you need to is a must for any affiliate, otherwise all your hard work will just keep sending people traffic you don't want to.

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