Affiliates in Cashcade boycott following programme closure
Loss of lifetime revenue following platform switch prompts bingo affiliates to cease promoting brands including Foxy Bingo
A group of high-profile affiliates have united to boycott GVC’s bingo brands after claiming the operator’s decision to close its Cashcade affiliate programme had led to an unfair loss of lifetime revenue, EGR Intel has learned.
A number of major bingo affiliates told EGR Intel this week they had collectively agreed to cease promoting brands including Foxy Bingo and Cheeky Bingo following the sudden closure of the Dragonfish-powered platform last month and subsequent switch to an ActiveWin Media programme.
Cashcade gave affiliates 48 hours’ notice to remove all promotional activity from their sites and said it would honour revenue share deals up until 26 January 2017, however, added it would not pay any additional income linked to referred customers after this date.
The decision infuriated affiliates who argued they would lose a substantial amount of residual income from players they had previously sent the operator. As a result, a group of affiliates have since decided to boycott the new scheme, while some are believed to be directing traffic to rival sites.
One bingo affiliate told EGR Intel: “Operators need affiliates as a cheap source of traffic and affiliates do a lot of the work to promote the brand in return for commission.
“Affiliates need to stand together with a united front so that if no big affiliates are promoting Foxy, it will struggle to rank because all the authoritative backlinks it had on big affiliate sites have been removed.”
Another source, who branded the closure “unethical”, also told EGR Intel some bingo affiliates had been offered compensation of up to £5,000 for lost revenue at last week’s London Affiliate Conference (LAC). However this has yet to be confirmed.
It is understood that no existing affiliate data will be migrated across to the new programme.
In response, a GVC spokesperson told EGR Intel: “While we understand that some affiliates are unhappy with our decision to close the old programme – which predated our engagement of ActiveWin, who played no part in that decision – we made it in the best interest of the business.
“Over the past week we have held positive meetings with a number of affiliates who we expect to work with when the new programme launches. Of course if some affiliates decide that they do not wish to sign-up with the new programme, that is a decision for them.”