How a poker media website gets paid, just like any blog or news site,
has a direct impact on the content they produce. If you are looking to get into
poker writing, you need to know how your potential employers are paying the
bills and create your content to fit that model.
I know a lot of great writers, much better ones than I could hope to be,
who were unable to make a go of poker writing because they didn't understand
this simple fact. Often the thing they don’t understand is how what they write
could upset a potential advertiser; which is unfortunately the biggest
tightrope walk we face in this industry.
I learned the hard way how important understanding the advertiser is in
poker. When the Absolute Poker scandal first materialised I proudly was one of
the first people to get the story onto a news site, reporting on it when I was
a staff writer for PokerNews. Because I hadn't been paying attention to the
site I worked for, I didn't notice that Absolute Poker were, at the time, one
of our biggest affiliate partners. The management team were not happy with me,
they pulled the article, and I almost got fired.
Luckily for me the story got huge pretty quickly anyway, PokerNews
dropped Absolute Poker from their affiliate partners soon after and republished
my original article quite quickly. I think all that was enough for me to keep
my job, but an important lesson was learned.
Now a lot of people might say that I was right and the management team
at PokerNews (It was a completely different management team to the one in place
at the moment btw) was wrong. But in hindsight I would side with PokerNews on
this one - don't bite the hand that feeds. People who cry about journalistic
integrity are the exact people I mentioned before do not make it very far in
this industry. I too strive to to write honest unbiased work, but I also
appreciate that without advertisers, none of these sites, and jobs, would
exist.
That doesn't mean that everything you read is bullshit on these sites,
far from it. There has been a significant move towards transparency in the
poker media, particularly after Black Friday. But you need to understand how
these sites make money if you want to work for them. Likewise if you are just a
reader of these sites, I hope the following will help you understand why
certain things are reported on and others are omitted from front pages:
Pay per click/pay per impression - Websites which are paid by the
number of page views they receive are a staple part of the online news industry.
They tend to get paid a small amount by advertisers for every user that clicks
a link, or for every thousand page views.
I mention this advertising model first, because this is precisely what
99% of poker sites DON'T rely on, but many people assume they do. As a result,
this has a profound effect on the content.
Blogs that rely on page views are much more sensationalist and prolific.
It is in their interest to be the first to break news, expose scandals, and
produce a lot of new content every day. Even the biggest news blogs only get
something like $4-$12 per 1000 page views. So as you can imagine, they need big
controversial stories every day to get millions of hits in order to make it
worth their while and employ staff.
This model is good in one sense, because scandals would not get swept
under the carpet. It is very bad in another sense because it encourages sloppy
work, that is rushed out quickly, not fact checked, and sometimes is straight
up lies. If poker went this way, even more cheating scandals would be exposed,
but we would also see some really slimy gutter reporting, personal attacks, and
unsubstantiated rumours being presented as facts.
The poker market is simply not big enough to attract the type of page
views needed to make good money, which is why most poker sites rely on the
affiliate model.
Affiliates - The poker media is built on the poker affiliate model. All the big
media sites you see today have got where they are from poker players signing up
to online poker rooms via their affiliate links. They usually get either a one
off fee for each new player who signs up, which is called a CPA (Cost Per Acquisition),
or a regular percentage of the rake they pay to that poker room called MGR (Monthly
Gross Revenue). CPAs are much rarer these days, although PokerStars exclusively
still do it this way. Most of the big poker media websites have hybrids of both
models.
The nature of the commission model may give a slight insight into what
to expect from the content. In that those on primarily MGR models are more
likely to have content that retains readers - so community based stuff, forums,
interactive content etc, as well as regular strategy content and other stuff
designed at keeping players at the table. With CPAs it is slightly more about
attracting a reader and converting them; so possibly more of a standard news
blog model could be expected.
Because sign ups, instead of page views, are the fundamental criteria
for making money, the nature of the news reporting changes. You don't need to
be as attention grabbing or prolific, but you do need to be constantly
directing readers back to your download pages. So although you don't have to
worry about printing garbage to rely on hits to your website, you do run the
risk of being too spammy with the content you do produce.
This causes two potential problems for a poker writer. First of all, no
matter how good the content you write is, your employer might be looking at it
in ROI terms, rather than how well written it is. Most poker content like
tournament reports, strategy articles and interviews are in theory non profit
exercises for the site. In the long term, this of course not true, it is the
quality content which gets people on your site in the first place and coming
back for more. But you will often find yourself in conflict with the affiliate part
of the site over what content is important. Likewise, a lot of poker content,
although presented as genuine news, is actually glorified ad copy for your
partners.
The other big problems for poker writers with the affiliate model is
exactly what I described with my Absolute Poker story, and that's you have to
walk a tightrope of producing good content while also keeping an affiliate
partner happy. Writing a story that puts an online partner or one of their
sponsored players in a bad light is a big no no. Another problem can come in
the form of writing about a poker room which isn’t one of your affiliate
partners, positive or not, because it can essentially give them free
advertising. The same goes for linking to a direct business rival, ie. another
affiliate site.
These days the biggest sites are less biased as I might make it sound, I
am simply outlining what some of the barriers can be. Today there is a much
better culture of covering the important stories no matter what potential
conflicts could arise, as well as giving proper citations to potential rivals,
among the biggest sites.
There are some other variations of the standard affiliate model worthy
of a mention:
Super affiliate - Some poker
media sites choose to advertise one poker room rather than a selection. This is
usually because they have an enhanced deal with that room, and an agreement to
provide some exclusive content. Usually the media site will have an exclusive
bonus, freeroll, or other promotion that will encourage players to sign up, as well
as an increased commission; both of which is enough to justify them not
advertising other partners.
Super affiliate deals usually involve some heavy restrictions on what
content the site can produce, and even involves the poker room having some
editorial control over the content. As you can imagine, this leads to some
heavy biases in the reporting. A PartyPoker super affiliate is obviously not
going to be allowed to cover PokerStars news, and might even restrict coverage
of the something like the EPT (as Party have the WPT) and vice versa.
In many cases, some big affiliates have a hybrid of a super affiliate
deal, in that they can still advertise other rooms, but give priority and
editorial exclusives to one major partner room.
Rakeback sites - Rakeback
sites understandably operate on an MGR basis, since they give most of what they
receive straight back to their players. The only reason I mention them at all
is to point out that the nature of these sites means that their profit margins
are very small, and as such, you rarely ever see a massive editorial presence
on them.
Sub affiliates - Some poker
affiliates are so big that they actually give smaller websites the opportunity
to advertise their poker rooms for a split of the profits. Although this means
smaller profits for the lesser site, it can work out better sometimes because
it means they can offer some of the same exclusive promotions, bonuses, and
freerolls that the bigger affiliate can boast. PokerStrategy actually have a
superb sub affiliate programme btw.
Non poker room options - There are of course other potential
ways to get affiliate revenue from poker other than by signing up to a room.
Books and software like Hold'em Manager being probably the main two. I doubt
anyone makes significant revenues from these because they would take a lot of
volume to do so. Online poker room CPAs can be several hundred dollars each and,
if you get lucky with the player, a single MGR could land you thousands a
month. So poker room affiliates are the
bread and butter of the poker media and the other potential affiliate options
are just supplements to their revenue.
Paid advertisements - It is still not uncommon for some
advertisers to simply pay to have banners and other advertisements on the site
for just an upfront fee. This will often happen when the advertiser has no affiliate
plan in place, ie. things like live poker events, live casinos etc. You will
also see certain aspects of the website get unique sponsors, for example some
podcasts have seperate sponsors, as do some live tournament reporting ventures,
forums etc.
Editorial placement - Now on to stuff that perhaps isn't as
obvious. Since most of us have in-built mechanisms to mentally filter out
adverts these days, media and advertisers get together creatively to make
adverts more widely seen. Instead of posting a banner somewhere, they will
actually place an article that appears to be genuine news on the site, which is
in fact a sponsored post. In some instances these will be highlighted as such,
being called "sponsored posts" or some such, but most of the time
they are not, and essentially disguised as real news.
Now, more often than not, you don't need a particularly sophisticated
spam radar to recognise which ones are the "advertorial" pieces.
Usually editorial placement is for a one off fee, or part of an enhanced media
package/affiliate deal agreed with the website.
Poker room blogs - A lot of the poker media we see today
are actually blogs created and run by a poker room, so their revenue comes
directly from getting the readers back onto their site. PokerStars and
PartyPoker both come to mind as having pretty good content (Especially live
tournament related content), and of course Sky Poker have a fully fledged TV
channel to support their room. I would advise any fledgling poker writers
to keep an eye out on poker room blogs, as they are fast becoming a great new
place to find work.
Training Sites - One of the more recognisable commercial ventures in
poker is the training site. A lot of media sites are now producing paid
subscription training content, and likewise, a lot of training sites are now
producing their own editorial.
B2B Services - Established poker media sites tend to have their fingers in a
lot of pies, and as such, they now tend to offer a lot of Business to Business
type services. It is becoming more common, for example, for them to outsource
staff for things like editorial, live reporting, video production to other
poker organisations.
It is also very common for them to have their own wing specalising in PR
services, which can involve press releases, social media, consulting, and
utilising their vast reader databases for email marketing. Most of the time,
they can offer a bespoke PR package which can involve lots of the things I have
mentioned in these blogs for one up front fee.
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