Graham
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Homepage: http://www.ipokeraffiliate.com
Posts by Graham
Cool Hand Poker… Could I Have Been Wrong?
Aug 27th
Well, I was at the gym the other day watching the TV and what should come up but an ad for CoolHandPoker.com. In a previous post I though these guys were just some random skin that was going to try and base their business model on affiliates, but it looks like I might have been wrong. It is good to see these guys are actually spending some money advertising.
It is good to see that they also updated their homepage from a picture of a bunch of dorks playing poker to a couple of guys with semi-attractive women. It looks like they are finally starting to find their niche. Will be interesting to see what comes of this place.
Other News
Affiliate Speedpay closed their doors today and I can’t say that I am surprised. I think it was great for some people, but I always had a feeling it wouldn’t last and was wary about having my money sent to some shady bank. I never really wanted to open an offshore bank account because I felt it all seemed a little too shady.
BUDAPEST! In just over a week I will be heading to Budapest for this year’s BAC. As usual Alex is doing an awsome job organizing it and it looks like this is gonna be one of the MUST ATTEND events of the year. Will be good to catch up with some friends and meet some new faces / people I have probably talked to a shitload online but never met. Thanks to Mark for organizing the dinner, looks like it will be awsome!
Anyway, that is all for now…. see everyone going to Budapest on the other side of the pond!
No Way That Is Her!
Jul 31st
I was just on facebook when the following ad caught my attention:
No way that is her in the after!!! I actually thought this was a great ad though because it caught my attention and I clicked the link to see if there were more pics of the hot girl. Unfortunately there were not 
They did have a cool site though with a bunch of good affiliate links in it and am sure they probably make some money from this.
Anyway, this just goes to show that sometimes the best ways to grab people’s attention is to make them not believe you.
/end of weird blog post
Affiliate Managers Contacting Through Facebook
Jul 23rd
I understand, its hard to get new affiliates to promote your room but sometimes I just want to tell these people to LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE! It’s one thing to send emails to addresses associated with sites, but sometimes the contact becomes a tad too invasive. I get random people adding me to MSN with no clue who they are, and a few times now I have even received messages to my facebook account.
Like I said, I have grown used to the emails, but I look at Facebook as a more personal venue. Even though it can be used as a great networking tool for people you have actually met or talk to, it should NOT be used as a method to promote your brand and contact potential affiliates. It is actually just kinda creepy to me.
Anyway, I decided I would try and turn this into something productive that hopefully other affiliate managers could take something from and provide pointers on what I don’t like about these or most forms of “first contact” from affiliate managers.
Here is the message I received from NAME REMOVED of Cool Hand Poker with things in bold that could be improved if you had to use this method to contact an affiliate for whatever reason:
Hi Graham,
Not some mad stalker – I promise!
I am sure you prefer the term “e-stalker”. “Stalker” is so real world.
I am an advertiser interested in promoting our Poker room – Cool Hand Poker via your network. Network eh? I bet you couldn’t even list some of the sites I have.
Been doing research to find appropriate media partners for my client, Belle Rock Entertainment. The company owns various online gambling sites (Poker, Bingo & Casino) and have been operating for over 10 years. If you had done your research properly you could maybe tell me a few of my sites and why you think they would be a good fit for your room.
Cool Hand Poker is a relatively new and small poker room – it was launched late last year and we are aiming to grow the business. It is quite unique in its marketing, as the target market is “everyday people” or people wanting to learn & play poker socially / newbie poker players onto the site. We are not aiming for the big-stakes Professionals who usually go to the more aggressive sites such as Full Tilt or Poker Stars. More on how this is a retarded idea later. Do you really think you can keep out the “sharks” from a site. Also, you do realize those are the ones that make money, not the guy who plays poker once a week.
We are focusing our marketing efforts on the UK, Canada Europe and Australia & NZ (not USA or Africa) – would be helpful to understand your traffic split (USA vs. target countries above) and targeting capabilities better?
In order for me to motivate for any media deal, we must provide as much detailed information as possible. Besides Cool Hand Poker, we also market Casino and Bingo – further opportunities to work together! Oh, I forgot I was trying to sell you on why I should promote your stupid site.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Warm regards
NAME REMOVED
The thing that annoys me more than anything is NAME REMOVED has probably copied and pasted this message to hundreds of affiliates. Anyway, since it wasn’t an email I will let facebook deal with the spammers roaming their site:
Her messages lack personal touch, and really do nothing to make me want to work with them. For further proof here is an email from NAME REMOVED with the things that need improvement in bold:
TITLE OF EMAIL: Advertising/Affiliate partnership (FuzioPoker) First off, the site is Fuzion Poker (instant points off for spelling mistake)
Hi Graham,
By way of introduction, my name is NAME REMOVED and I am the Poker Affiliate/Publisher Manager at COMPANY REMOVED. And, you already lost my interest. I don’t give a fuck who you are, why are you contacting me! It’s bad enough you creeped my whois info to get this email instead of looking for the site contact email.
I am an advertiser interested in promoting our Poker room – Cool Hand Poker via your website. Would be grateful if you could contact me to discuss opportunities? “Cool Hand Poker”, really, thats the name you went with? Ummm… I don’t care about opportunities, you contacted me, remember. What do I get out of this?
My aim is to find appropriate media partners for my client, Belle Rock Entertainment. The company owns various online gambling sites (Poker, Bingo & Casino) and have been operating for over 10 years. Whatever.
At this time, I am specifically focusing on our Poker room – Cool Hand Poker – the emphasis being on fun, free or low-stakes, social poker games. Especially for newbies wanting to learn poker in a friendly, safe environment. Fun, free, low-stakes? Let me guess, you probably want me to send these players that will make me no money on an MGR deal too, right?
We are focusing our marketing efforts on the UK, Canada Europe and Australasia – would be helpful to understand your site and traffic split better? Do your own research.
Looking forward to hearing from you. Not likely.
Warm regards,
NAME REMOVED
Anyway, I hope someone learns something from this post so I don’t have to use you as an example for one of my future posts.
Summer Is Finally Here
Jul 10th
It is finally starting to get warm here. Yesterday I went golfing with a couple of friends but played like crap. Just trying to enjoy the nice weather.
I have been going to a lot of soccer games lately. A few weeks ago John Goldie and I went over to Montreal to watch Toronto FC take on Montreal in the final game of the Canadian Championship. Toronto needed to win by 4 goals which everyone thought was an impossible task, but I had faith they could do it. We did a little pre-drinking before the game with all of the TFC fans, then headed over to the game on the subway. The subway ride was insane. Everyone was chanting and jumping up and down, at several points it felt like the train may even derail. Once at the game, there were between 200-300 Toronto fans. Toronto quickly went down 1 goal after a penalty kick, but shortly after came back to score 2 before the end of the first half. The second half was insane as they continued to score and within the last 10 minutes put in the goal to give them their 4 goal lead. Just before the end of the game they sealed it and put in a final goal making the score 6-1. It was such a great experience as we stuck it out in the rain screaming our voices out and in the end were rewarded with the Canadian championship. The players all came over to our section after the game and threw their jerseys out to the fans.
Also soccer related, Zinadine Zidane came to Toronto a few weeks back and I watched him play a friendly against “the Canadian All-stars”. Most of the players other than Zidane and Palermo (Boca Jrs) were crap, but it was still cool to see one of the greatest soccer players of all time.
Next week I am going to start part 2 of my bartending training: the advanced course. It sounds fun and will be pretty cool because I get to invent my own drink and present it to the class. Also, I got tickets to see Sarah Silverman next week which should be fun.
On the work front, lately I have been spending a lot of time building a casino site. It seems like everyone is getting into the casino side so I figured, why not. If anyone has any good sites and wants to swap links, let me know.
My other sites are doing all right, just grinding on and not really growing much. Need to start spending more time on those but as usual I have either been too lazy or have been more focussed on getting the casino site off the ground.
Lately I have also been thinking about heading out to Budapest for the conference out there. Anyone else planning to go?
Back in Canada
Apr 2nd
Well, I’ve been back home for about a week now and have been kinda sick since getting back. Definitely miss Argentina and can’t wait to head back again.
Tax season is upon us now and one of my least favorite times of the year. Nothing is more fun then sending the government a big fat ass check that they are just gonna blow on stupid bullshit.
Missed out on Amsterdam this time, but looks like everyone is having a blast as usual. Trying to decide which conference to go to next. Where is everyone else going?
Jeremy Miller launched a blog recently. Please, turn off the stupid “YOU MUST BE LOGGED IN TO COMMENT”… where’s the fun in that!
Been having some awful poker sessions as of late. Just the other day was playing some 2/4 PLO and hit a set on the turn in a decent sized pot. The other guy bet, I reraised big, and he shoved me all in on a JT53 board (I hit 5′s). I made the call, and he showed AA97??? Anyway, river came an Ace… gg asshole. I need to stop playing.
This weekend is the Toronto FC opener and my brother is taking me (allegedly). I don’t always believe everything he says, but he seems to be serious so hopefully its a go because I really want to go to the game. Gotta pick up a new jersey for that.
Other than that, life is boring… can’t wait to travel again.
/end boring post
How Do Retarded People Get Jobs as Affiliate Managers?
Mar 10th
Recently I received an email that was titled “Attractive Proposal” so I decided I would investigate further to see what this affiliate manager was offering….
Original Email:
Dear Webmaster,
My name is NAME REMOVED; I am an Account Manager at
www.Affiliateclub.com.
I find your website very attractive for our brands:
www.casinoclub-poker.com,
www.pokerkings.com
Our affiliates are getting fantastic conversion rates!
Do you want to hear more about it?
Kind regards,
NAME REMOVED
Account Manager
My response:
Hi NAME REMOVED,
I am in the process of trying to find a room to get a league going
ASAP. Here are my requirements that I have been asking rooms for:
Hybrid CPA/Rev Share Deal
Tourmanent Prizes
Tell me a bit about your software and what you can offer.
Regards,
Graham Rowlands
GNG Media Inc.
Her reply to my email (notice how she doesn’t even READ MY FUCKING EMAIL!!!):
Dear Graham,
Thank you for your reply.
We have 2 brands with Boss Media software:
1. At www.casinoclub-poker.com – we offer 100% up to 200€ Welcome bonus ( here we can make a special promotion for you)
2. At www.pokerkings.com we offer 100% up to 300€ Welcome bonus
WE are usually working on Rev Share Deal.
What do you think about it?
Kind regards,
NAME REMOVED
My last and final response ever to Natasha:
Well NAME REMOVED, here is what I think about it…
For one, you never even gave me a proposal, but rather decided listing the standard
bonuses on your websites would get my attention. I am not sure how that is supposed to
sell me. I think you started this off with a great attention grabbing title to your
email, but you really need to work on the follow through.
And two, there was nothing “attractive” about it. I get a million of these kind of
emails all the time, and this kind of junk just wastes my time. Don’t beat around the
bush, sell your brand, tell me what I am gonna make, and give me good reasons why I
should promote your brand, over one of the competitors.
Anyway, hopefully this helps you in the future and thanks for giving me something to
write about on my blog.
Better luck in the future!
Graham
You Can’t Be Serious
Feb 26th
Okay, so I got an email today that made me think… “WTF!!”
Here is the first few lines of the email:
“Hello,
My name is Virginie and I am the Affiliates Manager for www.a-winning-hand.com…”
Did she actually just say that they entered a multi-billion dollar industry and the best thing they could come up with was THAT DOMAIN??? Holy crap they must have thought they hit the jackpot when they found out it was still available! Are people really this retarded?
That is all for now
Choices
Feb 11th
John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!” He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.
Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”
He replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or … you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.” Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or…I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or… I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.
“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.
“Yes, it is,” he said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live your life” I reflected on what he said. Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.
Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back. I saw him about six months after the accident.
When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins Wanna see my scars?”
I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,” he replied. “Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or…I could choose to die. I chose to live.”
“Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked.
He continued, “..the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man’. I knew I needed to take action.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said John. “She asked if I was allergic to anything.
‘Yes, I replied.’
The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Gravity’.”
Over their laughter, I told them, “I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”
He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude… I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.
Back in Buenos Aires
Jan 27th
Man is it nice to be back here after freezing my butt off in Canada for the last little while. Not much has changed here and it is still lots of fun as usual. Since being back I have managed to catch up with some friends that I met last time, and start spanish classes again.
I found a pretty kick-ass apartment and I have actually been able to get a little more work done. Here are some pics of the new place:
Fortunately this apartment has wifi, so I can even sit outside and do work. Right now its around 30+ degrees everyday and there is always a nice cool breeze.
Also I have joined a gym and am trying to be a little more healthy. Reading Justin’s new site has really made me start thinking about getting back into a more proper workout routine/diet, rather than just going to the gym a few times per week.
Anyway, I’ll try and write more later, but unforunately I HAVE HOMEWORK/STUDYING TO DO… I know… WTF?