First International Affiliates Conference in Israel

During the last 9 years as an affiliate in various industries we used to attend various Affiliates Conventions, Search Engines Strategies, Online Advertising and Online Marketing conferences. In many places Hebrew was the dominant language at the entrance hall. We had this idea of organizing such an event here in Israel where top affiliates (mainly from Israel) and various operators/vendors (local and International) will attend for some years. Now, it is the time to turn our desire into reality. For the first time a comprehensive event will be held in Israel. Affilicon (Affiliates Conference & Exhibition) will be held on November 24-5th, 2008 in Shefayim Convention center. Visit the event site at www.affilicon.com

Attendees will be positively surprised to see that Israel is a one of the top places worldwide when it comes to affiliates. Some of the largest affiliates in the world operates from Israel or owned by Israelis.
We have started to advertize Affilicon and the reaction is very positive. We estimate that we will have over 450 attendees who will listen to various presentation given by industry leaders and visit the show area where over 20 vendors ARE EXPECTED TO have booths. We look forward to seeing you all there.

Google Launches Assault Against Affiliate Programs

It's been a year since Google launched the beta of its Pay-per-Action product for Adwords, so let's revisit the subject, and why it amounts to an attack on affiliate programs. The product is based on a Cost Per Action (CPA) model. This means advertisers are given the choice to pay only when a customer buys their product, or signs for a newsletter, or completes some other desired task from the advertiser's website. Google serves as a broker between publisher and advertiser, and takes a cut of incentives offered.

This differs from a Pay Per Click model, used by many affiliate programs. It's perceived by many advertisers to be a superior model, since they pay only when they get the intended result of the ad. In fact, when Google was asked if it was their intent to offer something to compete with affiliate networks, they sent out Rob Kniaz, Google's advertising product manager, who said, "This is different from the traditional affiliate marketing industry. [It offers more automation, more options, more control" than affiliate networks.

So far, affiliate networks are still going strong, but Google's product hasn't had time to get a footing yet. And there are some networks (such as B4Affiliates) that have built-in controls that will prevent it from being hurt as much as other networks. Still, Google's actions and words amount to a declaration of war against the affiliate networks--whose money it craves so much.

Letter From the Professor - July 26, 2007

I just found in my outlook an almost year ago newsletter sent from CAP. Was very interesting to see in prespective how things went here. here is the letter:

Newbies have a new friend at CAP

We are pleased to announce the addition of a new community moderator at CAP; Itay Paz from B4Playing. Itay’s primary focus will be to assist webmasters and field questions in the “Newbie Corner” area. He brings to the table a wealth of experience in Affiliate Marketing and will be a real asset for our community.

A little about Itay:

Itay Paz is a co-founder and VP marketing at B4Playing, a new venture which aims to revolutionize the affiliation model. B4Playing is a unique tool that enables affiliates to own the players even when they switch, from time to time, between properties. Users of B4Playing tool receive up to date online casino and poker rooms information to their desktop.

Mr. Paz, holds a BA in Economics and Management and MBA. Prior to B4Playing, for 6 years, Mr. Paz has ran an online affiliate business, focused on the online gambling industry, with over 350 websites. His expertise is mainly in media buying and SEO. During that time, he also founded Gambling Webmaster School – a free site that was created to help affiliates. Running its owned venture, Mr. Paz saw the existing deficiencies with the current affiliate model and came up with a novel idea. Major operators and affiliates have already teamed up with B4Playing. Visit www.B4Playing.com for further information.

B4Playing: Online Gambling's Magic Compass

Online casinos and game-playing is an exploding phenomenon around the world--so much so that it's sometimes hard to sort through everything and find the gaming experience you want. There are many good gaming rooms, but many more not-so-good. What you need is someone--or something--to point you to the best of the best. A sort of magic compass for gaming.

That magic compass is here, and it's called B4Playing. B4Playing is a free (and quick) software download available at www.b4playing.com that simplifies game-playing by sorting through the thousands of gaming sites and giving you quick access to the best. Rather than spending hours trying to find current deals, bonuses and tournaments, you just go to this handy tool which has done the sorting for you.

B4Playing conducts its searches with a revolutionary intelligent search engine. It makes its selections, not just on the best-known sites and the biggest jackpots, but also on the player's own personal preferences. And the B4Playing client can be downloaded for native speakers of several different languages.

Once you've downloaded the software and told B4Playing a bit about your own gambling preferences, you'll see a simple screen with several links. These include Casino Bonuses, Exclusive Bonuses, Bonus Optimizer, Slots Tournaments, Top Progressive Slots, and "I'm Feeling Lucky."

B4Playing will save you hours of search time and help you find thousands of gaming deals--suited just for you!

B4Affiliates – the casino affiliate programs network

I’ve been asked lately by many people about the B4Playing structure. Well, it is rather simple. B4Playing is the company that currently is holding the B4Playing tool with the B4Playing affiliate program. In addition we have launched the B4Affiliates, which is the gambling affiliate programs network. This is a pure casino and poker affiliate programs network. Affiliates can join and register and promote any of our over 50 brands and enjoy a ‘one stop shop’: one contact point, one stats and one simple payment. We support Neteller, Money Bookers & APC/Wire. Currently the network supports only CPA but in a few weeks we should be launching the revenue share model. To register follow this link www.B4Affiliates.com

CAP Spring Break

It is always nice to have a nice summary of an event to remember, but having someone else do it for you, is always better. See the great work that the guys from online casino reports have made and I am one of the stars there ;) Thanks Daniel, Kate and Avishai.

CAP Spring Break 2008

I am at the next hotel (since the internet connection in the hotel of the conference sucks) downloading and sending emails...

The event is great. some poeple always complain about not too many people. well I think that it is not the quantity it is the quality. Sure, we spend a few thousands of $$ to be here but just one meeting can make the event worth coming.

Weather is great, it is about 28 degrees, great beach and awesome parties. I will put on tomorrow pictures I made here in the conference and write more updates :)

Internet Marketing Can Be Achieved At Any Age

This is an article I have published about 2 years ago. so why am I posting it here and now. Well, the last few weeks I am getting people talking to me about becoming affiliates and I say YES! Internet marketing fits to any age. Enjoy the article:

Anyone can learn internet marketing regardless of their age or expertise. All you need is a good marketing plan, and know how to go about executing it.

Whether you're still in school, are looking for a new career or are coming out of retirement, if you plan on selling anything on the Net or starting your own online business, you need to know how to market.

You don't need a degree in marketing to achieve online success. However, you do need an online marketing plan to help define your business and promote it.
Any marketing strategy plan begins with four essential components and builds from there. The four components are:

1. Identify your business
2. Know your target market
3. Research your plan
4. Know your budget

Let's take a closer look at each of these internet marketing starting points:

* Identify your business – You need to figure out what your business is all about before you can begin marketing it. This means knowing:
* The types of products or services you intend to sell
* The global area you intend to market too (IE. worldwide, within your country, within your region)
* Who your competitors are and how they promote their business
* How you intend to promote your business
* How you will distribute the products and/or services you intend to sell
* Know your target market – you need to know who you are marketing your business too. You need to understand that your products or services will not appeal to everyone. Therefore, distinguish who your target audience is by:
* Deciding the demographic that you would appeal to the most (IE, age, gender, social status, etc.)
* Knowing the types of shop habits your audience would have (I.E. where do they shop, what do they read, listen to, watch, etc.)
* Knowing what your prospective customers would value most about the product or service you are selling (IE. affordability, originality, convenience, reliability, etc.)
* Knowing what aspects about your product or service will least appeal to your target market. Is there some way you can change these negative aspects to better meet the needs of your customers?
* Knowing if your product could appeal to more than one target market
Research your plan – you need to do some marketing research before you dive head first into promoting you business. Educate yourself on:
* The many internet marketing methods that prove to be effective (IE press releases, sales pages, seo marketing, trafficking, e-newsletters, ezine articles, affiliation, etc.)
* Upcoming marketing methods you may be able to use to attract new clients
* Different methods that will allow you to test any marketing ideas you may have
* The competitions marketing methods
* The marketing method you can use now
* How to measure the results you generate from the different marketing techniques you use (IE. you can download different tracking software)
Know your budget – You need to know how much you have to work with before you jump head first into marketing your business. Here are things to think about:
* The cost of every customer
* The cost of running your business compared to the sales you'll generate
* The percentage of revenue you can assign to your marketing plan
* Find out the different marketing plans that will accommodate your budget

An internet marketing plan is how you will establish the best focus so you can be more successful when you begin promoting your business. You will discover that marketing online isn't difficult to do once you have a goal and utilize every marketing method available to you. However, it does take experience to gain success. Therefore, be patient, be prepared to change your techniques, and always keep your customers best interests in mind.

Servers Upgrade

We are doing an upgrade for the servers including memory extending. Servers will be down for up to 30 min on Tuesday, May 6 at 07.00am GMT time.

Friday night thoguhts

Many people asking us how come we are progressing so fast. Growing in 100% a month is not something you see often in today’s market. It is Friday 10:20 PM and I thought why are we so successful. What makes us so different? Yeh, we have a unique technology but still everyone has their own unique technology. Then I understood. The answer is already made just above in this paragraph. It is 10:20 and I am sitting in front of the computer thinking what else we can do to keep on growing, how the business can expand and produce better results. Sounds simple, well it is all about the team. We are result oriented meaning we are all around the clock. We are a small, quality and unique team that produces great results. I can call any of the team at any time. We are almost 24/7 live and this is what makes us one of the best teams you can find.

It is almost sounds like I am pitching for new employees. Well first I am not but I anyone is reading the above and saying I am a hard worker, a team player and think he can really contribute to us then yes, I would be happy to talk to him. So feel free, my phone/email is always open for you.

Well, these are my thoughts for Friday night. Enjoy the weekend!

New acquisitions sought for e-marketing firm

B4Playing extends its Isle of Man presence in the next few months and is currently raising funds to acquire other similar online businesses and bring them into the Island. A news article was published on B4Playing in the local business newspaper in the Isle of Man

http://www.iomtoday.co.im/isle-of-man-business/New-acquisitions-sought-for-emarketing.3980369.jp

Getting read for CAP Spring Break in Cyprus

Sometimes I wonder myself, do we need all these events. There are a few big events in London, Amsterdam and Barcelona but do we need the Macau, Moscow, Cyprus, Montreal?! Don’t get me wrong, although we work very hard in these events we are loving our job so we enjoy the events themselves but having an event then 2 months rest then another event etc’ sometimes seems to be too close to each other. But think about it, some of them get 1,000 people, can you really meet 1,000 people in 2-3 days? Even crazy people as us who have over 100 meetings every conference can’t really meet them all so we do have an advantage of the new people in different occasions.

So after putting our thoughts, we are going to be there (it is our business…), nothing can hurt to have some sun (will we have it?! ;) ), meeting more people in a completely different environment, more casual, more happy people over tequilas. If you want to meet with us please email info [ at ] b4playing.com.

See you next month!

Almost at 50,000 users

I was sitting at 10pm, looking at the progress we had the last few months and I suddenly realized wow we are progressing fast enough. Numbers are progressing and we are going to cross the 50,000 users for the B4Playing tool. The feedback we are getting from affiliates and players is amazing. Our system and our amazing support is bringing our success. Looking back to the days where we sat at different coffee shops worldwide to the today point – I am blown away.

The success belongs to the players, affiliates and the B4Playing awesome team!

The driver didn't understand why I took this picture

So I was walking arround when I noticed this strage driver. he didn't understand why I took this picture...

Amsterdam, here we come!

Ok, so have just come back from Amsterdam, the CAC event. We did want to update the blog as we progressed but we were working for 18 hours a day, leaving only few hours to rest. B4Playing has ton of updates to make, in the next few days, we will be working out and update you all. Keep tracking us.

In the mean time, you can see, Udi Netzer, the company's chairman, trying to demonstrate his poker skills at 888 party at the Mansion in Amsterdam. Personal observation - he is better in business.

Happy Birthday Alex

We celebrated to Alex a birthday in a special way. Although we are spread around the world, we have surprised him with a unique Roulette cake (see pictures below).

Happy birthday!

Meet us at the CAC 2008 in Amsterdam

We are coming to Amsterdam. Some come for the fun, some come for the attraction… well for whatever reason you are coming, we will be there. Last year event was a blast. Other than meeting people, doing good business we had lots of fun. Between the parties, dinner and drinks, who can say he didn’t have fun. See the video from last year.

B4Playing Turns Green

Some will say common is it that important but we say YES! This makes sense not only because we help the environment but we also save money and a lot of it. So what have we done to make our company Environmentally Friendly? Here are some of the things we have made:

Turn off lights and equipment – Fid you know that by turning off the lights and the computers we can save 25% of power.

Electronic Communication – This is rather easy, we are an internet company so it is easy for us to make most of our communication via email, messenger, skype or phone.

Minimum Printing & Double Sided Documents Policy – We try to minimize our printing and encourage to do a double sided document printing.

Recycling – We’ve put special recycling bins in the offices and we try to buy and use recycled paper.

And lastly we encourage other to follow on our steps. All of our emails end with a green message: "please consider the environment before printing this e-mail."

So we encourage you to follow our footsteps. If you need any help. Please contact us!

Upgrade Complete!

The server upgrade is complete and successful!

This means that the tool now will be updated MUCH faster now - the experience is much smoother.

System Maintenance

On Friday April 7 a system maintenance is scheduled to be at 10pm for one hour. All systems are going to keep on running as usual and no disturbance should occur.

B4Playing and Lucky Ace Partners Join Forces

Lucky Ace Casino and Lucky Ace Poker joins the growing list of properties supported by the B4Playing Client and its associated Affiliate Network. Lucky Ace Partners are using the 888 software. A press release was released yesterday. To read the full press release follow this links http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/2/prweb709473.htm

SphinnCon Israel on February 5, 2008

Just a bit late in my updates but still, I had a visit to Israel and went to meet the SEO guys at SphinnCon Israel conference in Jerusalem. I was actually very happy to be see that SEO conferences have finally arrived to Israel – so many great SEO people in Israel that it only makes sense. 3 great panels: PPC Panel, SEO Panel, Social Media Panel. Between meeting with the people and the great sessions, this was a very successful conference. In the evening we went to the SphinnCon party, sponsored by my dear friends from eToro . below you can find the sign hanging and 2 pictures from the party.

Everybody wants to play at 888 Bingo

A very funny commercial video from 888 for their new branded 888 Ladies Bingo – enjoy! I did :)

Free Online Gambling-Affiliates Marketing Webinar

We thought how can we help other Online Gambling-Affiliates Marketing Webinar. We were always open on helping others in many ways (with no profit intention). So we thought what can we do more for the nice people in the industry. So we decided to start a FREE (online-weekly) Webinar on online marketing for gambling affiliates (talking on web2.0, seo, tools, marketing techniques etc').

Online webinar = we all meet online. I will use both voice and real time video to show you sites, presentations etc'.

Registration for the first one is already open at http://webinar.b4playing.com/

Blackpool Club Casino, Poker and Bingo Joining B4Playing

Another great 3 properties from the house of Playtech has joined B4Playing. These are the first localized (UK) properties joining B4Playing. Keep following the next few months as they are going to be featured with us more and more.

Getting ready for CAC

we are getting ready for the CAC (www.cac2008.com)... working from event to event. Anyone who wishes to meet with us, please send us an email to info [at] b4playing.com.

Friday Maintenance Completed

B4Playing's maintenance that was scheduled for yesterday was completed successfully without any issues of down time to the users or affiliates.

New Partner with B4Playing: Lucky Ace Casino & Lucky Ace Poker

In its efforts to complete the list of quality properties offered to the B4Playing community, Lucky Ace Casino & Lucky Ace Poker have just joined our impressive list of properties. Lucky Ace Casino & Lucky Ace Poker are based on the 888 software and brings its reliability of the 888 brand.

Friday Maintenance

We’re planning on doing some maintenance to improve the capacity of our system on Friday, 08 February, between 1am GMT and 2am GMT. The system should be still running as usual and no discernible is expected.

Live Support is On

We have launched a live support on the B4Playing tool. The idea is not to replace any of the casinos support (which are doing a great job). We added it to give our players a better service! This is after all our aim, to have our users happy and develop the tool to their own preferences.

German Version was update

We have just made an update for the German version of the tool. It is available to download at http://www.b4playing.com/de/index_new.html

CAP Euro London, January 2008

B4Playing wants to thank to all the affiliates, affiliate managers and other nice people we met in London. We had a great time with all of you. this is also a good opportunity to apologize to the ones we missed. Out of the so busy schedule we did miss some of the people, couldn’t find them etc’ so hope we can catch up on the following weeks by phone, email, IM or Skype.

Thank you all again!

Winter in our home base (Isle of Man)

On Thursday, out of the bloom, while winds were blowing like crazy, a 10 minutes snow storm arrived. the wind is so fast that creating a below zero (Celsius) temperature and we had the snow running like crazy. Within 10 minutes it was gone and just the cars had a thin layer of snow.

If you don’t like the winter, don’t come to the Isle of man or any of the north side of the UK like. But if you love the winter…this is just heaven.

We do!

B4Playing in the Isle of Man

To the one who don’t know, B4Playing is resides in Douglas in the Isle of Man (IOM). IOM is located between Ireland and the UK (above Liverpool line). Around 80,000 people live in a rather cold weather. The island is a beautiful place and we recommend you to put it on your future travel plan. Here are 2 pictures I took on the island, in one of the less winterish day just near our offices.

Bill Gates' Last Day at Microsoft - CES 2008

I was reading my friend Marcus’s blog (www.Mediadonis.net) and found this cool video on Bill Gate’s last days at Microsoft. Real cool one. Enjoy!

Visiting Party Gaming’s Headquarters

As part of our work we like to strength our relationship with our partners. I had went to visit at the Party Gaming headquarters. About 45 min by taxi – London is still very busy even at around 10am!!! Party Gaming is located in a very nice and secured building covering 2 floors and over 120 employees. I had met with all of the marketing team and also with the account managers working in a nice open space. I had a great business meeting and we have progressed towards our goals with Party Gaming. Below you can find some pictures I made at Party showing the offices, the unique meetings room table and their 250 GBP from Part Gaming Bank :)

Account managers’ team area


The unique meetings room table


Offer from the Bank of Party Gaming

B4Playing at ICE

Although ICE is most suitable for operators and not affiliates, lots of people from the industry like to visit there to see the offline as well as the online creation of the software providers. This was a great opportunity to meet people we miss later on at the CAP. Actually it was very hectic there at Wednesday, thousands of people running around. I was able to setup 6 meetings that day at the ICE and progress.

Below are some images from the ICE







Shay Shevach from Rummy Royal




Isle of Man Booth




Lara Croft human sized doll from Microgaming




Playtech’s Booth

B4Playing Signs Three Large European Affiliates to its Affiliate Program

B4Playing signed 3 large European based affiliates with a total potential of 1500 players a month. The affiliates based in Italy, Spain and UK will gradually switch traffic to the B4Playing's Online Casino and Poker smart tool and its affiliate network. B4Playing Press Release, click to read the full release

Account Managers & Agents

We are still in a search for the account managers and agents. Please contact us at cri8ive.careers[at]gmail.com. for more details, read this post

While I was traveling

Yesterday (Thursday) I was waiting at Heathrow airport when an accident occurred. A British Airways Boing 777 coming from the far east landed without landing gear. There was a drama as no one really knew what had happened, people were calling relatives to let them know they are fine and that the airport is now closed. 30 min later we found out that about 18 passengers were slightly injured and that 1 runway will be open within the hour. So first it is great that it ended this way (interesting to know what really happened). This is not something you would want to hear when you are just about to enter a plane :o

Where we are?

We are going to ICE and CAP…so instead of putting an annoying message that you are all going to get that we have limited access to email and that we will be back later… well see you at ICE and CAP, will be back right after it ends.

Party Poker Commercial

New Poker Room joins B4Playing – PKR

The great 3D PKR poker room is joining the B4Playing tool. This is a great poker room that really brought to player a different feel and look of playing poker. Thanks for the nice people at PKR that assist us with the setup.

B4Playing to Strengthen Business Relationship with 888.com

B4Playing is moving forward and we are progressing with our work. Bringing great results in December (and going into an improved November) we are enhancing our relationship with 888 as we are seeing great results with them and 888 themselves are seeing good results in number of players and in players quality. Here is a joined press release

Account Managers and Agents are Needed

We are in a search for both professional account managers and agents as well as for newbies. We are opening a course on February 3nd for account managers. This will be a 2 weeks course and we are looking for sales oriented people to join our great course. We invite anyone who knows someone or is a candidate to send us the CV to cri8ive.careers[at]gmail.com:

Account Manager/agents
Location: Worldwide (anywhere in the world excluding US) and one position in Israel/Ra’anana
Management of promotional Internet campaigns and affiliates – establishing the first contact, managing negotiations, closing deals and contracts and monitoring the campaign while analyzing and processing economic data.

Requirements:
English at mother-tongue level – mandatory
Other European languages – an advantage
Highly experienced with internet environment – mandatory
Distinctive problem-solving, analytical capabilities and experience analyzing numerical data with Excel – mandatoryInterface with customers in the international market – mandatory
Experience with negotiations – mandatory
Experience with Affiliates – mandatoryAcademic education – BA in economics/business administration/law – advantage
Organized, detail oriented, ability to multi-task, creative, innovative and a driven performerExcellent team and interpersonal skills

Meeting at CAP Euro London 2008

We are already packing our stuff ;) getting ready for London. Every event is packed up with meeting as we meet the casinos and poker rooms, keeping them posted as well as showing our near future development. Also we meet with affiliates presenting B4Playing and the value of getting users on it. I will be also happy to help affiliates with any SEO or affiliate stuff needed. So…if you haven’t met us before, or if you did and wants to meet with us again, please email us to info[at]b4playing.com and I will be happy to set time with you to meet. Looking forward to hearing from you.