What is a casino affiliate and how to become one
A casino affiliate works in partnership with an online casino and essentially exists to advertise online casinos. He or she will get paid commission for each player that either visits the casino site or becomes a depositing player through a unique affiliate link. There are different payment models for affiliates and casinos can offer more than one.
Online casino affiliate
Ultimately, the purpose of the online casino affiliate is to inform and eventually redirect players to a casino. A list is often used to rank online casinos in an orderly manner. Below is an example of such a list.
- Deposit bonus available for your first deposit
- Welcome bonus available for newly registered players.
- Optimized website and app for players via mobile or tablet.
- 121% Up To £100
- Welcome Bonus
- Transparent about responsible gambling and fair pay-outs.
- Excellent slot game catalogue.
- Intuitive user interface and great user experience overall.
- 11 Welcome Spins + 100% up
- to 200£ on Your 1st Deposit
- Decent bonus conditions, and nicely transparent T&Cs
- An absolutely superb selection of slots from all the top providers
- A very responsive and well designed package all round
- 50 Spins on Big Bass Splash
- + 100% Bonus Up To £100
- Some well known payment providers
- Both casino and live casino games available
- Okay (welcome) bonuses with decent wagering conditions
- 100% up to £300
- + 30 Free Spins
- Welcome offer: £30 Free bonus money
- The Grosvenor brand has a stellar reputation.
- Optimized website for all device
- Deposit £20
- Play with £50
- 70 No deposit Free Spins on Sign up
- Rapid withdrawals (as quick as 2 hours during weekdays)
- You can deposit via Paypal
- 70 no deposit spins plus
- deposit £10 to get 200 spins
- Awesome website that intelligently lays out a LOT of content.
- Covers all bases with a sportsbook, casino games and a poker client.
- Superb, efficient customer support.
- 100% up to £100
- Welcome Bonus
How do they work?
If you’ve been searching the web for online casinos may have come across websites that appear to be casinos, but do not actually host any games. ‘Affiliate marketing sites’ or ‘affiliates’ make money by promoting online casinos to potential players. In effect, affiliate markets are middlemen between players and casinos.
This term is not unique to the world of online casinos. In fact, it originated in a different industry altogether – e-commerce. However, the basic premise is the same across the board. An affiliate is a person or company that drives custom to a particular site, brand or company.
In essence, each affiliate works as a small, independent marketer on behalf of the other company, earning an amount of money (i.e. commission) each time a new customer is guided to the goods or services on offer.
Let’s look specifically at online casino affiliates. An affiliate can be one passionate player with a casino blog or an entire marketing agency. Each of these performs the same task – bringing new players to their partner casinos.
Each affiliate is given a unique URL link to embed in their website/s. These links are a way to track where web traffic is coming from. By using the affiliate’s online reach, casinos can share the burden of marketing with a multitude of affiliates, thus bringing their products to more players.
The appearance of the casino affiliate
As we mentioned earlier, an affiliate website may at first glance look like a casino games provider. For example, casino affiliate websites regularly display casino bonuses. This way, it looks as if this bonus is available on this website but in reality, you are redirected to the website of the casino that makes this bonus available.
There are some distinct advantages to visiting a casino affiliate’s website. For instance, you can directly compare different providers. All information available on online casinos can be found in informative pages or extensive reviews. Based on this information, you can decide for yourself which casino appeals to you the most and which best suits your needs.
Two other advantages are: honesty and clarity. The affiliate is there to inform you about the providers. This means that you get a clear explanation about the website or, for example, an available bonus. The terms and conditions are clearly explained and information that can be found on the affiliate page aims to ensure that you can create an account at the casino being promoted without worries.
Information is power
For the average player, playing at an online casino is simply a hobby and is done for fun and perhaps to earn some money. When you are looking for a fun experience at an online casino, you are not waiting for problems or, for example, the lack of your favourite game.
By briefly visiting an online casino affiliate beforehand, you ensure that you are prepared to look for your favourite casino. After visiting such a site, it is clear to you what the offer is and what you can expect from, for example, the various bonuses. All important points while playing at an online casino.
How to spot an affiliate
It can sometimes be hard to tell casino affiliates apart from casino websites. They usually have similar imagery and employ the same type of language aimed at enticing players to sign up and gamble.
However, there are a few tell-tale differences between casinos and affiliates …
No games
Most obviously, casinos have game catalogues displaying all their products. Affiliate websites do not run any games of their own, but they often provide online casino game reviews and can offer free play demos of certain games.
Multiple brands
Affiliates usually market multiple casino brands. If you see a lot of different logos, offers and adverts, you’re most likely on an affiliate site.
Referral
Casino affiliates’ main goal is to get you to sign up to one of their casino partners. If you see lots of links saying ‘Sign Up!’ or ‘Play Now!’ then you’re on an affiliate site. Casinos, by contrast, require customers to create accounts in order to gamble.
How are affiliates paid?
When it comes to payment, there are two models that are very popular among operators. The first is called revenue share. In this model, payment for the affiliate is a percentage of the profits made by the traffic generated by the affiliate, usually over the course of a month. In this case, higher traffic equals higher payment.
The second model is called Cost Per Acquisition or CPA for short. This is based on the number of users who, thanks to the marketing efforts of the affiliate, perform a particular action. In the case of online casinos, this is either the player signing up for a casino account or signing up and making a first deposit.
Some casinos offer just the one payment method, others offer affiliates the choice of two or more. Now, it’s important to know that some affiliate programs run by casinos enforce certain restrictions that can be disadvantageous to the affiliate or not compatible with the kind of marketing an affiliate does.
Affiliates, like casino players, should carefully read the terms and conditions associated with joining a casino affiliate program and keep any eye out for things like bundling schemes and negative carryover, which can mean a smaller payment at the end of the month. Just like casinos, not all programs suit all affiliates.
How to become an affiliate
Most casinos offer affiliate programs. Indeed, affiliate marketing has become an integral part of the online gambling industry at this point and many brands are keen to employ affiliates to broaden their potential reach.
The first step is to take a look at a brand’s affiliate program page. This is usually reached via a link, often stashed in the footer of the casino site, and includes important information you will need to know before becoming an affiliate.
Signing up to become an affiliate is free but keep in mind that it is only one step of the process. Once you receive your unique affiliate link, you will need to put it to use. Blogs are a popular choice for amateur affiliates and indeed many affiliates often start out as casino bloggers.
Affiliate links can be embedded into all sorts of online content, including banners, pop-ups, text links and so on. A budding affiliate will need to think about who their audience is and what kind of content they respond to the best.
Being a successful affiliate means understanding the mechanics of a good website, the function of different sorts of content and putting all that together into an appealing online resource for readers and potential players.
Be a casino affiliate
To become a casino affiliate, you need to have a number of skills. First, you need to have your own website where you can post and edit articles. You then choose an industry you want to focus on and make sure you choose a topic you find interesting.
After planning and building your website, you can start applying to affiliate programmes and contacting contacts of the companies you want to promote. After you have been approved for the affiliate programmes, you can start trying to rank as high as possible in Google with your unique pages. With the high Google ranking, you will attract visitors and the ultimate goal is to redirect these visitors to your affiliates.
Casino affiliate marketing
There are still a number of advantages of the world of casino affiliate marketing that have not yet been mentioned. Therefore, below is another brief overview of some other benefits of working as an affiliate for casinos.
Earn based on performance
How much money you earn depends entirely on how many players are delivered and what kind of deals you have made with your partners. By posting content in the right way and promoting your partners, you can ensure that each month you earn more than the previous month. In the world of affiliate marketing, it is important that you stand firm and do not give up easily. If one month does not go well, you have to find the resilience to work even harder the next month and make up for the month before.
In a way, the affiliate earnings model puts you in control of your own earnings. If you perform well, you earn well but if you perform less, you don’t earn much either.
Measurable progress
You start at 0 and gradually rise faster and faster to an established name in the affiliate marketing world. You can track all this closely through various website tools that allow you to track all your progress. When you see that the work you do has an immediate effect on your results, it works very motivating.
Constant feedback
The measurability of all data on your website is of course nice to keep an eye on your progress, but it also provides constant feedback. What catches on and what doesn’t? When do you get a lot of visitors and when not? So on and so forth. By using the constant feedback in the right way, you ensure yourself of an upward trend.
Things to keep in mind
Always do some research on the casino brand whose affiliate program you are thinking of joining. Even if you are a long-time player at that casino, you may find the program is not exactly what you want and it’s worth having that information before becoming invested. Besides, you wouldn’t want to be involved in marketing a casino that is unfair or unethical towards its customers.
Next, keep in mind that as an affiliate, there are other rules you must adhere to as well. The UK Gambling Commission takes a keen interest in the marketing and advertising activities of casino brands and affiliates should be aware of these rules. For example, the UKGC demands that marketing should not be appealing to anyone underage, to prevent them from being encouraged to gamble illegally. Casinos must follow these rules and so should affiliates.
At the end of the day, affiliates play an important role in getting the word out there about casino brands. As an affiliate, it is crucial that you believe in the brands you are working with and that you, as a participant in the online casino industry, do your part to ensure that any gambling activities you promote are safe, fair and secure.
