How to Earn Money from an Online Casino Without Owning One
Regulated online casinos have significant costs, legal requirements, and compliance-related matters to contend with. Big name online gambling companies have established history in their markets, due to successful marketing and promotional campaigns. The costs for setting up an online casino are exorbitant — licensing and regulation fees, taxation, software, hardware, personnel (content writers, software engineers, internet security consultants, management, etc.) and all other startup and maintenance costs quickly add up. Fortunately, anyone interested in entering the lucrative online gambling scene needn’t worry about owning an online casino; online casino affiliate programs provide extensive benefits and significant profits if done correctly. Part of the reason online casinos offer such lucrative deals to affiliates is the desire for greater reach into regulated markets. Online casinos cannot compete effectively against one another if they don’t have strength in numbers. Players = revenue. That’s the name of the game.
Online casino affiliates have an important part to play in establishing a strong brand presence. Its profitability is directly tied to its visibility to players. One of the most challenging aspects of an online business is getting the product to the customer – simply occupying virtual space will not cut it. Advertising via affiliate programs is a specialized way of marketing online casino services to players.
By partnering with affiliates, online casinos benefit from an extended network of players. Affiliates have access to traffic, and the online casino taps into that traffic by rerouting players to the online casino in question. The affiliate gets rewarded for all traffic that gets converted, i.e. depositing players. It should be borne in mind that affiliate marketing is not a new phenomenon – it is an established, tried, and tested method of tapping into markets. This is especially true for the online gaming industry.
How to Become Part of an Online Casino’s Affiliate Program?
One of the benefits of joining an online casino affiliate program is that it doesn’t require any costs for the affiliate. It is 100% free to join, and all that’s needed is a functional website where the online casino’s products can be promoted. Affiliates use a combination of banners, adverts, perhaps even email messaging to reach audiences. While these transmission mechanisms are easy to use, there is a significant amount of effort required to get players to click on links, deposit, and play. The most successful affiliates are also the hardest working affiliates.
It’s important to understand which type of revenue model you will be choosing as an online casino affiliate marketer. The revenue share option you select determines the amount of profit you’ll generate. Some affiliates get paid by the converted traffic they send to an online casino per month, while others share in the CPA model. The cost per acquisition is a performance-based system for you to get paid.
Remember: You don’t need to set up your own online casino, pay regulatory fees, obtain licensing, or any other high expense activity. You’re simply promoting the online casino through your website. The success of affiliates is dependent upon the payment arrangement that is selected. One of the most impressive examples of a great online casino affiliate program is 888casino. To date, 888casino has paid its affiliates over $207M, and there are many benefits to joining this program, such as on-time payments, high conversions, trusted global brands, personal account managers, and personalized commission plans, among others.
Casinos and Affiliate Marketing
Casinos are prepared to work with affiliates that can promote them to the affiliate’s customers. The process is rather straightforward: the affiliate will display an advertisement for the online casino on its website. A customer will then click on that banner, advert, or respond to the marketing message. The customer (in this case a potential player) will be redirected to the merchant website through a tracking link.
A tracking link is a marketing tool to determine the efficacy of a marketing campaign. Without this link, it is virtually impossible to evaluate the performance of a marketing initiative. In other words, it ascertains where traffic is coming from. In the case of affiliate marketing, this is sacrosanct. Once the customer makes a deposit, the transaction is recorded on an affiliate network. Further confirmation and verification of the payment will be made, and the transaction will be credited to the affiliate. For example, if affiliate X works for casino Y, affiliate X will get rewarded when customers click on tracking links to casino Y and make a deposit. Then, the affiliate will receive his/her commission in a revenue-sharing compensation model.
There are several important components in affiliate marketing, notably affiliate links. These refer to a specific URL that records the affiliate’s ID/username. For example, all traffic flows sent to the online casino can be accurately documented. Whenever customers move through the sales funnel and are converted, that affiliate link is needed to credit the affiliate with a commission. In other words, they track sales (deposits) and allow affiliates to promote the online casino in question. Anchor text is another important component of affiliate marketing – it includes clickable words on a hyperlink.
Other terms that should be understood include API (application programming interface), click ID (the user’s ID code), click through rates (CTR which measures the percentage of clicks versus impressions), CPA (cost per acquisition), cost per click (CPC), EPC (earnings per click), inbound link (a link from the affiliate website to another website), and tracking method (a method that is used by affiliate programs to track leads, sales, or clicks). There are many components to affiliate marketing, but the overarching concept is to receive compensation through traffic that converts into paying customers.
What Type of Revenue Can You Expect from Online Casino Commissions?
The actual percentages will vary from one online casino operator to the next. However, you can expect to receive greater revenue shares when you send more converting players. For example, your revenue share for under 9 players may be 25%, between 10 – 49 players 30%, 50 – 99 players 35%, 100 – 499 players 40%, and 500 players +45%. The revenue share model is a referral-based system, meaning that you are incentivized to send more paying traffic to get more money.
Another system is known as CPA (Cost per Acquisition). With this model, affiliates are typically rewarded with a flat fee for every player that makes a deposit at the online casino. If you choose this structure, you will be rewarded for every player you send. Affiliates receive commission, regardless of whether the players win or lose.
An example of a CPA-based revenue structure could be the following:
- 1 – 10 players at $75 per player
- 11 – 30 players at $100 per player
- 31 – 40 players at $125 per player
- 41 – 50 players at $150 per player
- 51 – 60 players at $175 per player
- 61 – 70 players at $200 per player
- 71 – 90 players at $225 per player
Hybrid Deals can be struck between online casinos and their affiliates, based on need. If you combine CPA and revenue shares, you typically have a hybrid deal which may satisfy the needs of an affiliate marketer better than one or the other. Statistics tend to indicate that long-term affiliates prefer revenue share-based models. CPA has many benefits over revenue share since it removes the ongoing contract (and the uncertainty associated with it).
Remember: Most affiliates promote multiple online casinos. They typically register with several leading brands and then actively promote these casinos on their websites. Customers benefit from having ‘objective’ and ‘in-depth’ reviews of these online casinos on affiliate sites. Players can navigate to these affiliate marketing sites and pick the online casino that best meets their needs Affiliate marketing is an effective and successful way to earn income from an up-and-coming online casinow.
There are many examples of successful affiliate marketing programs. One that immediately comes to mind is Joshua Chan of ‘The Latest Casino Bonuses.’ Chan owns KeyToCasino.com and is also credited with owning the largest affiliate networks in the iGaming universe. Through hard work, dedication, and years of little return, he has transformed his affiliate marketing business into a veritable empire.
Why Is Affiliate Marketing so Effective for Online Casinos?
Affiliate marketing is an effective way to get paid because your payment is based on your performance as an affiliate. Since no upfront investment is required of the affiliate, the only thing that matters is performance. As an affiliate, your return on investment (ROI) is determined by the number of converted customers. Online casinos have no problem paying affiliates for converted visitors (paying players) because they are generating real sales from those customers.
Another reason affiliate marketing is so effective is that it is easy to measure your progress. Some of the ways that affiliates are attracting customers are through social media, online advertising, gaming conferences, etc. A quick measurement of your costs and the benefits that accrue, allows you to determine profitability.
Fortunately, it’s relatively simple to track traffic flows as an affiliate. This is one of the benefits of online casino affiliate marketing. As an online casino owner, or an affiliate, you can easily see where your traffic’s coming from, and the affiliate sees exactly how much traffic is coming to you through them. Online casinos typically prefer working with affiliates that bring in more real money players and are willing to cut better deals to secure converting users. For online casino operators, it’s a win-win working with a trusted affiliate. Strong brand presence, credibility, and a positive perspective are assured when the right affiliate teams up with the right online casino.
Casinos benefit immeasurably from using affiliate marketing to do their advertising for them. Consider the costs that an online casino operator would bear if they were responsible for all marketing activity. Running ads in leading websites, on billboards, in newspapers, magazines, or via email blast campaigns is time-consuming and extremely expensive. When a casino partners with affiliates, it simply provides the materials required to attract customers (a ground game and marketing tools) and the affiliate utilizes his/her websites to attract players that will ultimately deposit and play real money casino games. Affiliates that generate proven results are compensated accordingly. Online casinos don’t pay for window dressing (affiliates that host links on their websites); online casinos only pay for converted customers.
How to Determine the Best Affiliate Marketing Platform?
Successful affiliate marketing depends on the credibility of the technology that is being used. Affiliate marketing software should be user-friendly for the affiliate and the online casino operator. There are proprietary software solutions available for affiliate marketing management, and these can easily be integrated into existing software. Sometimes, online casinos prefer to go alone with tailored affiliate marketing software. It’s important to work with an accredited, regulated and trusted online casino when you are an affiliate. Fly-by-night operators promising lofty returns should be avoided.
Online casinos should provide all the necessary support and assistance – via competent affiliate managers – to help achieve performance objectives. Most industry aficionados agree that the success of an affiliate program is dependent on the gaming platform you choose. Regulatory constraints are another issue which must be factored into the equation; are you looking to bring in legal traffic or unregulated traffic? All of these questions are easily answered by partnering with a trusted and transparent iGaming provider.
Can You Hit the Jackpot with an Affiliate Program?
Yes. There is no doubt that successful affiliates know how to game the market, by providing precisely the right enticements for players to click on links and boost CTAs. The CPA model has become one of the most popular revenue models for casino affiliates. Consider the case of a promotion being offered by an online casino – the more people that click on that promotional offer, the greater the benefit for the publisher. If you’re looking to boost your profitability, the CPA model is an exceptional way to do so.
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