While the World Wide Web offers almost limitless possibilities, running a business is no easy task in this highly competitive world. This is especially true for iGaming projects which pop up literally every day as if out of the blue. And whether you’re an online gambling platform owner or an online casino partner promoting an established product, you need to choose a good way to draw traffic and build sales accordingly. And among the legitimate methods, affiliate marketing and direct advertising seem to be the best. To begin with, the choice of a suitable method is influenced by your goal – whether you want to increase your sales quickly or choose to be consistent and focus on building your brand awareness in the first place. We’re here to tell you what is direct advertising, what is affiliate marketing, and is the preferred method for promoting iGaming platforms in 2022.

Affiliate Marketing vs Direct Advertising for iGaming

While both methods are viable and very effective, they differ in terms of the effect you can achieve. For example, affiliate marketing can attract more traffic to a gambling product while direct advertising can increase brand awareness. Many marketers use a combination of two to achieve more meaningful results. Below we will discuss each method in detail and find out their advantages and disadvantages.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Direct advertising is essentially the process of drawing people’s attention to your business through the efforts of your marketing department. Affiliate marketing is a way of promoting a business (iGaming or any other) where you ask a person (a gambling affiliate) to tell people who may be interested in your product about it and refer them to it. Your gambling partner (affiliate) will receive a portion of your profits from the customers s/he brings in as remuneration for his/her work. And you can hire multiple affiliates as part of your iGaming affiliate program. This is a great solution even for small businesses, as you will pay for performance, that is only when your affiliate has made money for you.

What is Direct Advertising?

Mankind has been using advertising for many years. You have probably seen billboards, and advertisements on TV or in the media. When it comes to promoting iGaming products through direct advertising, it works in exactly the same way. The only exception is that you advertise on online platforms. Your ad needs to be eye-catching and tout the benefits of the iGaming platform. An example of direct advertising would be showing an advertisement to someone looking for a reliable online casino on a search engine.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Each Method

Most large companies use both methods to promote their products and services. If you opt for direct advertising, it is easier to implement. Your job is to put the online casino in the best possible light. You will spend most of your time researching your target audience and creating effective promotional materials that draw attention. You also need to find a good place to advertise, that is, a platform that is frequented by gamblers. If you want to focus all your efforts on direct advertising, then you should be aware of some disadvantages of this method:

• You need a decent starting budget because running adverts is expensive.
• The Internet is literally flooded with paid advertisements, so many users ignore them or turn them off completely.
• The success of your advertising campaign will depend on the quality of your advertising material.

If your promotional materials appear to be of low quality or if you use aggressive advertising techniques, the image of the iGaming platform you are promoting will be adversely affected.

As far as affiliates program is concerned, this is a particularly nice option even for a business that is just taking its first steps. However, in order to increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, you should approach a celebrity or opinion leader who will tell you about the benefits of the online casino. Essentially, s/he will promote the product for a fee which can be quite high. The advantage is that celebrities are highly trusted by a large audience.

If you just want to make money online by promoting gambling products, you can become a casino affiliate (or betting affiliate) and receive a commission for bringing in paying users to the platform. Thus, an affiliate program offers benefits to both the business and the people (affiliates) who want to be involved in promoting it.

So, affiliate marketing for promoting iGaming products has the following benefits:

• Low entry threshold. You don’t need a solid advertising budget, as you will only pay gambling affiliates when they bring you profit.
• A more customer-friendly marketing technique.
• Great opportunities to expand your audience reach and diversify your iGaming platform’s user base.

As for the disadvantages, there are two. Firstly, you lose some control over exactly how affiliates promote your product. Secondly, the influencer fees can be quite high.

Which Promotion Method for an iGaming Product is the Right One?

If your budget is limited, affiliate marketing is the best option. Also, for iGaming products, it has a much higher return on investment. The lion’s share of the target audience is 18-35-year old people with average incomes who have a low tolerance for direct advertising. The latter is usually effective for promoting products that can solve people’s problems. Finally, if you have a large advertising budget, you can use both methods in combination.

Conclusion

The online gambling industry is a very competitive environment. And your spending on direct advertising may not pay off if you fail to attract a large audience of paying players to your platform. Therefore, for online gambling projects, affiliate marketing is the preferred method of promotion.