How to become an online casino partner
It’s no secret that gambling is one of the most lucrative niches in the entertainment industry. And while earlier it was practically impossible to enter this sphere without large investments, with the advent of online casinos, representatives of IT professions have been presented with such an opportunity.
No, we’re not offering you a job at the casino. By attracting traffic to gambling offers, you can get a stable income from commissions for the referred clients. The online gambling market is growing along with the increase in the number of Internet users. This includes countries where gambling is illegal. Yet that doesn’t stop people from registering and playing online.
By launching ad campaigns on various websites you can start your affiliate marketing journey with minimal investments. The marginality of such campaigns can reach 70% and more, and with proper use of tools – hundreds of percent. We will tell you in more detail how to start making money in this area.
How it all works
Affiliate marketing involves a webmaster investing their own funds in ad campaigns and other ways of attracting traffic, with the advertiser paying for the attracted customers at a pre-negotiated price. The cost of attracting new users must be lower than the commissions received. This is what makes up the webmaster’s profit. Otherwise, the campaign goes into the red and the affiliate company incurs losses. This is the main risk of this business.
The advantage of affiliate marketing as a business is its freedom and scalability. First, webmasters aren’t tied to a physical location, all they need is a stable Internet connection and funds to attract traffic with. Second, after you identify a profitable bundle, campaigns can be easily scaled by increasing the cost of advertising and hiring employees, other webmasters.
Don’t think affiliate marketing isn’t for you if you’re a lone wolf. Solo affiliates also receive high returns on their investments. And you can always outsource the preparation of materials for your ad campaigns.
Understanding casino affiliate payouts
To get a commission for a player, you need to motivate potential users to follow the affiliate link to the casino’s website and perform the target action. By checking who’s link the new client used to get to the casino, the advertiser understands who gets the payout.
Here’s a list of the main target actions for online casinos: registration, 1st deposit, repeated deposit, total amount deposited by the client since registering, amount of income made from the client.
When it comes to gambling affiliate marketing, there are multiple payout models:
- CPA – payment for target action, usually for registering or making the first deposit. This model usually has the lowest payouts, but is the easiest option.
- Revenue share – the casino provides the webmaster with a cut of the profits made of the attracted user. This model is offered to affiliates whose traffic has been verified. Sometimes this means that the casino’s losses are also deducted from the webmaster’s account. A great option for generating passive income.
- Hybrid – a combination of the two models – both one-time payments and a share of the profits.
How much do casino partners make?
The size of the payments depends on the target action and the potential income it might bring the casino. The advertiser always calculates these factors in order going in the red. For example, the more expensive players are middle-aged men from Tier 1 countries. Users who not only registered, but also returned many times, replenished their balance and kept playing. So don’t think you can just get a bunch of not-target users to register with the casino and call it a day. Advertisers use holds (delayed payouts) to check incoming traffic. The initial hold is usually 14-30 days. This helps filter out bots and fraudulent traffic. For honest webmasters, the hold is reduced eventually and the approval rate goes up.
As long as you follow the casino’s rules and properly set up your ad campaigns, you can expect at least a 100% ROI.
How to motivate players to register
To get high-quality traffic for a gambling offer, you need to find a relevant audience and present it with the promoted online casino. The most profitable users are those who are themselves looking for casinos to register with. Therefore, ads in search engines, social media, SEO promoted sites have the highest conversion rate.
The decisive factors for player registration are brand credibility, ease of registration and verification, and the variety of available games. These are the points you should focus on in your ad campaigns. You can also attract players with various bonuses and free spins they’ll get after registering. Just don’t forget to talk to the advertiser first. Otherwise, the webmaster will receive a bunch of registrations and as many players who will immediately leave, disappointed. No advertiser will pay for such traffic.
Ideally, your ad campaign needs to convey to the user the opportunity to experience amazing emotions from the game, the feasibility of winning and the safety and transparency of the whole process. Besides this, the success of the campaign depends on the targeting settings and the platforms you choose to launch it on.
How to pick a casino to promote
Working with an online casino directly a beginner affiliate will find a bit challenging. In turn, advertisers won’t be too thrilled to work with a bunch of solo affiliates and small teams, that attract meager traffic volumes. That’s where affiliate programs come in – they create a service where affiliates are able to drive traffic to casinos with the AP taking a cut.
For a webmaster, the advantage of working with an affiliate program is that it’s incredibly simple to register with one, get an affiliate link, track statistics and get payouts. Moreover, each affiliate gets a personal manager who acts as a sort of intermediary between the former and the advertiser.
And the online casino finds it convenient to place its offers in the affiliate program and get thousands of clients, leaving the affiliates to do all the work for it.
Many affiliate programs have a variety of offers with different working conditions. The fact that a webmaster can work simultaneously on several offers or GEOs is also a big advantage. When choosing an offer, be sure to consult with your manager, although it’s generally better to start off with time-tested brands.
Some casinos have their own affiliate programs. You won’t find much to choose from, on the other hand, the program is built around promoting one brand. It means the casino will have a more loyal stance towards its webmasters and higher payments compared to regular affiliate programs. And also perks in the form of exclusive promo materials, higher pay rates and new brand offers that are not available to affiliate marketers from other affiliate networks.
How to become a casino’s partner (step by step)
So, summing up all we talked about above, here are the main steps that a novice webmaster needs to take to start working with an online casino:
- choose an affiliate program and register with it;
- choose a traffic source;
- choose an offer based on reviews or recommendations of a personal manager;
- discuss the terms of traffic provision;
- get an affiliate link;
- launch an advertising campaign on your link;
- control traffic quality and campaign profitability;
- receive payments and reinvest;
Conclusion
Getting started with gambling traffic is pretty simple. In order to have enough funds for tests and getting the first tangible profit, we recommend starting with at least $500 on paid traffic sources and $200 on shareware sources. For starters, best to focus on a single source and one-two familiar GEOs. Obviously, attracting traffic from different countries requires different approaches, so it is better to switch to new GEOs after your original campaigns start making you a stable profit. In the future, it is also more efficient to work with multiple traffic sources in order to avoid drawdowns and losses. Today you are provided with the tools you might need and you don’t need any special IT skills to use them. This area is suitable both for those who consider online marketing as their main job, and for those who want to make a pretty penny in a semi-passive mode.