The effectiveness of the affiliate programs is undoubtful and constantly increasing. How can this promotion method help online and offline casinos? What are the pitfalls and specifics of choosing the best affiliate programs for your business? Login Casino continues explaining cornerstone elements used in the gambling business today tactics now describing the issue of affiliate programs for beginners.
How are the best affiliate programs helping to promote casinos?
The essence of the affiliate programs
Affiliate programs are the essential chain in the global marketing world as they promote the modern approach of doing business called affiliate marketing. While brands are still focused on advertising their products in all the possible ways, affiliate marketing approaches increase the number of available powerful tools to make the sales process more effective. This way of advertising promotion becomes popular as brands or manufacturers (merchants) can hire aside marketing publishers (bloggers, influencers, dedicated marketers), who might help with advertising.
As affiliate marketing is synonymous with partnership marketing, there are diverse kinds of suchlike cooperation. Thus, some involved parties prefer CPA marketing networks (using flexible cost per acquisition model), while others are dedicated to affiliate programs.
Difference between affiliate programs and CPA networks
Being the popular ways of marketing business, both affiliate networks and programs are quite similar terms. Thus, CPA affiliate marketing networks refer to the three-side cooperation: merchant-network-publisher. These digital platforms gather both involved sides and organize the process between them:
- set the fees or CPA rates;
- provide sides with the needed controlling soft;
- collect and filter participants from both sides;
- do ther organizational work.
In contrast, affiliate programs exclude intermediaries (CPA networks) and represent a two-side collaboration: merchant-publisher. In this case, merchants are taking the organizational work on their own and just looking for the advertising publishers or other interested parties that can promote brands. In other words, if the company likes the affiliate marketing model and has stable demand for outside help – it has to think about organizing its own affiliate program instead of going to the CPA network and paying additional fees for finding advertisers.
There are plenty of benefits and drawbacks of using each affiliate marketing approach. However, when comparing both methods, their overall effectiveness is quite similar because the cons of the first one are the pros of the second one, and vice versa. For instance, affiliate programs require additional organizational structure or the whole department to find the needed publishers, while going to the CPA network looks easier and faster. At the same time, building a synchronized marketing campaign is much easier via the affiliate program method as the network’s publishers are more diversified.
Realization specifics in the gambling industry
As the gambling industry is quite different from the other forms of business, there are some particular specifics of how affiliate marketing is realized in it. In the context of programs, there are three major types of cooperating models:
- RevShare. Standing for ‘revenue share,’ this type of cooperation is especially actual for the online casino industry. The publisher receives a fixed percentage of the customer’s losses on a gambling platform. At the moment, the percentage varies on the concrete affiliate program but is usually between low 20% and highest paying 50% rates. However, if you are a publisher, remember that attracting successful players wouldn’t bring you revenue. Merchants prefer this model as it guarantees payments most reliably.
- CPA/CPL. ‘Cost per acquisition/cost per lead’ (or cost per action) are the well-known abbreviations in affiliate marketing and often stand for the whole industry that is focused on paying for particular results. The casino context doesn’t impose specific frames and can mean the deal for apps downloads, registering, first depositing, and other typical actions that can be made by the internet user. Logically, depending on the type of action, the payment can vary from a dollar and up to a few dozens if the punter deposited enough. Usually, this approach forces publishers to focus on the number of punters that accomplish needed action.
- Mixed scheme. This is a flexible sort of collaboration that pushes the publisher to think not only about the number of leads but also about their quality. Here the term RDP (returning depositing player) makes sense as receiving a few bucks for registration is good, but stable punters will top-up the wallet of an effective publisher regularly. This method also includes guaranteed bonus programs like increasing RevShare percentage with the number of depositing cases increasing or something alike.
However, the specifics of affiliate marketing programs in the casino industry relies not only on the type of cooperation. Thus, the legislation in the regarded sector varies from country to country, making it hard to remember even the major European countries’ gambling law differences, nothing to say about the whole world. It means that before opening a casino program, the business has to set a reliable legislative test for the potential publisher to avoid further problems due to inappropriate marketing steps made by the affiliate side.
Also, opening the affiliate program by casino owners should go in parallel with knowing the gambling industry’s media buying specifics. As this form of activity is gaining momentum, being a step ahead of the publishers or at the same level is a crucial advantage. Media buyers are usually regarded as the innovators in terms of marketing, so knowing some of the primary hooks or tricks can be applied by the business’ own marketing department. Why to pay more if it can be made without intermediaries?
Can high ticket affiliate programs be applied for casinos?
One of the most interesting tactics in affiliate marketing is the issue of high ticket programs. This form of cooperation assumes huge commissions – up to a few thousand dollars per client. Sometimes, a few hundred bucks can be regarded as the high ticket variant, but only adding one zero to the payment sum brings the program to the top level. As the casino industry can and should be divided into online and offline sectors, the best commission’s difference becomes clearer.
Online casinos
Traditionally, virtual casinos that are looking for new clients are oriented on the low-paying sector. In other words, such businesses are focused on attracting more customers with lower financial opportunities and earn on the number of punters.
Interestingly, the digitization trend has transformed the casino industry into available for almost everyone, while years ago, it was an elite entertainment. Of course, people always loved gambling, and even poorest ones could bet on the winner or paid cards for extra cash, but entering the casino meant joining the elite level, for some period at least. The growing number of online casinos is turning into the trend, so reviewing this niche as the target for high ticket affiliate programs looks hopeless.
Land-based establishments
At the same time, the brick-and-mortar casino business still associates with the elite level or huge spendings, at least. Thus, one of the advertising tactics in this niche is casino tours or trips, where the advertiser suggests rather attractive conditions:
- free transfer to casino and back;
- free hotel rooms and meals;
- the punter needs to bet the fixed money amount (a few thousand dollars or more).
Such a suggestion looks impressive for the gamblers that are ready to spend a few thousand dollars but receive an all-inclusive condition in the top casino complex. Interestingly, but the last item doesn’t mean to bet everything one can win from the obligatory sum, so a bit of luck can transform one’s vacation or weekend into a pleasant and profitable trip.
Such a case is a classic example of how high ticket affiliate participation can look like: the publisher can receive a huge reward for every recruited punter. As gambling behavior is often addictive, land-based casinos also make enough profit from suggesting such tours, so attracting more clients can be given to partner sides.
Top affiliate programs for casino promotion
Highlighting the objective list of best casino affiliate programs is quite an impossible task. An author should be an experienced marketer who worked for several months, at least with each representative. Even excluding dozens of offers from casinos to take part in their marketing promotion campaign, the marketer or media buyer who tried everything would still be sided due to personal preferences.
In this case, we’ll highlight the most widespread casino affiliate programs that suggest quite unique conditions or represent diverse markets. The primary idea of the rating below is to show the variety of the market, while the publisher should try before making conclusions. At the same time, casino businesses can see the variety of market offers and copy or adjust their own affiliate programs.
So, the list of the best casino affiliate programs may look as following:
BitStarz
One of the best-known affiliate market programs that combine simple cooperation conditions. Everyone can start from a fast registering procedure and getting the 25% commission plan; notably, the newcomer cannot get negative carry over if the punter is successful. It makes BitStarz rather attractive for inexperienced independent marketers.
The regarded platform also has a floating reward system, and the publisher can reach a prime 40% commission plan if the attracted clients are elite users of the gambling platform. Moreover, the profit can be in lifetime status, guaranteeing stable revenue. The platform has a fast cash-out system, 24/7 live support, and a dedicated account manager for newly registered affiliate sides to be attractive enough.
Bet 365
Being one of the most popular sports betting digital platforms worldwide, Bet365 has its own affiliate program. Interestingly, its affiliate webpage looks pretty poor compared to competitors. The conditions are also far from the most attractive on the market as the platform offers a fixed 30% lifetime profit share commission from every customer the publisher brings. They are also practicing negative carryover, so partners should be ready to money cut cases.
This is one example of how the well-known name isn’t spending too many resources on promoting their affiliate program. The reason can be their popularity, and joining them is an achievement for beginners by default. At the same time, Bet365 is a rather flexible casino affiliate program that allows interested sides to choose diverse marketing directions, inducing pocket, betting, and other sub-types of gambling.
Genesis
While the first two casino affiliate programs in our rating seemed to suggest quite the opposite approaches, Genesis presents just a different one. Thus, the firm adds an entertaining aspect and suggests partners to try the casino games on their own. Free spins are presented as an added bonus for publishers, along with a variety of products that can be advertised.
What relates to basic affiliate program conditions, the regarded platform offers a 35% minimum revenue share rate and 2.5% lifetime referral commission. Being a multidirectional company, Genesis suggests flexible payout models and variants, which are fast and fair enough. However, all these perks are available for experienced publishers who can prove that they can be useful in the recent market conditions.
Alpha Affiliates
This program joined our list of interesting ones due to several reasons. The first one is the sub-affiliation option, which means that bringing other publishers will guarantee an extra 5% of their net gaming revenue achievements. Also, the Alpha Affiliates can be attractive for marketers worldwide as their products are legal in Europe, Asia, North and South America, and Australia.
However, being present in 38 countries is not the only crucial number that attracts Alpha’s 20 payment options. Along with various products and the highest paying RevShare rate up to 50%, such an affiliate program looks really attractive for publishers and can be followed by other businesses. The absence of negative carryover and lifetime income is also vital, but accepting procedures can be tough for inexperienced publishers.
BetVictor
Surprising with some specific conditions becomes hard with every additional affiliate program, and many thanks to BetVictor. Their invite-only joining procedure is really something unusual for this sector. Even though everyone can send the requested email, not everyone receives feedback and cooperation offers.
Being a well-known betting brand, BetVictor has already added casinos to their digital activity, but their primary pride is still betting and appropriate marketing innovations in this niche. However, their affiliate team is ready to help everyone who joins their global marketing promotion staff. 30% of the RevShare rate isn’t the best proposition on the market, while strict advertising rules and compliance with BGC requirements also can warn someone. Nevertheless, they really can bring the feeling that their publishers are special and carried appropriately.
Betsson
The regarded affiliate program seems to be the summing-up proposition on the market as it gathered major benefits and suggested them to potential partners. Thus, Betsson diversified target markets by country and suggested special offers for every state advertising activity. The ability to promote the full range of gambling products (casino, bookies, poker rooms) is facilitated by supporting 30 languages and allows publishers to focus on the core targets.
Betsson’s commission rates are also flexible and include RevShare, CPA, and mixed models. This casino affiliate program excludes negative carryover and ready to pay via numerous available methods directly to the publisher’s wallet. As their products are certified by the Malta Gaming Commission, joining their program can be tough for beginners.
Read more: Top Gambling Affiliate Programs
