iGaming is a term that corresponds with playing online games in return for money, prizes, or rewards. This quid pro quo mechanism is ripe for sports betting, casino games, poker, sweepstakes, lottery, bingo, card games, and other games of chance or skill. With the advent of technological innovations, the iGaming space is alive and thriving, offering a window for a slew of online gamers to bet big and wager a sum of money in return for real money. As per the current prognosis, the globally regulated gambling market is constantly on the rise and may touch a figure of $92.9 billion by the end of 2023 and surpass $260.44 billion during the 2023-2027 period.
What is iGaming in Affiliate marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is already a niche industry, and including iGaming is like souping it up. An affiliate in iGaming recruits new players through personalized links, and as an affiliate, you earn a commission for every player you refer. The more players sign up via your affiliate link, the more profit you accrue.
However, the amount of payment commissioned by you depends on the player’s involvement in the game. Depending on the agreed model, advertisers pay affiliates on a Hybrid, Revshare, or CPL basis. In light of the prognosis, the iGaming industry is holding well with Affiliate Marketing principles of augmenting audience levels and raising brand awareness. The fact that it will retain momentum in the future is again a piece of good tidings and reckoned as a significant step towards its future growth.
Let’s Examine How iGaming Affiliate Marketing Works In Short
Affiliate marketing in the iGaming industry operates through an exclusive partnership between Affiliates and iGaming operators. Affiliates are well acquainted with the iGaming know-how and have experience with a particular casino or sports betting business. They may be running their blogs or live-streaming platforms to promote their brands and drive traffic to these platforms.
Each affiliate receives an affiliate tracking link or code. Affiliates can track their traffic and referrals using these links, which are unique to each affiliate. They use these tracking links in their promotional content to direct potential customers to the iGaming platform. With this, they gain the credibility of potential users. If a user clicks on an affiliate's tracking link, the tracking system of the iGaming platform identifies the referral source. The operator then attributes the user to the respective affiliate.
Upon clicking the affiliate tracking link and landing on the iGaming platform, the referred user can register, deposit funds, and play games. A conversion occurs when the user meets particular criteria, such as making a qualifying deposit or meeting specific wagering requirements. Affiliates earn commissions on every qualified referral or conversion they generate. Depending on the particular model, commissions can be a percentage of a player's losses, a fixed amount, or a combination of both.
Operators of online gaming sites track the activity of referred players and calculate affiliate commissions. Reports and analytics are available to affiliates to monitor their performance and earnings. Advertisers pay affiliates based on a predetermined schedule, such as monthly. As an Affiliate, you have devised a new way of income generation, and the iGaming industry is also making money by gaining new customers. Thus, it is a win-win situation for both of these industries.
At present, affiliates refer to approximately 70% of players. Affiliate Marketing is the most effective and safest method of generating income for the iGaming sector due to the zero risks involved. Being an affiliate, one can receive payment for every action by their referred players, like wagering a bet or making deposits into the system. Also, with the swelling of the number of punters, more money goes into the kitty of the affiliate’s pockets.
Types of iGaming Affiliate Marketing Commission or Model Types:
RevShare Model
As a referral, you and your advertiser receive a percentage of Net Gaming Revenue (NGR), also known as the amount your players lose over a specified period, often monthly. The affiliate and advertiser receive a piece of the pie of every reward and risk of the whole process. Affiliates earn a percentage of the revenue generated by the players they refer, so they are incentivized to refer high-value players who will generate recurring revenue for the platform. In short, an online casino or sportsbook splits its revenue with its affiliates on a percentage basis.
The RevShare model can also motivate partners to work harder to generate more revenue since the more clients they refer, the more profit they can receive. The referred player must remain affiliated with the iGaming practice for the long haul for this method to generate benefits. Revshare amount rolls in with the induction of new players by the affiliates into the system sans securing a fixed one-time commission payment.
Cost Per Lead Model
This model includes leads from a new player while signing up for an account, downloading the iGaming software, and logging in for the first time. Thus, affiliates get a piece of every lead they direct to the advertiser. Thereby, these affiliates clock revenues in a hands-down approach. It is a more direct and secure payment, unlike the percentage mode of payment to affiliates in the Revshare method. 3
Cost per Action on a First-Time Deposit Model
The CPA on FTD is one of the alive-and-kicking payout models in affiliate marketing. This setup rewards you when your leads take significant action, like making their first deposit in a casino, filling out a questionnaire, or sharing a postal address. You may receive a fixed amount or a percentage of the player's initial deposit, depending on the norms of the advertiser or affiliate network. With players disbursing the initial deposit amount, affiliates and operators are relieved that they will benefit from this model as players have already committed to paying an initial sum, and hence, there is no escaping from the system.
Hybrid or Mixed Commissions Model
It crosses CPA and Rev share commission models. Affiliates reap the benefits from the one-time CPA payment method and long-running Revshare profits if the player remains hooked to the system for long. These payment models make the whole payment process appear rewarding in the iGaming Affiliate Program. These two practices can sometimes take a while to produce significant results, but patience pays off with promising results.
How To Get the Best of Both Worlds of iGaming and Affiliate Marketing?
A multi-pronged strategy involving search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, social media advertising, or paid traffic acquisition keeps these two practices going.
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Influencer Marketing: This is one of the pivots for the iGaming industry and holds a great deal of potential for this industry. Almost 60% of iGaming rides over some form of influencer marketing. Influencer marketing helps to get a strong foothold over reaching out to new geographies and beckons new customers. As a result, they are appealing to an array of engaged followers interested in online casinos and gambling. Finding niche influencers with the prowess and flair for iGaming or esports can be more effective in reaching a specific segment of people.
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Live Streaming Platforms: Affiliates can share their expertise, share insights, and provide authentic recommendations in live sessions, which can convert viewers into players. Through live demonstrations, affiliates can walk the talk for iGaming products and services, highlight specific games, and make it easier to promote them effectively. Live streams can also enable affiliates to share exclusive promotions, bonuses, or special offers in real time. It expedites viewers to shake the tree.
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Developing Quality SEO Content: Leveraging SEO tactics like using relevant keywords, opting for on-page and off-page SEO tactics, and establishing backlinks and link-building mechanisms improve the visibility of your website in search engine results pages and incubate targeted traffic to your iGaming website. In the long run, engaging with the audience with organic SEO content can trickle revenues for your iGaming and Affiliate Marketing platform.
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Reposing Trust Factor Between iGaming Operators and Affiliates: Affiliates must act in chime with iGaming operators. It is this harmony between these two entities that aids in the promotion of new games, inviting new players to the platform and providing in-platform updates to their audiences and players. This interplay between them determines half of the course of business. Hence, a symbiotic relationship between them is crucial for the success of the iGaming Affiliate Marketing platform.
The affiliate partners must collaborate with operators to promote their services in exchange for commissions or a share of the revenue generated from referred players. Trust compromises due to payment disputes, unfair practices, lack of transparency, etc reasons. Hence, open communication, adherence to rules and regulations of agreement, and ethical business practices are vital to the sustenance of the iGaming Affiliate Marketing business.
What are the Different Niches in IGaming Affiliate Marketing?
Niches include:
- Casino
- Sports-betting
- Poker
- Bingo
- Lottery
- Skill-games
- Scratchcards
- Forex / Binary trading
- BlackJack
- Roulette
Let’s illuminate two of the niches of iGaming affiliate programs
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Casino Affiliate Program: Affiliates promote casinos in their blogs, social media handles, and websites to drive traffic and business to casinos. Affiliates earn commissions when their referrals engage with the casino, for example, by signing up, depositing money, or placing bets.
This reciprocity is evident that the affiliate gets rewarded for successful referrals, while the casino gains new customers and a surge in business. The affiliates can be a bouquet of bloggers, website owners, or influencers. Here again, the affiliate earns either a rationed fund or a percentage share of the revenue generated by their referrals.
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Sports-Betting Affiliate Program: More than 80% of brands use affiliate marketing for sports betting to accelerate their reach and sales. An affiliate marketer signs up for online sports betting affiliate programs and shoulders the responsibility for sending quality traffic to the online sportsbook. The punters pitch for a game, event, or bet through sportsbook affiliate programs and enable affiliates to receive their due share of a commission for every conversion.
Promotional methods adopted by the affiliates include displaying content on their websites or YouTube platforms, posting online reviews, sharing social media posts, engaging in email promotions, SEO, and special offers. With Affiliate marketing programs onto their fold, sports betting platforms can be well on their way to diversifying their business to international markets, dialing up brand awareness with improved audience targeting, mitigating risk, ratcheting up ROI, etc.
Why Choose Offer18 as a technology partner for the iGaming Affiliate Program?
Offer18 platform scores big on various factors in iGaming Affiliate Marketing, like it nurtures a cohesive environment between affiliates and operators. With Offer18, you can track key metrics such as CPA, CPI, CPL, Revshare, etc. Its platform provides a safe cushion for your system against any iGaming Affiliate frauds. The platform uses standard encryption techniques to protect sensitive data.
Using Offer18, you can access all your marketing data in one place and draw actionable insights to manage your data more efficiently. The software facilitates multi-brand affiliate marketing campaign creation, execution, and tracking. Offer18 offers an exhaustive list of features, and its platform development is driven by customer needs and product requirements, making it the most tailored white-label platform for iGaming affiliate marketing. Its scalable affiliate software handles an increasing number of affiliates and players.
In Offer18, you can track affiliate performance in real-time and identify top performers. You can use this data to optimize your commission rates and incentivize your affiliates to drive more traffic and conversions to your iGaming marketing platform. By using the data provided by Offer18, you can make informed decisions about your program. Analyze the performance of your affiliates, identify trends, and optimize your software to ensure maximum results. Advanced analytics can help you to make data-driven decisions and continuously improve your iGaming affiliate marketing performance.
Conclusion
Although utilizing iGaming in your Affiliate Marketing campaigns can seem daunting, it can be a game changer. You must use the right software and tools to integrate with your iGaming platform. Also, collaborating with leading partners will position your platform as a market leader. The benefits of the synergy of iGaming and Affiliate Marketing fields are manifold, from boosting brand visibility to driving traffic and increasing profits.
Due to government regulations, financial issues, and banking restrictions, the iGaming industry faces significant challenges, hence giving much attention to legalities alongside the pitch-perfect marketing strategies like conducting extensive market research, understanding the target customers, crafting a compelling message, proficiency in using SEO tactics, using the right creatives and distribution among the social channels will take you on the bulletproof path to success.
As long as the iGaming operators work in lockstep with affiliate marketers, they will continue to reap the benefits of the business. In addition, affiliate marketing is a reliable method to take your iGaming business by storm if all these strategies fall into place. With the profundity of knowledge of iGaming in keeping with the spirit of effective affiliate marketing strategies, you can create a sustainable online presence that will benefit both worlds.
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