Online Casinos and Affiliates

june 19, 2020

Source: Photo by Jonne Huotari on Unsplash

If you love something, you probably want to share it with everyone you know. This is particularly true if you’re really excited about your favorite online casino—maybe you found a new game that’s really fun or had an impressive win at the poker table. This drive to share our favorite things, especially with people online who have similar interests, is part of why affiliate marketing is important to online businesses. Affiliates are people who use their websites to bring traffic to your online casino.

Affiliate programs are important for all sorts of online businesses. It’s sort of like the online equivalent of putting up a flyer about a neighborhood restaurant in your shop window. This sort of advertising is especially effective when it’s used for audiences with particular interests. So, in the online casino world, that means that many casino affiliates are online gamers and players, who may have blogs about their game of choice or even play livestream games online for their fans to watch. That puts them in a good position to be affiliate marketers.

How It Usually Works

Most affiliate programs, particularly for eCommerce, are a form of advertising. The most common way it’s used online is by bloggers and social media influencers. If a food blogger writes a recipe and mentions a certain brand of blender, then links to that manufacturer’s site as part of an affiliate agreement, they’ll get an agreed cut for each person who interacts with the link. Interaction may mean just visiting the website, or something more, like signing up for a mailing list or making a purchase. The same concept can apply to all sorts of websites.

Like many things in internet culture, the whole concept of affiliate programs really exploded when Amazon started using it. Their program lets users create affiliate links to certain products that relate to their own online content, and then the individual gets a cut of any resulting sales.

Both merchants and people in their affiliate network benefit from affiliate advertising. The merchant doesn’t actively have to do anything to drive more traffic to their site, and the blogger essentially gets paid a referral fee. Plus, it’s a way to get paid for something they might be talking about anyway.

Consumers also like affiliate programs, because they’re a good way to get opinions from real people—not from traditional advertisements—about a certain product or service. This is especially true when affiliate advertising is used for online casinos, though it works a little different in that market.

Affiliate Marketing for Online Casinos

If an online casino wants to drive traffic to their website to attract new players, there are many different ways they can do so. In addition to common advertising methods like SEO (search engine optimization, which boosts your site’s placement in search engine results) and traditional image or video advertisements, affiliate marketing helps an online casino boost brand recognition.

One reason why affiliate advertising is good for online casinos is because trust is so important in the industry. If an individual gamer decides to make some extra money by posting affiliate links to their favorite online casino, then people who visit their website can get an honest outside opinion of the casino. Everyone wants to know that they’re playing at a trusted casino. So, in addition to the usual methods for checking legitimacy (like licenses and certifications or online reviews), hearing about a casino through word-of-mouth is a great way to gain peace of mind.

Many online gamers have tried out all sorts of online casinos in their gaming career and might have had a better experience at one or the other. By playing regularly at multiple different casinos, they become the experts. That means they have the best opinions on which sites have the widest selection or the most frequent updates, who has the best loyalty programs or perks, or who has the best user experience in general. That puts online gamers in a unique position to help other gamers, especially gamers who may be new to playing online or who are looking for a new site.

Not all affiliate networks for online casinos rely on simple reviews, though. Online gamers may promote affiliate websites using banners or icons, or simply by putting a link to their favorite casinos on their page. For gamers who play games where live-stream video is popular, like in eSports, there are even more opportunities for affiliate marketing.

Source: Photo by Dennis Maliepaard on Unsplash

Why Gamers and Casinos Love It

Becoming part of an affiliate marketing network is a great way for a gamer to make some extra cash, especially if they have a loyal online following or large fan base. It’s also a way to send some love back to their favorite online casinos and help everyone have a better game play experience. By posting reviews and information about online casinos, bloggers may also boost their own website’s popularity, since many people search for this type of information online.

Casinos like affiliate marketing because it has a great return on investment. Unlike expensive advertising campaigns, it’s a straightforward way to drive traffic to their sites. By tracking which of their affiliates are most successful, they can pay based on performance. With other types of advertising, like print or television, it can be hard to get an accurate idea of an ad’s impact. Being able to keep track of all the numbers can give casinos a good idea of where their traffic comes from, and where they might want to focus their advertising efforts in the future.

Plus, if a casino often gets talked up through affiliate marketing, it can improve their overall reputation. Even if it doesn’t pay off right away—such as by someone clicking the link and signing up for an account that day—this type of marketing helps build overall brand awareness. The more someone has heard about a brand, the more likely they are to seek it out in the future or tell a friend about it.

If you’re a gaming blogger or an influencer, then looking into affiliate marketing may be a smart move to build your own personal brand and even earn some extra revenue on your site. It’s worth doing some research about the fine print of how the process works and learning more about where to find good clients and have more success.

From eCommerce to online casinos, affiliate marketing one of the most widely used tools for building brand recognition and boosting traffic, thanks to how easy and effective it is.