AffPapa partners with Casino Guru for iGaming Affiliate Management Course
AffPapa, the leading iGaming directory, is thrilled to announce its collaboration with Casino Guru, joining the latter in its innovative course on iGaming Affiliate...
The Ultimate Guide to Casino Affiliate Management
Many iGaming operators utilize affiliate management solutions to massively enhance their marketing efforts. It helps casinos develop and maintain productive relationships with their affiliates and get higher returns on their advertising investments.
Affiliate marketing is a great way for online casinos to get better results from their promotional campaigns. It allows operators to start small and scale their marketing efforts as they grow while having the added benefit of paying proportionally for the service the firms receive at the end of each term. Saying this, not as many operators take advantage of an affiliate management solution, which has the potential to vastly expand their reach and increase profits.
But what is casino affiliate management anyway? In this article, we will go through the intricate details of this side of the affiliate marketing sector and explore everything it has to offer. We will also take a look at what important aspects you need to watch out for when looking for a service to work with and how to get started with the solutions of your choice.
Let’s start off with a quick overview of affiliate marketing itself before we explore the ways affiliate management solutions can greatly enhance it for operators: what is casino affiliate marketing?
Table of Contents
What is casino affiliate marketing?
Casino affiliate marketing is a technique that involves outsourcing marketing to an affiliate website specializing in online gambling advertising. Everything except for the creation of promotional campaigns and marketing materials, along with the management of the operator’s affiliate partner network is done by the iGaming affiliates, who usually also have access to supporting information, such as customer analytics and general statistics.
Making use of the services of an iGaming affiliate
Utilizing the services of an affiliate means that the latter is responsible for posting the provided promotional materials, usually on their website, social media page, or anywhere else that will get relevant traffic, following guidelines set out by the operator. These guidelines are usually given by one of the operator’s casino affiliate managers, who will also oversee their marketing partners and complete other tasks, like maintaining productive relationships with their partners, negotiating contract terms with prospecting iGaming affiliates that are requesting to work with custom deals, and expanding the firm’s affiliate network.
Affiliate network expansion
Speaking of the latter, there are two main methods gambling companies can use to expand their partner networks, and thus, marketing efforts, if they’re utilizing affiliate marketing. The first one is by simply reaching out to iGaming affiliates. Generally, operators expand their affiliate networks themselves by finding marketing firms to work with on the Internet. They can either partner with affiliate networks or join an iGaming directory, like AffPapa, which can greatly enhance the search process and help them find affiliates quickly. Many iGaming operators also advertise their set of offered commission rates to further assist them in finding high-quality partners, while many others often provide prospecting partners with enhanced deals to boost the expansion rate of their partner network.
The other method, on the other hand, involves the initiation of a partnership by an iGaming affiliate that feels they can optimally target and cater to either a portion or the entirety of the operator’s audience. Affiliates can initiate collaboration with operators by joining their affiliate program and even bringing in more affiliates if the operators provide sub-affiliation opportunities (a referral program, where affiliates receive a set commission for every affiliate referred).
Affiliate marketing has proven to be quite effective in the iGaming industry, which has led to it getting widespread adoption in the sector all around the world. There are a few reasons for casino affiliate marketing’s unbeatable efficacy, which we will explore next. If you’re interested to learn more about why affiliate marketing is so popular in iGaming, check out our dedicated article on the topic.
The main advantages of casino affiliate marketing
Casino affiliate marketing presents quite a different and enhanced experience in comparison to traditional marketing. It has a number of advantages, such as its flexibility, as it allows operators using casino affiliate marketing to easily scale their operations. Let’s take a look at a few of the largest upsides, starting with the aforementioned flexibility.
- Flexibility
This one applies to both how much and in what ways an operator advertises. They can decide not only what types of ads to roll out, but can also have a say in where affiliates can showcase them on various websites and social media platforms. Moreover, operators can include various other terms in their contracts as well, such as what types of content their advertisements can appear next to and control in what way they’re displayed based on a variety of variables. It is worth noting though that having very restrictive placement guidelines is likely to put off many iGaming affiliates, making standout commission offers a must for operators that want to have fine control over the placements of their marketing materials.
Affiliate marketing’s high level of flexibility also extends to payments, thanks to its commission-based structure, which is conveniently the next advantage we are going to explore.
- Payments
Payments are a major upside of the affiliate marketing industry. These types of campaigns have no large upfront costs, massively lowering the barrier to entry for upstart operators, and generally only require payments to be made after the operator has received its traffic. However, some iGaming affiliates may charge listing fees before requesting payments through a performance-based commission structure. As the name implies, listing fees are collected by an affiliate to list a prospecting operator partner on its website or social media accounts. Some higher-quality affiliates may charge these fees to provide their players with more impartial content covering their operator partners.
Utilizing the most common commission models of the industry, namely Revshare, CPA and Hybrid, casinos will need to pay proportionally to what they receive, ensuring a stable positive value for money. You can learn more about these methods here. Coincidentally, this payment structure contributes to a very low level of risk for the operators, which is conveniently our next topic of discussion.
- Low Risk
As most iGaming affiliates request their payments after they have completed their tasks, they will be getting paid with the funds they generated for the operator through marketing. When using a revenue share model, affiliate marketing becomes even less risky, as there is no chance for the operator to end up in a position where they owe money they don’t have.
However, this low level of risk is somewhat hindered by iGaming affiliate marketing’s susceptibility to affiliate fraud, which we will cover a bit more in-depth in a bit. Fortunately, if iGaming operators collaborate only with high-quality affiliates and utilize reputable sources to find new advertising partners, the low-risk nature of iGaming affiliate marketing can be further enhanced, as leading firms will make sure to maintain their reputations in the rapidly expanding online gambling industry.
- Scalability
The fourth one is pretty self-explanatory, as the operator can create their standard promotional materials and then just distribute them through multiple companies. This provides gambling firms with excellent growth opportunities, as expanding their reach can be as simple as collaborating with a wider network of affiliates and allocating more resources to marketing. Casino affiliate marketing also allows gambling firms to easily broaden their catalogs of experiences through additional brands, as they can utilize their existing partner networks to advertise their new offerings. Many operators use this technique to target different markets and popular niches in the industry, which are excellent ways for an online casino to reach wider audiences of gambling enthusiasts.
However, the more affiliates they work with, the harder it is going to be to track each individual firm’s performance. This allows us to segue into our last point of discussion, the few disadvantages of affiliate marketing, before we jump into our main topic, iGaming affiliate management.
The few disadvantages of casino affiliate marketing
Fraud
One of the largest disadvantages of iGaming affiliate marketing is that it is prone to affiliate fraud. While the prevalence of iGaming affiliate fraud is growing in the gambling sector, there are ways to avoid it, with the main one being working with reputable firms and integrating robust affiliate tracking systems. If you’re interested to learn more about the topic, check out our dedicated article on how operators can avoid fraud in the iGaming industry.
Management
The only other sizable disadvantage of casino affiliate marketing is the amount of management required to maintain relationships with lots of affiliates. This will mean that even relatively smaller operators will need to have multiple affiliate managers on staff that work with casino affiliates, answering questions, sending promotional materials and paycheques, and analyzing performance. However, there is a way to solve this annoyance, and that is to outsource these tedious tasks and use a management service. Let’s now explore casino affiliate management solutions in-depth, along with their benefits.
What is a casino affiliate management service?
A casino affiliate management service is a solution that helps iGaming operators manage their relationships with their affiliate partners. These services combine the capabilities of skilled iGaming affiliate managers with specialized software that makes it easier for them to track performance and log the telemetry of each affiliate over a period of time. iGaming affiliate management solutions outsource nearly all parts of an operator’s affiliate marketing efforts, only leaving the creation of appropriate promotional materials for their clients. For an operator with ambitious goals, these solutions will be quite handy, as they will be able to massively increase the productivity of their online casino affiliate managers.
However, there are other solutions that can increase the productivity of an operator’s affiliate management team, namely iGaming affiliate programs. Let’s briefly discuss the differences between the two next.
iGaming affiliate management services vs casino affiliate programs
Just like affiliate management services, casino affiliate programs help operators streamline their affiliate management efforts. These programs allow companies to communicate with their partners through a single unified platform, helping their affiliate management teams work more effectively. This includes all of the usual communications between operators and affiliates, such as sending promotional materials or negotiating custom deals.
However, the main distinction between affiliate programs and affiliate management services is that the former only helps operators streamline their affiliate management efforts and does not offer them a hands-off experience similar to that of an iGaming affiliate management service.
Affiliate programs still require a dedicated team of managers and affiliate tracking software to function appropriately. Additionally, affiliate programs are most effective for multi-brand operators, while gambling firms with only one operating brand won’t be able to fully take advantage of their benefits. Check out our guide on affiliate programs to learn more about the topic.
iGaming affiliate management services vs casino affiliate networks
Now let’s discuss the differences between iGaming affiliate management services and casino affiliate networks. Both outsource the majority of iGaming operators’ marketing efforts through a very similar casino affiliate marketing system, helping gambling companies streamline their affiliate management efforts. However, they achieve this in two different ways. An affiliate network works as an intermediary between operators and affiliates, taking details of the promotional campaigns of its operator clients and giving them to its affiliate partners. Because of this, affiliate networks provide a lot less flexibility for gambling firms. As an example, operators cannot easily migrate their existing affiliate partners to an affiliate network to make use of the latter’s services, meaning that they would have to ask each of their partners to sign up for the network individually.
Moreover, affiliate networks may present challenges to some operators, especially smaller companies, because of their competitive nature. For example, if an online casino offers a less competitive campaign through lower bonuses or less appealing promotional materials and messages, the affiliate members of an iGaming affiliate network may choose to provide less coverage to them to maximize their earnings. Fortunately, the impacts of this aren’t likely to be detrimental to the growth of an operator, however, it is still something worth considering.
Let’s explore the benefits of iGaming affiliate management services in detail next.
The benefits of an online casino affiliate management solution
On top of the advantages of affiliate marketing, casino affiliate management solutions offer a number of additional benefits that make them an excellent choice for managing marketing affiliates. Let’s explore a number of them.
1. Detailed Telemetry
First off, we have detailed telemetry. Most quality affiliate management solutions from reputable providers will offer a thorough reporting system that will let operators track the performance of their affiliates. This is quite useful for gambling firms of all sizes, as even if an operator is working with a few affiliates at most, they can optimize their spending by working with more efficient affiliates.
Moreover, having detailed statistics on the performance of their affiliate partners is vital for operators to detect fraudulent affiliates. As we discussed a bit earlier in the article, affiliate fraud is one of casino affiliate marketing’s few disadvantages when compared to traditional marketing methods, and one of the most effective ways to fight against it is through analyzing affiliate performance metrics for any inconsistencies.
2. Low Barrier to Entry
Similar to casino affiliate marketing itself, affiliate management services can have a very low barrier to entry, allowing operators to start small and scale up as they grow their business. Gambling firms can start with a few affiliates, which can be handled by the service at a relatively affordable price if it uses a commission-based payment plan. This will then allow the operators to scale up when they have the resources to do so.
3. One place to manage all marketing activities.
Casino affiliate management provides operators one place where they can go to manage all of their marketing activities. For operators working with hundreds, or even thousands of partners, this can only be achieved with affiliate management solutions, as even the best affiliate managers can only take care of so many affiliates by themselves. This provides quite a streamlined marketing experience, allowing the operator to focus their resources on delivering a great product for its players.
4. Streamlined Payments
Casino affiliate management services can streamline and consolidate their client’s payments, giving operators the opportunity to make only one transaction at the end of each term for all of their marketing efforts instead of having to pay each partner individually, which can be quite a tedious task. This also means that casino affiliate management services can work with a commission model of some sort, which will further contribute to affiliate marketing’s excellent low-risk nature.
Thanks to these major benefits, casino affiliate management services are a worthwhile investment for operators of all sizes. For larger operators, they are a no-brainer, while smaller ones will still benefit from these solutions. But what if an online gambling firm works with only one affiliate or even none at all? How would an operator that’s just starting to get its feet wet in the affiliate marketing industry know what benefits may be awaiting them with an iGaming management service?
How to find iGaming affiliate managers?
Employing the help of an iGaming affiliate manager will be beneficial for every operator, no matter the size. Their services will give gambling businesses a taste of what full-fledged management services can do, while not breaking the bank on an unfamiliar feature. Operators can find many great iGaming affiliate managers on various directory websites or pages featuring them, which have a selection of some of the industry’s most experienced professionals that would be more than happy to help them.
Things to look for in an iGaming affiliate management service
Now that we have looked at all the reasons why, let’s take a look at the how. The first step to integrating any service into your workflow is obviously finding the right one. But what do you need to look for in an online casino affiliate management service? There are a couple of things that we will explore.
Reach-Outs
First off is reach-outs. iGaming affiliate management services that conduct periodic reach-outs to prospecting associates offer an excellent way for operators to grow their affiliate marketing efforts. While this isn’t a necessity, as operators can find partners themselves, being able to expand the affiliate network through the iGaming affiliate management service itself is nice to have for lots of companies. It’s especially advantageous if an operator is targeting rapid growth and has plans of working with the best affiliates in the industry. To conduct these reach-outs, the iGaming affiliate management services, along with their affiliate managers, will need to have a lot of industry contacts to be able to continue expanding a client’s partner network at pace. Reach-outs are best accomplished by affiliate management services run by major affiliate directories, although other well-connected companies will be able to offer a similar experience as well.
Experience
Just like with any other service, having an experienced professional carrying it out is going to deliver better results. An affiliate manager is going to have to communicate with multiple companies about marketing materials, campaigns, results and many other things, which is not the easiest task in the world. Thus, choosing a provider that is more experienced will certainly be worthwhile.
Detailed Reporting
One of the biggest reasons to upgrade an operator to an affiliate management system is to get more detailed reporting on the performance of their marketing associates. This is quite important, as this is the main way a gambling firm can optimize its affiliate marketing spend. Eliminating or de-prioritizing worse-performing partners can sometimes provide quite a sizable bump to the value for money the operator is getting out of their advertising expenses.
Dedicated Managers
While having dedicated managers in an affiliate management service is not a necessity, it is quite a nice thing to have. Having dedicated managers in any relationship involving affiliates can streamline it and make collaboration easier for both sides. In an affiliate management service, operators working with managers who know their quirks and features may even experience some performance benefits. The only downside of having dedicated managers for affiliate management solutions is the additional cost, however, it will be worth it for the vast majority of operators.
Flexibility
Lastly, we have flexibility. A casino affiliate management solution should allow operators as much flexibility as possible, allowing them to change as many little details as they desire. The most common parameters an online gambling business will want to tweak are the placement and the sizing of ads. Most quality management services offer this along with many more customization options. Additionally, flexibility in terms of having different tiers of subscriptions is a nice-to-have as well, as not all operators may need all features of an affiliate management service. Check out our own subscription tiers as an example.
How to find the best affiliates for online casinos?
One of the most important aspects of affiliate marketing is the affiliates themselves. These companies are the ones that are going to be playing a big role in the marketing of an operator’s brand, so it is important to work with qualified professionals who can guarantee success.
The best way of finding affiliates would be to just work with a casino affiliate manager who has contacts with quality firms. This is another reason why “industry contacts” was mentioned first in the list of things to look for in a management solution.
However, if an operator is just starting out and doesn’t have the resources for that, another great way to find affiliates is on various affiliate directories. We offer such a list on our Best iGaming affiliates page, which we periodically update to provide the most up-to-date information. In any case, after finding affiliates and a management service, the operator is on the final stretch, ready to get started with the solution of their choice.
How to get started with the management service of your choice?
Lastly, after doing extensive research the only thing left to do will be to acquire the desired service. Most affiliate management specialists make this easy, having a simple account system that will allow an operator to get started immediately. For some others, the operator may need to contact the company to get rolled in. In either case, however, this is the easiest part of the whole process. After this step, the gambling business will get to enjoy its vast catalog of affiliate partners who use specified marketing materials to drive traffic to its website.
Wrapping things up
To conclude, casino affiliate management is quite a useful tool with virtually no downsides that can be utilized by operators of varying sizes. It makes the jobs of iGaming affiliate managers a whole lot easier while providing ample expansion opportunities. If you have your own gambling operation that is looking for a marketing boost, definitely give affiliate management services a go and grow your business at pace.
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