How iGaming Advertisers Can Build Better Affiliate Partnerships
Affiliate marketing is one of the most effective channels for iGaming advertisers to acquire new players. The industry’s rising advertising costs and growing data privacy regulations make affiliate marketing even more essential to acquiring new customers.
While creating an affiliate program for an iGaming advertiser is the starting point for the relationship between advertiser and publisher, successful operators go beyond the initial startup of the affiliate program to cultivate strong partnerships between advertisers and publishing websites. The best affiliate marketing strategies require more than paying for a publisher’s click-throughs to advertise an advertiser’s website; they involve forming strategic partnerships between the two entities.
Why Affiliate Partnerships Matter for iGaming Advertisers
Affiliate marketing is fundamentally different from most advertising formats in that the affiliate program is only triggered upon the accomplishment of a specific goal for the advertiser. Advertisers only pay their affiliates when players accomplish specific goals for the advertiser, such as:
Creating registrations for their sites
Completing a deposit on their gaming website
Converting to a revenue generator on their site
By utilizing affiliate partnerships, advertisers can limit the risk of acquiring users without effectively rewarding their publishing partners. Furthermore, advertisers that commit to their affiliate partnerships will typically see better results than their competitors who do not have an affiliate marketing program in place.
Focusing on Quality Partnerships
Ad advertisers may want to increase the number of publishing websites to which they offer their affiliate programs. However, a few high-quality partners typically outperform a hundred lower-rated partners.
The best publishing partners offer advertisers:
High-quality traffic
High player lifetime values
The appropriate geographic reach
Compliance with data privacy regulations
High conversion rates of traffic to players
Advertisers that form deep partnerships with a few quality publishing partners will see better long-term results than if they pursued the goal of working with as many publishing partners as possible.
Creating Competitive Commission Structures for Advertisers
One of the most important decisions advertisers must make is how to compensate their publishing partners. High-quality affiliates demand high levels of compensation, and advertisers need to create competitive commission structures to attract them.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) Agreements
With a cost per acquisition agreement, publishers receive a fixed sum of money for each player that meets the advertiser’s goals.
Benefits of CPA models:
Publishers earn a guaranteed income with every player that signs up
CPA agreements are simple to understand and track
Publishers may qualify for faster payout schedules
CPA agreements benefit publishers that require an immediate and fixed income from their advertising efforts.
Revenue Share Agreements
Under a revenue share agreement, publishers are awarded a percentage of the total revenue generated by the new players that they recruit.
Benefits of revenue share agreements:
Publishers earn a long-term, consistent income from the advertiser
Both parties have an incentive to recruit high-value players
Publisher and advertiser have a shared vested interest in the success of the partnership
This revenue share agreement incentivizes publishers to recruit only high-value players that will contribute well to the advertiser’s revenue.
Hybrid Affiliate Models
Rather than committing to one model or the other, many advertisers use a combination of the two models. Publishers may be paid a one-time CPA fee for recruiting a player and then earn a percentage of the revenue generated by that player over time.
This combination model appeals to experienced publishers because it offers both types of income. It is also beneficial for advertisers who want to attract top-quality publishing partners into their fold.
Making Affiliate Reporting More Transparent for Publishers
Publishers rely on accurate and up-to-date reporting to measure the effectiveness of their advertising channels. The best advertisers provide publishers with dashboards that offer data on:
The number of clicks on their advertiser website
The number of player registrations on the advertiser’s site
The number of players who have made a deposit
The number of qualified players recruited
The revenue generated by these players
The status of their commissions
The more visible the advertiser makes the reporting data, the more likely the publishing partners are to remain with that advertiser. If publishers can see the advertiser’s reporting tools, they will also be able to gauge the success of their own channels and may begin to shift their advertising budgets towards other advertising channels.
Optimizing the Player Journey
Creating high-quality click-through traffic from publishers to advertiser websites is only part of the advertiser’s job. The advertiser is also responsible for the player journey from the time they click through until they begin to play on the advertiser’s games.
The advertiser should optimize the following areas of the player journey:
The landing page’s loading speed
The mobile gaming experience
The registration process
The available deposit options
The available welcome bonus for new players
Even the best publishing partners will fail to deliver for an advertiser that hinders the player experience in any way.
Reducing Registration Abandonment
One of the most common reasons for registration abandonment is the length and complexity of the registration form. While data and privacy regulations require some level of verification for new registration forms, advertisers should seek to limit the steps that players have to take to register with the advertiser’s company.
Providing Publishing Partners with Better Marketing Resources
The performance of any advertising channel depends upon the quality of the marketing materials used in the campaign. Advertisers should provide their publishing partners with:
Updated advertising creatives
Updated landing pages
Updated bonus information
Updated promotional banners
Updated brand guidelines
Updated campaign calendars
The best advertisers provide publishing partners with up-to-date marketing materials to improve the effectiveness of the campaigns they run and to maintain compliance with regulatory requirements.
Communicating with Publishing Partners
Effective advertising and publishing company partnerships require more than transactional relationships between the two groups. Advertisers should proactively communicate with their publishing partners to develop deeper relationships and to improve the results of the advertising channels.
Topics of discussion might include:
New promotional campaigns and bonuses
New games and product launches
Expanding markets and regions
Commissions and incentive programs for publishers
Changes in regulations and compliance requirements
Publishing partners who are aware of upcoming advertising and promotional campaigns can better tailor their marketing efforts to improve advertiser performance.
Using Data to Evaluate the Quality of Affiliate Traffic
Not all players that are recruited through affiliate partnerships are of the same quality. The advertiser must utilize data to evaluate the quality of players recruited through each publishing partner.
Data to evaluate may include:
The frequency with which players make deposits
The average revenue generated by each player
The number of players that continue to visit the advertiser’s site
The value of each player over their lifetime
The geographical areas of the players
Using this data allows advertisers to evaluate each publishing partner’s contribution to the advertiser’s revenues and the quality of the traffic they send to their site.
Rewarding High-Performing Publishers
Publishers that bring in the best number of high-quality players will contribute the most to an advertiser’s revenues. To encourage these best-performing partners to continue working with the advertiser, there should be incentives in place to reward these publishers.
Reward examples may include:
Higher commission rates
Access to new promotional campaigns
Early access to new games
Dedicated account managers
Custom landing pages
Advertisers that reward their high-performing publishers increase their chances of maintaining such strong partnerships.
Expanding into New Markets through Affiliate Partnerships
Affiliate marketing is a critical component of an advertiser’s efforts to expand into international markets.
Local publishers understand the markets they publish in and can offer advertisers a better chance of succeeding in those markets. Each advertiser should tailor their offers and marketing materials for each market to maximize performance of their advertising channels.
Prioritizing Compliance within Affiliate Partnerships
As the iGaming and online advertising industries evolve, regulatory requirements are becoming ever more strict. The advertiser is always responsible for ensuring that all content published in their name adheres to these regulations.
Steps to ensure compliance within affiliate partnerships include:
Reviewing all content published by their partners
Providing publishing partners with compliance guidelines
Monitoring all content that is published by their publishing partners
Ensuring the accuracy of the bonuses that are published by their publishing partners
Auditing the traffic that is being sent to their advertiser websites by their publishing partners
Using these processes to ensure compliance can prevent fines and other problems for the advertiser and their publishing partners.
Using Technology to Improve Affiliate Marketing
Advertisers that utilize technology within their affiliate marketing partnerships have a competitive advantage over their rivals.
Technology platforms can help advertisers and publishers manage their affiliate programs with capabilities such as:
Generating real-time performance reports
Adjusting the commissions paid to publishers
Identifying fraudulent traffic from publishers
Allowing publishers to create smart, automated traffic campaigns
Managing campaigns across different markets
Incorporating technology into their affiliate partnerships can improve the efficiency of the advertiser and their publishing partners.
Common Mistakes that iGaming Advertisers Make with Publishers
Despite their best efforts to form high-quality, beneficial partnerships with publishing websites, many iGaming advertisers make a few common mistakes:
Offering uncompetitive commission structures
Not paying their publishing partners on time
Poor communication channels between advertisers and publishers
Providing little visibility into the performance of their programs
Providing outdated marketing materials for publishers
Ignoring the feedback from their publishing partners
By avoiding these common mistakes, advertisers can cultivate better, more successful relationships between themselves and their publishing partners.
The Future of Affiliate Marketing in the iGaming Industry
As with the other areas of the iGaming and advertising industry, the affiliate marketing channel is also evolving with changes in technology and regulations.
Some of the new trends in affiliate marketing include:
Artificial intelligence for optimizing advertising channels
Using first-party data to improve advertising and tracking performance
Automated monitoring of publishing partner compliance
Personalizing the experiences of publishing partners
Smarter models for measuring advertising success
Adopting these and other emerging trends in affiliate marketing will ensure that the best advertisers continue to grow their companies.
Final Thoughts on Affiliate Marketing in the iGaming Industry
Affiliate marketing for the iGaming industry remains one of the most valuable channels of player acquisition for advertiser companies. However, success in affiliate marketing requires more than competitive commission rates.
Advertisers that cultivate better relationships with their publishing partners, improve the experience of players who join their companies through these partnerships, and provide their partners with better marketing and advertising tools will find success in their affiliate programs. Affiliate marketing is a critical component of the success of their iGaming companies and should always be considered one of their primary marketing channels. As the competition between online gambling companies increases, their affiliate partnerships will be one of the best indicators of their likelihood for long-term success.