FAQs - Casino Affiliate Programs

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an affiliate?

An affiliate (also called an Affiliate Marketer, Associate Marketer, or Publisher) is an individual that promotes a business or product on a website or through another electronic marketing medium, within the context of an Affiliate Program. Affiliates generally sign up to work with an affiliate program either directly through the program provider, or through an affiliate network that provides a variety of affiliate programs all in one place. Affiliates are paid for their ability to send new or existing customers to an online casino. There are a variety of payment models in affiliate marketing, including pay for performance (CPA), pay per impression (CPM), Revenue Sharing (RevShare), and others. Affiliate marketing is a common practice on the Internet, and literally tens of thousands of people make some or all of their income as affiliates.

What is an affiliate program?

An affiliate program is essentially a partnership advertising program giving “affiliate or publishers” a financial incentive to drive traffic to the marketing partner’s website.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a method of promoting online businesses or websites in exchange for performance based payment. Affiliate marketing utilizes many popular web marketing tactics during the process of promotion including search engine optimization (SEO), paid search placement, website design, e-mail marketing and online advertising.

What do I need to become an affiliate?

That question actually really has two answers. To become an affiliate for a specific program, you'll simply need to complete an online application for the program that you want to join. Each time you apply and are accepted to an affiliate program, you've now become an affiliate of that business, and can send them traffic using your custom-made tracking code.
The reality is that being an affiliate requires much more than just signing up to a program. Most affiliates are successful webmasters and are capable of building websites or using the Internet to market programs successfully. In this light, it can take a great deal of research and a lot of learning to understand the techniques and technologies required to become a successful affiliate. Affiliates are first-and-foremost expert marketers, and usually have creative ideas about how to promote on the web or build unique campaigns or sites to drive traffic.

Do I need a website to become an affiliate?

Most affiliate programs require that you have an active and live website prior to applying for their program. A website is an essential tool for every affiliate to attract and retain traffic to send to their affiliate program partners. It would be hard for an affiliate to build up considerable resources to monetize without a website. You do not need to know HTML to have a website, but it is preferred. If you do not know HTML you can hire a website designer to create and help maintain your website or utilize one of many software programs and web based services that make it possible to create a website without having to know any HTML code.

How do I get paid for being an affiliate?

Affiliates are paid based on an action, whether that is a sign-up, lead and/or sale. The amount paid (commission) for each of these actions varies per program. Most programs offer one or many of the following commission structures:
Cost Per Action (CPA): Also known as Pay-For-Performance or Cost Per Acquisition. This is a large part of the mainstream affiliate marketing industry. In a CPA program, affiliates are paid based on the action of a user. In a pay per action program, once a customer that has been referred to the merchant completes a predetermined transaction, the affiliate is paid. For instance, in eBook affiliate marketing, an affiliate might be paid $10 for each referred customer that purchases a new book.
Cost Per Click (CPC): This is the actual amount of the click link that is being referenced. For instance, if you were researching a certain keyword to promote your new website, it would have a CPC associated with it; which would be the price that you would pay for a single click to your website. CPC is oftentimes used in a bidding environment, where the CPC that you are willing to pay is a maximum amount, and you can purchase clicks for a lower rate than what is published.
Revenue Share (%): Revenue sharing programs are those that share a percentage of a transaction with the affiliate. These programs are extremely common in casino affiliate marketing. The affiliate will be paid a portion of the amount of money that a player deposits or loses (RevShare programs vary from program to program). The percentage of the transaction that the affiliate receives is disclosed ahead of time, and often is increased as the affiliate sends more or better quality traffic through the affiliate program.
Affiliates can also be paid on Hybrid, which is a mix of different commission types. This is most commonly found in casino affiliate programs.

When and how do I get paid?

Payout method is usually the description of how the affiliate gets paid, and what the terms of the payment are. Payout methods can include payment by check, payment by bank wire (or direct deposit), payment via PayPal or other electronic payment facilitator, or payment via prepaid debit card. Payout method will also usually describe the Payment Threshold, which is the amount of money that an affiliate has to earn before they will be paid for their services. Most programs have a low payout threshold of as little as $50, but some require larger earnings by the affiliate before they will make a payment. Payout method may also state the duration that it takes for an affiliate to get paid (such as Net 30, Net 15, threshold payments, or others).

Can I promote multiple programs at once?

Yes, the beauty of affiliate marketing is that you can pick and choose which programs you want to promote and how many you choose to promote at a time. Often the best tactic to creating a sticky site that attracts and retains traffic is by promoting many complementary programs at once and offering valuable content to new customers on the benefits of either clicking, giving information and/or buying from the marketing partner. Whilst you can promote multiple programs, you should test out many programs when you start out, then settle on a few that match your needs and perform the best and work with them closely to optimize.

Aren't affiliate programs just get-rich-quick or pyramid schemes?

No, affiliate marketing is a legitimate way to earn income on the Internet. There are literally tens of thousands of people that make some or all of their income by being online affiliate marketers.

Do I need to be a business to become an affiliate?

No, as an affiliate marketer, you can simply use your personal information to sign up and receive your payouts. Some of the larger affiliates register their affiliate account as a business entity, but until you're actually pulling a significant portion of your personal earnings as an affiliate, you don't need to set up a business entity to be an affiliate.

How long does it take to make my first buck from affiliate marketing?

There's no easy way to answer that question, since each affiliate has a unique strategy to grow their business. In reality, it can take a few months to even start getting some attention from the search engines, and that's only if you've written really good targeted content for consideration. If you want to speed up your ability to generate traffic and earn affiliate income, you might need to invest in pay per click (PPC) advertising. Depending on what you're promoting, you might need to use broad keywords, since some top-tier search engines don't let you directly promote poker or casino affiliate sites. If you stick to creating some good, original content every day, you should start seeing profitable traffic come in within a few months, and your affiliate earnings should follow.

What are tiers?

Many affiliate programs offer affiliate multiple tiers to recruit other affiliates. A tiered affiliate program literally means that an affiliate gets paid a portion of the earnings of the affiliates that they recruit. Some programs offer only 2 tiers, which means an affiliate gets paid a portion of the earnings of the affiliates that they directly recruit. Other programs pay out to multiple tiers of recruitment, which means an affiliate gets paid not only on the affiliates they recruit, but they also get paid on all the affiliates that that affiliate recruits, and so forth.

What is a data feed?

A data feed is anything that an affiliate program provides to simplify displaying products on an affiliate website. Data feeds come in a variety of formats, including simple text documents (sometimes delineated with commas or tabs), spreadsheet documents, RSS feeds, or XML feeds. Most datafeeds are only accessible through a private access portal within the program, and many programs don't have enough products to warrant an entire datafeed.

What is an Affiliate Manager?

An affiliate manager is a person that runs an affiliate program. An affiliate manager is compensated by the program, and is responsible for recruiting new affiliates, supporting existing affiliates, maintaining payouts, and keeping the program working smoothly for all parties. Affiliate managers for small companies generally do all these things, but in larger companies there may be different affiliate managers for different aspects of the affiliate program or network.

I got declined from a program that I applied to, why?

Most affiliate programs don't want to spend a lot of time and resources on affiliates that don't have any traffic. This is because as a new affiliate, you're likely to sap a lot of an affiliate manager's time while at the same time not really earning them any money. If you notice that you're getting declined from the programs that you want to join, it might be because your existing website doesn't show enough popularity or enough professionalism to be worth that programs' time. Take a few weeks to renovate your site, and also contact the affiliate manager directly to ask for reconsideration.

What is a Casino Affiliate Program?

A casino affiliate program is a promotional opportunity where webmasters and web marketers partner with online casino operators. In most instances, an affiliate program compensates affiliates based on the actions of the customers that are referred to that affiliate program, such as new sign ups or continued play on a certain casino.
Casino Affiliate Programs have been in place for several years, and nearly all large casino operators have an affiliate program available.

What Casino Affiliate Program should I join?

Deciding on which casino affiliate program to join is based on a variety of factors including commission structure, requirements, payout method, support and more. At CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com we feature a comprehensive directory of only the best casino affiliate programs available to aid you in your decision.

What should look for when research a Casino Affiliate Program?

Not all casino affiliate programs are created equal. Here are some things you should consider as criteria for choosing a program to promote:
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Reputation: The online gambling world has its share of scams and rogue casinos, mitigate your risk by only signing up with programs that are highly rated by other affiliates and listed with reputable program directories like Casino AffiliatePrograms.com. Keep in mind some players are also aware of reputation, so pick wisely who you choose to align yourself with.
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Commission Structure AND Conversion: Often programs with low performing conversion rates will offer high commissions to attract new affiliates. In reality you can’t make money unless the offer converts. Find a program with proven creative and offers that produce results along with a competitive commission structure and the flexibility to make extra money with bonuses and special promotions.
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Payout Method: How and when you are paid will vary greatly from program to program. Look for programs with flexible payment options that include payment by bank wire (or direct deposit), payment via PayPal or other electronic payment facilitator, or payment via prepaid debit card. This way you are not always waiting for a check to come in the mail. Also pay attention to the payment timeline and threshold, it tells you when you will be paid and how much commission you need to have in your account to be paid.
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Support: There is more to affiliate marketing than slapping up a website and watching the dollars roll in. Review each programs affiliate support infrastructure – do they offer data feeds? Quality creative? Compelling offers? Does the affiliate manager respond quickly and offer help? These are all very important questions every affiliate should ask before signing on with a program.

How much money can I make as a Casino Affiliate?

The earnings opportunities are essentially limitless. Some affiliates only work on their websites as a hobby, and make a few spare bucks every month (or nothing), while others are full time affiliate marketers that make tens of thousands of dollars every month (or more). If you can build a website that delivers a ton of traffic to your casino partners, the earnings opportunities are great.

How do I get started on a casino website?

Well, there's a lot of resources that you can use to get started. The easiest way to learn is to browse the forums and spend a lot of time researching! Don't jump right in trying to do everything all at once, you'll want to focus on simple stuff like understanding what programs pay well, how to talk to casino players, and how to build a website. Probably the easiest way to try out building a website and playing around with becoming a webmaster is to start a blog. There are many free applications to create a blog, and you can start learning how to do search engine optimization, build traffic, and place links. From there, you can try reading online to learn how to code more complex websites, or become part of the CAP forums to learn from experienced affiliates how to start racking in the real money.

What's the easiest way to start making money with casino affiliate programs?

The most straightforward way to get started is to simply create a webpage somewhere, and add original content next to advertisements of your favorite or best paying programs. Creating original content is the most straightforward way to get listed on search engines, especially if you can target specific keywords with each article that you post up. Remember, organic search engine traffic is essentially free, so try to gain as much as you can. For instance, you might want to publish a blog with online poker playing tips, and in between each tip or two you can add a link to an online casino that you're partnered with. It's really that easy! Of course, once you've started that method, you'll probably want to cruise the forums for other suggestions on how to build a site that gets more visitors and has more features.

What is a Hybrid Program?

Hybrid Programs are casino programs that mix a CPA payout with a RevShare payout. This means that if an affiliate refers a new customer to a program, they may receive one payout (based on the “new signup”). Furthermore, that affiliate may also earn payouts for the life or predetermined period of time that the customer stays with that casino operator, usually in the form of a RevShare percentage of the transactions. Many affiliates prefer programs that offer hybrid payouts since they can get paid in a variety of different ways, even if payouts might be lower.

What kind of methods can be used by casino affiliates?

There are numerous imaginative ways that individuals can be an affiliate. Some of the most common techniques include:
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Building a player portal, providing information on all varieties of casino games as well as reviews of strategies and best venues.
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Creating an online player journal or blog which provides accounts of games played, strategies used, or experiences with different casinos.
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Building an email list for players to get inside tips or secrets of how to play specific games or play against others.
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Offline techniques such as direct mail, advertising in newspapers or classified listings, or even posting leaflets at community areas.
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Creating a forum or user community to discuss games and schedule tournaments or events.
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Build massive “farms” of small content sites that are designed to climb search engine rankings and drive visitors directly in to affiliate programs.
Many affiliates use one or all of these methods, as well as their own variations on these to build their visitor base. Almost every day someone comes up with a new marketing method or campaign, and some of the oddest methods or unique approaches can actually produce valuable results. Fundamentally, it all comes down to marketing prowess to become a powerhouse super affiliate.

How large is the online gaming community and what is it worth?

The online gambling community is expected to grow to an over 20 billion dollar industry by 2015. Currently there are over 2,000 online gambling and sportsbook operators online and with more entering the market everyday.

What is Rake?

A rake is what the casino takes during games of equal-weighted chance, such as Poker. In the game of Poker, the players are betting against one another, which means that the house does not have an advantage. In this instance, the house takes a cut of each pot that is played, and in those instances an affiliate that is paid through a RevShare model receives a portion of that rake.

What is Rake Back?

A rakeback is a promotional technique that some casinos use to give a portion of their house “rake” back to that player, usually for a limited period of time. Rakebacks are a good promotional method for affiliates because usually the program will still provide some or all of the commissions due to that affiliate simply for the ability to earn that customer. If you're working on a RevShare basis, it may be valuable to choose rakeback programs because your players will keep more of their money and may play with that casino for longer.

What are Free Rolls?

Free rolls are tournaments or other casino events that don't require the player to pay to play (and often have cash prizes for top players). This method is used to entice players to try out a certain casino, as well as keep amateur players interested in the activity. Some casinos have special free-roll events for existing members only, while others allow anyone to sign up and partake in a free roll event. Free rolls are another positive promotional opportunity for affiliates because the casino will usually pay a good commission just to try to get that player on board; however if you're promoting mostly free rolls, try to choose casinos that pay per player rather than on a RevShare basis.

What is Mobile Gaming?

Mobile gaming is an emerging field in online marketing and casino programs, where players will be able to play games on their cell phones or other mobile devices. Mobile gaming is still a small scale operation so far, but as cell phones become more sophisticated and operators are able to provide increased security, this may emerge as a great way for affiliates to earn additional revenue streams.

What kinds of games are available?

Literally every game or betting environment that you can imagine is probably available from one or more casino affiliate programs. The most common games include:
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Slots or pure-chance games.
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Poker, Backgammon, and other skill-games.
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Sportsbook wagering to bet on a variety of sporting events.
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Keno, Lotto, and other number choice games.
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Card games such as blackjack or casino war.
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Dice games like craps or pai gow.
Some casino operators focus on only one or two games, while others provide a large selection of games for referred players to choose from. Even within each game type there are usually a range of options available, ranging from complimentary “free” tournaments, small-bet tables, large-bet tables, and even huge tournaments featuring thousands of players from around the world. Because there are so many different kinds of games, it's important to select the casino that suits your website visitors and referred traffic best.

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