If they lose money you will not make money in all cases. The lure of CPA is to get you there, and then when you take a CPA, if your players rake huge… loss 1000 Euro well your out 200 Euro. Even with bonuses.. becsuase those bonuses are played back anyway.
Hi Steve,
you raise some good points. I think Revenue Share is great for an established affiliate who knows their target customer base and perhaps has a mailing list or a forum, community or blog. These types of affiliate love the revenue share because they know that they can build up a good base of players.
Not sure what you mean by “players must lose all their money”. Why would a player referred to casino/sportsbook/poker room have to lose all their money to release a CPA?
I think this raises the notion that as an affiliate you should read the terms of the commission model you are accepting. In most cases affiliate programs ask for a minimum deposit to release the CPA. I don’t know any programs that force a player to lose all his money before they pay out, that’s the type of affiliate deal you don’t want.
In short, CPA offers a guarantee and low risk of a big winning player. In my experience affiliates who take CPA deals have great content, targeted traffic and choose reputable programs.
Of course there are consequences of Net Revenue Share. Where you also make mention of the “one (or more) big loser” phenomenon you should also consider that you can also encounter the “one (or more) big winner” phenomenon. This could mean that any revenues that end up producing players who win leave you with a negative balance at the end of the month. This means no commission. Also, watch out for programs that carry over negative balances. I’ve known affiliates to shut down their account because they can never get back above zero.
I hope this overview gives you both the pros and cons of CPA and Net Revenue models and helps you decide on how you want to monetize your traffic.