According to a report by iGaming Business Network, iGaming is expected to grow at an annual rate of 10.7%. iGaming affiliate marketers should capitalize on this opportunity by doubling down on their affiliate marketing programs, especially if they facilitate lucrative niches like sports betting and casino games.
But before we get into the why and the how if iGaming affiliate marketing, let’s begin by understanding what is iGaming affiliate marketing.
What Is iGaming Affiliate Marketing?
iGaming affiliate marketing involves the promotion of online gaming websites and apps by affiliates intending to attract new players. Since iGaming offers people the convenience of being able to play with real money without leaving the house, it’s a popular vertical for players as well as affiliate marketers.
Generally, iGaming affiliate marketing follows a performance-based model, rewarding affiliates for generating traffic or revenue for the iGaming business. While iGaming affiliates have to deal with stringent regulations and requirements while promoting games, they also enjoy high payouts, if they find the right offers to promote.
Benefits of iGaming Affiliate Marketing
Let’s look at some of the primary benefits of iGaming affiliate marketing:
- Increase Brand Awareness and Visibility: Affiliate marketing can help iGaming operators increase their visibility on app stores and other online platforms. It also helps brands inform people about their value offerings and let them promote to a wider audience of potential players.
- Get Insights into Customers: You can derive myriad valuable insights about your target audience from your affiliate programs. You can then use this data to improve your marketing campaigns and tailor your future affiliate programs to meet the preferences of your target audience.
- Cost-Effective Marketing Strategy: One of the biggest benefits of affiliate marketing is that affiliate managers leveraging iGaming solutions can manage the campaigns effectively. This helps them hit their marketing goals cost-effectively. You will only have to pay affiliates after they acquire new players for your platform or achieve the goals assigned to them.
How Affiliate Marketing Works in the iGaming Domain
Now that we have covered the basics, let us delve deeper into how affiliate marketing works for the iGaming industry.
Simply put affiliates partner with iGaming operators to promote their services, in exchange for commissions. These affiliates use unique tracking links and promotional materials to achieve revenue goals for iGaming platforms.
Here are some of the key players of iGaming affiliate marketing:
- iGaming Operators/Providers that create affiliate programs wherein they pay affiliates to run promotions directly or through affiliate networks.
- iGaming Affiliates looking to promote iGaming platforms by leveraging different channels such as social media, videos, and blogs.
- iGaming Affiliate Managers that oversee the success of affiliate programs including establishing relationships with affiliates, setting targets to be achieved, and measuring performance through crucial metrics.
- iGaming Affiliate Networks on which brands and affiliate managers can promote and manage their affiliate programs. Also, affiliates can get access to multiple brands and their affiliate programs.
- Customers that enroll on an iGaming platform or service with the help of an affiliate link.
These parties need to work in sync to ensure that an iGaming affiliate marketing program succeeds in achieving the predetermined goals.
Let’s get to the affiliate marketing process.
iGaming companies or operators create affiliate programs with specific goals in mind. For instance, their goal could be to increase their user base by 25% in the next quarter or boost their user retention rate by 15% in the same duration.
Now, the iGaming operators or the affiliate manager will post this affiliate program on a platform or approach an affiliate directly to associate with them. Once they have a few suitable affiliates on board, each of them will be given a unique link they will use to promote the product.
As a result, the affiliate manager and the iGaming operator can track every new user to the affiliate that brought them in, based on the cookie stored on the user’s browser.
The affiliate manager can then calculate the commission for each affiliate based on this data and after checking that they have fulfilled all the requirements specified by you in the affiliate program details.
Best Practices for the Right iGaming Affiliate Marketing Approach
Here are some best practices to follow for positioning your affiliate program for success.
Choose a Suitable iGaming Affiliate Channel
Over the years the sources to reach users interested in iGaming solutions have changed and evolved, but certain channels remain omnipotent for the success of affiliate programs. Consider using one or a combination of these channels to strengthen your affiliate programs.
The primary ones you should know about, are:
Content Marketing
Content marketing plays a crucial role in the success of your iGaming affiliate program. Leverage high-quality articles, blog posts, and reviews to not only educate potential players but also to attract them to your platform.
Maximize your content marketing efforts by integrating relevant keywords and optimizing content to boost the visibility of your platform on search engines. It is a good idea to find affiliates adept in the latest content marketing techniques to get more out of this channel.
Social Media
Social media is one of the most influential marketing tools available to affiliate managers. With a strong social media presence you can find top-tier affiliates who will boost the success of your program.
Also, affiliate managers should prioritize affiliates that leverage the top social platforms to engage their target audience.
Email marketing is quite an effective marketing channel. Encourage your iGaming affiliates to create an email list to establish direct communication with the target audience regarding promotions.
SEO
Having a sound SEO strategy that involves integrating the right keywords within your content and optimizing your web pages is a surefire way to lead your affiliate program to success.
By maintaining higher search engine rankings, you can boost traffic, conversions, and revenue.
Paid Ads
Paid ads work well when you want to reach a wide audience within a limited time frame. Complement your affiliate marketing programs with targeted paid ads to maximize the ROI of your campaigns.
Push Notifications
When partnering with well-known influencers and affiliates in the iGaming sector, promoting your affiliate programs can significantly increase performance. A great way to do this is by sending push notifications on your audience’s devices to promote offers or marketing campaigns. Make sure you don’t overwhelm users with excessive notifications in the process.
Find and Retain the Right Affiliates
The most challenging albeit important part of creating an effective iGaming affiliate marketing program is finding the right affiliates to partner with. Since you will depend on these businesses and individuals to promote your platform, you should choose wisely.
To choose the right iGaming affiliate, consider the following factors:
- Affiliate expertise
- Size and engagement of the affiliate’s audience
- Affiliate’s experience and performance record
- Cost versus budget fit
- Recommendations and testimonials earned by the affiliate
Once you find the right affiliates based on these criteria, be generous with the commissions without stretching your budget and try to retain the affiliates that deliver consistent results for your brand.
You can get this right with the help of a robust iGaming software provider.
Affnook is powered by advanced analytics and reporting, offering you deeper insights into affiliate performance with comprehensive reporting and data visualization tools. This lets you maintain a pool of top-performing affiliates getting you maximum results.
What’s more?
Affnook’s robust payout management allows you to manage affiliate payouts and automate invoice generation on set frequency and rules. All this while maintaining compliance with the local iGaming regulations.
Consider the Nuances of Legal Restrictions
The overall iGaming industry is largely regulated as the act of gambling is frowned upon and even deemed illegal in many countries.
While the legality of iGaming technology boils down to the jurisdiction, it is wise to have a clear idea of iGaming legal compliance requirements in the region before going ahead with the promotion. Even Facebook and Google Ads are regulated by stringent iGaming policies, so you need to consider whether you can utilize those platforms for promotions.
Read our detailed guide on – Mastering iGaming Legal Compliance for navigating the complexities of the global iGaming legal compliance landscape.
Choose a Reliable iGaming Affiliate Software
As an affiliate manager, managing the ins and outs of multiple affiliate programs isn’t easy. Hence, you must consider integrating an iGaming affiliate software into your strategy.
Here are some features to look out for when opting for an iGaming affiliate software –
Access to a Clear and Comprehensive Dashboard
As an affiliate manager juggling many tasks, you shouldn’t have to add “learning to use a new marketing software” to your to-do list. Ideally, the affiliate marketing software you choose should be user-friendly, easy to set up, and provide a dashboard that simplifies your campaign management process.
Affnook offers a user-friendly and comprehensive dashboard that you can set up easily, start creating geo-targeted campaigns, and completely manage your iGaming affiliate programs. You will be able to manage all the aspects of an affiliate program including the creative parts.
Precise Attribution Tracking and Analytics
The revenue outcomes of your affiliate program depend on accurate attribution tracking. Hence, the platform must offer the necessary features to track affiliate performance.
With Affnook’s intuitive reporting dashboard, you can access useful performance insights and filter out the affiliates fetching you the maximum revenue, consistently. You can also leverage omnichannel tracking to monitor an array of events and utilize postbacks and pixel tracking to generate real-time reports.
Data Security and Compliance Features
Compliance and data security are central to the iGaming industry.
Affnook adheres to the most stringent privacy and security requirements and is equipped with GDPR and CCPA certifications. The software also offers a multi-layered security approach to keep your data and business safe.
Moreover, you can set custom permissions for each user accessing your dashboard to take full control of your data privacy.
Anti-Fraud Mechanisms
One of the biggest challenges in iGaming affiliate marketing is the increase in bot and click farms that mimic real players and skew performance-related metrics. This challenge can also drain your ad budgets and hamper the campaign performance.
Affnook lets you blacklist fraudulent traffic to block repeat offenders. You can also reject traffic from data centers and proxy traffic to prevent frauds from skewing your performance metrics. Additionally, you can white-label tracking links so that they are branded and allow traffic only from known devices.
Manage Commissions and Payouts
One of the core features you should look out for is the ability to manage and automate the payout process.
Affnook allows affiliate managers and iGaming companies to create custom payout models, and access to multiple currency options for your global campaigns.
What’s more, you can set your payout variables and measure campaign success with the help of complete chargeback visibility.
Summing Up
iGaming affiliate marketing can be as simple or complicated as you make it to be. As an affiliate manager traversing the complex iGaming landscape, your job starts with designing the most effective affiliate program and ends with retaining the right affiliates and implementing iterations of successful affiliate programs.
Trust Affnook to help you through this journey. The iGaming affiliate marketing software offers just the features you need to gain complete control over your affiliate programs.
Book a free demo now to learn how Affnook can work for you and help you effectively manage your affiliate marketing programs.
