Affiliate marketing is big business. The number of products sold through this channel is seemingly endless. Affiliate marketing is a very simple concept — third parties take over the responsibility of promoting and selling a product, and by doing that, they earn a commission from the sales.

Of course, it’s simple, but not easy — a lot of hard work and research will have to go into the products being promoted. But a lot of money can be earned from this type of marketing, both for the casino and the affiliate. This is why online casinos and other gambling websites often utilize affiliate marketing to attract new customers.

How do Affiliate Sites work? 

If you have ever tried to research online casinos, you will definitely have seen these before. Online casino affiliate sites often provide high-quality articles that analyze and provide reasons for the potential customer to play on your online casino site.

When a potential customer reaches an affiliate site’s article for your casino, they would see a detailed breakdown of everything they may want to know about your casino — from the history of your casino, to the games that they can play, to the bonuses that they can get, and often enough they may even see a review of the quality of customer service on your casino.

From the potential customer’s standpoint, this helps answer the questions they may have before signing up for your website. It is done from a third party’s point of view and is considered unbiased, giving your site a boost to brand image. When a player signs up through an affiliate link through these sites, they gain a commission in return.

There are several types of commissions an affiliate may get:

Revenue Share

One way of providing commissions to affiliates is through revenue share. The concept is simple: when an affiliate attracts new players to your online casino, they will get a percentage of everything the new player wins or loses.

This may sound great on the surface, but since this method may result in overly massive commissions paid out, you may want to consider the other commission structures available.

Cost Per Lead

Otherwise known as CPL, this is a one-time commission payout that allows your affiliates to earn money every time a new lead is sent to your website via their affiliate link, and the lead signs up and deposits on your casino website. The affiliate fulfills their end of the bargain here. There is no need for the affiliate to get the lead to spend any money while at the casino.

This deal may seem disadvantageous to the casino at first glance, but this strategy is useful for attracting more affiliates early on so that you have more volume to work with.

Cost Per Acquisition

CPA is pretty similar to CPL — the affiliate attracts new players to your online casino to make a deposit. However, there is a huge difference — with a CPA commissions program, the player would not only have to deposit a minimum amount (set by you, the casino), but also have to wager some or all of their deposit before any commission is paid out.

This helps ensure that the leads that you gain are actual profitable leads, and is much more immune to click manipulation.

Simple but Effective

Online casinos benefit greatly from using affiliates, especially considering the amount of effort that you need to put into acquiring each player. By utilizing affiliates, you are basically paying for something that is already achieved (the player has already deposited on your site), rather than investing a lot of money into a marketing campaign that may or may not succeed.

As for the affiliates, they are also making a good amount of money from the deal. Everyone’s a winner.