iGaming has been one of the top verticals for experienced affiliates for the last few years. While it's highly regulated and has a lot of competition, its potential earnings make it a risk well worth taking.
On most platforms it's frowned down upon and on some it's completely banned, so knowing where to start, how to advertise, and what is crucial for success! If you want to skip all of the testing and probing yourself, you are at the right place! This article should give you all the info you need to get started and hopefully make it big in iGaming!
What is iGaming?
You likely heard about online casinos, gambling, sports betting, lotteries, and similar things. For a long time, this has been mostly banned in countries like the US or reserved for special states or districts in the country (like Las Vegas for example). But in the last few years, the regulations about online gambling have relaxed and that made it possible for iGaming to become as big as it is today.
In short, iGaming is all of the gambling niches put into one vertical. The market is huge, the profit margins are great, and the players seem to always come back for one last game. Morality aside, it is one of the best ways to make money right now.
Why Choose iGaming?
iGaming is not for everyone, but for those that run it, these are the reasons why they pick it and often prefer it over other verticals:
- High Commission Potential: Many affiliate programs in this vertical offer revenue share models, CPA (Cost per Acquisition), or hybrid plans. This means that affiliates that know what they are doing can make a lot of money in no time. This is the main factor that drives competition to the space.
- Recurring Revenue Streams: Revenue share deals often give affiliates the possibility to earn money passively through players that are active over a longer period. Players on average play for multiple months, if not years, giving you a steady income stream even after you have initially converted them.
- Growing Market Demand: Online gaming and gambling has gained popularity through its advertisement on various online platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Kick, and others. Some of the biggest online streamers and even celebrities are taking part in it. As its popularity grows, so does the market demand for it. This means that you are likely to never run out of new players.
- Diverse Traffic Sources: Affiliates can leverage all sorts of traffic sources to get conversions. SEO, Social media, paid ads, and influencer marketing are just some of the most popular ways to do it, but creative affiliates can find even more traffic sources!
How to Get Started in iGaming?
Getting started can be difficult for some, but with the right steps, you should be able to get going in no time!
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Chose a Niche
The iGaming vertical is quite big, and it offers all sorts of niches that you can try out. Focusing on one niche can help improve your success rate as there is a lot of competition, and it's going to be a hard task to carve a space out for yourself in every niche.
- Online Casinos
this is where most affiliates are at. In this niche you can advertise various online casinos and their services. The payouts are usually great, but the competition is tough, so finding a space for yourself can be tough.
- Sports Betting
Sports betting is not as popular as online casinos, but there is a growing demand for it. It's mostly relevant in Europe and Southern America for soccer, and in the US, fantasy football has become quite popular in the last few years.
- Poker
Poker is a classic game that has been around for way longer than the internet. It's still quite popular and a lot of websites offer high-roller tables and tournaments with all sorts of game rules.
- Esports Betting
This has been a recent development in the industry, but it looks like it's here to stay. With eSports for games like League of Legends, Overwatch, and Counter-Strike, growth came a new generation of players that bet on the results and various metrics within the games.
- Lottery and Scratch Cards
Random chance is always popular and it's no wonder that people still play these games. The chances of winning are low, but there is always a chance!
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Sign Up for Reputable Affiliate Programs
Most iGaming brands have affiliate programs that offer commission for referring players, revenue share and various bonuses. Some of the more popular programs are:
- Betway Partners
- 888 Affiliates
- Bet365 Affiliates
- LeoVegas Affiliates
- Unibet Affiliates
- And many many more
Before committing to any of these programs, make sure to research the commission structure, payout terms, and brand reputation.
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Build a Website or Blog
Having your website is always a great start, especially if you can gain an audience that visits it and interacts with the content on it. You can also use it as your primary way to drive traffic and generate conversions. Setting it up is usually simple:
- Register your domain
- Find a hosting provider
- Use WordPress or other CMS platforms to build a good-looking page
- Create content, optimize SEO, and try gaining an audience with your content.
- Make sure everything is compliant with regulations in your target market.
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Optimize SEO
After you already have a page, you can start working on your SEO to gain more organic traffic. A great way to have success right away is to do your research first, find good long-tail keywords and try to rank for them.
Then focus on your content, create high-quality and informative content that your audience will like to read and interact with. After a while, you should earn backlinks from other gambling sites. Make sure you optimize for mobile as well!
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Social Media and Influencer Marketing
Social media is one of the most important traffic sources of today. If you are not on the big social media networks, you might not even exist as far as the internet is concerned. The problem with iGaming is that it's banned or restricted on most of the big platforms, and even when it's not, you need to tread carefully to not get in trouble.
If you find a good platform and you are compliant with their rules, then you can focus on making good content, engaging with the community, making sharable and informative content that can go viral, work with influencers, and run contests or giveaways!
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Paid Ads
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ads can drive traffic instantly. They do require careful research, budgeting, and targeting if you want to make them work and not waste your money. Google ads, TikTok, and other platforms restrict gambling ads completely, but some other platforms are allowing it!
Some affiliates have managed to run limited ads on Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. Most use native ads as it's mostly allowed, and recently some have started placing ads on Reddit and Telegram communities. The more diverse your traffic is, the better!
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Collecting email and building an audience
Many affiliates dismiss email, but it's still one of the cheapest and most effective ways to gain conversions. Here are some tactics you can use to drive traffic!
- Offer free betting tips and promotions for sign-ups
- Send newsletters with information about promotions and industry updates
- Run email drip campaigns to nurture leads
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Tracking and Optimizing
If you know anything about affiliate marketing, it's that everything requires some optimization and improvement. If you want to optimize your strategies and campaigns, you need to do a deep dive into your metrics and see where your key issues are.
CTR (Click-through-rate) on affiliate links, CR (Conversion rates) on sign ups and deposits, engagement levels, and other metrics should be the things you spend your most time on. Try improving your earnings per player and conversion rates the most, as they have the biggest impact on your ROI!
Conclusion
Getting started with iGaming is not that difficult, especially today when most of the information about what you should do and how is readily available online. Getting started is not enough, you need to get good and understand how to best approach this vertical as the competition is fierce and always improving.
You can get a headstart by picking a good niche, joining the right programs, creating and tapping into your traffic sources, and optimizing everything. But even with all of the preparation, you can still fail. This is why being consistent and staying on top of industry trends is so important.
With the right mindset and dedication, you can make iGaming work!
Have you ever tried iGaming? What was your experience with it? Share it with us in the comments below!