I pretty much don't know what the hell I'm doing.

[EdRank]

First off, thank you for the patience I'm sure you possess if you click a topic title like that one. So, here goes:

I'm EdRank, the "affiliate outreach" guy for an organization called Emulation Collective (Google it...) that runs a bunch of video game websites. I used to be the tech support help desk guy, but now I'm doing this. Emulation Collective gets contacted by various organizations like DigitalPros, who set up text link campaigns on our websites. From the perspective I'm sitting from, I think some middlemen Casino Affiliates (I'm thinking that's you) pay us to put links up to wherever, upon which if our users click those links and sign up, you get paid.

So, we're pretty much getting small potatoes here, I think. We're not real affiliates, we're some sort of abstract affiliate of affiliates paid in lump sums via PayPal to insert a sentence on our video game websites. That's not even the real problem. (That money goes to buying more games for our library, rinse, repeat, ad infinitum.) The problem is, I don't even know how to initiate anything, because all inquiries have been incoming, I'm not sure how to go around trying to initiate one of these agreements. The link sales and exchanges sub-forum here is locked and has been for years.

So, can someone please point me in the right direction?
Again, thank you.

 

[Tropica / Cash o' lot]

Morning EdRank,

Are you asking how to be an affiliate? If yes then maybe this will help:

1. Identify where most of your traffic comes from
2. Then look for casinos (here at Affiliate Guard Dog) that accept players from your key market/s
3. Sign up as an affiliate with the casino program
4. In the Affiliate back-office systems, you will find all sorts of marketing material from banners to emails to plain text links etc.
5. Create a campaign and add the HTML code (that the affiliate site provides), to your site
6. All casino programs have affiliate managers who will guide you through every step and help you get the right marketing for your brand

These are the basic fundamentals of been an affiliate. Luckily for you, there are loads of members and operators here who will be able to add to this.

Good luck!
Duwayne

 

[Guard Dog]

EdRank - PM me or contact me on the Skype link at the top right of the forums.

 

[muffincrumbs]

I checked out your emulation site, and I have to say, I believe I have used your emulators in the past. Kudos to you EdRank for realizing there is a lot of money being generated through those people asking you for advertising. This is a great place to learn what it takes to be a casino affiliate, and to put into perspective how to go about doing it.

Will you be hosting your own site (obviously). If so, what are your thoughts about going with a static page vs. and active blog type layout. You will find there are success stories using both, where as I like to go down the middle road, by encompassing both qualities. So how does it work....

When a person clicks on your affiliate link, that are "tagged" to you. (this works differently from program to program) and you keep a percentage of their spending. Don't worry about "CPA" (non-rev cost per acquisition) deals as you are too young to get wrapped up in not earning lifetime commission on your players. Then they deposit and play and you keep some of the money.

Most of us drive traffic to our site via search engines... and that what most of us are doing everyday. Ranking high in this industry is arguably the hardest to do in any industry. Our keywords are worth almost as much as "Mesothelioma" (the most expensive K/W on adwords) and as such, we know how to make money lol. We also know how to get a site banned too!

You will also want to decide on a demographic and general keywords. Then you could do what I did... build a site YOU like, then see what it starts ranking for, Then you have a set of keywords to work with =D. If you do not build sites, this job will be near impossible.

Please feel free to PM me with any questions. I truly like to help new affiliates and I already know the in's and out's basically, especially in the USA market.

 

[EdRank]

Thank you all for your help.

 

[alicasino]

Muffin crumbs on Alexa i seem to have around the same rank as yourself , however my income is next to nothing what am i doing wrong ?

 

[muffincrumbs]

All I can say is that ranking on Alexa means little. Ranking on Google means money. Almost 1/2 of my traffic is from people coming back. Make you site so good people come back I guess. I also find that metric you can get about your competition are going to be inaccurate unless your paying for a service.

 

[mikebuchanan12]

Question here is on what you are ranking - if you rank on high volume keywords with low converting you will earn close to nothing. muffincrumbs made a valid point - those ranks doesn't mean anything when you can't convert the visitors on your website. You will have to read about marketing some more I think.