Alternatives to Sportsbook Affiliates?

[nacco532]

Hi, I was just curious if anyone here has found a better/more reliable alternative to monetizing your site than using sportsbook/casino affiliates? Would serving ads, using Adsense if you are in the right country be more lucrative? It's just that I've had so many clicks and no deposits is a bit discouraging.

 

[Online18Casino]

I would say no... Nothing else I've ever seen shares profits even near the rate gambling does. Adsence pays literality nothing. If you have tens of thousands of views, I think you get a few cents.

I know one guy on here keeps talking about a retail site he runs apart from his gambling site... Maybe if your selling a product you could do well. I don't know what type of retail site he runs, I'm kind of curious however.

I make very little off poker, and I've made nothing off promoting sports books.. But I do pretty well with casinos. If your getting traffic (as you said clicks), it can just take time. Do your ads integrate well with your content?

 

[CaseyM]

Adsense definitely wouldn't be more profitable but I do know some successful affiliates in other niches like hotels, clothes. Affiliate marketing is not easy money though, all areas are really competitive

 

[footballaffiliate]

Good question - I've been trying stuff for a while now. Ad networks - Adsense, Clicksor, Bidvertiser etc haven't worked for me. However I still do think that other solutions have to be more profitable for traffic you're not making hardly anything from on Sportsbooks (e.g. a lot of non-European traffic doesn't convert on sportsbook because either gambling is banned in that person's country and/or they then struggle to deposit and withdraw money). The way I feel is that if it won't convert on sportsbook for these reasons then it's going to be even more difficult to convert on casino.

One word of warning on Google Adsense - if they figure out you're any way connected to gambling they'll shut your account and lock your earnings - another one of these USA companies that imposes its morals on everyone else (yet they'll allow a lot more evils than gambling!).

Problem I have with other ad networks is that you end up getting really low quality ads, like ads for fat burning pills. It can really degrade the look and quality of your site.

Would love to find some good solutions though. Perhaps start with those products/ads that are more global/internationally recognised - ebay? amazon? hotels/travel.

 

[nacco532]

I would say no... Nothing else I've ever seen shares profits even near the rate gambling does. Adsence pays literality nothing. If you have tens of thousands of views, I think you get a few cents.

I know one guy on here keeps talking about a retail site he runs apart from his gambling site... Maybe if your selling a product you could do well. I don't know what type of retail site he runs, I'm kind of curious however.

I make very little off poker, and I've made nothing off promoting sports books.. But I do pretty well with casinos. If your getting traffic (as you said clicks), it can just take time. Do your ads integrate well with your content?

This is worrisome, my main audience is geared toward sports betting and yes the ads are integrated well with content. I get about 15 clicks/day for a betting tips site but only just started getting this traffic about 2 weeks ago. Any idea how long it would take to convert? Also, would you recommend advertising casinos instead of sportsbooks even though the target audience is for sports bettors?

 

[footballaffiliate]

This is worrisome, my main audience is geared toward sports betting and yes the ads are integrated well with content. I get about 15 clicks/day for a betting tips site but only just started getting this traffic about 2 weeks ago. Any idea how long it would take to convert? Also, would you recommend advertising casinos instead of sportsbooks even though the target audience is for sports bettors?

Click and conversion rates vary a lot across different sites, depending on how targeted your traffic is. I've heard some stories of people who get a sign up every 20 clicks, but that's extreme.

I always talk to the advertisers at the conferences and have had a lot of conversations about conversion, and the advertisers tell me that affiliates are always on their backs about conversion.

In general I would say for sports a sign up every 150 clicks is good. For some sportsbooks you can be looking at a sign up every 500 clicks. It depends what traffic you're sending them and how good they are at converting it (and often how long their cookie period is, but that's a different thread - for example Paddy Power only work on session cookies, others work on 45 day tracking cookies). For example, if you send a top value UK clicks, someone who is of the demographic that would sign up (e.g. age 18-30, male, has come to your site for sports information), you will get good conversion. If you send a click from a person who doesn't fit the ideal demographic, or when they reach the target advertiser site it doesn't support their language, currency, or doesn't allow them to deposit using the method they want (a lot of people in the world do not have a debit or credit card!), then your conversion will be poor, if not non-existent.

As a general rule, for worldwide referrals, you will only get 1 depositor for every 5 sign ups, and that's good conversion (20%). For UK referrals you may get a depositor for ever 2 sign ups. For some referrals from some countries e.g. African and Asian countries, you could be referring 50 players and not getting a depositor at all.

As a lot of advertisers have told me - the affiliate industry is like fishing. You've got to keep casting a big net and catch a lot of small fish before you land a big one or two.

 

[CaseyM]

This is worrisome, my main audience is geared toward sports betting and yes the ads are integrated well with content. I get about 15 clicks/day for a betting tips site but only just started getting this traffic about 2 weeks ago. Any idea how long it would take to convert? Also, would you recommend advertising casinos instead of sportsbooks even though the target audience is for sports bettors?

It sounds to me like you just need more traffic at the moment, 15 clicks a day for 2 weeks is too much of a small sample to assess your conversions

 

[footballaffiliate]

True. I know affiliates generating at least 2000 click throughs a day and are not making a lot of money. The affiliate industry, and especially sports, is tough, and people may have made a lot of money in the past, but nowadays a lot of the market is saturated. Those who have acquired the players on lifetime rev share deals have soaked up a lot of the market.

 

[WBX Affiliates]

It can be very competitive but there are still opportunities to make money. Even though affiliates could have referred players at one brand in the past, those same customers can still be signed up at other brands if they do not currently hold an account with them.

If you are getting a lot of clicks but no conversions at all, I would suggest you ask a friend to do a test signup to make sure any signups are being tracked. Also take a look at the promotions being offered to see if they are appealing to your traffic, or if the sportsbooks accept members from the country that most of your traffic comes from. For example if your site attracts a lot of US punters and are clicking through to a site that does not accept them it could explain the high drop offs.

 

[nacco532]

If you are getting a lot of clicks but no conversions at all, I would suggest you ask a friend to do a test signup to make sure any signups are being tracked. .

I sincerely hope this is not the case. I am pushing allegedly reliable brands (bet365, jetbull, bovada, 5dimes) to the correct countries (bovada/5dimes for USA). Unfortunately I'm hailing from the united states so it would be hard to test if i'm being scammed from the European sportsbooks (most of traffic).