How much money do YOU make as an iGaming Affiliate - 2012?

[Guard Dog]

Do you make a living (part or full-time) online as a casino (gaming) affiliate

In 2012 the landscape has changed a bit. There have been some huge losses in the industry which have severely limited player transactions. These changes have even restricted entire geographic regions from gambling. For many of us our incomes have dwindled, while some have found a way to capitalize in other areas to increase their take home. If you make a living or extra money by promoting casinos, sportsbooks, bingo, binary options, or any other 'gaming' property - please vote on this poll. It not only gives everyone a bit of hope, but also helps some of us strive harder to achieve more!


Are you new to casino affiliate marketing - or marketing in general? Read below...

Questions and Answers - For New or Emerging Casino Affiliates


Is it easy to make money online as a casino affiliate?

Unfortunately, the answer here hasn't changed in quite awhile. Making money online these days in a saturated market takes dedication and effort. It isn't DIFFICULT, it takes effort. With time and dedication on your side, it is more than possible... it is easy. Without spending the time and dedication, it is a losing proposition.

What do I need to do to make money online as a casino affiliate?

First, you need to prepare yourself to spend 6 months solid creating content and putting that content live. This is an every day process and will help your new site gain recognition with the search engines. Without this dedication, your site will fail and you will lose faith in the ability to make money online.

Simple Plan for a new gaming affiliate:

* Create a website - your website should use Wordpress or some other blog platform (blogs perform better and more quickly, in my experience)
- Create a custom theme for wordpress or find one that suits your content

* Sign up with Affiliate Programs - DO YOUR RESEARCH. Promote Platinum Sponsors here, we have done the research for you. Verify that casinos are NOT rogued and do NOT have issues on the popular Casino Watchdog forums (like CasinoMeister tm)

* Start creating content - create content that will allow you to post 2-3 times per day for a period of 4 weeks. Creating content in advance can be great if you have the time and dedication. Scheduling those posts within Wordpress is a snap and gives you the time to create more content and 'tweak' your site.

* Creating Content - Part II - After the 1st month, I typically stagger my posts. Maybe 1-2 posts (per day) for a week followed by 3-4 posts (per day) for 2 weeks.

*** CONTENT - General - Think your content out fully. Do not post reviews from the affiliate program. Create your own. Do not post bonus information with very little supporting information. CREATE UNIQUE CONTENT. Have plenty of context to the content, but visuals are great as well. Banners upon banners will turn off your potential customers and make your site look VERY spammy.


Have you noticed that content creation is the key? Creating content that people want to see is always the key to a successful online presence. Many will try to key in specific 'Search Terms' for each peice of content, while some of us (me) just try to create content that is both accurate and interesting for the player. Whatever your approach will be, it will be successful if you work hard.



So.... How much do people make as a gaming affiliate?

I've created this poll to show new (and current) affiliates what others make online. This is an updates poll for 2012 and has a LOT of different choices so that we can all see what *most* affiliates generate and give us hope to reach what *some* of the big affiliates make!

 

[belgamo]

Very good thread starter and information. curious how the voting goes

 

[theshortstack]

Hi Andy - is the poll for how much we make on a monthly basis or just in general over 2012 so far?

 

[Online18Casino]

As for 2012... I was making about 13+ before the last google update a few months ago.. Since, ive been making around 5-6k /mo. - and I only target the USA market.

 

[Guard Dog]

Hi Andy - is the poll for how much we make on a monthly basis or just in general over 2012 so far?

It is monthly

 

[Topponline]

Hi All

Great topic,

We had to place ourselves at the top of the spectrum but need to clarify. Earnings and profit are two different things...
We found that a couple of years ago when we broke through about 40k a month that it was running us ragged(there was 2 of us, one part time). We either had to decide to build an organisation or be happy at the lower level.

We decided to build an organization with freelancers and full time staff. This moves focus from 100% driving traffic to 50%+ business administration headaches and substantial fixed costs. We do run the risk some months to have less money coming in than we have in financial obligations.

The industry is still extremely pleasant, it is certainly possible to put 30-50% of earnings on the bottom line (over time). But to do it one must have an extreme focus and a good management team.

We entered the industry late, I am sure that the guys who built big databases 4-8 years back are still earning lots with little effort. We, on the other hand, need to fight for every new depositing player.

Nowadays we are spending a significant effort in recruiting and managing people

Cheers

 

[baldidiot]

Good points, Topponline. Maybe it would be interesting to also have a poll for net profit/month?

 

[PioneerRalph]

having only just started my first website i wouldn't mind just getting to level 1!

 

[mattsgame]

I am content in making any extra money to top up my income from full time work, so I am not out to be making huge $$$.

At this point in time I am not making enough to be satisfied but that is my own doing by being lazy, sick (me or my son) and falling behind the 8 ball the last few months. I am not making it steady each month, some months are better than others I just want that steadiness and I will be happy no matter the amount. (bracket 1 would suffice)

 

[mickp]

Great article just new here i will be happy to reach level 1 with my new website.

 

[KasinoKing]

I am content in making any extra money to top up my income from full time work, so I am not out to be making huge $$$.

That's exactly how I started.
Took me just over 3 years from first putting my site online to giving up my day-job. Even then it was a leap of faith as my income wasn't that great - but I had saved up enough with the help of my extra income over those 3 years to be able to survive for a whole year with NO income if needed.

2008 was a great year for me, but when MG pulled out of the USA at the end of that year, it was the start of a downhill slide. Then Rival pulled out of Canada, and later the USA too, and the slide got steeper!
Anyone who thinks making money as an affiliate is like falling off a log, is totally fooling themselves.
It's bloody hard these days.

KK

 

[cassaon888]

Our best years were 2007 and 2008 since then our income has dropped significantly. I agree with KK it sure has become a lot tougher for affiliates. You must continually think out the box and come up with new solutions and strategies to survive and thrive in today's gaming world. Even if online gambling is legalised in the US I believe it will only benefit a "select few".

 

[CaseyM]

Worth noting that affiliate marketing has become tougher in general because of increased competition, this is not just limited to the igaming world. I wasn't sure where to vote in this one, some months are so different to others

 

[john08]

I am wondering how much traffic a casino affiliate site needs to get an income of the highest rank in this poll list, anybody can share something on this?

 

[cassaon888]

I am wondering how much traffic a casino affiliate site needs to get an income of the highest rank in this poll list, anybody can share something on this?

This depends on your gambling niche and your target market. Some affiliates will tell you that their site's average 50 hits per day and they earn a steady income every month. Whilst others will tell you that they generate thousands of hits per day and yet they see very little action. From my experience the more visitors our sites generates the better our income. The reason for this is we're focusing more on quality content and decided to think outside the box for a change.

 

[baldidiot]

It also depends on the specific keywords you're ranking for and/or where that traffic is coming from.

You could get 10,000 hits a month from facebook or twitter pretty easily and only make a couple of hundred bucks. On the other hand, a laser targeted mini site that focuses at a specific high converting term could make $1k+ from a couple of visitors a day. This is why PPC advertising in iGaming can still be profitable even though the CPC is very high.

I myself have a site (not saying which one, and it's none of the ones I list on AGD) that currently has a visitor to RMP conversion rate of over 10%. So for every 100 people that come to the site, it generates 10 new depositors. Admittedly it's a micro niche site and there really isn't much traffic for it, but it makes far more (per visitor) than any of my other sites.

It also depends how well your site converts, and what information you're providing - eg: news sites will produce less money per visitor than bonus code sites.

Finally it depends on what kind of commission rates you're on, and whether you're going for CPA or rev share. Rev share builds so you could still be seeing revenue in a few years time from people that visited your site today.

I know that's probably not what you wanted to know so if I had to make a guess I'd say... if all your traffic was coming from one large site that had a variety of traffic sources (search, referrals, social media etc..) with multiple varied sections for news, reviews, bonuses, game guides etc.. then I'd guess it'd be somewhere in the 50,000 - 100,000 UV per month range.

 

[john08]

So with similar traffic volume, a casino affiliate site has much better earning potential than a site earning from adsense or other CPC programs, that's a good news for new casino affiliates.

 

[michael26a]

I'm making between $1k and $5K per month at the moment, but hopefully that will change soon. After all these years, I think I finally know what to do now, in terms of link building anyway lol Better late than never

 

[LandofOz]

2007 & 2008 were my best years. I was doing over 50k/month. But I was spending over 10k per month on advertising, new content, hosting and a few other things. Things have dropped off very much since then thanks to the UIGEA, google's algo changes and increased competition. Not to mention a number of affiliate programs closed down or turned rogue.

 

[Online18Casino]

2007 & 2008 were my best years. I was doing over 50k/month. But I was spending over 10k per month on advertising, new content, hosting and a few other things. Things have dropped off very much since then thanks to the UIGEA, google's algo changes and increased competition. Not to mention a number of affiliate programs closed down or turned rogue.

Tell me about it, every time I build up a player base the casino program goes under or rogue.

I was making 13k a month the first half of 2011, short lived but I *wish I got into this back in 2005-2006 when I first checked it out, or even before. I didn't start until early late 2009. Now google just throws my sites around in the serps, every month I rank for different things, its like a lottery now really.