Market Trends

Compared with the early days of igaming affiliate marketing, it’s undeniably harder to get started as a one- or two-person outfit. The trend for increasing regulatory and compliance demands, along with the ever-changing SEO landscape, is making it especially tough for affiliates without significant resources and expertise to set up a small business. Those with strong SEO skills and some existing knowledge of the igaming industry are likely to be best placed in terms of starting from scratch today.

If you’re considering starting up as an igaming affiliate marketer today, it’s best to do so with Google’s current focus on prioritising quality, helpful content in mind rather than seeking to copy SEO techniques that may have worked well for igaming affiliate marketing in the past. If your main strategy for driving traffic is going to be SEO, it’s useful to think in multi-year timeframes rather than expecting to be making a significant income in six to 12 months.

Ten years ago, many set up small affiliate businesses with the idea they’d build them up over a few years and then cash out by selling to a bigger affiliate. While it’s true M&A continues to be a feature of the igaming affiliate landscape, the trend has been towards larger deals, so the very largest affiliates buying large affiliates, as opposed to snapping up smaller operators.

That said, there are exceptions to this rule and for those simply looking to set up a sustainable business they can continue to run for the long term, the igaming affiliate marketing industry still provides good prospects.

Because the gambling industry relies so heavily on affiliates when it comes to attracting new players, it seems likely there will continue to be opportunities to strike good deals with casinos and sportsbooks. This is particularly true given that other marketing options are increasingly being restricted, for example, with some countries banning football sponsorships and TV advertising.

However, while the commissions offered by casino and sports betting operators continue to be higher than in many other areas of affiliate marketing, they are not as generous as they were in the past. Gambling companies have much higher cost bases than they did in the early days of online gambling, thanks largely to regulation and taxes, and for this reason being a casino or sports betting affiliate may be less lucrative than it once was.

Google periodically updates its algorithms to refresh its search function. It describes its core updates, which typically happen several times a year, as intended to help it deliver its “mission to present helpful and reliable results for searchers”.

Unfortunately, these updates often have a negative impact on igaming affiliates, sending their position in search rankings tumbling and in turn, affecting their traffic and income.

While some affiliates might feel that Google is trying to ruin affiliate marketing, the reality is that it is trying to make sure search users aren’t delivered up pages of content that is poor quality or isn’t helpful, with Google’s aim being to remain the undisputed leader of the search engine world. While igaming affiliates have historically invested heavily in SEO and many have done a good job making sure they rank highly in SERPs, for web users, the result of a search has sometimes been pages of almost-identical review sites that didn’t provide particularly insightful information.

Others have effectively ‘gamed’ the system and done so via methods that weren’t in line with Google’s aims. One example of this is the many partnerships between gambling affiliates and media groups that were inked over the past couple of years. This resulted in mainstream media sites suddenly appearing high in the search rankings for gambling search terms, as outlined in Julia Logan’s article ‘Crashing the party: how mainstream media are entering casino SERPs’. The impact of its demotion of the media sites affiliates had entered into partnerships with is discussed at length in the June 2024 edition of our Affiliate Monitor report. This was blamed by listed affiliate business Catena Media for the lowering of its financial estimates for the rest of that year.

Another example is the use of ‘parasite’ hosted content, as explained in another iGBA article by Logan, ‘NewsDirect: what is it and why is it ranking everywhere?’, which explores the tactic deployed by some of affiliates of effectively piggybacking on the rankings of high-authority third-party sites in unrelated niches by using them to host their content.

Google’s algorithms and AI overviews pushing traditional organic search results down the SERPs appears to have increased the use of black hat, negative SEO and parasite and other domain authority tricks by some affiliates seeking to maintain their rankings. These types of strategies may work for a period of time, but eventually Google tends to address these in its algorithm updates.

Google’s recent updates have also moved user-generated sites such as Reddit and Quora up the rankings, as well as user review sites such as Trustpilot, though it’s possible these may be demoted with later updates if Google determines these do not prove to be authoritative sources of information to users.

While algorithm updates may change the SERPs landscape on a regular basis, often to the detriment of igaming affiliate marketers, the direction of travel is clear and those looking to succeed in igaming affiliate marketing would be wise to take note. Essentially, Google favours content that is aimed at helping users rather than placing in search engine rankings, as outlined in its guidelines for 'Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content'.

Operators’ affiliate programmes typically provide landing pages for affiliates to use with specific promotions, so affiliates don’t necessarily need to create landing pages for many of the promotions they work with. However, sometimes affiliates want to create their own bespoke landing pages or set up a landing page between the user and the operator’s landing page.

You can use your existing CMS to create a landing page, though you may need a plugin. There are also a number of standalone landing page builders such as Unbounce and Leadpages that allow affiliates to quickly build landing pages.

The design of your landing page will be crucial in making sure it converts visitors once they arrive at the page and should be the result of comprehensive testing and optimisation.

Affiliate marketing is the type of work that lends itself to flexible working, whether you are running your own business or working as an employee of an affiliate or gambling operator.

In terms of the latter, one example of the flexible nature of affiliate marketing companies is that of affiliate Time2Play, now owned by Gentoo Media, which offered fully remote working even before the pandemic. Other igaming affiliates such as Alts Digital have built their entire business and culture in a remote-first setting.

However, as 'Remote working: Ensuring performance in pyjamas' discusses, as is the case in many other industries, some affiliate employers are now beginning to scale back on the flexibility offered during the pandemic. Therefore, it’s not a given you’ll be able to work remotely if you choose the employed route rather than starting up your own business. Some employers require employees to work at its offices at least part of the week, offering hybrid rather than fully remote work.