Starting an affiliate business

Affiliate marketing could be considered a freelance job as the very smallest affiliates are self-employed people who work with multiple partners. However, there are fewer small affiliates than there used to be and today what most people call ‘small affiliates’ are better described as small businesses with multiple employees. It is still possible to be a one-man band type of affiliate, but it’s far less common than it was 10 or 15 years ago. There are also freelance jobs at affiliates, such as content writer positions – you can find live roles like this over on iGB Affiliate Jobs.

In the early days of igaming affiliation, many affiliates were part-timers who managed their affiliate websites around their other jobs. In fact, this was one reason that the early iGB Affiliate events were held running into the weekend, to give those with full-time jobs a chance to attend some of the sessions. As the industry has become bigger and more professional, the number of part-timers has fallen, such that this is no longer necessary and events such as the annual iGB Affiliate Barcelona, the world’s largest dedicated igaming affiliate expo and conference, are weekday only.

As mentioned in How to get involved in affiliate marketing, the affiliate industry has become larger and more professional in the 20 or so years since it began. Therefore, those working in the industry – whether running their own affiliate business or as an employee of an affiliate business – are usually doing so as their main occupation and consider this to be their career. There are, however, still some affiliates who hold other jobs and run affiliate marketing websites as a side hustle.

iGB Affiliate has its own job board, where over 400 live roles are displayed from across the entire igaming affiliate sector. Find your next role on iGB Affiliate Jobs.

Yes, anyone can be an affiliate. There are no educational or other prerequisites for setting up as an affiliate marketer. That said, while anyone can be an affiliate, not everyone will be accepted into a particular operator’s affiliate programme. Especially when starting out, it’s unlikely a new affiliate will be accepted into a leading operator’s programme. Newcomers are likely to have to start out with smaller operators and prove their worth before getting on the books of the industry’s largest players.

Depending on what type of site they are running and what processes they outsource, affiliates may engage in a wide variety of tasks. These can include creating and/or managing websites, writing or outsourcing content, devising and executing strategies to secure and direct traffic, building links, building and managing relationships with affiliate programmes, analysing data, ensuring compliance (with both regulations and the requirements of their operator partners), using CSR strategies to build a brand and managing finances.

The responsibilities of an affiliate marketer will vary depending on the agreements with partners. Contracts may oblige them to meet certain targets, as well as the compliance requirements of each affiliate programme. Depending on the country of operation, they may also be required to include safer gambling messaging and age verification measures on their sites.

This varies depending on the region. In the UK and many other European countries, it is perfectly legal to run an online casino or sports betting affiliate website, so long as it complies with the relevant licensing and advertising rules. In a number of US states, affiliates require a licence for it to be legal, with some affiliates who have been through the various processes advising others to outsource the administrative burden, while in Australia, it is illegal to target players in the country as an affiliate for online casinos as these are banned in the country.

In some countries, while it may be a grey area or even technically illegal, authorities do not take much action against affiliates. In Australia, however, the communications regulator the Australian Communications and Media Authority very actively monitors sites for breaches of the country’s gambling laws and regularly asks ISPs to block such sites.

As iGB Affiliate reported earlier last year, about 950 illegal gambling and affiliate sites have been blocked due to ACMA requests since 2019. It would therefore seem risky to set up a site targeting Australian players as it is highly likely this traffic could be blocked in future.

It's essential to research the legal position in any country where you are thinking about targeting players to determine its potential as a sustainable future market. A good starting point for this research is to look up the licensing and regulatory bodies of any countries you are interested in.

In countries such as the UK and the US, it’s a legal requirement that you disclose the fact you are making money from affiliation and there are strict rules about how such disclosures are presented that you should familiarise yourself with. Even in regions without such requirements, it’s generally considered best practice to be transparent about your commercial relationships.

You do not generally have to pay to join an affiliate programme. You should be very wary of any igaming affiliate programme that asks you to pay to join it. See How do I know if an affiliate programme is legitimate? for some tips on assessing whether programmes are trustworthy.

Yes. It’s very common for affiliates to partner with multiple companies; in fact, there are very few that work with just one partner. There are also affiliate networks set up to connect affiliates with multiple operators, taking away the need for either party to negotiate directly with each partner. See also What is an affiliate network?

An affiliate marketer’s typical routine is likely to vary throughout the month, particularly as affiliate programmes usually pay monthly and set monthly targets. Affiliates are likely to set certain days aside for analysis and invoicing each month, though most will be monitoring their stats on a regular basis, so they are aware of any performance issues with any programmes they are working with.

As well as keeping an eye on the performance of their campaigns and adjusting traffic accordingly, a typical day might involve checking emails, dealing with any compliance issues or requests from partners, updating content, planning and writing new content, link building, SEO, creating landing pages and dealing with third party designers and writers. Depending on what stage they are at with their business, they may also spend time researching new programmes to join or responding to outreach from affiliate managers (who tend to be very proactive in looking for new affiliates to work with). Affiliates also tend to allocate some time to networking with other affiliates on a regular basis, via emails, forums and social media, as well as at conferences and events on a semi-regular basis.

Traditionally, igaming affiliates have focused on comparing the offers available at operators, reviews or content (and often some combination of these elements). A significant number are also consumer-focused, for example, forums or sites dealing with player complaints and/or even acting as official dispute resolution services.

As with any type of business, it’s useful to consider your own background and areas of expertise and/or interest when deciding what type of affiliate marketing business to set up. Building a website around something you already have experience in could help you stand out from the crowd and enable you to develop a profitable niche. Google algorithms favour sites with named authors who have authority in particular fields, so existing expertise and/or a known personality is something you may well be able to leverage with your igaming affiliate marketing venture.

Within igaming there are a number of verticals, for example, sports betting, casino, lottery, poker and bingo, and within these there are many niches one can focus on. If you’re an avid bingo player, it might make sense to focus on bingo. On the other hand, if you’re a football fan with experience writing sports articles, a football blog might be a good idea.

An example of a relatively new igaming affiliate marketer drawing on their own experience, expertise and interest comes from the football statistics website www.statschecker.com. The site was set up four years ago by Martin McGarry, an SEO and digital marketing veteran who had previously worked with igaming companies such as WhichBingo. He decided to combine his love of football with his SEO skills to build a website that provided useful statistics to help inform players looking for insight for their bets.

The igaming affiliate market is highly competitive, so it’s also important to look at what’s already on the market and consider what you believe you could do better when determining what niche to focus on.

In recent years, affiliate models have expanded further to encompass features such as streaming and free-to-play games. And as is the case in other industries, content is moving away from being text-based towards video (particularly short-form video) and audio, so it’s a good idea to think beyond the text-based sites that have dominated the igaming affiliate industry in the past.

An affiliate website is very much a legitimate business, as long as it is operating within the regulations of the country in which it is targeting players. See also Is it legal to run an online casino or sports betting affiliate website?

It’s also important to be transparent about your commercial relationships to make sure you gain the trust of your chosen audience. See also Do I have to tell players I’m an affiliate?.