Welcome to Poker Week on the Income Access Blog. This week, we’ll be focusing on a variety of topics, all Poker related, from informative pieces, tips to improve your business model, to promotions. Whether you’re a new affiliate interested in the space, a seasoned affiliate or an operator wanting more insight, you’ll want to check out Poker week on the Income Access blog.
As an industry average most poker rooms rely on affiliates for about 30-40% of their business Therefore, affiliate Programs are seen as an essential for any established online Poker operator. Typically, affiliate marketing has been strictly thought of as an acquisition channel however affiliate programs can contribute to both the acquisition and retention of players. An affiliate program should be thought of as an operator’s extended sales force and as such they should be given the tools they need to meet the company’s goals.
New poker rooms or those focused on acquisition of new players will be looking to attract affiliates to promote their poker room. Not just any affiliates either – they will want to partner with affiliates who are connected to a large network of players. Wanting to partner with affiliates means thinking about what affiliates are looking for. Affiliates want to partner with the right operators, those who can provide a large network of players so that referred players have people to play with, attractive incentives, a good brand name and commissions. In essence, the affiliate needs to partner with a program they feel good about selling. As such, the affiliate program managers and marketing department of the operator should have a clear list of the incentives being offered to affiliates to attract and retain, six examples appear below.
Tips to attract Affiliates to join your affiliate program
1. Friendly terms and conditions
2. Paid commissions for the life time of player
3. Attractive commission structures such a hybrid commission structure of CPA and Rev Share,
4. Consistently paying affiliates every month
5. Attractive affiliate and player promotions
6. Quality customer relations management to keep their players happy and playing poker.
Affiliates these days are savvier in attracting new players than they were a number of years ago. And they need to if they wish to succeed. After all, the poker affiliate space is quite saturated. As a result, the smarter affiliates are using a variety of techniques to acquire new players. One of these tools is PPC. Since the beginning of the year, search engines have opened up PPC for the iGaming industry; this has helped affiliates to increase their business in key demographic markets that are open to PPC, including the UK, Ireland and Australia.
Operators who want to attract Poker affiliates can also do so by offering special promotional tools that make their program stand out. An example of this might be a special acquisition tool, such as the new DSP tool. Trebax’s Damn Small Poker™ consists of a mini poker application that can be easily launched on affiliate sites where players can play each other in free play and receive real cash bonuses to use on operator sites. The banner allows players to take part in a real poker game for free, to play with real players, and to chat and engage across the DSP tool. Once players are engaged in the game, they are presented with your offer, whether it be a product or site. The tool is designed to help affiliates refer and convert players by offering them increased interaction.
Affiliate marketing and retention
In the past Operators didn’t often think of using affiliate marketing for retention. Previously most operators measured the success of their affiliate marketing from the number of new players that joined their program. As the industry has evolved the marketing strategies of the operators have also evolved. Contributing to this evolution has been the increased amount of information that their affiliate software has provided. A comprehensive affiliate software platform can show data about the whole life cycle of the player form first click to last wager. This information can then be used to fine tune not only acquisition but retention strategies. The information can then be used to identify the campaigns that assist in player retention and in turn will allow a merchant to further develop their strategies and which affiliates they can rely on to implement them.
Be sure to check back every day this week for more tips, tools and promotions, as we celebrate Poker week on the iGaming Affiliate Marketing Blog. And, be sure to take part in our celebratory freeroll, happening November 13th on BetweenDrinks.com.
Be sure to check the every day this week for the next installment in this informative series.
- Emerging Markets in Poker
- The Rise of Women in Poker
- Rakeback views from Operators and Affiliates
- Choosing Reputable Affiliate Programs
- What trends in affiliate marketing are specific to the poker space?
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