Affiliate marketing can be a hard business; but at the same time it can be extremely lucrative. You can find affiliate marketing companies in pretty much any area of business; however one of the key markets where people see the opportunity for great financial gain is within gambling.
Due to the already huge interest in gambling, (both sportsbook and casino) affiliate marketers believe this makes it much easier to attract attention to their marketing efforts; this interest is clear when looking at the number of online searches for terms related to gambling.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a method of performance-based marketing where one business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor generating leads or driving sales on their behalf. There are four major components when it comes to the process of affiliate marketing; the merchant (retailer’ or ‘brand’), the network (platform that contains affiliate offers and also processes payment), the publisher (the affiliate), and the customer.
As the whole concept and size of the affiliate marketing industry has grown over recent years there have been more complex sub layers added to the process.
Betting affiliates in the UK
There are a huge number of betting affiliates operating in the UK. There are some large affiliates such as Casino Deal who operate across a huge number of markets; however there are as small as one or two people.
There isn’t a set figure on exactly how many affiliate marketing companies are in the UK, and this is primarily due to the fact that for some they’re not a long term business. It’s more than feasible for an affiliate marketing company to set up slightly before a major event and then cease their operation once that event has concluded.
Take the FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia for example. The tournament is a huge event all over the world and generates an enormous amount of interest. Throughout this tournament you can be sure that there will be a surge of affiliate betting partners in the UK. Once this tournament is over it’s likely that some of these companies will exit the market having made a tidy profit.
The difficulties in the market
It can be assumed that affiliate marketing is a no lose business, and in some aspects it is. There is very little outlay in regards to finances to start as an affiliate, although there a sizeable time investment. However, the difficulties come due to the amount of competition. For every good affiliate marketing idea you have, you can bet many other people have already had the idea.
Another struggle faced by affiliates is ensuring that you don’t get lured in to making poor decisions by the potential of greater financial gain. As with everything it’s easy to be tempting into breaking up an already winning model because you think that the grass is greener. Some of the best advice that can be given to an affiliate is, ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it’.