Affiliate Marketer’s Guide to Betting & Casino 

Last summer was hot! 🔥 

We’ve had many sports events, starting from the European UEFA Football Championship, the Copa America in South-America and the Tokyo Olympic games! 

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And how did all these events hit the Affiliate Marketing world? 

Well, if you’re thinking about money...you’re right! 

A lot of potential money can be made in the Betting and Casino verticals if you properly play your cards. 

And even though these events are now over there’s still a lot happening during the year, such as national and international sporting competitions and much more.

You should know that online sports betting & casino  games are hugely popular. The global online gambling market reached $66.7 billion in 2020 and it’s expected to reach $127.3 billion by 2027, almost double! Can you even imagine? 

I see a lot of possibilities here and more than enough money for us all. 

What do you need to know about online casinos & betting? 

Next we’ll present you a guide on how to run these kinds of offers. Let’s start from the very beginning. 

The Offer

I’m sure you’re already aware of that, but - if you find the right offer, you can make good money quickly. 

There are mainly three types of offers: 

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• The CPL-based offer
  

In this case, the advertiser will pay you for any lead that you’ll acquire. My personal advice is to start with CPL offers and check the traffic quality on a daily basis with your Account Manager. If it’s good - then let’s continue with this offer!

And, what means traffic quality for this vertical? It means that, after gaining some leads, they need to make a deposit. If this doesn’t happen, you already know that you’ll be kicked off from this offer sooner or later. 

• The CPA-based offer
  

Here, you’ll take a commission only when the users you get make a deposit. It doesn’t matter the number of leads you will send, at the end of the day the advertiser will only care about the deposits you achieve. 

• The Rev-Share offer
  

If you’re experienced enough, you can use this model, especially if you have super targeted traffic. Revshare is a long-term game because you’ll be making money whenever your user makes a deposit, but it’s harder to find such users. 

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The Creatives 

As for any other vertical mentioned before, the creatives are key for your campaigns. 

You need to catch the user’s attention from the very beginning, otherwise they won’t click.

If you don’t have previous experience with casino & betting offers maybe you should use a spying tool for extra inspiration. This time, let’s check  Anstrex and take a look at the creatives!

• Those here are good examples for single events ads: 
  
  

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These two refer to football games from the UEFA European Championship: Belgium vs Russia and Portugal vs Germany. 

A good practice here is to use the word bonus, free and your in the creative. For sure this is going to increase the CTR in your creatives! 

• Those following are good examples for more general cases.

In this creative I like the angle that the affiliate gave to the Ad - stop living with your parents. It’s original. 

This one is also interesting, the choice of a smiling dude in front of this expensive car is a good one. 

I’m not a fan of this creative, especially because the CTA button size, it looks small to me. However, I must admit that the headline “100% Welcome Bonus” is a strong one.

That’s the one I like the least - there’s no clear angle and it’s not easy for me to understand what this offer is about. The colorful rainbow doesn’t match the offer topic plus there’s no clear CTA button. 

• Enough with the betting ads for now. Let’s see what the situation is with the online casino games! 

I like those two a lot - the headlines are clear and strong, especially the “$1200NZ + 200 Free Spins” one. They include the words free and bonus, and the designs are good. 

The one with Cristiano Ronaldo is especially good because it tells a lot with one single image (you’ll have a welcome bonus, you’ll have a rebate up to 2% and the motto is cool - “You play, you win”. 

You can learn from those two on how to make your casino creatives. 

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• These following two are good examples as well. 

On the first one, I love the fact that the advertiser uses the slang for Australian - using slang is good for your CTR, but use it carefully and only appropriately! 

On the other one, there’s the word bonus again, as well as today, which brings a sense of urgency. 

Something that I don’t very much like about both ads is the CTA button! On the first one it would be appropriate to change “click here” with “I want my money”. In the second one, “Are you ready” can be replaced with “Take your bonus now!”. 

What I don’t like in both ads? The Call-to-action buttons! They are not very elaborate. 

On the left one you can replace “click here” with “Want My Money” and the other “Are you ready” can be replaced with “Take your Bonus NOW”.

I believe that everything is clear regarding the creatives so far. 

Now it’s time for your favorite part! 

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The Landing Pages 

One of the most used pre landing pages in the casino vertical is…volià! 

The casino spinner, of course. 

The idea behind this landing page is clear and simple: there’s a spinner, the user has 3 chances to win a prize (cash) and, of course, he wins on the final spin. 

After that, he/she needs to finish a short survey and finally he/she lands on the last step - the CTA button and some social proofs.

This is a good and fast landing page that you can easily edit according to your offer. 

• This next example is an advertorial type of landing page: 

As you’re able to see, there’s almost nothing here - 2 pictures and text.

What I recommend here is to replace the logo in the header with the logo of the program that you’re promoting. 

What’s more, you can try replacing the man’s picture with a smiling woman in a casino or a similar situation. My feeling is a happy and smiling woman that will probably convert better, but better split test this! 

You can use this landing page for both betting & casino offers, just change the text and try to grab the user’s attention from the very beginning. 

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• These following landing pages refer to fake news presale pages. Usually they are mostly used in native traffic campaigns but you can try using them for push as well. 

These ones here are telling your visitor about a story - a modern tale about a mother of two kids who is facing financial problems, but accidentally won big money from an online casino and now she’s able to quit her miserable, boring job. Her dream has become reality now. 

In my humble opinion this presale page is really good - it has everything: grabs the user’s attention from the beginning, has social proofs (the picture with the cheques, bank statements, the happy mom at her job place and fake Facebook comments), plus a clear and prominent CTA button. 

If you decide to give them a try, you’ll need to change the header’s logo! Use one close enough to a famous online media in your target country. 
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Whatever landing page you finally decide to test, there’s some things you need to be sure about first

1. That your landing page is fully optimized for mobile devices
2. That the landing page’s loading speed is decreased at its maximum. You can test the loading time here.
3. That you’re using the same angles on your creatives and your landing pages 
4. That you’re promising your visitors they cannot lose money - make them believe in every case that they will win some cash or free spins, even a bonus. 

Additional tips on how to run casino & betting offers

1. Ask your account manager for whitelists for this vertical. It will save you a lot of money, especially if you’re running your ads in a CPA model. 
2. Bet high - usually the quality traffic is on high bids, and that’s what you need. Betting high means around the recommended bid or a bit higher - never extremely high! This won’t bring any kind of good performance either. As always, try to find the optimal bid.
3. Do not hesitate to buy traffic from adult sources. Men’s audience is best for online betting, so it’s a good practice and mostly recommended. Ask for traffic from the premium sites.
4. If you don’t have previous experience in this vertical, it’s strongly recommended to start targeting Tier 2 countries. 
5. Before starting any betting & casino campaign, check the local laws and regulations.
6. Ask your affiliate manager for the offers that convert better and have high caps. If you find a CPL offer with a high cap, you can make good profit even though your traffic is not the best quality. 
7. Check the calendar for big sporting events and competitions, and make sure that your creatives and landing pages relate to them. 
8. Don’t be afraid to adapt and test the landing pages from other verticals - there is no need to reinvent the wheel, but you can make small changes. 

Good luck with your campaigns and see you next week!