Affiliates May Need To Diversify

Published: Saturday, October 14, 2006 Online-Casinos.com

AFFILIATES MAY NEED TO EXPAND IN OTHER MARKETS

"Innovative and aggressive" online gambling affiliates should do well in less competitive sectors

Affiliate marketing drives the online gambling space. Now that the industry is faced with legislation outlawing U.S. Web gambling transactions, some gambling affiliates are searching for new markets to sink their teeth into, reports Click Z News in a study of the problem from an affiliate perspective.

Given the proficiency of online gambling affiliates in an intensely competitive market, and the need to diversify to prosper the author claims that some say mainstream affiliate marketers are in for a rude awakening.

"A lot of affiliates are going to bail," the article quotes Marc Lesnick, operator of the Casino Affiliate Convention conference series. "They want to create their own niche markets."

Online gambling affiliates are accustomed to unrelenting SEO competition in the high-stakes game of driving traffic to online poker and casino sites. They are so skilled at what they do, believes Lesnick, "There's going to be a day of reckoning on the retail market; there will be a huge domino effect in affiliate marketing."

Greg Boser, search engine marketing consultant at WebGuerrilla thinks an influx of gambling talent into more mainstream markets could pose a threat. "They know where the [search engine] algorithmic holes are you can drive a truck through," he said. "In these other markets it'll be like shooting fish in a barrel."

An invasion of gambling affiliates could drown out affiliates in other markets because of sheer volume, according to Heather Gartland, director of online gambling affiliate operation Topboss Limited. "It is going to have an adverse effect on the other affiliates already in the other markets as they will be too swamped," she told ClickZ News. "We are looking at the European and British markets now, as we have no choice."

It won't be so easy for affiliates like Gartland to simply start partnering with new gambling sites, however. Because many programs are based on a revenue share model rather than the cost-per-action models behind other affiliate programs, affiliates rely on the pool of players they've built up over time. They receive a portion of the revenue generated by the individual players who originally arrived on partner gambling sites through their affiliate sites. So, even if they have successful sites, said WebGuerrilla's Boser, "No matter where they go, they're starting over from scratch even though they have traffic."

Shawn Collins, co-founder of the Affiliate Summit conference series expects some gambling affiliates "to go for markets similar in scope to what they're doing," he said. That might mean entering financial markets like the insurance or mortgage affiliate industries. Affiliates in more mainstream markets, said Collins, are concerned about a gambling affiliate onslaught "because the gambling affiliates have been known to be very innovative and aggressive," he said.