How did you start your first affiliate site ?

[mrplaypartnersdaniel]

curious to hear your stories

[iso2009]

First affiliate site in 2003, out of curiosity. Made some good money though.

First sports site in 2007 or 2008, out of passion. Moved to affiliate betting (curiosity, too) the same year. I've never actually owned a long term business in the casino niche, just sports.

[mrplaypartnersdaniel]

did you manage to deal with it alone or needed writers ?

[PaulEchere]

I started my first website purely out of curiosity and not knowing anything about this at all. Slowly over time it started getting visitors and I started learning more. If you have enough time imo it is possible to do it alone.

[iso2009]

did you manage to deal with it alone or needed writers ?

Different times, you could get traffic with almost any content. I needed writers for backlinking articles, though (it's bizarre, but I pushed a lot of articles on big sites with links back to me, so I needed quality). Hired a guy from Wales to do the articles, if I remember. Funny guy

[robyroy]

My first aff website was launched in late 2008. Was an ugly, and i mean really ugly html template with several pages, full of banners ) . But to be sincere, was a real success, with a huge conversion rate.

[drifter8]

I have started my site back in 2015 with the idea that bettors/ sports punters can make me rich, this was not the picture. I have made and done all by my own and tested a lot of things during the years.
The progress comes slowly and with great patience, also if you are not passionate, I know people who just gave up after few months.
There are and will be many ways to deliver traffic , but the most important is to learn from more people as you can here in the forum or around you with bugger experience.

[kwwriting]

I don't have the know-how or the time. But, years ago a client approached me and said he'd take care of everything on that end if I covered all the content and he'd give me a percentage, a pretty good one from what I remember. The site took off almost immediately and I was actually surprised. 5 or 6 months in had something come up in his life and just shut it down and disappeared.

[Former Member 14]

Sigh... posted the same at AGD. Why would an Affiliate Program Rep ask such a question? No answer required, it's rhetorical

[iso2009]

Sigh... posted the same at AGD. Why would an Affiliate Program Rep ask such a question? No answer required, it's rhetorical

Even so, it's good to have a chat about the good old days )

[edgarf76]

My first affiliate site was written by me in Dreamweaver (HTML). This was before I switched to wordpress.

[Nik0]

I started my first site in 2005 (thanks, Frontpage) just for fun to show my football picks packed and presented in a fancy way on some forums. Next year I came upon this affiliate stuff and put some banners of bet365, Pinnacle, 10bet and bet-at-home on the site, nothing really expected. It was a total shock after few months I was earning more than my regular job so I quit it and that's how it began. Times are different and much harder now, fully aware I was very lucky with the timing in this business. I would head to something different if I was about to start just now.

[Sherlock]

I started with a gambling forum in 2005. It was aimed at professional gambling, because it was easy to make money by gambling. Retrospectively: money was everywhere by the time and it was already after the peak that was before dot com bubble (for small fries). It did not matter what one started on the internet, it was enough to be crazy enough to dedicate the time online. Sounds absurd today.

If there was something dirty by the time, it there was something really below my ethics... it was gambling affiliate marketing. I was even banning people who I just suspected of being affiliates. I guess I owe apology to some guys. How can the perception of reality change!

Well, after some time I realized that Pinnacle offers revenue not based on loses but on turnover and it was huge money considering that pro gambler (ahem like me was turning tens of millions monthly). Then I lowered the bar, because some silly bookies offered the non-carry turnover, which was too appalling, if your gamblers can win and lose tens of K each month. But I kept gambling 16 hours daily minimum every day, affiliate income was not interesting to me for long time. Kind of dirty money. Please do not laugh.

By the time I was still gambling instead of seeing that affiliate marketing was something that at least did not destroy my health and can make me even bigger money... trade off between destroyed health and having fun vs. fuck1ng girls, swimming and working a bit less on something where thee most work is actually to persuade yourself that it is not boring AF... tough choice resolved after Black Friday, when US dumb money disappeared from market and there was level up.

Just funny note from observer from future: it was already time to quit even with the affiliate marketing*, because there was some crazy guy/project Satoshi Nakamoto with his Bit Coin. Which I took too lightly although it was certain that BTC will tune with some dark subconsciousness of the finance world.

So, now definitely crypto is for grandpas (so I am at the age of grandpa). Time to do something new. I am trying and I know already I am late to the party, which sucks.

What has the value now? Bare survival. Back to roots. Going offline Not in some orthodox way, but yeah, no social networks, no friends just few crazy employees. Manual work connected with the inventions of our society seems to be interesting now and in future it will be the golden goose, because the more technical smart things we produce, the more stupid we are and the less we can actually use it and mine the value out of it.

Take just the solar/wind energy. Why people dedicate time to it. To save few bucks in decade or two? It is just a fancy greenwashing nonsense if you live in some normal country and you have access to grid.

But nowadays, because of all freaks who want to install a fence that would be suitable for crematorium

it is really possible to live in nowhere with the incredible technology that boomed because the demand was created for obscure reasons (I do not want to argue that global warming is not a thing, but global retardation is not?). I just survived winter in a hut in mountains, not just far from everywhere, but totally cut off through impassable roads. I did not need to start the generator (which is now also smart but is as smart as people who program it and connect to the grid... and people are nowadays really stupid). I was even having excess of electric energy and I used it for heating.

So I believe, the next step is: decentralisation.

There will be incredible destruction in future. Not just wars. Poor people have not much choices: they always go to cities, because cities/towns/at least villages are cheap because of economies of scale.

Anyways the inflection point of economies of scale was just reached. It is not yet felt, because... everyone is in the cities and villages, just some freaks and hermits are in the caves.

Once all the costs will be counted in (madness from cities, armed conflicts, pollution) the people will spread into the wild, because the most important thing is the good internet connection after all. And the Starlink is fastest in places where nobody is... [And then we will destroy even the last pieces of nature and the human comedy will go on as always].

So, I believe there is value in searching how to blend the Aliexpress, Starlink, Victron and 2-step high efficient stove for wood with untouched rivers, woods and fresh air. The value is now to know how to use a screwdriver or connect tubes. Because no AI will do that ever and therefore it will be scarce. Actually it already is scarce but that is really another topic.

As always, the slots are limited. All that is needed is enough drones delivering pizzas in megacities. Or rather the good old war where RU/UA will master the drones in race of arms, so the technology will be almost for free like the solar panels, so a drone will bring me for hundreds of kilometers either destroyed charger for laptop / fresh tomatoes or filling for 3D printer that will print that charger / print glasses for greenhouse.

* We are in peculiar situation, where all the newcomers to affiliate marketing are dull idiots, way behind the time. Caught in their greed and success stories of people who might be already dead. They are not the people who came to Klondike in 1900 to search for gold, when all gold was already mined. They came to Klondike in 2023 and because of selective internet echo chamber, they keep being even bigger idiots, who waste their time and few small nuggets found in 2023 do not change anything.

All the old guys are also here, because they count every month as gift while waiting to be robbed, so they can finally switch off th lights, close the shop and go home. One can feel the nervousness in this thread https://www.gpwa.org/forum/bovada-ig...el-264821.html and equally heated are all bet365 threads. It is obvious why. The only main US and non US book, which attracted us all like moths. But we have to keep them promoting for the sake of RS. We are stuck here just like the 75 years old guy with erectile dysfunction is still looking at girls on streets just because of inertia. Our inertia is the "lifetime" RS, that will not be lifetime, but still it is RS with condition of continuous promotion.

[Strider1973]

I've played poker (sit'n go tournaments) besides my fulltime job. After two years, I discovered PAL and learned that I can earn money without actually sitting at the PC 12tabling SNGs. I was bored in my job, and my wife was was about to lose her job, so we decided that it was time to quit my job. The plan was to move to a warm country, to continue to play poker and build a SNG strategy website. I quickly stopped playing poker in order to focus on building my websites (I also moved into other niches like finance, Forex and others).


In gambling, my mistake was that I stuck to poker for too long and that I didn't move into casino earlier. I had high standards to content and ethics (poker is a game of skill and you can earn money if you beat the rake + the majority of your opponents).


At the moment, I just try to keep the ball rolling due to what Sherlock mentioned: the revenue share is only "lifetime" as long as you provide new players each month, but I don't think it would be worth the effort now without the existing player base.

[baldidiot]

In the early 2000's I was working my way through the bonuses on the prima poker network - it was before rakeback was really a big thing (especially on Prima), so moving around for bonuses was the only way to get some of the rake back. Plus on prima you kept the same username, so you could hop between sites without anyone realising (this was back when it was a bit more social and before player trackers made people want to not have the same username).

I just made a list of sites as I went and stuck it up on a single page html website - literally just a table of the sites and the bonus. Discovered aff programs and signed up just in case, then didn't think much more of it. Couple of years later I had a random payment to my neteller than turned out to be from one of the programs.

[mrplaypartnersdaniel]

Sigh... posted the same at AGD. Why would an Affiliate Program Rep ask such a question? No answer required, it's rhetorical

Some affiliate managers are actually interested in affiliates as humans,
I know,
it's surprising

[Raúl Jimenez]

My friend found out about this topic and created a website. But he did not know what to do with him and how to earn money and there was no time. Asked me to take a look even though I didn't know anything about SEO at all. That's how it started)))

[Malikbhai]

I started with a gambling forum in 2005. It was aimed at professional gambling, because it was easy to make money by gambling. Retrospectively: money was everywhere by the time and it was already after the peak that was before dot com bubble (for small fries). It did not matter what one started on the internet, it was enough to be crazy enough to dedicate the time online. Sounds absurd today.

If there was something dirty by the time, it there was something really below my ethics... it was gambling affiliate marketing. I was even banning people who I just suspected of being affiliates. I guess I owe apology to some guys. How can the perception of reality change!

Well, after some time I realized that Pinnacle offers revenue not based on loses but on turnover and it was huge money considering that pro gambler (ahem like me was turning tens of millions monthly). Then I lowered the bar, because some silly bookies offered the non-carry turnover, which was too appalling, if your gamblers can win and lose tens of K each month. But I kept gambling 16 hours daily minimum every day, affiliate income was not interesting to me for long time. Kind of dirty money. Please do not laugh.

By the time I was still gambling instead of seeing that affiliate marketing was something that at least did not destroy my health and can make me even bigger money... trade off between destroyed health and having fun vs. fuck1ng girls, swimming and working a bit less on something where thee most work is actually to persuade yourself that it is not boring AF... tough choice resolved after Black Friday, when US dumb money disappeared from market and there was level up.

Just funny note from observer from future: it was already time to quit even with the affiliate marketing*, because there was some crazy guy/project Satoshi Nakamoto with his Bit Coin. Which I took too lightly although it was certain that BTC will tune with some dark subconsciousness of the finance world.

So, now definitely crypto is for grandpas (so I am at the age of grandpa). Time to do something new. I am trying and I know already I am late to the party, which sucks.

What has the value now? Bare survival. Back to roots. Going offline Not in some orthodox way, but yeah, no social networks, no friends just few crazy employees. Manual work connected with the inventions of our society seems to be interesting now and in future it will be the golden goose, because the more technical smart things we produce, the more stupid we are and the less we can actually use it and mine the value out of it.

Take just the solar/wind energy. Why people dedicate time to it. To save few bucks in decade or two? It is just a fancy greenwashing nonsense if you live in some normal country and you have access to grid.

But nowadays, because of all freaks who want to install a fence that would be suitable for crematorium

it is really possible to live in nowhere with the incredible technology that boomed because the demand was created for obscure reasons (I do not want to argue that global warming is not a thing, but global retardation is not?). I just survived winter in a hut in mountains, not just far from everywhere, but totally cut off through impassable roads. I did not need to start the generator (which is now also smart but is as smart as people who program it and connect to the grid... and people are nowadays really stupid). I was even having excess of electric energy and I used it for heating.

So I believe, the next step is: decentralisation.

There will be incredible destruction in future. Not just wars. Poor people have not much choices: they always go to cities, because cities/towns/at least villages are cheap because of economies of scale.

Anyways the inflection point of economies of scale was just reached. It is not yet felt, because... everyone is in the cities and villages, just some freaks and hermits are in the caves.

Once all the costs will be counted in (madness from cities, armed conflicts, pollution) the people will spread into the wild, because the most important thing is the good internet connection after all. And the Starlink is fastest in places where nobody is... [And then we will destroy even the last pieces of nature and the human comedy will go on as always].

So, I believe there is value in searching how to blend the Aliexpress, Starlink, Victron and 2-step high efficient stove for wood with untouched rivers, woods and fresh air. The value is now to know how to use a screwdriver or connect tubes. Because no AI will do that ever and therefore it will be scarce. Actually it already is scarce but that is really another topic.

As always, the slots are limited. All that is needed is enough drones delivering pizzas in megacities. Or rather the good old war where RU/UA will master the drones in race of arms, so the technology will be almost for free like the solar panels, so a drone will bring me for hundreds of kilometers either destroyed charger for laptop / fresh tomatoes or filling for 3D printer that will print that charger / print glasses for greenhouse.

* We are in peculiar situation, where all the newcomers to affiliate marketing are dull idiots, way behind the time. Caught in their greed and success stories of people who might be already dead. They are not the people who came to Klondike in 1900 to search for gold, when all gold was already mined. They came to Klondike in 2023 and because of selective internet echo chamber, they keep being even bigger idiots, who waste their time and few small nuggets found in 2023 do not change anything.

All the old guys are also here, because they count every month as gift while waiting to be robbed, so they can finally switch off th lights, close the shop and go home. One can feel the nervousness in this thread https://www.gpwa.org/forum/bovada-ig...el-264821.html and equally heated are all bet365 threads. It is obvious why. The only main US and non US book, which attracted us all like moths. But we have to keep them promoting for the sake of RS. We are stuck here just like the 75 years old guy with erectile dysfunction is still looking at girls on streets just because of inertia. Our inertia is the "lifetime" RS, that will not be lifetime, but still it is RS with condition of continuous promotion.

You know that even 10% of these numbers over decade+ (I assume you have been in this business) can generate tens of millions of US dollars, just by compounding.

Absolutely, no way you aren't worth at least $50 Million.

[dannyx]

I made the first page in NVU. It was 2010.
A local market, I wrapped my entire car in the web address of this site.
After 3-4 months, players and deposits started to appear. After another couple I could already order a payout.
And then.... Betson, or Afiliate Lounge closed my account, for no reason.
I was close to giving up on the site. However, I tried further and in a few months regulation started and the three brands I was promoting went out of business in this market.

[TheGooner]

I was hosting a blog for my pub team way back in 1997 or 1998.
Write-ups, pictures, team practices etc, just very local stuff that no-one outside the team would care about.

Then I added in my weekly football picks to the site because my team mates kept asking about my thoughts.
A month later I noticed the weekly pics page was being read hundreds of times per day - and I added some bookie adverts on it.

Within two months we'd made enough money to pay all the team competition fees, and get some new kit ...

I started Goonersguide on a free host - and things kept going.
By 2002 I'd quit my job and was doing football picks and promotions full time.

The pub team folded in about 2010.