New member here with some questions about CPA for South Africa market!

[mooncereal]

Hey everyone! Need to meet you all. I recently started an affiliate site in the South African market.

i am working in casino, sports betting, and lotto verticles.

i was wondering if anyone in the SA market knows what a “good” CPA deal looks like for this market. Hard to find info on it.

thanks In advance glad to be here!

[Theratman]

Hey, welcome to the forum. I have several South African affiliates sites running so have knowledge on the market.
You won't get much in the way of CPA deals in SA because the average player value is so low, the lifetime value of an average player is less than R3000. Most operators will offer you rev share, if you're big enough you might get rev share plus a placement fee. CPA if you were to get it would be around R200 - R300 per player, and you'd be ripping the site a new one with those numbers.

The only sites that you might get a CPA from are grey casinos, but I don't know of any local ones doing this, they haven't for over a decade. SA is all about volume due to the lower player value, and from an operators side it makes sense to not offer CPA as they'd be out of pocket. The rev shares are generally between 20-25% standard, there are some that offer more, or where you can leverage more, maybe 30 to 35%, as well as lifetime deals.

Hope this helps, happy to answer any questions you might have.

[Pokerface]

Agree with Theratman. Always check the player value before accepting CPA in certain markets. Revenue share may be your best choice in these markets.

[mooncereal]

Hey man I appreciate the insight. I’m working on some other sites in tier 1-2 markets to compensate.

Do you find that the juice is worth the squeeze for your SA sites? I’m a little concerned about buying backlinks and investing more money into it.

[Theratman]

Hey man I appreciate the insight. I’m working on some other sites in tier 1-2 markets to compensate.

Do you find that the juice is worth the squeeze for your SA sites? I’m a little concerned about buying backlinks and investing more money into it.

The juice used to be worth the squeeze until around mid 2023, thats when most of the brands started investing into their own SEO, and doing what affiliates do. It was also when there was a major pivot to online casino and slots.

There's still value in the market but you're going to need to drive massive volumes to make it worthwhile, unless you are lucky enough to get some bigger spenders. One of our better performering sites averaged around 3.5k sign ups a month last year, down from around 9.5k average per month in 2023. This is due to more competition, SEO updates, operators having their own inhouse teams etc.

Also you'll need to be careful who you work with as there are only a handful of sites that are trustworthy when it comes to stats and payments. We've reduced the number of sites we actively work with from 20 to around 5.

I think it's still worth it though to be honest, but you need to keep your expectations in check due to the low player value. There's also lots of room to try different things here which is nice, but the traditional European affiliate model (or operator model) doesn't work well here. Some of the perks are semi decent rev share and life time rev share some operators. Another member, Daftdog, is also pretty active here and could provide some insights.

[mooncereal]

Thanks for the information. You are blowing my mind right now. I have some live deals with YesPlay, WPT, Yeti Casino, Yebo, and other local operators at the moment. Currently all of these are revshare deals. What operators do you recommend?

I found some decent keyword opportunities in SA, so we'll see if it pans out. But I think to your point, I'll be a little more hands-off with this one and focus on investing in other markets.

[Theratman]

Thanks for the information. You are blowing my mind right now. I have some live deals with YesPlay, WPT, Yeti Casino, Yebo, and other local operators at the moment. Currently all of these are revshare deals. What operators do you recommend?

I found some decent keyword opportunities in SA, so we'll see if it pans out. But I think to your point, I'll be a little more hands-off with this one and focus on investing in other markets.

The only legal operator you've mentioned there is Yesplay, all the others are gray or illegal casinos. Basically any site licensed in a province in South Africa is legal, and anything not licensed in SA (ie Malta, Cuarcao etc) is not legal. I've only ever promoted local legal sites, as I don't trust the gray sites, and other licensed sites can potentially termninate an affiliate agreement, or get in legal trouble if they are advertised next to a gray site.

Operators you'll want to look at are the big ones, Hollywoodbets, Betway, WSB. They will make up the bulk of your income, smaller sites are also worth looking into like say 10Bet, Sportingbet, Playabets, Easybet and others, but are a very hard sell to visitors. South Africans are very brand loyal, and generally don't have more than 2 betting sites that they regularly use.

It used to be fairly easy to generate traffic, one of our brands peaked out at around 400k views / 180k monthly visitors about 2 years back, after around a year of work was put into it. It's still doable these days though. My advice would be to test it out, but be perpared to take some hits on investment if it doesn't work out.

The same goes for operators, the market is satured and many come in with big dreams and big budgets, but soon realise that you can't really buy market share here unless you are throwing out huge money, or have an amazing team.

[DaftDog]

Watch out for some of these legally licensed South African sportsbook affiliate programs; they have some horrendous terms like:

**6.5.** Where a New Customer’s betting account is inactive for a period of six consecutive months, we will delink such betting account from your Affiliate ID and you will no longer earn Commission from such betting account.

**8.4.**
If you are unable to refer a minimum of 5 New Customers per Month for a consecutive 3 Month period (i.e. if less than 5 potential customers who have been referred by you to our Bookmaker Site/s become New Customers per Month in any consecutive 3 Month period), we reserve the right to change your Commission Structure with immediate effect such that your Commission entitlement becomes reduced to a flat rate of 10% of aggregate Net Gaming Revenue (or another rate as determined by us in our sole discretion) until you meet the minimum number of New Customers required, at which point we will consider a revised Commission Structure for you. Alternatively, if you do not after such reduction recommence with your referral of this minimum number of New Customers per Month, we reserve the right to terminate your participation in our Affiliate Programme and to close your Affiliate Account.

Some also want to charge affiliates a monthly fee simply for access to their affiliate backend, over and above all the other deductions.

More and more of the popular gaming providers will only allow access to their games through SA licensed sportsbooks. So once a SA player signs into an offshore casino like Yeti more than half the gaming providers will show "No results found." I would find this very frustrating.

I also now only promote legal SA sportsbooks.

[Theratman]

Watch out for some of these legally licensed South African sportsbook affiliate programs; they have some horrendous terms like:



Some also want to charge affiliates a monthly fee simply for access to their affiliate backend, over and above all the other deductions.

More and more of the popular gaming providers will only allow access to their games through SA licensed sportsbooks. So once a SA player signs into an offshore casino like Yeti more than half the gaming providers will show "No results found." I would find this very frustrating.

I also now only promote legal SA sportsbooks.

Those terms look like Holly? As for platform fees, yeah it can be ridiculous. Playcoza for example have 45% rev share, but even if a player deposits and loses R100 you end up in negative RS as they pass on all taxes, and charge you based on the players wagering, so you are paying the operators fees that they must pay the software providers, utterly ridiculous. Made money there the first month promoting them, then they sneakily changed the RS terms and been in permanent negative ever since.

[eenzoo]

Insane

[wetelo]

Hey, I'm also curious about this — how competitive is the South African market right now when it comes to CPA offers? Is it mostly dominated by a few big players or is there room for newcomers? Also, how’s your experience been so far this past week since you posted? Found any good insights?

[DaftDog]

Hey, I'm also curious about this — how competitive is the South African market right now when it comes to CPA offers? Is it mostly dominated by a few big players or is there room for newcomers? Also, how’s your experience been so far this past week since you posted? Found any good insights?

Did you bother to read all the posts in this thread?

[eenzoo]

Did you bother to read all the posts in this thread?

insane

[mooncereal]

Thanks, everyone. I am going to keep up with this site and work on some other markets in the meantime!

[Theratman]

Thanks, everyone. I am going to keep up with this site and work on some other markets in the meantime!

Best of luck, it's a competitive market but there is still value to be had.

[Adam Axelsson]

In terms of CPA/hybrid deals, i'd focus on the Baseline to be honest. A high CPA might look enticing - but if the baseline (the amout a player has to deposit in order for the CPA to trigger) is too high, it doesnt really matter how good your CPA is.

Try to find a balance between a lower baseline (preferably culmulative) and a realistic CPA.

For reference, in Brazil, i'm trying to stay away from baselines over $5, and would preferably have them as low as $3.

Hey everyone! Need to meet you all. I recently started an affiliate site in the South African market.

i am working in casino, sports betting, and lotto verticles.

i was wondering if anyone in the SA market knows what a “good” CPA deal looks like for this market. Hard to find info on it.

thanks In advance glad to be here!