Newbie Confused

Hi everyone,
I've been building authority sites for "everyday" niches, but I'm fairly new to the casino affiliate industry. As I started researching this space, I've come across some unusual affiliate practices that don’t make much sense to me.
For example, I’ve seen complaints on AffPapa and other affiliate forums where casinos pay upfront listing fees to get featured on affiliate sites, only to later realize that there’s no traffic or FTDs coming from these listings. Some casinos even claim they were guaranteed FTDs, which I find odd.
I decided to check some of these affiliate sites on Ahrefs, analyzing their traffic history for the last five years, and found that most of them never had more than 100 organic visitors at any point. Even those 100 visits were from branded keywords, and the sites typically rank on the second page for their primary target terms, which I doubt generates any real traffic.
My questions:

1. How do casino listing fees typically work? Are they purely for visibility, or do affiliate sites actually promise traffic/conversions?
2. Are some of these affiliates running hidden paid traffic campaigns (PPC, media buying, etc.), or is it all SEO-based?
3. How common is it for affiliate sites to guarantee a certain number of FTDs? If they don’t have traffic, where are these players coming from?

Welcome to the GPWA.
Be sure to read through some years worth of posts and threads here at the GPWA as some of the points you ask have been covered in at least some conversations over many years.

#1 As to how the fees typically work, in some cases an operator might agree to the fee in order to get additional exposure and visibility, and some affiliates do make promises about a specific minimum of FTD's in order to gain the fee. This is something that is dangerous for an operator to accept from new affiliates that do not have a track record.

#2 Some may be running PPC and some may not, no concrete evidence of either.

#3 This ties in to #1 closely. It is often very common for affiliates to make such promises. The big issue is that very often the affiliate may fail to deliver. Smarter and more seasoned affiliate managers often will know when they are being fed promises that the affiliate may not be able to produce, and it is up to them whether to accept the deal or not.

Sometimes some the the deals or listing fees might be paid because they just need to pump up the numbers for a certain brand, or they might be willing to take on the risk for their own specific reasons.

When such deals are made and they go sour, it CAN make affiliates look bad as a whole, when the deal should not have been accepted.

In reality, authority sites for "everyday" niches are a huge difference to this industry, and in some cases might take years longer then many will admit.

Will be interesting to see additional discussion on the topics raised, as some may have opinions completely different, or they may provide better insight as to how to approach listing fees in general especially for newer affiliates.

Rick
Universal4

Thanks for your detailed response Rick!


As you said, "authority sites for 'everyday' niches are a huge difference to this industry," and I completely agree. I was used to starting topical clusters, doing basic internal linking for money pages, and calling it a day for ON-PAGE SEO. But ever since I started my first casino site, I’ve realized how much more complex things can get. I see many domains doing different approaches, from sitemap structuring to GEO redirects, and the technical side is easily 100x harder than what I was used to.

That being said, I’m beyond grateful for finding this community. In just two months, I’ve learned more than I did in an entire year before. The insights and strategies shared here have completely changed my approach, and I’m excited to keep learning!

Thanks and and we are glad you found us also as there really is a ton of information here based across more then 20 years.

Yes there are some things that are different with site structures and as you mentioned geo-targeting that works quite different on gaming sites then other places.

Hope your above questions get more feedback, and for the other topics pick thru the threads to see if specifics you are looking for might have been covered, and if you can't find a thread that matches don't be afraid to start a thread and ask.

Rick
Universal4

1. For me, listing fee's are something the operator has to pay prior to even start getting exposure on my sites. And after that I start working with them on a referral deal as i would any other partner (CPA/Hybrid/rev share). I usually offer listing fee's to brands i wouldn't otherwise consider just to see if they are willing to pay it :D

3. I never promise a certain number of FTD's. I usually tell them how much the average top5 casinos are getting in terms of FTDs and my total amount of monthly FTDs. All we can do really as affiliates is to promise certain amount of exposure (organic traffic for example). The conversion process is usually up to the casino. How enticing is their bonus, how inviting is their logo, how easy is it to actually sign up and deposit to a casino (The conversion rate).

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Originally Posted by MaksRoad

Hi everyone,
I've been building authority sites for "everyday" niches, but I'm fairly new to the casino affiliate industry. As I started researching this space, I've come across some unusual affiliate practices that don’t make much sense to me.
For example, I’ve seen complaints on AffPapa and other affiliate forums where casinos pay upfront listing fees to get featured on affiliate sites, only to later realize that there’s no traffic or FTDs coming from these listings. Some casinos even claim they were guaranteed FTDs, which I find odd.
I decided to check some of these affiliate sites on Ahrefs, analyzing their traffic history for the last five years, and found that most of them never had more than 100 organic visitors at any point. Even those 100 visits were from branded keywords, and the sites typically rank on the second page for their primary target terms, which I doubt generates any real traffic.
My questions:

1. How do casino listing fees typically work? Are they purely for visibility, or do affiliate sites actually promise traffic/conversions?
2. Are some of these affiliates running hidden paid traffic campaigns (PPC, media buying, etc.), or is it all SEO-based?
3. How common is it for affiliate sites to guarantee a certain number of FTDs? If they don’t have traffic, where are these players coming from?

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