IOG Casino Affiliates - Fair Poker
CarbonPoker.com

Becoming an Online Poker Affiliate

Have you ever wanted to earn some extra income just from sitting at home? Becoming a poker affiliate is quite simple really. All you need is some basic web design skills or you can even start a poker/gambling forum (this is the easiest way if you really don't have any web design skills). I will provide some links in this article which will help you get on your way! I will also give you step by step instructions on setting yourself up with some RELIABLE poker rooms that have proven to be successful for me so far.

Now realize right now, before you even start; that becoming an affiliate may start as a small time affair that you may not devote much time to. But believe me, this can turn into an obsession and take up as much time as a full time job depending on how deep you get into it. My advice for starting out is to pick a select few poker rooms to promote, push them as hard as you can (without spamming), and if things start working out well with them, then add a few more poker rooms. If you start out with every poker room you can find, you may get in over your head and become overwhelmed too fast. Choose 3-5 rooms to start and build up from there.

Sites and Forums

Ok. So you have some web skills and want to get started. The first thing I suggest is to come up with a site that people will WANT to come back to. This is called "stickiness". If people do not come back, you lose so much money making potential. I am not going to give you ideas for a site, as this is not what this article is about. Besides, if I had another good idea for a site, I'd use it. A great way to add stickiness to your site is to have a forum. The forum benfits are vast, namely, they give people a reason to come back and they can get you a great tool for getting downloads and deposits; FREEROLLS! Do you have a clue where to get a forum? No? Here are a couple of really good forums that are a piece of cake to set up and maintain:
Snitz Forums (.asp based) and PhpBB Forums (.php based).
Just go to either of these links, download the software, upload it to your host and away you go!

Affiliates and Banners

Banners, Banners, Banners. Before I give you some recommendations on affiliates, I need to say one thing; DO NOT MAKE A BANNER FARM SITE. I'm sure you have all ventured into one of these already; you click on the link to the site and next thing you know you are bombarded by flashing, glitzy, overwhelming ads EVERYWHERE that will send you into an epilectic seizure (with no relevant content in the site). These type of sites do not generate revenue at all and will be a complete waste of time for you, guaranteed. A few well placed ads are all you need for effective advertising. That's all.

Here's my list of the top poker room affiliate programs to start with and their commission offers:

After you have registered all of your info with the poker room affiliates, you need to get your links up on your site or forum. Your linking codes can be found at the affiliate poker room web site, usually under "marketing tools" or "banner settings". Any where you want your link to show on your site, just insert the linking code there. Here is how they work:

When you place a linking code (affiliate link) in your site/forum and a visitor clicks on that link to go to that poker room, then the player proceeds to download the poker room and register, he/she is permanently registered as your player. If he/she decides then or later on to make a deposit, that's when you get your commission. Commission structures and earning models are a whole other story and deserve their own paragraph, so we'll get into that in a little bit. So the main idea behind links and banners is to get people to download through your links and then make a deposit. Seems simple enough, right? It actually is fairly simple. It's just a matter of being patient and not expecting huge returns or profits right away. It does not happen quickly, but it will happen.

Earning Models and Commissions

This is very important, so please pay attention to this part. When you sign up and register as an affiliate with any of the poker rooms, you will be given a choice between earning via a CPA (commission per acquisition) and a Rev-Share model. You really need to determine what you realistically expect your affiliate career to be or to become. If you are honestly just looking to earn a few quick dollars every once in while, I would recommend the CPA model; I'll explain this in the next paragraph. If you are looking to earn money for the LONG RUN, which I would hope everyone is, I HIGHLY recommend going with the Rev-Share model that all of the poker rooms affiliates (I'll call them PRA's from now on) offer.

Here is the difference between the two models. CPA models offer a set amount per acquisition. An acquisition is not just a new registration. An acquisition is a NEW download, registration and deposit. When a new player finally makes his deposit you earn whatever the set commission is for that site. For example, at Casino Partners, when a new registration deposits some money (usually $50+) you will earn $100 commission for that player! SOUNDS GREAT right; a little odd, but GREAT! I say odd because, why would they pay you $100 for a $50 deposit? I think it is this (and this is just my opinion), most poker players, once they make a deposit, will usually deposit again (a reload). The poker room pays you the $100 one-time for bringing in that player, but each time that player reloads his/her account, they do not need to pay you anything more. That is perfectly fine, if you are in this for the short term and quick bucks. So again to sum up the CPA: new deposit = set commission amount (usually $100); NO reload commissions.

The Rev-Share model is the key to long term success for any affiliate. I made the beginners mistake and got sucked into the CPA structure because I was mesmerized the first time I got my first depositor and a fast $100 was in my account! Then that player quickly made a subsequent three $100 reloads and I saw nothing from it. If I was on rev-share I would have ended up making at least double what the CPA paid me in the spread of those 3 reloads. Ouch. Well, I learned my lesson and now I am on rev-share for all/most of my accounts.

Rev-share works like this; you want the bonus hunters. You want those players that are out there looking to drop $50-$100 in a poker room and trying to clear that 100% bonus the poker room is offering. What this does is generate revenue for the poker room. Revenue for the poker room is known as "RAKE". Tournament play does very little for the affiliate on rev-share (although many rooms are starting to offer us better profits for our player's tournament fees). You want the players that play the ring-games; and play them ALOT!!!

Now then, once a player generates rake or revenue for the poker room, you in turn get a portion or percentage of that revenue; hence the Rev-Share model. The better affiliate rooms will offer you up to 40% rev-share, which is HUGE. However, for the most part, most are around 25-30% rev-share. Think about the possiblities of this! If you happen to land a "whale" through one of your links (like I was lucky enough to), you can be guaranteed a constant income of at least $100 a month on average. My player I landed happens to deposit around $100 a week and plays it through many many times over. He happens to generate around $300-$400 a week in revenue. I am on a 25% rev-share with this site (Absolute Poker) and average about $100-$150 a month from just this player alone. To date this player has actually made me over $2,000 in profit already. If I had been on CPA, I would have made $100 and that's it, no more, no less. Now you see the possible benefit of being on rev-share instead of CPA. This sure opened my eyes, right?