New Poker Affiliates Guide And Tips

Most of our visitors and members know that over the years We’ve done IGaming – SEO Consulting and Content Marketing for some of the largest online poker rooms and casino houses, as well as some of the largest Casino and Poker Affiliates in the industry. We own several poker, bingo and casino portals, as well as large premium gambling domains inventory so we still in the thick of all the changes and latest updates.

Since we launched Gamblingpedia.org site We keep getting asked if We’ll be posting about Gambling or IGaming -SEO any, and the answer is absolutely!

We are sure you know, where there is money to be made, there will be a lot of people fighting for their piece of the pie. Gambling commissions and CPA’s are still much larger than most other markets, so the competition is still tough. While Google may change it’s algo’s, spammy sites will raise and fall, one thing stays the same.. Do you know what that is??? The Customers, The Poker Players, the Gamblers.

Poker Affiliate Tip #1 – Know Your Customer

We’ve found most poker affiliates much like us, got into building a poker sites because they loved playing poker or gambling at online casinos. For many of us that may have been several years ago, but there are new poker players signing up at rooms every single day. In order to make money in any type of market, you need to know the customer, and you need to know the products.

All poker players and casino players can be broken down into groups. Different groups want different things, so while PokerStars might be good for one player, another poker room may be the right choice for another. Do you agree? Ok good, let’s list out each group of poker players.

The New Player – This player is brand new to online poker. Usually in age from 15-55. They may have seen it on ESPN, heard from someone at High School or college, or saw a commercial or website ad. While new players may not always been the highest value players to have, everyone starts somewhere right?

What is this player looking for? – This player is looking for a safe place to play, easy ways to deposit, and they probably haven’t heard of rakeback, but everyone know what a “match bonus” or regular deposit bonus is. These Players will also be looking for some tips, and ways to make their first deposit last as long as possible.

How Do You Attract This Type of Player? – This is a constant question you should be asking yourself anytime you develop or update a website.

Since we know they are new, we have to make some assumptions like:

-They Need Bankroll tips
-They Need Basic Strategy Tips
-They Need to know how they collect their deposit bonus
-They Needs to know what games they should start with

***Most of all they want to know they have help along the way. this is an important point, because way too many websites have a lot of good information, but no instructions and no followup contact. If these players have any issue, they want to know someone (that knows more than they do) can help them get it solved. So how can you as a webmaster make that happen? I’m glad you asked, here is a few ways to keep in contact with your customers.

Affiliate tip #2 – Offer Something Your Visitors WANT

So now we know what type of visitor/customer we are attracting, now we have to make sure we have something to offer them. Otherwise they will click the back button and you just lost money.

Note: If you have a website that gets traffic, then it should be making money. Ignore the people saying crap like “you need XXX number of daily visitors to make money” – that is BS and the only people saying that, are people who aren’t making money.

What do these visitors want?– I’m not going to spend a bunch of time on this because you should already know this based on the type of articles and content you have on your site. If you aren’t sure how or why visitors are landing on your website, then that’s a whole other article. Go install Google Analytics Then come back and read this article. 🙂

So you should already know what they are looking for, so that’s only a small part of the battle. Knowing what they want, you now need to ensure you give it to them. That too, is just part of the battle.

Sometimes customers don’t know what they want, nor what they need. But if you follow the instructions below, you will have multiple chances to connect with your customers, and you will be able to offer them exactly what they are looking for.

Affiliate Tip #3 – Building Your Affiliate Business Long term

The thing that’s great about website, is that you can have very little overhead, you aren’t confined to Geo locations or time of day. At any moment anyone in the world can end up on your site. Think about how big of an advantage is over land based businesses. Amazing right? Sadly, for most webmaster they don’t grasp what an amazing opportunity this is. They watch traffic and customers come and go everyday on their website, hoping and praying they fumble around and blindly buy, or sign-up for something. It’s such a massive waste!

READ THIS NOW! – In the past, We’ve been guilty of just watching traffic and hoping they signup through us. But We put an end to it, and right now you need to do the same! Seriously, RIGHT NOW you need to commit to yourself and your customers. They walked into your online portal, and you let them walk out without saying a word! How bad would that be in a normal business? you’d be broke, or fired. Am I right? Of course Am I..

Building Your Customer Base the Right Way

1. Email Support / Phone Support / Chat Support – Think about it, if you were a customer, would you trust a site more if they displayed a phone number, or a IM handle? Without question the answer is a phone number, and of course the email give customers the most confidence. DO NOT be one of these sites who have some fancy ass “Live Support” that is NEVER online. What’s the point in that?

We have years of data on our site proving a conversion and retention increase when we display a phone number, Skype and email on the home page. People want to know their money is safe, and that someone is there to help them. So be sure you give a couple ways for your customers to contact you if they need ANYTHING.

Quick Tip – You can get a Google Voice Phone number for FREE – It also has free voice mail, and voice to text ability. So you don’t have to take calls 24/7 – I always say something like “We will return your call within 24 hours” – And I always have. again it’s free, so why not? you can also forward your Google Voice number to your home , office, or cell number.

2. Get Your Visitors and Customer’s Contact Info – This is another thing you hear all the time, but so many poker affiliates neglect this, or do such a bad ob they’d be better off if they didn’t even try. There are some easy ways to get your customers information, and build a relationship with them. Here are a few of the easiest ways.

Affiliate Tip #4 – Email Capture

There are several programs that allow you to quickly and easily get your customers information. Aweber is by far my favorite, you can have an opt-in form up and running on your site within minutes. The great part is that once they give you their email address, you can start building a good relationship with them. You need to make sure you have a “welcome email” that gets sent to them right after they opt-in, and I always setup at least 2-3 auto-responders to follow within the first 7-10 days them signing up.

Of course now days it’s easier to get someone’s SSN than their email address. Everyone HATES SPAM and they hate being bombarded with crappy emails. So make sure you make it worth it for them to trust you with that information. Don’t just send them 5 or 10 “ZOMG Signup Now!!!” offers. Give them something of real value. A few things that have always worked well is Ebooks, Guides and Private Articles

Tactic #1 – You can offer something For FREE – We all LOVE free stuff right? So offer them something like -”10 Ways To Double Your Bankroll in 7 days” – So just make sure you don’t overload your list with email after email pushing them to buy something. They can get spammed anywhere at anytime, so make yourself stand out. Give Give Give because you ask for anything. Build trust.

Affilliate Tip #5 – The Membership Model

Take a second and think about some of the largest and most successful poker and casino affiliate sites out there. guess what they have in common? Yup, that’s right! They have a membership model. they also usually do email captures too, but let’s just focus on the membership model. The membership model is one everyone is familiar with. Membership models are awesome, if they are done right.

Membership models gives the webmaster a huge advantage over normal affiliate sites. They allow the webmaster to easily stay in contact with the customers, and they can also give you some extremely valuable statistics of your players. A few of the great advantages of this model are:

-Webmaster get the user information, email, etc
-Webmaster can contact the customer at anytime
-The Customer can contact the webmaster at any time
-Your build returning visitors to your website
-You can encourage Friend to Friend Referrals to grow your customer base
-You can quickly contact your customers with special time sensitive promotions and bonuses
-***Most Importantly*** – You can ensure you are there to solve any issues your customers have

Tactic #2 – Offer Access To a Private Club/Area – This is one of my favorites, and can be used with Email Captures and Membership Models. So you can offer FREE access to a private members only area, or members only deals in exchange for them singing up and giving you their information. So for example you could say something like “Get a Free Lifetime Membership now to get access to our special FREE Bankroll Offers”

I could go on and on about both of these models, but I’m sure you get the point. These models are used by the biggest and most profitable portals in every affiliate market BECAUSE THEY WORK!

Stay tuned For More Affiliate Private Content Access!!! Check also casino affiliate guide