Blaine561's Internet Marketing Information Center

Marketing is a difficult field to get right, this is why the best advertisers get paid the vast salaries that they do now. Every company knows that a successful marketing campaign can tip the balance between failure and success. There are a number of advertising media circulating at the moment for industries to choose from, but one of the surprise packages is that of the affiliate-marketing program.

Utilising the Internet to generate publicity may sound a little speculative, but in fact through the affiliate marketing program a number of industries have experienced nothing short of phenomenal growth. Take the online poker industry, the affiliate program provided them with a vast platform from which to advertise without any of the overheads that traditional advertising can accrue. Due to the unique advertising opportunity generated by the affiliate program, initial costs are kept to a minimum whilst the audience remains unrestricted.

The poker affiliate program as with all others works as a commission based advertising network, utilising a vast number of individual websites. By offering webmasters the opportunity to host advertisements on their site in exchange for a revenue as and when the adverts attract a new customer, affiliate programs can create significant interest among sites. This interest is increased further when you consider that neither the affiliate nor the primary affiliate program needs to pay any cash up front.

In all affiliate programs the website owners are rewarded as and when they produce a new customer. This is tracked by unique URL’s attached to each linked banner or other advertising source on their website. In most affiliate programs this will be a small one of cash payment, or a percentage of a sale or group of sales. However the poker industry offers a unique problem, in so far as they are not actually selling anything to a customer. Therefore to overcome this the poker affiliate program has designed an equally unique but spectacularly successful reward program.

Rather than merely offering a one-off payment scheme, the poker affiliate program offers their websites the opportunity to earn a percentage of the revenue generated by each player. This percentage can top 35% and rather than being for a few games or a couple of months, this payment is made for the entire lifetime of a player. This means each and every time a player generated by an affiliate site plays and generates revenue for the poker site, they also generated a percentage for their affiliate.

It is an amazing marketing strategy that has worked wonders for the industry, and has created a number of multi-million dollar sites. Poker affiliates keep flocking in due to the amazing revenues that they can command through this program. Therefore with extra affiliates joining up the poker sites can increase their own visibility and sphere of influence, without paying out. This in turn guarantees the future of both the affiliate and the poker industry, making it one of the most profitable marketing partnerships around.

The online gaming industry has become the epitome of online success stories. Whilst gambling or gaming has always been a popular pursuit, its online incarnations of the popular industries have truly revolutionised the idea of gambling. Few online industries have developed so far and so quickly in terms of turnover and membership as that of online poker. Whilst the offline standard game of poker has always been played by players around the world, the increased opportunity afforded by the virtual realm has offered up a whole new array of options and opportunities. Online players have become accustomed to fast paced matches at any time of the day and against anybody from around the world. These new online poker players have the opportunity to play for any amount of money, and whilst some may miss the sportsmanship involved in face to face play, the new chat forums and message boards have opened up a new range of opportunities ready to be explored.

The explosion of online poker was not an accidental occurrence, it came in on the back of the success of the gaming industry in general. One of the primary reasons for this online success can be attributed to the marketing method that is unique to the online game. Affiliate marketing programs are a great way for any industry to reach a large audience without have to spend much money on expensive advertising campaigns. It works by creating a network of small sites, which host banners and links leading straight to the poker sites. The affiliate site owners are rewarded in turn when they produce a new customer. The affiliate can expect to receive a percentage of up to 35% of a player’s total money generated, having forwarded them on to the relevant site.

Because the affiliates are rewarded so handsomely for their part in the business deal, they are encouraged to promote themselves and subsequently the sites that they represent. It is through this business ethic that the poker industry has been able to flourish. With the number of affiliates increasing each month, the poker sites can broaden their range of influence. So even if the visitors to sites fail to click on the links there and then they are getting across the brand name, and even sewing the seeds of temptation in peoples minds. The more affiliates the poker sites can attract the greater the number of people that they can potentially reach. In terms of the affiliate, the greater the number of members generated the higher the profits. So in effect the two industries are complementing each other perfectly and have no doubt increased the visibility and popularity of both. Without the affiliate program it is hard to think what the online poker industry would be like. The affiliate marketing industry is one of the most successful and risk-free forms of advertising, both on and offline.

Affiliate marketing is just one of a host of advertising opportunities for online industries. Whilst traditional off-line advertising such as sponsorship of events and individuals, magazines, newspapers, billboards and television or radio, produce results they are often very expensive. Whilst some industries or companies may choose to utilise some of these off-line options, most back this up with extensive online advertising, most notably that of affiliate marketing.

The affiliate-marketing program is a cleverly conceived advertising system, which utilises all of the capabilities made available by the Internet. Unlike traditional advertising where companies pay a subsidiary company money to advertise their brand in a bulk up front payment, affiliates work on a sort of reward or commission based level. Because of the way the industry is run there is no need for either the affiliate or the advertising site to pay money up front, which in turn benefits both parties. The fact that no money changes hands until a new client is generated, the onus is on the affiliate to provide results, which in turn benefits the site that has commissioned the advertising.

Many industries have utilised the affiliate style of advertising, but few have been as successful as that of online poker. By distributing advertisements throughout a plethora of sites, all at little or no cost the poker industry has been able to infiltrate a number of websites and therefore develop an increased awareness. Unlike many other online industries, the poker industry doesn’t really have a recognised off-line equivalent. The game of poker is largely played by professionals behind closed doors or in large casinos or between a group of friends around a table. Therefore it was far more necessary to promote not only the sites but also the notion of online poker as a powerful and exciting gambling medium.

Affiliates are rewarded by the poker sites with large percentages, sometimes up to around 35% of the money generated by players that join through the links on their sites. So with each player they can hope to earn a regular, if slightly small income. In order to increase this income the affiliate must promote not only the site, but also themselves in order to increase their site traffic. Because in the affiliate program nobody is guaranteed to go to an affiliate site, click the link and become a fully signed up member. In fact the percentages don’t really favour the affiliate. It is for this reason that so many affiliates have has to advertise their own whereabouts in order to gain visibility and hits, and then hopefully in turn earn some money. With affiliates becoming marketing machines looking to earn more money, the poker sites that they represent have been reaping the benefits by generating huge numbers of new clients. So with the affiliate industry earning more and the poker sites generating billions each year, it shows just how successful the system is at not only advertising but increasing the revenue of everybody associated with either industry.