CPA vs Rev Share: What's Best For You?

One of the choices affiliate programs have to make when setting up their programs, is what sort of commission structures to offer prospective affiliates. Most affiliate programs nowadays offer both CPA (cost per acquisition) as well as Rev Share (profit share) models, and this choice often puts affiliates into a quandary over which one to choose.
One can argue for ages over what advantages and disadvantages these two different commission structures have over each other, but what it all boils down to in the end is the sort of relationship the program wants to have with its affiliates, how good the conversion is, and how strong the product is in keeping players returning to gamble and lose their hard earned cash.
Whilst CPA usually has a much higher initial cost to the Affiliate Program, once this payment is done, then the program does not owe anything else to the affiliate, meaning all profit generated by this player now belongs to the operator. However CPA does not come without its pitfalls, amongst which are fraud, baseline deposit scams, as well as the fact that expenditure is always so much higher when the program is at the beginning of its lifetime, which are all risk factors that one must look at when offering a CPA commission structure. No program likes paying a huge amount in CPA, for a player who might just deposit once and not visit website anymore.
Rev share on the other hand is more of a long time relationship between the parties involved in the whole deal – the program, the affiliate, and indirectly the player. It is up to the affiliate to deliver good quality, high value players, but it is then up to the brands promoted by the program, which, by way of their CRM team, makes sure that the players brought by the affiliates keep returning and playing over and over again. This can be done in a variety of ways, like offering bonuses, special offers, free bets, and competitions. This is the only way to ensure that players keep generating profits and affiliates get paid their lifetime revenue share commission.
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Many gaming companies prefer the Rev Share model to the CPA model, as it is much easier to avoid frauds and scams, and the control of the company cash flow is made much easier. In fact, the trend nowadays is for gaming companies to invest highly on their CRM team, employing the best people available, to ensure that player retention keeps growing at strong and steady level. This in turn makes a Rev Share deal much more attractive to an affiliate as he is going to keep earning money from his players for a much longer time.
At the end of the day, irrespective of what operators think is the best deal for them, it is up to the affiliate to decide which one of the above commission structures he will choose. If the affiliate can provide a constant flow of traffic monthly, then probably CPA is the way to go, but for low-traffic affiliates, provided the advertisers promoted, are reliable and take their CRM seriously, Rev Share probably offers them a better chance of achieving higher earnings, spread over a period of time, depending also on the quality of their players.
About the Author:
Carmel Said has been involved in the gaming industry for the 7 years, focusing on Affiliate Marketing for the past 5. At the moment he is working on an exciting new project at Club Gold Casino, where he forms part of the Club Gold marketing team. In this article, he outlines the few simple but important steps for a successful email campaign.