Terms and Conditions for High Commission Affiliate Programs

Affiliate Program Terms and Conditions can get a little confusing sometimes. Figuring out how to find affiliate programs is difficult enough without all of the legal mumble jumble. Thankfully, most of them are common sense - don't spam, don't sign up under yourself, that sort of thing.

One term worth worrying about is inactivity penalties - some sites take away players from you if they don't play in a certain number of months. Some sites deactivate tracking codes that have produced no signups in several months. This sounds a lot more draconian than it really is (you only need one signup to restart the clock so if you're getting any traffic for your affiliate web site at all, you'll remain active) but can still be very frustrating and is a big argument in favor of only using one tracking code for these sites. Other programs reduce you to the bottom payment tier if you stop bringing new players. It's your choice whether to deal with these affiliate programs or not, but be aware what could happen.

It is the terms relating to revenue that are really interesting to us, and it's these terms that vary the most. CPA affiliate payment agreements are relatively simple to understand. You send the site a player and they pay you. The main difference to be aware of is whether the site pays when the player deposits or once the player has complete some sort of playthrough requirement? If there is a playthrough requirement, is it a fraction of the signup bonus, the whole signup bonus, or some other requirement? Obviously, the lower the playthrough requirement, the sooner you will get paid.

Most of the variety in Terms and Conditions occurs in Revenue Sharing programs. The most important thing to look for in Revenue Sharing affiliate programs is what exactly the site is sharing with you. The headline rate (what the programs tend to trumpet on their affiliate site) is a good indication of how generous they are. However, there are lots subtle differences in the terms that can quite significantly impact your bottom line.

"Negative balance rollover" - if your players cost the site money in any given month, then your share of this is deducted from next month's earnings. Obviously, this is a BAD thing and the opposite (no negative rollover) is good. More and more sites are moving to no negative rollover models because of increased competition. Affiliates with large negative balances just stopped promoting those casinos - why waste precious new players on digging yourself out of a hole when you could be getting paid for them instantly?

"Individualized returns" - your players' winnings at one casino do not counter-act their losses at another. In the good old days, revenue used to be individualized by player. This was great, but is very rare nowadays, however, there are still some networks where one casino's losses don't count against another's winnings. This is a good thing, since it gives you more upside and less downside.

"Bonuses not deducted from MGR" - this is pretty much a poker only condition. Most poker sites deduct bonuses paid to the players from the MGR. The ones that don't can be a goldmine (especially ones with frequent bonuses). Some sites don't deduct transaction fees from MGR - this provides a surprisingly large boost to your MGR (Neteller take about 2% of most transactions I believe).

Eternal revenue share is the industry standard, so you'll normally keep getting paid every time your player plays. Some sites have inactivity penalties (as mentioned above) and others only pay for the first year, so you should be aware of that.

Hopefully, this article has given you a quick insight into different terms and conditions of affiliate programs. We also have articles about rules of thumb we use in choosing between payment options and on how to get the best deal from your affiliate managers.