Exclusive interview with a successful poker affiliate

Tom is a live testament of how potentially lucrative the poker affiliate segment is. In an exclusive interview with FAPO’s own Tim Larsen, Tom tells his story of starting out in the business and how he today has earned over $500,000 on promoting poker rooms online.

Let’s start by looking back, what made you start with affiliate marketing?

I started out in 2003 with an initial interest of developing websites. During a trial-error period I started setting up site to improve my developing skills. For one of those sites I added listings of various free programs. Nothing fancy really, it wasn’t like I had a conscious affiliate marketing strategy. Just needed some content, but when I noticed that people actually were buying things through my site, my interest for affiliate marketing was evoked forever. I knew then that if I only managed to build a better site with more controlled content, there was real money to make.

How come you chose to poker?

Well, I realized pretty quickly that the free products I was promoting weren’t going to make any significant money. So I started looking for better and more interesting things to market. This was just around the time poker, and texas holdem, was getting popular with TV showing WSOP and most of my friends playing during the weekends. Online poker however was still an untouched market with not too many affiliate sites. The poker rooms that offered affiliate programs promised, what I thought, ridiculous high commission. Plus the fact the online gaming sounded somewhat suspicious. But I thought I would at least give it a try.

Is there any money to earn as a poker affiliate?

One important thing all beginner affiliates should know is that, success rarely happens overnight. I was struggling for a couple of months before the first positive results started coming in. I was actually convinced that I was never going to make any money, so I started dismantling my sites. But then the first checked dropped in rewarding me with about $300 for referring only 2 players to an online poker room the previous month. During the months to come I re-launched my sites, tweaked my advertisements and doubled and tripled monthly site traffic and income. And I who was so close to putting the lit on my poker affiliate dreams. All I can say is that patience is important for any affiliate.

Any tips you would like to share with our future poker affiliates?

I liked what you say on your About-page. Affiliate marketing is not easy or a fast way to make money online. Actually there is no such thing as fast money online. But with time, effort, creativity and the will to succeed no matter what, being a poker affiliate can be very lucrative. The best tip to give is to simply be

  • Consistent
  • Keep tweaking and analyzing your site’s content, traffic and promotional efforts.
  • Take good care of your traffic
  • Try to focus on quality and giving your visitors something that cannot be found elsewhere

How much money have you made from your poker affiliate site’s?

Several hundreds of thousands of dollars. I think something like half a million dollars in the end. But what amazes me about affiliate marketing is the little investment that’ is needed to get started. A couple of bucks a month for a domain name, hosting and that’s it. The advertisement didn’t cost anything. It was only my time that was required and since I was studying back then, lack of time was not a problem.