Affiliate marketing represents one of the world’s most popular internet marketing strategies. The process is fairly simple - affiliate marketers help companies attract new users and generate income, by referring people from their sphere of influence. In exchange for these services, marketers are given a commission.

This article will discuss the concept of affiliate marketing within the cryptocurrency/blockchain sphere. It’ll also highlight a series of lucrative affiliate opportunities available on the 19th of October 2020, and provide readers with a comparison between affiliate marketing and other means of traffic generation.

Affiliate as an income generator

What’s wonderful about affiliate marketing is the fact that it creates a win-win situation. Businesses obtain additional traffic, whereas ‘brand ambassadors’ receive passive income. At this point in time, estimates suggest that the worldwide value of the affiliate marketing industry has exceeded $12 billion. Furthermore, research studies seem to suggest that the industry will grow by an additional 10% over the next few years.

Earning possibilities are endless - you could make a few dollars every month, or tens of thousands of dollars per day. It all depends on your reach and the number of companies that you’re collaborating with.

How do crypto affiliate programs work?

While there are slight differences between affiliate programs, the process is mostly standardised. Users must create an account with the service to access their unique referral link. Now, this link can be embedded into web content or simply passed to other users in its original form. Usually, affiliate marketers write blog posts, share the link on social media, and comment on forum threads.

In fact, some affiliate marketers are large businesses with dozens of employees that actively generate content where links are embedded. After a user clicks on the link and makes their first payment, the affiliate marketer will be given a commission. Payments are usually made once every few days or weeks, in fiat or cryptocurrencies. The particularities of each program depend on the company that’s running it.

Oftentimes, businesses will attempt to create conversions by granting extra perks to users who click on affiliate links. These may be discounts, freebies, or access to extra services.

Do keep in mind the fact that it is never enough for a user to create an account. Actual monetary value must be exchanged in order to assure payment. In other words, affiliate campaigns do not pay for traffic - they pay for conversions.

Examples of crypto and blockchain affiliate programs

1.- Cryptocurrency exchanges

Currently, the cryptocurrency market is overwhelmed with tons of different exchanges. These platforms facilitate the conversion from one coin to another, from coins to fiat, and vice versa.

Choosing the right exchange can be a tad difficult, given the fact that most platforms seem to offer similar services. Due to this intense competition, many exchanges choose to rely on affiliate traffic as well.

Commission types vary across the industry. For instance, some exchanges may pay commissions as a percentage of the trading fees obtained from each transaction that a new user makes on the platform.

Here are three examples of profitable crypto exchange affiliate opportunities:

Binance is one of the top-ranking cryptocurrency exchanges. They provide multiple markets, access to derivatives, crypto loans, liquid swaps, interest-earning and a mining pool. Users can unlock a series of advanced trading tools, alongside the ability to increase profits with leverage trading. Furthermore, OTC and P2P trading is also supported.

Binance’s affiliate program is application-based, meaning that users who fit the preset requirements must submit an application. A 40% - 50% trading fee commission is given every time a referred user completes a transaction.

LocalBitcoins is a popular peer-to-peer exchange that facilitates bitcoin purchases and sales between users. Supported payment methods include, but are not limited to bank transfers, PayPal, Revolut, face-to-face, and many others.

In terms of its affiliate program, marketers earn 40% of the trading fees associated with each transaction of their referred users, for three months.

Kraken is known for its highly-intuitive trading platform that grants users access to multiple markets, several trading tools, as well as margin trading, futures trading, and staking.

Affiliate marketers are paid 20% of the fees collected from referred clients, up to $1,000 for each individual.

2.- Cryptocurrency gambling

Cryptocurrency gambling platforms often provide a superior experience when compared to fiat-based casinos, and have therefore attracted hundreds of thousands of users. Users can access multiple casino tables and live games, sportsbooks, slots, and dice games.

Crypto-based casinos heavily rely on affiliate marketing to boost their user base. Similarly to exchanges, there are many casinos and competition is tight. Affiliate payment mechanisms tend to vary, as each platform is free to choose its favourite affiliate model.

Some adopt a CPA system, where a one-time payment is made for clients that register an account and make their first deposit. Other casinos choose a revenue share model, where a specific percentage of player losses are credited to the affiliate marketer. Lastly, the hybrid system entails a mixed deal where the marketer earns a commission for the first deposit, alongside a percentage from each lost wager.

Oftentimes, commissions are paid for an indefinite period of time. Incredibly large profits can be attained when marketers work for different casinos - hence, this explains the growing number of crypto casino review websites.

Here are some highly-lucrative crypto casino affiliate opportunities:

Stake is a popular crypto-based gambling platform that offers a series of popular casino games and a betting sportsbook. In an effort to attract players, Stake provides a lucrative affiliate program that pays commissions for each referral as soon as users register and make their first deposit. The commission is given for all bets, regardless of whether referred players win or lose.

Winz is a fairly new, but very popular fiat and cryptocurrency casino. Users can access dozens of different game categories, like slots, jackpots, table games, and live games. Like many other casinos, it also has an affiliate program. Marketers can earn between 30% and 45% of the net gaming revenue generated by their referrals. Affiliate earnings can be further boosted by taking advantage of Winz’s marketing materials. Payments are made monthly via bitcoin, bank wire, Neteller, and Skrill.

Bitstarz is an award-winning bitcoin casino with a generous welcome package, fast withdrawals, and over 2,900 provably fair games. Affiliate marketers can take advantage of a variable profit-sharing mechanism. Commissions are given as a share of the profit generated by referred users. As such, if 1 BTC is generated, a commission worth 25% of the profit will be paid. 1-2 BTC entails a share of 30%, followed by 35% for 2-4 BTC, and 40% for 4+ BTC.

This platform represents one of the oldest crypto casinos in the industry. They serve tens of thousands of users on a daily basis, by providing them with live casino games, dice, slots, roulette, and a sportsbook. FortuneJack adopts a similar mechanism to Bitstarz. As such, affiliate-based revenue sharing ranges from 30% (for 1 BTC generated profits), all the way up to 60% (for over 10 BTC).

3.- Cryptocurrency lending platforms

Such businesses have become exceedingly popular over the last few years. Lending platforms usually provide two services - credits and the ability to deposit crypto in exchange for interest. As such, these providers serve users from both sides of the coin. Those who need extra cash can deposit collateral in exchange for a loan, whereas users with extra crypto on their hands can simply deposit the coins to generate monthly income. As expected, they also rely on affiliate programs to generate extra traffic.

Borrowing platforms may provide affiliate commissions as a percentage of the origination fee, interest rate, or total revenue.

Here’s an example of a lucrative affiliate opportunity for lending platforms:

BlockFi is one of the crypto market’s most popular lending and interest-earning platforms. Affiliate marketers can earn 0.5% of all deposits referred users invest in the BlockFi interest accounts. There’s a maximum limit of $1,000 for every referral.

This category includes manufacturers of cold storage cryptocurrency wallets, such as Trezor and Ledger. These devices can assure the safety of cryptocurrency holdings by allowing users to control and store their private keys. Similarly, this category also encompasses mining hardware used to verify transactions by solving the proof-of-work problem.

Affiliate marketers who promote these brands earn a percentage commission for each sale they facilitate.

Here are the affiliate opportunities provided by two of the most popular crypto hardware wallet manufacturers:

Trezor affiliates can earn between 12% - 15% of each sale they mediate. Payments are made on a monthly basis, via wire transfer or bitcoin. A series of promotional materials are given to further enhance conversion rates.

Ledger offers a slightly lower affiliate payment, but users are relatively easy to convert. As such, a 10% commission on each sale is given to affiliate marketers. Payouts are made on a monthly basis via bitcoin. Marketers can access real-time reports, alongside a series of high-impact promo materials.

5.- Trading bot services

At press time, the daily cryptocurrency trading volume has surpassed $92 billion per 24 hours. However, transactions are not always made manually. In fact, trading bots have a huge influence over the market, as tens of thousands of cryptocurrency traders rely on these algorithms to make trades based on a series of pre-set parameters. Buy and sell opportunities appear throughout the day, so it only makes sense that trading bots are implemented to take advantage of price hikes and drops.

Behold two affiliate opportunities for trading bot platforms:

Bitsgap provides its customers with multiple services, including trading, portfolio management, arbitrage, signals, and trading bots. The company relies on affiliate marketing to generate extra conversions. In this example, referrals entail a 30% commission for every purchase.

Yet another provider of high-performance trading bots, HaasOnline facilitates the deployment of high-frequency bots that are easily-optimisable and capable of making smart, profit-generating trades. The platform’s 8.6K+ affiliate marketers earn between 10% and 25% commission on each sale they mediate. With a conversion rate of 2.4% and an average commission of $72, this affiliate opportunity is definitely worth a try.

A comparison between affiliate programs and direct traffic generation

It goes without a saying that affiliate programs lead to great conversion rates. However, companies in the space should not rely on affiliate sales exclusively. The argument here is that affiliate marketing cannot actively generate traffic, at least not in the same volume as ads and other strategies. Similarly, affiliate marketing can become quite expensive for companies, as they must actively share their profits with marketers.

In the case of Publishers, income is often generated through PPC ads, sponsored posts, and affiliate marketing. With this in mind, Publishers with a noticeable source of traffic can choose to rely on affiliate marketing to help generate extra profits. It’s often been proven that niche information provides high conversion rates, thereby leading to increased affiliate sales. Unfortunately, it’s not up to the Publisher to convince a user to purchase - upon clicking on the affiliate link, readers may simply browse offers, but fail to make any deal. A failed conversion translates into zero commission.

With this in mind, crypto and blockchain-related Publishers must also leverage the services of direct traffic providers and ad networks, such as Cointraffic. Ad placement leads to a relatively stable method of income, as Publishers get paid for each click they attract - in such cases, conversions are irrelevant. Of course, in the case of ad banners, the CPM payment is considerably lower when compared to an affiliate commission. Thereby, Publishers can attain large profits if they have a high traffic volume.

As such, direct traffic providers and ad networks such as Cointraffic go hand-in-hand with other practices, such as affiliate marketing, in order to ensure an all-inclusive profit-generating mechanism that can help Publishers increase their monthly profits.

Bottom line

Based on everything that has been outlined so far, affiliate marketing is a great way to generate passive income, especially in the cryptocurrency niche where the services are innovative and commissions are competitive. However, in the case of Publishers, it’s always wise to rely on multiple channels, such as direct traffic networks, ad campaigns, SEO optimisation, influencer marketing, and affiliate marketing.