Reviews are the bread and butter of great bingo affiliates sites. Through making recommendations to players regarding where they should play and thoroughly evaluating the quality of the product and service provided by one operator over another, affiliates are an authority in the world of UK bingo and gambling. But how seriously do gambling affiliates take their role?
Bingo Affiliates 101
Affiliate marketing is a significant industry in the UK. This is how things run if you’re unfamiliar with the inner workings. UK bingo sites partner with affiliates. The affiliate site reviews and rates gambling sites and lists a specific sign-up link for each bingo site. The affiliate earns a small commission or a fixed fee when a player joins a site using their link.
The best affiliates, like Best Bingo Websites, go beyond listing sites and reviews; they also provide comparison tools and extensive information to guide consumers in all areas of gambling.
One thing to state from the outset is that a formal licensing regime doesn’t exist for affiliates. Anyone with the tools, network, experience and budget can launch an affiliate site. Hence, you might question what stops affiliates from making any old recommendations to boost commissions or why affiliates take their reviews seriously.
While there’s no licensing in place (although this is currently being debated in the UK), a system of checks and balances keeps the majority of affiliates on the straight and narrow. Mostly, because, as we’ll explain, their business success depends on it.
Affiliation – What are the Rules?
Although bingo affiliates don’t require a license in the UK and are not regulated directly by the Gambling Commission, they do need to adhere to advertising regulations from the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) and their CAP and BCAP codes (broadcast and non-broadcast advertising rules).
These rules include responsible advertising (such as not advertising to those under 18 and displaying responsible gambling messaging), general rules, rules on misleading advertising and promotional marketing, and sector-specific rules, such as proving and recording communication consent between affiliates, casinos, and consumers.
The other primary way affiliates are kept in check is that the Gambling Commission makes gambling operators responsible for the conduct and the advertising of their brand by affiliates. Therefore, affiliates must know and maintain the UK’s legal gambling standards and regulations.
If affiliates do not keep to the rules (purposely or accidentally), the operator risks sanctions, usually financial, from the Great Britain Gambling Commission. If an operator becomes aware of an issue with an affiliate, they will first try to repair it, asking the affiliate to rewrite content, change their wording, or other information. If problems persist, or the operator is unhappy with the affiliate’s behavior, they will terminate the relationship rather than put their license under threat. Without a top reputation and strong affiliate relationships, a review site cannot operate.
Meeting Intent and Accessing Audiences
We’ve established that the affiliate ecosystem ensures that bingo affiliates must follow the rules to succeed and forge successful relationships, but what ensures quality and whether affiliates take their reviews seriously?
In short, the answer is Google. Google algorithms control how a site ranks or doesn’t. Google emphasizes content that meets the user’s intent, shows real first-hand experience, adds new information, provides analysis alongside hard data, and is written by persons with the experience and expertise to cover the topic. Good content is king because if your site and reviews never hit high SERP (search engine results page) results, they won’t be read or result in commission.
Creating content of this caliber is no easy task, and it’s costly. Affiliate sites must provide solid and legitimate content that adds to the information already available. Sites must also keep their content and facts up to date.
What Makes a Good Review and Review Site?
Affiliates need to give players unbiased reviews to enable them to compare different casinos and bingo sites before deciding where to play. Reviews should be genuinely helpful and honest and include negative aspects if areas are lacking.
We’ve already mentioned that factual information should be kept up to date, including the number of games on a platform, the bonuses and promotions offered, deposit and withdrawal options, software, security, licensing, and customer service details.
Leading affiliate content genuinely helps consumers. A large part of this is transparency, testing and research. Compiling a genuine review, therefore, takes hours of first-hand research and writing. The best bingo affiliates also develop their whole site with helpful content, focusing on responsible gambling to create a safe player environment. For example, the online bingo comparison site Best Bingo Websites doesn’t just cover responsible gambling via their reviews; it also includes a section dedicated to responsible gambling, featuring tools, advice, useful links and warning signs of potential problem gambling behavior.
One issue with quality content is that it’s often outsourced on a budget and with a deadline. If an affiliate site doesn’t have a dedicated content team (often, new sites cannot employ a team to work on the site straight from the get-go), then a website manager is crucial. As well as setting the content strategy based on the latest trends and player interests, they must fact-check and confirm everything published, ensuring it is high-quality and hasn’t been rushed.
Do Bingo Affiliates Take Reviews Seriously?
The only strategy for successful affiliates is to take reviews seriously. However, operating constraints, like a low budget, time, or the need to outsource content, can affect this, especially regarding updating content and keeping the factual data current.
There’s no denying that in the past, some affiliate sites did not take their reviews seriously, prioritizing quick commissions over long-term player happiness. Still, as Google algorithms have become more advanced (especially as AI comes into play), these days have mostly come to an end. There are still a few bad apples, not taking their roles seriously, but these sites are easy to spot as the content is thin, scraped, lacking, and tends to be outdated.