By Kostiantyn Shurupov, an expert in digital marketing and affiliate business development
Abstract
In many companies, affiliate marketing is still perceived as a set of “hacks” and one-off deals with partners. As a result, decisions are made based on feelings rather than data, and the program either does not scale or turns into a source of uncontrolled expenses. Meanwhile, in highly competitive and regulated niches, it is precisely the affiliate channel that can become the main source of predictable growth — provided that it is built as a system: with clear metrics, transparent analytics, and constant experiments.
The article examines how to transform affiliate marketing from a “black box” into a controllable growth mechanism. It covers basic metrics (EPC, CR, LTV, payback), principles of funnel construction, approaches to A/B testing of landings and creatives, as well as practices for working with partners as a distributed experimental laboratory. Current data on the affiliate marketing market and the online gaming industry are provided, illustrating the scale and potential of this channel.
Keywords: data; affiliate marketing; experiment; A/B testing; analytics; funnel; online gaming; poker; EPC; LTV
Introduction
The global affiliate marketing market is growing, amounting to tens of billions of dollars and providing a significant share of online sales. In parallel, the online gaming and poker markets are developing, where competition for the user is especially intense, and regulatory restrictions require careful work with communication and data.
In such an environment, affiliate marketing works only in one format — as a system. Its core is data: without transparent analytics, a correct attribution window, and an understanding of user economics, any program turns into an argument about whether the partner is doing a good job or not.
1. Metrics Without Which the System Does Not Work
The basic set of metrics for the affiliate channel is fairly compact:
CR (Conversion Rate) — conversion from clicks into the target action (registration, deposit, subscription).
EPC (Earnings Per Click) — earnings per click for the partner, the key indicator of an offer’s attractiveness.
ARPU / ARPPU — average revenue per user / per paying user.
LTV — total revenue from a user over their lifetime.
Payback Period — the payback time of marketing investments.
These metrics make it possible to link two worlds — the business and the partners: the partner sees EPC and conversion, the business sees CAC and payback. If the data is transparent, a space for constructive dialogue emerges: you can discuss landing page tests, offer changes, traffic segmentation.
2. The Funnel as an Object of Analysis, Not a “Black Box”
A typical mistake is to look only at the top of the funnel (clicks and registrations) and the final result (deposits, payments), while ignoring what happens between them. In practice when working with the affiliate channel in highly competitive niches, two layers of analysis are especially important.
2.1. Micro-conversions
The funnel is broken down into micro-steps:
- landing page view;
- click on the CTA;
- start of registration;
- completion of registration;
- first entry into the product;
- first target action (deposit, subscription, purchase);
- repeated target action.
Each step is measured by partner, geo, and traffic sources. This makes it possible, for example, to see that some partners bring an audience that clicks well but “drops off” at registration, or vice versa — rarely reaches the landing page but converts well afterwards.
2.2. Separating Product and Marketing Problems
If conversion drops at the registration step, the probability of a product problem is high: a complicated form, bugs, lack of localization. If users register but do not reach the first payment — the question is about onboarding and the value proposition.
Such separation makes the conversation with a partner constructive: instead of the abstract “traffic is weak,” specific hypotheses and experiments are discussed.
3. Experiments: How to Test Offers, Landings, and Creatives
The affiliate channel offers a unique opportunity to run distributed experiments: dozens of partners simultaneously test different combinations of “source — creative — landing — offer.”
Key principles:
- Limited number of variables. Only one element changes in each experiment: the landing headline, the wording of the offer, or the visual.
- Sufficient volume. The experiment continues until a statistically significant number of clicks and conversions is reached, not until the first “nice-looking” result.
- Unified attribution windows. The same conversion crediting rules apply for all partners; otherwise comparing results becomes meaningless.
On the X-axis are the landing variants, on the Y-axis — the conversion from click to registration. This visualization makes it easy to communicate to product and partners which hypothesis “won” and which elements should be scaled.
4. Online Games and Poker: The Affiliate Channel as a Growth Laboratory
Online games and poker are examples of categories where affiliate marketing is especially important. The global online gambling market is valued at tens of billions of dollars, with steady growth expected through the end of the decade.
The online poker market is also growing: the global volume, estimated at several billion dollars in 2024, is projected to double by 2030.
From the standpoint of data and experiments, such markets are convenient: user LTV is high, there are many events inside the product, and user behavior lends itself well to quantitative analysis. This makes it possible to:
- build segmented partner reward models (different rates for different player cohorts);
- test changes in product economics (rake, bonuses, missions) on limited volumes of affiliate traffic;
- quickly see the effect of changes in the funnel and communication.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing ceases to be a collection of disparate deals and becomes an engineered growth system where decisions are made based on data. Clearly defined metrics, a detailed funnel, continuous experiments with creatives and offers, as well as working with partners as full participants in the product process, make it possible to achieve predictable results even in complex and regulated niches.
In an environment where traffic costs are rising and regulators are tightening requirements, exactly this approach — systematic, data-driven — gives a business the chance to scale the affiliate channel without losing manageability and profitability.
- Ahrefs / Authority Hacker. Affiliate Marketing Statistics 2024.Ahrefs
- Wix. Affiliate marketing statistics and facts for 2025.wix.com
- ResearchAndMarkets.com. Online Gambling Industry Report 2025.Business Wire
- Yahoo Finance. Online Poker Global Strategic Business Report 2025–2030.Yahoo Финансы
- Industry reviews on A/B testing and performance marketing