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One of the fastest ways to gain an internet presence is to run a PPC campaign. When it comes to PPC on Google or any other search engines, gambling affiliates face two common difficulties. Rules on gambling and rules on affiliate marketing.

In response to the rise of spam and gambling, laws and rules have been established with strict consequences. For example, gambling advertising on search engines in most countries are not allowed. Also, PPC’ing a bridge page on Google could lead to account suspension and even a complete ban from AdWords, with an automated suspension upon set-up of new accounts.

Following both rules in affiliate marketing and gambling severely limits what you can do as a gambling affiliate. Therefore it is important to be aware of the little options that are left when it comes to PPC.

Listed here are the main items to keep in mind as a gambling affiliate.

Rules on Gambling

• Each country has its own stipulations on gambling. Since gambling ads are strictly prohibited in Canada and US, the online gambling industry is left with the UK, Ireland, Austria, and a few other countries. You can refer to Google for an updated list of countries to advertise in before setting up your campaign as rules are always changing.
• Since laws are changing, it is important to always to be in the loop. For starters you can subscribe to AdWords RSS feed to always keep up to date. Also, there are many magazines that discuss this topic in great length such as iGaming Business, as an example.

Rules on Affiliate Marketing

Make your website unique.

If you chose to have a PPC campaign with ads that link to your website, you must ensure that the content of your website isn’t only affiliate ads and that the website is absolutely unique. This however is still entering into grey terrain.

You could try to angle your website as being informative rather than as a sales pitch. If you are a poker affiliate marketing for various poker operators, you can have an in depth article about how to play poker online, and place an operator ad with it. Use your discretion and make sure your page isn’t cluttered with ads, but stick to one operator per page and weave their banner or name into it. For example, if you're writing about small stakes poker strategies you can mention Unleashed Poker or another operator fitting into this category and use it as an example. Adding a banner to this page and this article would not qualify as randomly placing as many ads as can fit on each page.

With Google it’s hard to get around this way. Google is known to quickly accuse affiliate websites for being “bridge pages” no matter how much original content there is. On the other hand Microsoft adCenter can be more flexible.
In either case, be sure to email AdWords or adCenter to see if your website is appropriate before going through the hassle of setting up a campaign.

Another way you can avoid being accused as a bridge page is by being the merchant yourself. In the case of affiliate marketing, you could be selling points redeemable on your operator’s website. This is obviously something you would coordinate with each of them on an individual basis. This procedure is advanced and may require a web developer to install a web form and an online store.

If you would like to learn more about Google AdWord’s policy on bridge pages, check out Bridge Page - AdWords Help
To learn more about adCenter’s policy, check out
Relevance and Quality Guidelines

Important notes:

• Due to the competitive nature of the industry, gambling related keywords can be costly. Though keywords on adCenter are generally cheaper than Google, do you know which search engine brings the most conversions? Do you know which campaign, product, time of day brings the most conversion? The best way to find out is to test campaigns and refine accordingly.

• Make sure the keywords you are bidding on also comply with your affiliate program. For example, some affiliate programs prohibit the bid of a keyword that is their company name.

Income Access Team