ROAS Benchmarks for iGaming Affiliates: How to Calculate and Set Your Own

“What’s a good ROAS for an iGaming affiliate?” is one of the most searched questions in the sector, and one of the hardest to answer honestly. Published “benchmarks” rarely say which market, channel, deal type or time window they describe, so they don’t transfer to your campaigns. This guide shows how to calculate ROAS correctly for CPA, revenue-share and hybrid deals, and how to build benchmarks from your own data that you can actually manage against.

Why generic ROAS benchmarks mislead

Two affiliates can report the same ROAS on completely different economics. ROAS depends on at least five variables that are rarely stated:

• Deal type. CPA pays once, soon after the FTD. Revenue share pays a slice of net gaming revenue (NGR) over months or years.
• Time window. A revenue-share campaign measured at day 30 looks far worse than the same campaign at day 180.
• Market. Player value, tax treatment and allowable channels differ sharply between, say, the UK, Ontario and an emerging market.
• Channel. Organic search, paid media, creators and email have completely different cost structures. Organic “spend” is content and link costs, not media.
• Deductions. What the operator deducts before calculating NGR (bonuses, gaming taxes, payment fees, admin fees) and whether negative balances carry over.

A single ROAS figure that doesn’t fix these variables isn’t a benchmark. It’s an anecdote.

The formulas

ROAS

ROAS = commission earned ÷ acquisition spend, over a stated window. For an affiliate, “revenue” is the commission paid by the operator, not the player’s deposits or the operator’s gross revenue.

Break-even ROAS

On media alone, break-even ROAS is 1.0: every £1 spent returns £1 of commission. In reality you also carry content, tools, staff and the cost of waiting for revenue-share income. So a more useful break-even is:

Break-even ROAS = (media spend + attributable overheads) ÷ media spend

If overheads add 20% to every pound of media, you need a ROAS of 1.2 just to stand still.

CPA deals

Commission = qualifying FTDs × CPA. The word that matters is qualifying. If the baseline requires a minimum deposit and wagering, a share of your FTDs won’t pay. Track the qualification rate as its own metric.

Revenue-share deals

Commission (to date) = cumulative NGR of the cohort × revenue-share %, net of any negative carryover. Because this grows over time, always report revenue-share ROAS at fixed cohort ages, such as D30, D90 and D180.

A worked example (illustrative numbers)

The figures below are invented to show the arithmetic. They are not market benchmarks.

• An affiliate spends £10,000 on a campaign and generates 100 FTDs, of which 80 meet the operator’s qualifying baseline.
• On a £150 CPA deal: 80 × £150 = £12,000 of commission, so ROAS = 1.2. With 20% overheads, that is exactly break-even.
• On a 35% revenue share: if the cohort’s NGR is £6,000 by day 30, commission is £2,100, so D30 ROAS = 0.21. If cumulative NGR reaches £30,000 by day 180, commission is £10,500, so D180 ROAS = 1.05.

Same campaign, same players: a CPA deal that breaks even immediately, and a revenue share that looks like a loss for months and still hasn’t overtaken it by day 180. Which is “better” depends on cash flow, how long players actually stay, and whether you trust the operator’s NGR reporting. That’s why the benchmark has to be yours.

How to build your own benchmarks

1. Fix the unit. Report by market, channel and deal type. Never blend a UK SEO revenue share with a paid-social CPA in another country.
2. Fix the window. Use D30, D90 and D180 cohort ROAS for revenue share, and the payout date for CPA.
3. Use at least a few months of cohorts before treating a number as a benchmark, and note seasonality: major football tournaments change betting cohorts sharply.
4. Set a floor and a target. The floor is your break-even ROAS including overheads. The target is the level at which you would scale spend.
5. Track quality alongside ROAS: qualification rate, bonus-abuse flags, chargebacks and duplicate accounts. A high ROAS from low-quality players usually gets clawed back or ends the deal.
6. Reconcile with the operator. Compare your click and registration data with the operator’s FTD and NGR reports every month, and question gaps early.

Common mistakes

• Counting registrations or deposits as revenue. Only commission is revenue to an affiliate.
• Ignoring negative carryover. A single high-roller win can wipe out months of revenue-share income if negative balances roll forward.
• Judging revenue share at D30. You will cut campaigns that would have paid back.
• Buying traffic you can’t legally send. Players from markets the operator isn’t licensed for won’t qualify and can put the whole deal at risk. Paid search and paid social for gambling are also restricted by Google and Meta.

For where affiliate traffic comes from and how operators compare affiliates with agencies, read performance marketing agency vs. iGaming affiliate network. For operator-side programme design, see our casino affiliate programme management guide.