How to Hire an Affiliate Manager in iGaming
Last updated: 10 November 2026
Key takeaways
- The best predictor for an iGaming affiliate manager is the affiliates they can realistically bring or reactivate, not years of experience.
- Acquisition (finding new affiliates) and account management (growing existing ones) are different skills; many candidates are strong in only one.
- Test knowledge of CPA, revenue share and hybrid deals, fraud and traffic quality controls, and advertising rules in your target markets.
- In Great Britain, the Gambling Commission makes licensees responsible for the third parties they contract with, including affiliates.
- Red flags: numbers the candidate cannot explain and relationships that belonged to a previous employer's brand.
If you need to hire affiliate manager talent in iGaming, start with one question for every candidate: which affiliates can you realistically bring to us, or bring back? Good affiliate managers bring relationships, not just experience, and those relationships decide how fast a new brand gets traffic.
This guide is for operators, founders and heads of marketing who are hiring an affiliate manager or a head of affiliates. It covers what to test, how to check a track record, the compliance knowledge the role needs, and the red flags.
What to check when you hire affiliate manager candidates in iGaming
Relationships they can bring
Ask the candidate to name the affiliates they work with closely and to sort them into three groups: those likely to work with your brand, those who might with the right deal, and those tied to their current employer. Then ask why each would move. An honest, specific answer is worth more than a long list.
Check that the relationships are personal. Some affiliates work with a manager because of the operator's brand, terms or exclusives, not because of the person. When the candidate leaves, those relationships may stay behind.
Acquisition or account management
The role covers two different jobs, and you should decide which one you need first:
Many candidates are strong in only one column. A head of affiliates should be able to do both, or to build a team that covers both.
Deal structures
A strong candidate can explain, without notes, how CPA (a one-off payment per qualifying player), revenue share (a percentage of the net revenue referred players generate) and hybrid deals work, and when each suits your business. Ask how they would structure a deal for a large affiliate in a market where you are new, and what they would change after three months of data.
Fraud and traffic quality
Affiliate traffic can include fake or low-quality sign-ups, bonus abuse and incentivised traffic that never turns into real players. Ask how the candidate checked traffic quality in previous roles, which signals they watched, and what they did when an affiliate's traffic looked wrong. Candidates who have never cut or renegotiated a deal because of quality usually have not looked closely.
Advertising rules are part of the job
Affiliates publish marketing on the operator's behalf, so their mistakes become the operator's problem. The rules differ by market, and the affiliate manager is the person who sees affiliate content first.
In Great Britain, the Gambling Commission's social responsibility code provision 1.1.2 makes licensees responsible for the third parties they contract with. Contracts must require the third party to follow the relevant licence conditions and codes, and must allow the licensee to end the contract promptly if the third party breaches it, including an affiliate breaching an advertising code. The Commission's guidance on self-excluded customers also says licensees must take reasonable steps so that marketing, including through affiliates, does not reach people who have self-excluded.
The advertising codes add their own requirements. CAP says primary responsibility for observing the CAP Code in non-broadcast affiliate marketing remains with the gambling operator, which may be held wholly or jointly responsible for an affiliate's ad. Gambling ads must not be directed at under-18s, and operators or their affiliates must be able to show that the audience of a social media account does not point to ads being directed at under-18s. Affiliate marketing must also be clearly identifiable as an ad.
In interviews, show the candidate a piece of affiliate content with a problem in it, for example a post on an account with a young audience, and ask what they would do. A strong affiliate manager acts before compliance asks. For the related CRM role, where the rules on bonusing and contact also apply, see Hiring CRM and Retention Managers for iGaming.
Interview questions that work
Use questions that force specifics:
- "Walk me through the last affiliate you signed: how you found them, what deal you agreed and what they sent in the first three months."
- "Tell me about an affiliate whose traffic you cut or renegotiated. What did you see, and what happened next?"
- "Which three affiliates would you call in your first week here, and what would you offer them?"
- "How would you set up reporting so that you see a quality problem before finance does?"
- "Show me how you would brief an affiliate on our advertising rules for a new market."
Listen for names, numbers they can break down and decisions they owned. The same approach works for other commercial hires: see Hiring Business Development in Crypto: What Actually Predicts Performance. Affiliate deals also depend on the payments side converting the players affiliates send; for that team, see Building a Payments Team for an iGaming Operator.
Red flags
- Numbers they cannot explain. If a candidate cannot break a headline figure into affiliates, markets and deal types, treat it as unverified.
- Relationships tied to a previous brand. Ask which affiliates followed them from one employer to another.
- No view on traffic quality. A manager who has never questioned an affiliate's traffic has probably paid for some that was worthless.
- "Compliance handles that." Advertising rules are part of the affiliate manager's daily work.
- One-sided strength presented as both. A great negotiator who has never run account reviews, or the reverse, is fine if you know it before you hire.
What we recommend
- Decide whether you need acquisition, account management or both, and write the job description around that choice.
- Ask each candidate for a realistic list of affiliates they could bring or reactivate, and the reasons.
- Test deal structures and traffic quality with scenarios from your own markets.
- Include an advertising compliance scenario in the interview.
- Take references from affiliates the candidate worked with, not only from former managers.
The bottom line
To hire an affiliate manager in iGaming well, hire the relationships and the judgement: who they can bring, whether they can grow partners, how they control traffic quality, and whether they keep affiliates within the advertising rules. Hirexel recruits affiliate managers and heads of affiliates for iGaming operators and providers, and checks candidates' partner relationships and compliance awareness before you meet them.
Sources
- Gambling Commission, LCCP social responsibility code provision 1.1.2: Responsibility for third parties: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/licensees-and-businesses/lccp/condition/1-1-2-responsibility-for-third-parties-all-licences
- Gambling Commission, Licensees' responsibilities for third parties: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/licensees-and-businesses/page/licensees-responsibilities-for-third-parties
- Gambling Commission, Ensuring self-excluded customers do not receive your marketing materials: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/licensees-and-businesses/guide/ensuring-self-excluded-customers-do-not-receive-your-marketing-materials
- ASA and CAP, Gambling on your affiliates?: https://www.asa.org.uk/news/gambling-on-your-affiliates.html
- ASA and CAP, Gambling, betting and gaming: appeal to children: https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/betting-and-gaming-appeal-to-children.html
