The Use of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is generally the more expensive option for marketing a product, as it involves paying an affiliate to promote a product, which can be quite a large amount depending on how large of an audience they have. In the games industry, affiliate marketing most often takes the form of sponsored segments within a youtube video or on a livestream, however text and video reviews can also be classed as such. It can be a very effective form of marketing as it has very good potential for reaching a large number of people, so if you have the budget it would be very worthwhile. 

Like other forms of marketing, the CAP code should be followed. The rules most directly concerning affiliate marketing is rule 2.1 which "requires that marketing communications are obviously identifiable as such,"(Online Affiliate Marketing, 2019) and 2.3 which "states that marketing communications must not falsely claim or imply that the marketer is acting as a consumer."(Online Affiliate Marketing, 2019) To adhere to these rules on youtube for example, you should put the word AD in the thumbnail and the title of the video to make it clear to viewers that the video has been sponsored without having to click on the video itself. Different sites will have different guidelines on top of the CAP code, so it's important to check these before to prevent the video being taken down - and thus losing out on revenue.

Sources: 

Asa.org.uk. 2019. Online Affiliate Marketing. [online] Available at: <https: www.asa.org.uk="" advice-online="" affiliate-marketing.html#vlog=""> [Accessed 7 May 2020].</https:>