Hi, and welcome to the Affiliate Insider Podcast with me, Leanne Johnston. This is a podcast for digital and affiliate marketers. Listen up as I explore the latest digital and affiliate marketing trends and give you the insider's group on what's occurring in affiliate marketing. Join us as we explore affiliate strategies, host expert interviews with leading affiliates and tech entrepreneurs, and discuss the latest affiliates and digital marketing trends. If you want to stay at the cutting edge of affiliate marketing, you're in the right place. Join me for this week's episode and let's get started.
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SPEAKER_02Hi, hello, how's it? It's great to have you here with me this week as we talk about amplifying performance in this season's Affiliate Insider Affiliate Marketing Podcast. Wow, that sounds like a mouthful. But if you're new here, I'm your host, Leanne Johnston, founder of Affiliate Insider, the fastest growing resource for affiliate marketers, agencies, networks, SaaS companies, and pretty much anyone looking to launch, scale, and grow an affiliate program. Or for those of you who want to learn how to get the best out of your partners, or simply discover new tools, tech, and information that can help your program growth. It's fantastic to welcome you to this week's episode of the Affiliate Insider Podcast. But before I forget, and my team gives me a kicking when I do, please take a moment and visit our website, affiliateinsider.com, and join our weekly newsletter, as that's really the best way that you can stay ahead of all the latest industry and affiliate marketing news, thought leadership, QA interviews, and a host of free training videos as well. If you're tuning into our podcast for the first time or discovering this as a new podcast to listen to this week, welcome to. It's great to have you here. I'd recommend you go through the backlog of episodes that we've put down so far and get listening, as there's loads to learn from and some really interesting people that I have the privilege to sit down and talk to each week. By getting back to this week, where we're talking about amplification, how to get more, how to do more, how to gain more from your affiliate program this week, I'm giving you the highlights from the iGaming panel discussions that we covered at our recent Amplify Summit, which took place in January this year. In this episode, I'm going to be sharing some of the best ideas, comments, pieces of advice that I've heard from a plethora of industry experts who have years of experience in digital and affiliate marketing and who took the time to share their experiences with delegates that attended this event. But before I get started sharing all of this, I'd like to say a special thank you to the team at partners.io, a crypto-based casino and sports bidding program, who sponsored this episode at the Amplify Summit and brought these thoughts to you from there. Let's start this week's episode. If you're working in iGaming or esports and you've been in the Century Street for a little while, this is really one that you won't want to miss. So get comfortable, sit back, lean in, and hear some of the key areas that you can focus on to amplify your performance in iGaming and improve your affiliate relationships to expand your brand reach. This first section I wanted to share with you guys was coming from where we'd looked at giving a little bit of a different perspective in terms of the industry and where we are right now. Listen up as Grant talks about his start in the iGaming industry in the early 90s. And as Jules from Katena Media, one of the largest publisher and affiliate companies in the space, talk about what they think the future looks like today, along with some of our other panelists.
SPEAKER_08I got into the business back in the 90s when it started. So I think we put 23 operators online between 97 and 99, back in the day when there was just micro gaming, boss media, and starnet. A lot has changed, clearly, since then. Our focus of late has been to really try and penetrate uh and open uh a fully dedicated esport gambling site uh American market in New Jersey. And it's it's been quite a journey. Uh those I know there's people on the phone that understand the difference between the US licensing process and the European. And I have to say, when we when we started the process, we expected we've done five licenses in Europe, we understand the process. There should be standard procedure, and it did it's a completely different uh process. Yeah. Uh that said, uh the esports better is also a different, uh, as everybody on this line knows, uh a different uh punter than a sports better. You know, the sports better is gonna go for the best um who's making the best market or what's the best sign-up rates, and the esports uh better is still very new to gambling, so we're working that out. We're hoping that that first mover advantage gives us a unique position in the in the state, and we're looking to actually work with some of these gentlemen here on the on driving some of that affiliate traffic uh to it. So that's a that's a call out to everybody who's listening.
SPEAKER_02But uh we've been you're looking for our affiliates here in the market.
SPEAKER_10I'll give you some money for the call out later.
SPEAKER_02Actually, while we've got you up on the screen, Jules, what about from your perspective? Like, where where are you seeing the lay of the land right now and all of the operators that you're working with? What are the big key things that are sort of topical in the sports betting industry?
SPEAKER_10You know, the sports industry is a huge question. You know, for everyone else's benefit, and I'm relatively new to the gaming industry, so I've been an affiliation of performance for the best part of 20 years. Uh, gaming's new, relatively new to me. Um, when I first came in, there's a few real key observations I made. The first is there's a lot of innovation in the space, it's hugely exciting, especially in the esports area where things are evolving all the time. Uh, from um other angles, it's it's pretty archaic, if I'm being entirely honest with you. You know, some of the tracking and data and transparency blew my mind how far behind things are. So there's a lot going on in that space. Regulation was new to me, obviously, from the retail and travel space, it was very different. Um, so how regulation is opening up in the US, as Grant was talking about, is fascinating. These states create a huge opportunity. Um, when we then look at the esports area specifically, you know, the pandemic's had an impact where people are players, players are different, user profiles are different, the whole industry and landscape is evolving. And uh what's particularly exciting from my perspective is that the traditional bookmakers are really taking notice, right? So there's a transition and a shift that's gonna go way beyond the esports space. Um, a couple of random examples, NTA acquiring uh Unicorn, and I'll probably just butchered that name, so I apologize if anyone's uh listening. Um that's close, though. We know what you're talking about. Good enough, good enough. Um, but no, 50 billion investment in a company like that just shows that there's a real impact. And I think the the reality of the state currently is you know, some people are getting it right, but there's a lot more to do across the whole ecosystem. So it's exciting to see how all these uh operators really step up over the coming months and years to to take things to the next level.
SPEAKER_02Well, we're gonna talk about that in just a little minute, but one of the points that you touched on, which brings me to my next two speakers, is innovation. So, Daniel, I'm gonna start with you. Can you just tell everybody what Chalkine Sports is and and how you're working with operators right now to innovate?
SPEAKER_07Sure. So so Chalkline uh provides free to play games, and and you know, probably you know, five, six, seven years ago, there was a graveyard of free to game free-to-play gaming suppliers in Europe. Um, I think that that's changed a little bit, you know, here in the United States, uh, you know, over 2021, we just had $50 billion wagered in in sports betting, and that was an increase from 20 billion uh the year before. So we're seeing some some impressive growth. And if we take, you know, just as another data point, if we look at uh, you know, if we look at at uh New Jersey, which is our quote unquote the oldest market other than Nevada, uh, you know, they're they're growing 100% in sports betting. Um and and that's also leading to uh you know additional growth in the in the online casino. Um and and and really it's around education and and acclimation to sports betting. You know, we haven't Americans just haven't grown up uh you know placing wagers. Uh yes, you know, Nevada's been around for quite some time, uh, but it's really about educating and acclimating people to to sports betting. Um and that that sports betting is is usually kind of the gateway into online gaming for a lot of the states and a lot of the operators. Uh so you know what we do at Chalkline is just to help everybody do that from a free-to-play perspective, make it really simple, make it really easy. A lot of people don't understand what minus 120 means or minus you know 150 or the implications thereof or what overs and unders are. Uh so we just help them through that process. And and so we license our platform out to uh operators uh that are looking to do that, but also you know, media companies and uh as as they are you know collecting uh you know eyeballs and and turning those eyeballs into data so that they can turn the data into dollars from an affiliate perspective.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so a lot of innovation, a lot of opportunity to amplify. And that brings me down to you, Mikhail. I want to speak to you a little bit about some of the innovation that you guys are doing at at well, partners.io, but the products that are in there. So take us through the crypto space in sports betting and tell us what's happening there.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, thank you, Leanne. Obviously, as a YOLO group, we are focusing on crypto and that's the main thing that we are targeting. I mean, like we're trying to understand the crypto users. Uh, I think the biggest part of what we do well is the educational part. Uh we want to we want to educate customers because what we know that there's a lot of standard crypto people out there. It's a global thing. Uh, there's a different cryptocurrencies that people are using when they're making deposits, but then at the same time, there's a lot of crypto curious people that they are kind of like really interesting about understanding about this, how what is crypto, how how about how can I use the crypto, how can I play on sport betting or casino products? And I think it comes to the bottom line that if we can educate these customers even more, and that will actually help us to convert players and then people start talking about us. So we do a lot of kind of like educational piece of I think the content is really important for the user. Uh the content comes for the user experience. Uh, what we want to also try to achieve is the the wow moment for the customer. What is that for the for the user? How is the real-time understanding of platform, uh, different type of communication? Uh, I think the sport betting industry in general is is really competitive. Uh, the I think that comes for the speed, how fast we are to adapt and communicate different things when we're talking about different sport events or something is down the line, the event comes in, how fast we make changes when things are happening, and then how we communicate that as a content to the customers, potential customers. Uh, but also I think for the for the crypto angle is is is the the payment options. I think the security for the user, it's it's really important. I think the customers love that, you know, fast transactions, easy to withdraw, doing different things that that you know the normal fiat payment method doesn't provide. Uh and then I think the key, what we want to also is understand the full customer journey of crypto users, uh, where they're coming from, what sources we are using, uh, and how we can actually convert those customers uh as the deposit players. But I think as a sport, but in general, we do really well is partnerships. We are really kind of like putting out names out there, putting big like Southampton Arsenal, and then you know, shouting the Bitcoin logo, you know, that we are the leaders of crypto, and and then we communicate that directly to the wider audience. I think that's the kind of like we want to show the world that that we are focusing on crypto, and even it's a small part of the sponsorship, but then people see that all the time, and that's kind of like repeating, repeating, and keep kind of like impressions to the audience and and then be on over-the-line marketing in that way. And then it comes down to the user journey, the next level, what is acquisition and retention, the flow, the life cycle for the customers. I think that's that's where our really, really focus on. And and I really like the the free-to-play. Uh, we have that as well, and and then like like focusing on the free-to-play of the customers, that you know, how how they can come to the side and just start playing something that they love to do. But then I think the key of the future is also to understand the products, how we use those products, um, how we read data in overall, because the data gives us more insights of how we can target these audiences, and then it comes from marketing.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it was that interesting for me to hear, especially about what publishers think about our industry and how far behind we seem to be in comparison to other industries that work with affiliate marketing. I guess in the iGaming space, we tend to think if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But maybe this is the year where we need to be a little bit bolder, step outside of what we know, and go and try something new. The fact is, this industry is growing exponentially. And every day I've seen more and more MA and consolidation. So, what does this mean for affiliates and the partnerships that you're fostering in your programs right now? Are you considering how to stack up to the larger, bigger traditional operators? And will you look at investing in innovation on product, on player engagement, and indeed building the brand behind your affiliate program in the same way that you do for your players online? Then there's the onset of crypto and globalization of monetization and using these currencies and the move away from fear to deposit and withdrawals. There's a whole community of customers that have invested in this space and who are curious about it. But how is your brand considering this? And how are you helping your publishers and affiliates to foster better relationships with your affiliate management teams in order to make your products and services more efficient? There's plenty to think about and to do if you want to amplify your performance this year and get ahead. And I guess the main thing is to make a start. Think about where and how you're spending your above-of-the-line marketing budgets and also which partnerships you're embracing to build customer loyalty. Using free play mechanics, traditional advertising, and sponsorships that meet your customers daily directly in their awareness journey and get them to convert. In this next clip, we go a little bit deeper into customer segmentation of esports and sports bidding combined and talk through the customer funnel as well as how customers differ between regions and markets that mature differently. I often feel that this is still a gross misconception about who a customer really is and what they actually want or need. The truth is you have to really nail your customer avatar and be 100% clear on who you want your affiliates to bring to you to be able to launch and grow an affiliate program successfully. This dictates everything your affiliate team does in terms of deals they seek to access and partners that they invest in for the longer term to drive increased customer acquisition for your business. So listening closely now and see what the experts said about this very point and how you can ensure you're matching your marketing to the various customer segments your affiliates are speaking to in this next clip. We all think that the esports custom or the sports betting customer is your little young, kind of you know, 21 to 27-year-old on their mobile phone. But actually, there are so many diverse customer segments in this channel. And I mean, Mikhail, you touched on the crypto segment quite um severely. But Grant, I know you and I have had so many conversations about who is an esports gambler. So and and and you're shaking your head too, Daniel. So can I come to you guys first and then I'm gonna pull Jules in from his perspective on the affiliate side to talk about the customer as well. Because I think as as digital marketers tuning into this panel, we want to understand like what are the things that we should be doing in terms of reaching those customers, connecting with those customers and engaging with them. So if I can go to you, Grant, first, to talk a little bit about that esports learning channel and and that particular customer, that would be great.
SPEAKER_08Well, in terms of the demographic, uh the esports ban is it trends younger, of course.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Uh you know, under 35 most definitely. And in fact, as as you point out, we've talked about this many times. Uh traditional sports teams, and we do a lot of business with uh the pro teams uh in the American market and in the market. And they recognize that uh the younger demographic, uh the under 35, particularly when you start getting into the into the 20s, follow esports more than traditional sports. Uh so it is important that you offer uh, you know, and this is for the affiliates, offer interesting content for that market. Uh today they're overwhelmingly male, but the fastest growth segment in esports is the female uh better. And so we're we're working with a couple of you know, fam gaming, etc., to name a group, to try and develop more products specific to that emerging female market. Yeah. One of the things that was just brought up about crypto, which again is something we talk about. Here's where it gets a bit confusing for the for the tier one operators. Overwhelmingly, the higher users of crypto are that younger market that's more digitally native, they adopt too quickly. Um but the regulatory bodies are overwhelmingly managed by the 60 plus uh category, and there's a huge chasm, a knowledge chasm there. And their concern is the AML, the KYC, you know, the one beautiful thing about crypto is the friction-free transaction and then anonymity. Anonymity is not something that regulators like. So that that's that's a big challenge. You know, we we we know that the the uh the fan, the user, but the player, they're they love crypto there and and NFTs and everything digital. Uh so you know, bridging that gap and and working with groups that can help us through that gap. But I I can say certainly in New Jersey and none of the uh the US groups that we've spoken to, they're years away from uh allowing crypto uh to be utilized in their jurisdictions. And somebody pointed out Jersey, uh you know the huge growth in Jersey, we've got to keep in mind that Jersey is geographically unique. So they have the benefit of having uh Pennsylvania and New York right across one train stop. And for anybody who's ever gone to Penn Station on game day, I recommend it because you'll see a phenomenon you won't see anywhere else. You'll see thousands of people getting off the train, placing that bet on their phone, I'll be back in the train to go back to the city. Yeah, you know, get that air rails.
SPEAKER_02Logistics. And Daniel, what about you? Because I know you've got a very good viewpoint on what's happening in the States.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, so so I I I think what we're seeing is is that is that is that sports fans want to back their team. And and that's it doesn't matter what the sport is, it could be Arsenal, or it could be um, you know, it could be uh the All Blacks, uh, it could be the Dallas Cowboys or it could be their favorite team in CSGO. And the the the biggest thing that we're seeing is just there is a lot of enthusiasm. There's a lot of sports fans that are leaning towards uh that are sports betting inclined, would like to put five bucks on it because it does make the game or the the event a little bit more entertaining. But but again, it's that education level of what am I, you know, what am I doing? And am I comfortable uh, you know, in here in the United States, am I comfortable with the social security, giving my social security number? Um, you know, we are talking uh you know with with Calaround uh payment processing. Uh it's a huge, huge problem here in the United States. And so when I talk about education, and and I certainly am talking about uh you know the the odds and the terminology, the overs and unders and and straight bets and parlays and these things. Um, but I'm also just talking about you know, just get you know getting you know, getting sports fans that that are inclined to bet on sports through that entire journey from I'm gonna download an app all the way down to actually placing that wager. And so, you know, crypto is certainly one of those, you know, is certainly one of those payment processors that. that are that are helping to helping out in that at in that process. I think that you know doing grants playing I think there's a lot of people that are really interested in in betting on esports that they just you know they they're they're going to you know some traditional sports betting um you know engagement that that's a little intimidating. I think for for you know a lot of Americans that that that first uh look at at a traditional sports book in the United States is intimidating. And that's really where you know I see Jules and and the team of Katina really doing a good job of educating people through that process because there's a lot of friction in that in that entire process. And as soon as somebody sees a little bit of friction or feels a little bit of friction in that process of actually you know going from I'm not a better to to placing that wager as soon as they feel that friction they're out. And so then you know then they've got to they've got to get back into that into that funnel and and and kind of you know all three of the other panelists do a great job of of kind of you know helping them through that through through that through that funnel. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Tools what about you? Because you're close to your customers I mean you know what your customers need and want. So give us the flip side of that conversation. What you what are trends?
SPEAKER_10I don't know if my wife would agree with that but uh absolutely so so there's a few pieces here both both um both of the guys just mentioned uh the importance of content and education and you know some of that's about emerging type sports betting esports those kinds of things some of it is when we get to responsible gaming and how do we make people really understand the ecosystem that's super important but yeah esports without wanted to jump just onto esports but jumping back to that for a second the users are younger they think differently they act in a different way and um we can only do so much within affiliate so the traditional affiliate funnel is really important. We have literally thousands of websites with funnels which still work really well but those users consume data they consume the internet they consume gaming in a very very different way so we need to be working with operators to open up differently we need different opportunities looking beyond conversion funnels so we can educate the first part of the journey that's super important. We can then um you know make sure that we're embracing different types of users from different media also super important um that landscape is going to change over time especially in the US where we have media you know big media companies ultimately Disney gonna become uh a publisher a competitor of ours you know it's an interesting time there's a lot more later at this time um yeah but but the whole user journey is really important where I don't I don't want to get wild on a horse about this but this has always been a challenge in uh in affiliate marketing where the challenge really is we can only do so much to send the click to the operator or to a brand and at that point we really need transparency for us to optimize those journeys fully anything we can do to get real transparency not just the revenue at the end of the day we need to understand which bundles um on the operator side these players are using for us to really take things to the next level I'm so happy that you said that and I and I know where it's coming from because to come from a retail and e-commerce background and for a long time I have been wanting to bring these two industries together to learn from each other and that was really the the vision behind this event.
SPEAKER_07But I'm so happy that you said that because in that in the gaming industry there is still a lot of um no transparency not because people don't want to give information but because the platforms that we are using are still quite archaic um you know sing it Leanne sing it I'm I'm gonna put some pitch here but it it really is very difficult for for digital marketers and if you are an affiliate manager or a digital marketer SEO whoever you are listening to this panel I feel you because I I live that every day of my life so we are struggling with tech and you know I'm hoping that as an industry we do adopt and you know we were talking about blockchain in our previous panel so it's fresh in my mind but um I really do hope that we start looking at more innovative tech to actually give us all of those um uh data points that we need so uh I mean you know Daniel maybe you can talk to that because I think yeah and and I will say that it and and Grant you might you might be able to hear me out here is that just my my discussions and and I work with operators I work with media companies we work with affiliates like like like covers um and and so you know what we're seeing out there is is really just platforms that are stretched really really thin and I celebrate New York great but I can imagine the CTO at that operators just going oh my gosh I've got one more state that I've got to roll out I need more reporting you know and and and just to be compliant and take a bet in that state and Jules to your point never mind the fact uh that that they've got to sort out all of this affiliate tracking affiliate reporting if if I hear one more you know kind of story about uh operators sending Excel spreadsheets to to track affiliates it it it it is mind-numbing but it's yeah yeah it's the facts and and so you know these are these are the challenges that that are that that you know currently exist in in in modern day gaming in the United States.
SPEAKER_02So now you know who your customers really are. How will you adjust your program promotions and partners you're working with to bring you the right clientele number one have you done a quick audit of your program recently and looked at the top performing partners to see what kind of players they are targeting and does that match your customer brief still? Number two, have you looked at the kinds of traffic that is being sent to you and does that match your other marketing and direct channels that you're looking to augment? And number three, have you done a quick audit of the regions your partners are promoting you in? Does this match your customer avatar and where your country focus needs to be three very important things I want to encourage you to go and look at this week in your programs to see if your team is benchmarking your budgets to meet your target KPIs and matching that back to your customer avatar again. Have you checked your customer funnels you may find that this is a bit skew and you may have to realign that again to your next month's plan and program agenda. Now I'm going to pause here and do a shameless quick plug for Affiliate Insider as we really do want to facilitate technology and brand collaborations to help programs and teams get intelligent insights and to grow their businesses effectively in the year ahead. So if there are any SaaS partners out there listening in, now's a great time to drop an email to sales at affiliateinsider.com and let our team help you showcase your tech and put you in touch with affiliate managers that want to do better. In this next clip we switch to reviewing the state of the casino industry which also seems to be lagging behind in terms of manual tracking and data insights versus using machine learning to optimize offers, products and information time asleep. Leek William from gambling.com group starts us off with this in a short clip extracted from our recent Amplify Summit earlier this year. The panel also discusses the flaws that exist in productivity because affiliate marketers and affiliates are still very much working in silos within the operator business and within the marketing team structure. And they give some very clear guidance of how this could change in the year ahead to allow for better performance and amplification of your program delivery.
SPEAKER_05Take a closer listen I think the thing that I've been banging on for some time about now and I'm going to carry on doing it until everyone pays attention is the nature of machine learning and how far we are behind the mainstream industries right now. I mean generally technologically our industry tends to lag behind other industries if we think of mainstream sectors such as travel or insurance but particularly machine learning I think we um we really are behind. We talk about segmentation and CRM and user profiles not just within casino operators but also within affiliation and we're still doing it manually like it's 2001 and the Backstreet boys are still together. That is not right um we need to be leveraging the technology that we have 20 years later. If you are using machine learning correctly let's take the operator side you can set up a machine learning solution which optimizes presenting offers and products to your consumer at the time where it's going to maximize profitability. Now you can only do that if you're leveraging data and you're doing it algorithmically. What we're doing when we do it manually is we're kind of doing it on deposits and then kind of guessing that that particular player profile turns its profitability. Which whilst we use coming from an experienced you know background making these guesses, it's not good enough and we definitely have the tools there these days to do better than that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah I love that. Alan I'm gonna come down to you because I know IntelliTix has got very very detailed data and it's it's actually a a point that's been kind of through all of our panels at this summit where marketers need to use and leverage their data in order to do their jobs properly. So I want you to talk a little bit about what you guys do.
SPEAKER_06Uh yeah so um I I think uh Lee hit the nail on the head when there's uh you know the industry does lag significantly behind any other industry when it comes to use of data, organization of data and making informed decisions quickly. And I think us as a company we obviously offer tracking BI tools for operators to be able to track their affiliate programs in all their UAM and you know the way that we look at the industry and I'll take the US as a specific example just because that industry actually lags way behind Europe when it comes to the use of data when it comes to user acquisition. The fact that we're still doing things manually and don't allow dynamic sub IDs, pass through links, optimization at a granular level of data, both on the operator and on the affiliate side kind of blows my mind given that we're in 2022. I have a little bit of experience working in social gaming and some other industries where they're able to understand cohorted data in terms of where they're going to get their best quality players inside of 24 hours. And in our gaming we're still a lot of times waiting three months to determine whether a traffic source or whether a customer's likely to be profitable. And I think we um when it comes to us as a company, we're trying to solve that problem with brands, both giving them access to data in as close to real time as possible for them to inform uh how they're acquiring players um but then also give that same power to the marketers that they're working with because I also personally feel that there's quite a big disconnect between the data that operators have and that they use internally to be able to scale and then what data they actually share with their marketing partners and their traffic partners to allow them to be more profitable and for them to scale. So when we're talking about UA you know that's kind of the soapbox that I stand on. I think if we're looking at 2022 as an like just overall where can casino go, I think you're gonna start seeing more focus on product. I still think you know I've been in the industry since 2010 and it seems like everyone's still battling on or not everyone the majority of industry is still battling on offers and how can I kind of extract the most value from a player without actually giving them the most value back. I think we're gonna start seeing a lot more brands doing things a lot more interesting when it comes to product. I think you're gonna see as blockchain and like you said AI start to become more prevalent in space you're gonna start seeing um more competition for players actually enjoying themselves on your product as opposed to just trying to extract the most value.
SPEAKER_09I love that and since you um stopped on blockchain I want to bring this back to Justin um because you're obviously working quite heavily in the in the crypto space with your your casino brand what do you think are the the things we should be looking at to amplify performance idea uh yeah I mean I think the the the blockchain um crypto casinos and whatnot is that's it's a very much an innovative space that's sort of going on and I think that there's um uh definitely uh the growth of or implementation of AI is a challenge that we all have. Um to be able to get sort of you know relevant timely offers out to our sort of customers on a personalized basis. That's that's the golden goose isn't it so um that's certainly one thing. The other thing I think is uh casinos need to become more more entertainment led and and have entertainment as the core reason for why they want to acquire customers or how they're acquiring customers. I think then otherwise we we're continuous eternal battle to who could offer the best uh welcome offer or the best uh um uh whatever it might be in that sense um however you know if you sort of started to look at who where casinos are competing these days it's not necessarily just with each other anymore it's with the likes of uh the streaming platform is Netflix it's you know it's this is now what we're talking about where's our share of eyeball not just share of wallets such so um yep I think we've all got a finite amount of time and and it's something like the pandemic and we're all stuck at home and looking for new ways of getting entertainment. Um I think entertainment led led casinos will will lead the way in the future.
SPEAKER_02I love that. And Sue, what about new? Because you see the market very differently from the affiliate side as well.
SPEAKER_03So absolutely it's got to be about sustainability um and entertainment and there's massive numbers of players who hadn't gambled online before and started doing it because they were bored and want entertainment and that's kind of a different motivation to the people who were playing previously and operators need to keep those people happy because they will go on spending modest amounts of money for a long long time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah and and what are some of the trends that you're seeing um in your business because I know you work with multiple different operators so you've got a really wide broad view of the industry.
SPEAKER_03So gamification um I don't know how familiar with jumpmen gaming so jumpmen have a thing where you collect trophies and every time you get five trophies you get to spin spin a wheel play a little game win some slot spins and now there's another group of sites and a group of Dragonfish bingo sites that have copied that and done it even better. And this really gets players into the habit of coming back and playing and playing and not just playing free things, spending a bit of money every day and then it becomes a habit and then they wouldn't dream of going and playing anywhere else. And the games themselves are getting more complex and definitely games are getting higher variants. The games that are coming onto the UK slots market are getting higher variants. I think that is because of the restrictions that came in last October so now you can't celebrate a win that's really a loss. And that means that the slots that are going to engage people those little wins where you bet 50p and you win 20p there's no point to those anymore because they're you barely notice them. They're not exciting. So now what we're going to find is they're going to bring in slots where most spins are losing but then you get an amazing bonus round some of the time. So much more high octane and I have noticed this in in the slots that are coming into the market now. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So you keep a close eye on what's happening on the product side in order to actually promote to um customers on the affiliate side. So products are going to become very important.
SPEAKER_03And what about go and have a go at all the games because you've got to know your own product and this is another problem with operators a lot of affiliate managers do not know their own product at all.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03You're shaking your head Lee come on wave in there not you Lee not you like an operator.
SPEAKER_05Well obviously I'm an affiliate not an operator so I can't pass on them. But I I think it's it's not um it's not that most affiliate managers, it's nearly all of them. It's it's very when we sit down from the affiliate side this is definitely the case when we sit down with operators and we deal with our affiliate teams it's very clear that they're almost a sales team or at the very best a paid acquisition team where it's just we have a budget how do we get players from affiliates and I think there is an ignorance of the symbiosis that we should have in the market that we operate in. I mean what are we paid to do as affiliates? We are paid to advertise these brands now we're paid on an acquisition base usually but it's not always the case and really that's where we need to evolve as an industry right I mean if triple six five whoever it is if they want us to advertise their products properly well we need to be speaking to people from within those companies that are passionate about the product and know the product and know what they're trying to get out for the customer. And in 99 out of 100 cases that is not the affiliate manager.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But they try and ring fence. So our commercial team will speak to their commercial team and internally we have our product and marketing discussions what's not happening is country managers or site managers from our geos are not necessarily given the access to country managers and site geo managers in the operator side now I will say that's not always the case it does happen sometimes and where we see that being the case where we are working very closely with operators and it tends to be small ones that do this because the more well it works extremely well because the affiliate team doesn't they're not the product managers they're not the marketers they don't really know themselves what the business their business is trying to push to the user. And our marketers are not the people who deal with them. So when we're able to connect those two pieces all of a sudden we're able to effectively advertise so there's a fundamental flaw in the way that we're setting up our teams here.
SPEAKER_02That's what I'm hearing from from your maps like from from the map of Babes right so we need affiliate managers to not be in silos and we need them to be understanding the product more in order to work closely with the partners that they're meant to go and build relationships with is that what you say I think they can still be in silos I think if you look at other industries let's say you go and buy a piece of software for your business what will happen is the account manager will sell you it, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And then they introduce you to someone who onboards you to the product and teaches you how to use it and everything else. And I think the simple step here is that our commercial team sales teams whatever we want to call them they do the deals but then let's get the introductions to the people internally in the company who care about marketing the product because they're best placed to do that. So because I don't think I don't think you're ever going to like T-shape an affiliate team enough to be able to do all of that. But I think you know you can we can get the education for them to make the connections both inside their own firms and then we have to do the same thing at ours as well. It's not a one-way street.
SPEAKER_02No and I just said that because I have had that experience where I'm working on behalf of clients and I get sent from pillar to post with account managers on the affiliate side and I can never get the deal done.
SPEAKER_06So um Ann I don't know if if you want to take no I I mean I I think we again I agree with what Lee just said I think there's challenges internally in terms of integrating affiliate teams or even if we don't want to call it teams just user acquisition teams internally so that they understand goals of the overall business and they understand you know upcoming calendar what are we launching you know what does well for us what doesn't do well for us and I think you know while it's not easy to do I think integrating that team across more of a marketing team is incredibly important. I think we also face a challenge in the industry you know on the other side of our business you know now two separate companies we we run a large affiliate network um and up until maybe a year ago you know most affiliate managers at a lot of the companies we dealt with had very little experience with aid media or anything outside of like your typical kind of big SEO uh traffic and that posed a challenge for us because as you as you know um you know there's been four or five companies that have bought up a significant land grab of SEO sites. And in order for you know a lot of smaller affiliates or or newer affiliates to come into the industry they're coming in not as SEO sites but as paid media specialists who are buying traffic on Facebook, on Google on tier two ad platforms. And it's important that affiliate managers understand this kind of traffic because there's massive scale on it but there's also big risk and there's also need to be able to optimize and make decisions quickly. And there's tons of opportunity for scale there but there's also kind of a big learning curve for a lot of affiliate teams that they don't have their specific expertise. But these brands have an expertise internally because they're buying paid media themselves. So it's more of how do you combine affiliate teams with your overall marketing and UA teams and make sure that they get kind of schooled up on that. I think is incredibly important because you know a good affiliate manager can can scale and can drive ROI very quickly but someone who maybe has a little bit less experience and a little bit less guidance can hurt an affiliate program very quickly and I think it's important that we start integrating them more.
SPEAKER_09Justin actually I was uh and it's it's a very interesting point we recently did a a sort of marketing workshop internally with our teams which covered all of our acquisition plus uh our sponsorships department our you know um CRM guys are all involved and and one of the key things that we took out of it was the disconnect um and so so it it's sometimes it's relieving in a way to hear that it's not us. But at the same time um we we sort of talked about it and said guys what are we going to do about this and some of the really simple things we said is let's let's do some job shadowing programs. Let's get the the the guys from the affiliate team to jump up and go and sit with the the the guys from um partnerships and then and then as we're just hearing today about products you know what there's nothing to stop us but ourselves to to sit there and think about how do how do we how do we take small bites of of of learning about what matters to someone else and and if you're able to understand that then you're able to not only more effectively communicate but you're able to then um uh combine behind a common common goal. Um and it's not always just sales it could be just just to deliver the best product for the customer it it's learning. Yep.
SPEAKER_02Yeah absolutely and I think a lot of emphasis has been placed on affiliate managers to be relationship builders which is a very different skill set to being a data analyst, you know, like and and we're asking them to do both of those things in order to reach targets and to meet KPIs. So I think there's a definite uh desire within the industry to actually invest more in education so that these two relationships can actually match and meet.
SPEAKER_06Can I ask I'll just add one thing in there. I think I think it's important I mean you just what you just said is very accurate. I think there are too many companies in the industry who rely on their affiliate managers to be ad operations teams. And I think at the end of the day there is a reason why a lot of the bigger brands have really strong ad operations teams who both take the workload of setting up links and post apps and getting affiliates what they need, which is not necessarily what an affiliate manager should be spending their time on or just trying to scale. And and those that same team like we have internally should be analyzing results and helping the affiliate managers understand where to optimize. So again the affiliate managers can be doing their job in terms of finding new affiliates learning their relationship scaling while they're having someone who's an expert in analyzing data and holding them through that. I do think affiliate managers need to understand how to optimize and analyze and do all of that but I do think it helps to have someone internally who's dedicated to doing that because they'll be able to find trends and make decisions a lot quicker.
SPEAKER_02Well those are some big bold points to take note of here from some key players across the i gaming industry. To summarize all of that here again as we close off this episode of Affiliate Insiders podcast this week one products are going to have to change for customers to remain engaged. There's a much more competitive landscape that you're competing in not only your competitors directly gamification is a tool to consider to help you to do this both for your players and your affiliates too and we'll actually be talking about some more of this in the upcoming podcast episodes. So stay tuned and listen in. Number two, affiliate marketers have to become product specialists not just relationship managers as they've always been intended. We need to invest in on the job education for affiliate managers. We need to provide skills and support to enable them to have a wider understanding of what affiliates need and want from other marketing divisions too and become specialists in their organization. We are going to have to consider splitting teams into commercial sales, relationship management and ops and data support as programs become more in tune with the data and analysis that's becoming available to us. You may want to consider specializing and expanding your affiliate teams to segment each requirement of running an affiliate program more effectively. Tech stacks need to boot us forward to 2022 and move us out of the 90s as Lee very casually said when he referenced the Backstreet boys which were top of the pops back then. We're going to have to consider being more transparent with our affiliates versus holding on a tight rein on creativity. And lastly we're going to have to stop boxing our partners into one area of use only affiliates can now operate as acquisition, conversion and retention partners too. So think about how you're going to be working with your partners in the next couple of months and consider asking some more questions to get the answers that you need in order to make your program grow. I'm hoping that this has been helpful and that this year we'll see more brands move away from price driven offerings to deliver a product led experience and utilize content to drive entertainment and engagement versus offering money which only drives up pricing and causes inefficient margins. And let's face it, that's just lazy marketing. If you're keen to tune in and listen more to the nuggets of wisdom shading these panels, you'll have to wait for the full event videos to be released on affiliateinsider.com. So go and check out the website each week and watch the long original panels on our on-demand replays which are going to be coming soon. A quick reminder that if you're hiring new affiliate managers or you want your team to get a step up and get more from your publishers and partnerships, take a closer look at our AMP Affiliate Manager Performance Program, which is starting on the 10th of March. What's so special about it? Well you get 12 weeks of one-to-one coaching directly with me as we help affiliate managers at all levels get the support that they need to plan and grow and implement week by week. We cover 12 modules of learning with a proven curriculum that helps affiliate managers increase sales, learn new sales tactics and use the tools that we use to grow programs too. From outreach strategies to commercial negotiation, we cover it all and there are still a few seats available. So head on over to affiliateinsider.com and hit the training button in the main menu to find out more. See you next week as we talk about amplification and how to drive incremental sales, building better engagement and strive to drive incrementality and revenue growth for e-commerce and eye gaming programs this year. If you're listening to this podcast and wondering how the heck you must out on Affiliate Insiders Amplify Summit, don't worry we'll be hosting our Elevate Summit on the 14th to the 15th of June simply head over to affiliateinsider.com forward slash events and click on the Elevate Summit to register now and that's a wrap for this week's Affiliate Insider Affiliate Marketing Podcast.
SPEAKER_04If you're loving what we're putting down in this series head on over to Apple iTunes and give us a five star rating and subscribe to our podcast channel so you never miss another insightful episode. Tune in next week for more digital marketing insights and traffic driving tips, tricks and strategies to keep your digital marketing fresh and your affiliate program driving consistent sales making a high quality podcast like this takes a lot of work. That's a fact but not when you hire COPUS. With our White Glove experience we handle everything for you from guest outreach all the way through to publishing and promotion we handle it all. You show up to hold great interviews and build relationships with your guests and we take care of everything else. Podcasting is not just about the audience. Every podcast interview is the start of a new relationship. With a weekly podcast you would build relationships with 52 ideal partners or prospects through your podcast interviews over the next 12 months. Do you believe that 52 new relationships would grow your business? We do. Contact Jason at copusko s dot com and let's talk