Hi, and welcome to the Affiliate Insider Podcast. It's with me, Lianne Jonathan. This is the podcast for digital and affiliate marketers in the iGaming industry. Listen up as I explore the latest digital and affiliate marketing trends and give you the insider's view 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. This podcast is brought to you by Fed365 Partners, one of the world's best accredited iGammy affiliate programs. To find out more on how to become a partner with the World Savers, visit their website, Feb365Partners.com and join today. Welcome to Affiliate Insiders Affiliate Marketing Podcast with me, Lee Ann Johnston. I am thrilled to have an enormously special guest on our podcast today to chat through some of the big things that happen in social media. We are going to be talking with Lad Bible, which is part of the wider social network Lad Bible Group. It's a social media and entertainment publisher based in the United Kingdom. And Lad Bible is the home of entertainment, viral video, trending content, and all the latest news. And they're also one of the biggest communities in the world for the social generation. And joining me today is John Cole, who's the category lead in the sports and sports betting and gaming at Lad Bible Group. Hey John, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_00I'm very well, Yann. And yeah, it's great. It's great to be with you. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it for sure.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. So thank you so much for joining me today. We're going to be talking, well, actually, I'm going to be throwing a million questions at you because I know that our listeners are going to want to know everything that's going on at Lad Bible. But we only have 35 minutes to cram it all in. So I'm going to try and get to the point and let you start with telling us a little bit about Lad Bible, where it's come from, what the ecosystem is, and how brands in the A gaming embedding industry can benefit from your services.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. So Lab Bible as a group consists of kind of multiple household names in social and beyond, to be fair, where the reach is gone. Now we're actually as a group that ranked number one of all time for views and engagements across Facebook alone. So to give you an idea of some of the brands that are under under the group, you have Lab Bible, for example, you have Unilad, Sport Bible, Odds Bible, Tyler, Unilad Sound, Unilad Adventure. And it's all about being that sort of social voice of social first fans when you're looking at sport and our gaming and entertainment in that sense, but also about kind of being a community. I think what's important to consider whenever you're looking at just social in general, but specifically with with Lab Viable Group in the terms of the way that we see things is you have a peer-to-peer relationship with your community. It is a community, and it's important to think of it in that manner and to operate in that manner. So, you know, the reason that we've we've had the success and the growth that we've had, I mean, to give you an idea, we reached 658 million people in in December across our um Facebook and Instagram alone. So that's not accountable for a website on Lab Bible, which is the second biggest um news site after the BBC in the UK. And then you've got Sport Bible's own site, which is the biggest sport website in the in the UK, as it's down. So it's it's all I think about fundamentally understanding that community bond. It's not about telling people what to think, it's about understanding what they want to know about, being on the pulse of that, and inspiring, as we say, our communities to laugh, think and act. And that's essentially what we go to social for. You want them to be entertained, to be encouraged, to find out things they didn't know. You want them to think about the world around them and to have different opinions, but not force that opinion upon them. It's about bringing that opinion in and that community together from all different sides, and then to act and to get people to mobilize. So we've done campaigns around inclusion in sport, mental health, for example, um, and things like Blood Without Bias as well, um, which is to do with you know restrictions that existed on on gay men and blood donation, um, and which actually changed UK um UK government policy around that as well. So it's it's a big, big umbrella that that everything sits under. Obviously, we're we're kind of active uh Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, we're one of the biggest uh TikTok uh publishers on TikTok, should I say, Snapchat, um, and that that's really important to consider is you know you're not just talking about a brand that sits within a traditional environment or might have one or the other, it's about thinking as how they all kind of live together as an ecosystem. And I think that's really that's the job for for us to do and for us to think about is that how we bring brands on that journey with us, how we let them understand that ecosystem, how do we engage and try and fundamentally understand what you're getting out of it to start to sort of stop applying traditional thinking to what isn't a traditional medium and has a completely different means of reciprocal communication built into its very nature.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, I mean I think you touched perfectly on the fact that it's community. We we often think of like the operator, the customer, or the operator affiliate, and actually what you what you need to think about your brand is that you are building a community with people, with humans, even though the social platform is so accessible. Um, you know, we forget that conversation needs to still happen. It can't just be about push notification all the time. You know, here's a promo, here's an offer, here's what our new product is. It's about taking that conversation and that narrative and moving it further. That's something that you guys are incredibly good at doing. So, you know, we spoke a little bit about um affiliate marketing and how that term is becoming really archaic. And like you don't you guys don't really consider yourselves as a you consider yourselves as a publisher and a partner and an influencer all molded together. So um I'm of the opinion that affiliate managers need to be kind of like fund managers, they need to understand all about all aspects of digital acquisition as they need to make informed decisions about where they advertise their brand and where they acquire new customers. Um, and this is something that you you guys do incredibly well. So talk us through that partnership, what actually happens when you start working with a brand in the iGaming space.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure. So for me, I think fundamentally it's understanding, and it sounds obvious, but it's what you want to achieve. And as a and as I touched on it, and you mentioned around sort of community and that, that you can still deliver those messages, you can still focus on product, but it's how you interweave it into a narrative that that gives a value exchange with that community. And I don't mean in the offer itself, I mean that they're taking information away, it's content that they want to engage with. Um, because you you start to look at it from the sense of if we can understand, say, for example, it's a free-to-play product that you're looking to push as part of what it is, it's not only kind of when's the closing date, who are your targets. I mean, we reach two-thirds of all 18 to 34-year-olds across Facebook and Instagram in the UK, you know. So we we can find that audience, we've got the reach, we've got the scale. What's fundamentally important is understanding their behaviours. So when we can understand what it is you're looking to achieve, so if it's a free-to-play game and we understand that it's acquisition, there's a consideration that's built into it, and then action, we can start to look at how we use our final, how our suite, how we use that ecosystem in something we call ad 360. So the top of the final is to kind of inspire, which is that kind of awareness. You've then got intrigue, which is consideration, how we build that up, and then into kind of something like action. So you would start to think about we understand when our communities are active, we understand when they're considering placing bats or considering placing products, we understand that behavioural patterns outside of just what we're talking about. So if we're talking to a sports book client, it's also about understanding the passion points that exist outside of what they understand. So, what are they using certain channels for? For example, we know that Facebook is really good for longer-form narrative storytelling, but it's also very good for highlights and headlines. So, in a free-to-play product that might be, you know, out on Friday, closing on a Saturday morning, how do you use Facebook to start to get ahead of that, to drive that awareness, to give a narrative around consideration, but also have a value exchange so people feel like they're informed enough to then go and act on that. So that sort of starts as kind of the pre-purs. We know that Instagram is great for uh humour and headlines and interactivity. So when you look at something like Instagram stories, you might want to look at that 24-hour period, actually not just putting your offer and your product in there, but how do you want to engage with the community? That polling function with Instagram stories, for example, is absolutely fascinating for engagement. You can get reciprocal insight off the back of that in terms of how people are answering that, which can set up for later content, but also the swipe up functionality once you've engaged the community is absolutely huge. You can do anywhere up to you know regularly 1500 swipes up to sites, 3,000 swipe ups to site by understanding the community and what they want to see in that. So that's sort of your two precursors and running into the game of, but you know, it's not just stories on Instagram, it's how you can look at something like carousels in the morning on. For example, you know, we've got that data insight and planning team that I was talking about forum. We've recently done a webinar that you know we'll we'll try and share with you guys if we can, where it's all about understanding where they are. And the data and insight and planning team have worked for us to go almost what's that journey of placing about our consideration of where we're looking to do it. So I tapped on Instagram carousels, it's actually we know there's again using sport better as an example or something that's free to play. Ahead of that that kickoff, the first kickoff of the day, it really ramps up in terms of consideration and access five hours to an hour before, right? So, understanding that, then you can use something like Instagram Carousels to set up someone Saturday morning with all the information they need to know. What do they want to drive into those WhatsApp groups? What's the conversation amongst the community going to be? How can a brand fit with that? How can we align with a brand's product objectives to do that sort of thing? And then once we get in game, obviously Twitter's a huge sort of role to play within that environment as well.
SPEAKER_01And you mentioned we actually mentioned that because you said um you mentioned that there was a tweet that can get upwards of a thousand clicks. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I mean, across a weekend on the on the carousels, you can get around sort of 795. We were doing on average with a particular partner around a longer-term sponsorship around Premier League, for example, or our coverage of. Um, but yeah, but so it was interesting. We were using tweets to be uh to push out offers, to interact, to react to what's going on in game. Again, it's about being part of that community, it's not about just serving something. Be fluid to what's happening around you, tailor your creative, allow the flexibility within that to do that. But and and within that, we sort of started polling the community to understand when what is it you actually want to see? What games are you being around? What what entertainment elements actually is it that you're looking to take away from this? So we were putting out um these tweets, we were getting sort of a thousand sort of responses clicked through, registered CRM teams, the other side. We then during the restart started polling to sort of understand well, what is it that people are actually, you know, let's not presume there when you've got that volume of proliferation of games that people are watching every single game or are only watching the big maps, there are other games that play an important role. Um, and from that, we could start to identify what markets they wanted to be around, what what games they were actually sort of watching, and then working with the CRM team, the other side starts to have the specific offers to them. We saw an increase up to 2,400 clicks going through off the back of just understanding those behaviours, um, and and underlying all of that, obviously, we you know we've got a huge wealth of data in terms of you know web behaviour and being able to retarget and target in terms of understanding responsible gambling behaviour, which is obviously incredibly important as well, and being able to sort of look at that and who do we exclude, who do we include. So there's not only the bed where you start to look at it from a social perspective, there's that underlying, you know, how do you target, how do you retarget, how do you make sure they're engaging with that content, how do you take the learnings out of that? And and I think in a roundabout way, when we're talking about, and I realize I've gone off on a little bit of a sort of broad conversation there, it's I think when you start to think about you know that term as an affiliate, there's so many touch points and so many behavioural data pieces to understand that we want to work or we do work with partners to understand that tailor something that's bespoke for them that can have that call to action from it or can act as entertainment. Video is a perfect example, which we haven't even touched on yet. We worked you know with a with an operator where it was a consideration to try and move a uh a football audience into Cheltenham for that period of time. We saw a 23% uplift in consideration based on the creative that we put off the back of one video as part of that partnership. Um, and you know, we do serialized magazine style shows where we can look at the features, integrate branded content, sorry, integrated brands, objective messaging and products into those sort of things. So it's interesting. I tend to speak, as you say, think about as the ecosystem, they've all got that role to play within that. Um I think I started this by just understanding what the objectives are. It seems like an obvious statement, but when you've got so much opportunity within the business and you've got the data and insight team that can really interpret that and help that, you want to get under the hood of that, you want to take people down that LAD 360 final, as we say, and then have that outcome and be able to kind of reappraise in real time. Start looking back on performance, you know, after it's happening, reassess it in longer-term partnerships regularly, and also I think I tapped on it, but you can start to look at behavioural patterns outside of your understanding. And I don't mean that to sound dismissive. What I mean by that is you know, you can have a wealth of data as an operator, but you may not understand what the behaviours are outside of those sectors. So, some of the things we've started to sort of look at or consider is how are behaviours going to change out of lockdown, and what do we need to consider in terms of screen time behaviours, timings, actually sociability? What messaging do you need to consider? What are people going to start to enjoy and think about? Because we noticed when we were under lockdown, really interesting for sort of casino products and poker as well, is that people were gaming more. Gamifying those opportunities was important, but they were revisiting things that they wanted to try, they'd never tried to have that. So poker obviously played quite well into that, revisiting passion points that they played before but had subsided. But then we also noticed that actually as things started to to uh sort of recede, if you like, and lockdown behaviour started to change, there wasn't necessarily the impetus to retain those behaviours, and that's what the community were telling us. So then we start to work to partners to go, well, how do we understand that behavioural change? Although they haven't got you know the ability to completely sort of go out and socialise and things again. How do we make sure in a responsible manner that you are aligned with those behaviours outside of just the straight sort of poker or casino sort of understanding and bring those into the content uh um you know to benefit to benefit your business objectives and you know essentially get you copious?
SPEAKER_01What do you think has changed since you first launched you know Land Bible and the assets that you work with now? What do you you know, with all of this data and the complexity of of understanding of how to actually engage with the community, what do you think has changed since you first launched, and how do you see your role as a partner marketer evolving in years to come, especially in this industry where you know regulation's getting a lot tighter, uh people are looking at emerging markets, you know, what are some of the things that Lad Bible is is doing right now to kind of prepare for changes in future, not only from the pandemic, but also in terms of how digital is evolving?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure. I mean, look, we for us, I think it's accessibility of data and interpreting that as it has in in my experience of the business is been a lot cleaner. Like I said, we've upskilled that data insight and planning team, can fundamentally understand their behaviours and and and do that going forward. I think it's also operating in a publisher across different platforms as well. So looking at things like TikTok, and again, I don't people are gonna get sick of hearing me say an ecosystem, but how does the behaviors on TikTok actually drive the behaviours on those different platforms?
SPEAKER_01They don't people are across all platforms, right? And and new platforms are coming to the market. I mean, we've just heard about Clubhouse, everybody's going crazy over audio. So, how is that going to integrate? And and obviously, the the content that we put out on different platforms has to be different as well, and we need to understand what works, what doesn't, how you know how are people engaging? So, are you guys looking at stuff like that already now?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, look, we're like I said, we're across TikTok, we're across Snapchat, we're always looking at future ventures. I know there's there's there's some of the teams that are on Clubhouse and sort of understanding that side of things, so the data plays a part. You know, we're in AR and VR now. You know, we work in augmented reality and virtual reality and work with with partners to see how we can explore and utilize that. I think it's considerations and step changes with technology as well, right? When you when you start to look at videos, uptake on social, it's heavily aligned with sort of 4G coming in and that capacity for broader data. Now we look as we go into 5G and beyond, and then you have to consider well, what is that going to drive? What behaviours is that gonna start to inhabit and enable to get ahead of that uh understanding? And that's you know, that's where considerations around AR and VR, you know, beyond just filters, but actually as inhabitable worlds accessible via your mobile phone, and so that it it's it's looking at those sort of trends that I think are important. I think the access to data has been incredibly important, continues to be, and interpreting and understanding that, and working with partners on that as well. But fundamentally, everything we do is driven by the community. I touched on it in the beginning, and that's something that we have to touch on the end. Yes, you have to understand everything that we've just discussed, but you also have to be conscious of what your community metrics are saying, what's important to them, what are they engaging with, what are they telling you, and never ever forget that or kind of undermine that because that's what what not only drives your growth but uh allows you to be really sort of pioneering or first two in the way that you work with rant and partners as well. So, you know, important to understand as best you can the future, the impact of digital, the interactive data, the interactive platforms, but I would say never ever lose sight of your communities and make them central to what you're doing. And but for anybody that's that's running the social team decide that there are advice always, and a lot of people are very, very good at this, obviously, um, is to think as a publisher, think of what you actually stand for and kind of what you want to do, and think about your kind of commitment to that as well. Um, because that's what's going to drive engagement. And if you want your brands to stand up on their own sort of TV and bring people in and have that reciprocal community and allow them to expand, you've got to think as a publisher in that space, think of that value exchange that you're bringing to them, and as I touched on previously, think about what you're using those channels for and what the community behaviours are in there. But that's what I said. We we can as a partner help with all of that, and that's why we're forward, you know, we're looking forward at what changes are coming up and uh are always trying to understand what's going around us, so you know that's where we want to fit in work with partners for sure.
SPEAKER_01So just because a lot of people think, you know, loud bible, I mean, like we can't afford to go on loud bible. Is that actually the case? I mean, are you working with multivariate different types of partners all over the gaming industry, you know, from blockchain to sports, casino, you know, who who's who's your target customer, just in case anybody's listening here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, of course, no, it it it's it's broad. Um, you know, we have that that breadth of channels, but to to be able to kind of sort of diversify depending on what you're looking to achieve. So, you know, we we can entertain this there's multiple solutions across display in terms of formats as well, including interactive odds units that you know we can start to look at from smaller budget. There were different channels that are accessible at different sorts of spend up with something like odds by what I mean the the quality of community within there is unbelievable. It's you know it's the biggest um sort of betting community socially. Um they are on the pulse in terms of sport and um and poker and and e-gaming, and that there's there's a huge opportunity within there as well that is accessible, that is understandable, um, and then you kind of ladder up. But again, for us, it all goes back to what your objectives are. So we can we can work with variant budgets and we we want to work to build partners with us, you know. If there's some a lot of uh you know very established brands and that that uh that we work with and we work in longer term BAU capacities, fully determined. Integrated. Um, there are others that we work with, and the role is very much to grow and to understand and to use that learning as part of it. So, yeah, you know, we we've grown, we want to grow people with us. That's you know, that's the nature of social, it's constantly evolving, and we want to be part of that journey for all the way through the line for multiple operators. It's important to us.
SPEAKER_01And I think that this is something that you know, people that are listening, you know, media buyers, digital marketers, affiliate managers, whoever it is, you know, there's an opportunity here to actually leverage the learnings that you guys have, to actually partner with you and get under the skin of this data and actually learn how to build communities around their brand rather than just building sales around their brands. So, in closing, I mean, you know, we could talk for hours really, but I know I've only got kind of 30 minutes to condense it all in. But what do you think the future of affiliate and acquisition marketing is going to hold? And how do you think digital marketers should be considering their strategy as we move forward in 2021 to really engage customers virtually? Um, because this is the nature of the world that we're living in right now, in a more personalized and innovative way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it's interesting. I think obviously sort of restrictions and evaluations and and the part that plays will be a huge part of that in understanding how behaviours change. I think you know, looking forward, look at the difference in sort of consumption of of video and OTT and and sort of TV and everything like that. I think fundamentally the opportunities are gonna exist in understanding those behavioral changes, understanding the restrictions that come into play. And the future, I think the future is really interesting and really exciting. You know, you've got you've got generations that have existed with gamified content that are coming through with gamified content, you see operators starting to broaden into it, and I think fundamentally look responsible gambling is incredibly important to the community. 82% and to us, 82% of our community think agree it's incredibly important to show that messaging. 70% say that they're you know they gamble for fun, and that's the other point I think is important to make is I think the future is about being entertainment, it is about being gamified, it's how do you add value to people's experience? I know you know, like we said, responsible gambling is incredibly important. There is a role for us all to play to make sure that our communities are safe, but we we also have to consider what is that value exchange, what is that excitement, how do we live to to add value to what people are doing, and again to your point, things like AR, things like VR, they bring in new ways and means of of bringing people into your world and close to your brand, and um and also the experience because experience it breeds loyalty.
SPEAKER_01So if you have a good experience with a brand and the brand is responsible and the brand is looking after you, and the brand is giving you that entertainment value and offering you new experiences, your attention becomes you know a lot better. So it's important to look at these things as not just part of the acquisition journey, but part of the entire experience that a customer is having.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's very much kind of part of a brand experience. I think that's a really, really good point. It's an extension of it. In fact, you know, even in terms of kind of UX, we see a really high percentage of people saying that's important in terms of how they how they use operators, who they go back to, and that sort of thing. So that's become an extension of that, but it's also understanding, I think, that you know, Gen Z, millennials, the the communities that we're servicing here, they're they are more purpose-driven, they do feel passionately about the world and will take action over it, and you know, uh understanding and appealing to a generation that has an opinion, will voice its opinion, will mobilize that opinion and be active about it is also a really important sort of consideration. The social community doesn't want to be sold to, they see it a mile off. Um so trying trying to operate in that manner is is is not going to kind of work. So, you know, we we've seen, like we said, about take it action. Um we've seen multiple times that you know brands actually standing for something outside of their say parameters is incredibly important as well, and understanding what's your own community and how you can be part of a change. And responsible gambling is a huge part of that, adding entertainment is a is a huge part of that, and um and and being confident as as yourselves as a publisher and understanding what you you want to stand for and what you sit for within those, but again, that's where hopefully we can help and uh and guide people through through through what is a fascinating ecosystem and a fascinating sort of world to work in.
SPEAKER_01And also a really interesting way to think about your brand differently and to listen to the voices that are feeding back to that. Um, because I think we do forget to listen. We talk at a lot in our industry. Um, you know, we want to push what we've got to sell, we want to pedal what we're doing, and as you just said, that whole generation has grown up with a completely different mindset. You know, they care about what they are doing in this world, and you know, they care about being responsible and they care about having a good time, and they want to understand our brands, you know, providing sustainable good user experiences for them. So I think that's a really good place to kind of end our discussion today in terms of you know, Lad Bible, who you are, what you do, how you can help brands in in our ecosystem to evolve their marketing messages. And I hope you know anybody listening to this podcast will certainly be kind of reaching out to you, John. Will will be, you know, putting your details in the blog that goes with us. But I just want to thank you very much for sharing that journey with us and for you know letting us look under the bonnet of what Lad Bible is and what you do, what you really do to coordinate and help with um you know people in our sector.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's my pleasure. As you said, we I could I can talk about this all day. So if anybody wants to get in contact and and and have a chat, there's there's there's so much out there that is um that that that would be great to partner with people on and we can help with our understanding. So thank you for having me, Dan. It's been it's been great.
SPEAKER_01Thanks so much. That's a wrap for this week's affiliate insider affiliate marketing podcast. If you've loved what we've been putting down in this podcast series, head on over to Apple iTunes and give us a five-star rating and subscribe to the podcast channel. That way you'll never miss another insightful episode. Tune in next week for more digital marketing insights and traffic driving trends.