iGB Affiliate 34 (August/September)

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012

AUGUSt/SEPTEMBER 2012

Mobile and Social Gaming INFORMATION, INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS FOR THE BUSINESS OF INTERACTIVE GAMING

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CONTENTS 04 Affiliate Events Calendar 06 Webmaster News 12 Social Media: The Good, the Bad and the Profitable 14 Backlink Profiling: Your Competitor’s Performance 17 Coping with Google’s Mind Games 20 The Idiot’s Guide to Social Mentions 22 Affiliates Beware: Google is Watching You With social media and social gambling (which we define as casino-style social games) being the hottest topics of the year, we decided to put together this very special issue focusing on all things social. But we didn’t stop there. We have already held our first social ‘Meetup’ in London, with another one planned in September. The two Meetups are then followed by a full day Social Gambling Conference in London this November. If you follow the space, are in the space, or want to get into the space, then I suggest you get to London this November. See you there!

24 Interview: Aaron Yarm, UK Account Manager, William Hill 26 The Psychology of Social Gaming 28 Offline Marketing Creativity to Achieve Online Results 29 Feature: Mobile and Social Gaming 30 Feature: Overview by Aideen Shortt 32 Feature: The Social Medium 34 Feature: Lou Castle, Chief Strategy Officer, Shuffle Master 36 Feature: The Importance of Social Media for Affiliates 38 Feature: Nicole Opas, Executive Producer, Zynga 41 Mobile SEO 101 42 Mobile SEO: The Clever Affiliate’s Guide 44 The Key to Social and Mobile Application Marketing 46 Five Top Tips for Affiliates in the Mobile Space

Michael Caselli, Editor in Chief

48 An Effective Multi-Media Social Approach 50 Are you from the Past?

51 Casino Supplement 60 Inside Google+ 62 Virgin Games CEO, Simon Burridge on Social Gambling 67 Spanish Market Focus: BAC and iGB Espana Preview 70 Market Place 72 Paid Vs Organic Search for Mobile 74 Affiliate-Marketing-Ville

Editor in Chief: Michael Caselli michaelc@igamingbusiness.com Editor: James McKeown

FREE SUBSCRIPTION email: alex.pratt@igamingbusiness.com Printed in the UK by: Pensord Press, www.pensord.co.uk

james@igamingbusiness.com

Published by: iGaming Business,

Publisher: Alex Pratt

33-41 Dallington Street, London EC1V 0BB T: +44 (0)20 7954 3515 F: +44 (0)20 7954 3511

alex.pratt@igamingbusiness.com

www.igamingbusiness.com

Designer: Stewart Henson

© iGaming Business 2012. All rights reserved. No part of this

Production Coordinator: Laura Head

by any means, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature

publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or

Laura.Head@sportbusiness.com

without prior written permission, except for permitted fair dealing

Production Assistant: Carianne Whitworth

for permission for use of copyright material including permission

Carianne.Whitworth@electricwordplc.com Sales Manager: Richard Wanigasekera http://tinyurl.com/igbaffiliate @igbaffiliate

richard@igamingbusiness.com Senior Sales Executive: Ed Grundy ed@igamingbusiness.com

under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. Application to reproduce extracts in other published works shall be made to the publishers. Full acknowledgement of author, publisher and source must be given. iGaming Business Affiliate Magazine is published by iGaming Business Limited of 33-41 Dallington Street, London, EC1V 0BB, UK. The views expressed by contributors and correspondents are their own. Editorial opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the Publisher.

The Publisher does not accept responsibility for advertising content. Cover image: istockphoto.com

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affiliate events calendar Due to their popularity and wealth of information, analysis and discussion, conferences have become an integral part of the affiliate industry and a key communications bridge between affiliates and affiliate managers. Whether used for networking, education or just an excuse to meet up with friends, the affiliate conferences listed below provide all the tools you need to improve your business.

Mobile and Tablet Gambling Summit London November 21 – 22

Global Social Gambling Conference London November 16

Russian Affiliate Conference & Expo Moscow November 7 – 8

Hear insight from the likes of Probability, Betfair, Paddy Power, Google, Aurasma and many more.

The event will cover areas such as: Effectively marketing mobile products; Evaluating the latest advances in mobile; Smart TV; and creating an innovative mobile offering that works on both apps and HTML5.

The social gaming market is increasingly being dominated by gambling-style games. With Zynga and other social games publishers earning huge profits on the sale of virtual chips in social gambling environments, this has become the segment to watch in social gaming.

Attend this conference if you are in the social games space, in the iGaming space, or if you are an investor that wants to stay on the cutting edge of where social gaming/gambling is heading.

This event is designed to educate domestic and foreign vendors and affiliates on how to successfully work in the field of affiliate marketing, as well as those who are planning to master this area, the owners of products, brands, portals and services, Internet marketing leaders, heads of Internet projects, SEM/ SEO professionals, webmasters, affiliate programs, vendor sites, marketing and advertising agencies.

www.bulletbusiness.com

www.raceexpo.ru

www.socialgamblingconference.com

The iGaming Congress at G2E Las Vegas October 3 – 6

Barcelona Affiliate Conference & iGB Espana Barcelona October 11 – 14

The Internet has been a game changer for the gaming industry.

This conference will address the potential impact of Internet gambling legalisation in the US, and advise the gaming market on how to react to the changing face of the industry and take advantage of new opportunities. This information packed programme will appeal to existing offshore Internet gambling operators, as well as commercial casinos, Native American casinos, manufacturers and more.

After a triumphant return to the Catalan capital in 2011, the iGB Affiliate events circuit will once again be visiting Barcelona for its 2012 autumn affiliate conference, the original home for this leading European affiliate event for the online gambling industry. This year’s event will also incorporate iGB Espana with a separate zone and conference session specifically for the Hispanic market. www.igbaffiliate.com

www.globalgamingexpo.com

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webmaster news

PokerStars Acquires Full Tilt Poker The long-running Full Tilt Poker saga is finally at an end after the beleaguered online poker operator finalised a three-way deal that will see all of its assets transferred to rival PokerStars and players given access to their frozen funds.

The agreement with the United States Department of Justice and PokerStars will give Full Tilt Poker’s players the opportunity to request compensation while customers in all other jurisdictions are to be given access to their account via the new owner for immediate cash withdrawal or play.

“We are delighted we have been able to put this matter behind us and also secured our ability to operate in the United States of America whenever the regulations allow,” said Mark Scheinberg, Chairman for PokerStars.

“This outcome demonstrates our continuing global leadership of the online poker industry and our commitment to working with governments and regulators to ensure the highest standards of protection for players.

“Acquiring certain assets of Full Tilt Poker strengthens PokerStars, brings welcome relief to Full Tilt Poker players who have been waiting over twelve months for repayment of their money and benefits the entire poker community. Full Tilt Poker’s customers outside the United States can soon look forward to accessing their accounts and playing on the re-launched site, confident that they are supported by PokerStars’ history of integrity and our track record of delivering high-quality and secure online poker.”

The deal finalised with Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, will see PokerStars pay $547 million over the next three years to take control of Full Tilt Poker with a portion of these funds earmarked to reimburse former customers in the United States through a remission process set to be administered by the Department of Justice.

“PokerStars will also make available in a segregated bank account all outstanding balances owing to all non-US customers

of Full Tilt Poker, an amount totalling $184 million, with no restrictions on withdrawals within 90 days of completing this transaction,” read a statement from PokerStars. “PokerStars has remained open for non-US players with all its licenses in good standing without interruptions.”

PokerStars stated that it plans to relaunch Full Tilt Poker in most markets as a separate Isle of Man-licensed brand following the appointment of an independent management team due to be based in Dublin.

“We are pleased to announce these settlements by Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, which allow us to quickly get significant compensation into the victim players’ hands,” said Bharara.

“Today’s settlements demonstrate that if you engage in conduct that violates the laws of the United States, as we alleged in this case, then even if you are doing so from across the ocean, you will have to answer for that conduct and turn over your ill-gotten gains.”

Ladbrokes Reports Digital Decline UK sportsbetting operator Ladbrokes has released its interim financial results for the first six months of 2012 showing an almost 50 percent year-on-year decline in operating profits from its digital division.

The company recently announced the departure of Richard Ames, the man responsible for handling its trading and information technology duties, amid reports of a ‘botched digital strategy’ and reported first-half digital operating profits of £15 million, which is well down on the £29.7 million it made over the same period in 2011.

An analyst note from Investec, titled ‘Sad Delay’, cited the forecasted delay in upgrades to Ladbrokes’ online sportsbook and mobile platforms as reasons to be fearful for the company’s ability to claw back market share from its competitors.

“As we had feared, the new online sportsbook platform will not be ready in time for the start of the football season and is stated to be coming in Q4. Sadly, the new and critically important mobile platform will only follow this, so we could be seeing the updated mobile platform launch only from H1 2013. This gives material scope for its competitors to

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continue to enhance their market share gains over Ladbrokes, making catch-up harder to achieve for Ladbrokes into 2013.”

However, CEO Richard Glynn was optimistic for the group’s performance, suggesting that growth in the UK retail business offset disappointing online results. “At a group level Ladbrokes has performed strongly,” he said. “We have grown revenues by 8.4 percent and operating profit by eleven percent with strong cash generation continuing and a further strengthening of our balance sheet.

Strong growth in operating profit in UK retail and an improved performance in our European retail and telephone businesses was pleasing and more than outweighed a decline in digital profits, which was greater than expected due largely to a weak sportsbook margin in the second quarter and exacerbated by delays in technology.

“Looking forward we expect to see further growth in UK retail and plan to accelerate our programme of shop openings. We remain committed to our digital strategy of building a more competitive offer through a combination of ongoing investments to enhance our marketing, product and technology.

“The delivery of several key technology developments is our focus in the second half. During the fourth quarter we will deliver our new sportsbook and begin the subsequent migration of all active customers. Our new mobile platform, which is reliant on the same technology, will then follow. The active data warehouse, now in use to underpin our new trading fieldbook, will be deployed further in the fourth quarter providing enhanced customer analytics to our marketing teams. This then facilitates the subsequent development of our customer relationship management capabilities.

During the second half we will also extend the use of recent enhancements in our trading systems to cover further core sporting products.

“We remain confident that a combination of these developments together with continued improvements to customer relationship management throughout 2013 will allow us to grow our digital business significantly.

“While we are mindful of the challenging economic backdrop we are comfortable that performance is in-line with the board’s expectations for the full year.”

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webmaster news

Facebook Launches Real Money Gaming App Facebook has entered the world of online gambling in August, after the first real-money bingo and slots app was launched on the site. The Jackpotjoy Bingo and Slots Friendzy app, created by Gamesys, is open to players in the UK over the age of 18.

“People love playing new types of games with their friends on Facebook and real money gaming is a popular leisure activity in the UK,” said Julien Codorniou, Head of EMEA Gaming Partnerships at Facebook. “We’re delighted to be working with Gamesys to enable them to offer their games on Facebook so that people can enjoy

playing more games with their friends.”

The Friendzy app comprises of a series of 90 ball bingo and slots games which will offer UK-based Facebook players the chance to play with and win real money.

“As the UK’s leading online Instant Win and Bingo operator we are committed to extending our products to a wider adult audience so we’ve reinvented our exclusive Bingo and Slots games to appeal to the UK Facebook community,” said Jackpotjoy Managing Director Michael Saunders, “This marks an exciting turning point for the industry and a milestone for the Gamesys business.”

Georgia Lottery Approves Online System Lottery customers in the southern American state of Georgia will soon be able to purchase tickets with the click of a mouse after officials from the Georgia Lottery Corporation approved an online system.

According to a report from the Associated Press news service, online sales are expected to commence in the autumn and could see the Georgia Lottery increase revenues by millions, which would help the state’s lottery-funded HOPE Scholarship and pre-kindergarten programmes.

The new Republican governor for Georgia, Nathan Deal, had earlier opposed expanded gambling in Georgia but told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper that he was ‘fine’ with online lottery ticket sales.

Online sales are to be initially limited to Powerball, Mega Millions and Fantasy 5 with the state also set to institute controls designed to ensure that customers are at least 18 years of age and in Georgia.

“Lotteries are one of the last industries not to offer our products digitally,” said Margaret DeFrancisco, President for the Georgia Lottery Corporation told local television station WSB-TV. “We’re hoping to begin to draw some of the people who are cashless, many of whom are young. We expect there to be slow and steady growth.”

Georgia follows states such as Illinois and Delaware in approving systems to expand their lotteries to the Internet with the latter being the first US state to incorporate full service intra-state online gaming.

Black Friday Figure Jailed Ira Rubin, one of the eleven men charged as part of last year’s ‘Black Friday’ indictments, has been sentenced to a threeyear prison sentence and ordered to forfeit five million dollars in earnings.

Accused in April of 2011 of helping to illegally process payments for online poker sites AbsolutePoker.com, PokerStars.com and FullTiltPoker.com, Rubin pleaded guilty in January to three conspiracy charges after being detained by authorities in Guatemala where he had fled to avoid arrest.

The government and Rubin’s own defence attorney had recommended a sentence of 18 to 24 months, as specified by the advisory federal guidelines, but US District Judge Lewis Kaplan stated that such

a term in prison would not have served as a deterrent to future crime.

“You are an unreformed conman and fraudster,” Kaplan reportedly told Rubin in a Manhattan courtroom. “A significant sentence is necessary to protect the community.”

Kaplan declared that Rubin’s actions had been in ‘brazen’ defiance of US law while explaining that he expected the defendant would receive credit for the time he had already spent in jail and could be released after 31 months with good behaviour.

Once released, Rubin is to be forbidden from participating in any business occupation related to payment processing or financial services.

William Hill Pens Plaza Deal

Less than a month after receiving an online gaming licence from the Nevada Gaming Commission, William Hill has signed a deal to provide the Plaza Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas with mobile sportsbetting and a self-service betting kiosk.

After receiving its licence, William Hill completed its previously announced acquisitions of American Wagering Incorporated, Brandywine Bookmaking, which has operated the Lucky’s Race and Sports Book at the Plaza Hotel and Casino since 2008, and the racing and sportsbook assets of Sierra Development Company for a total of approximately $53 million.

“We have had a long partnership with Lucky’s Race and Sports Book at the Plaza Hotel and Casino,” said Tony Santo, President of Play LV, operator of the Plaza Hotel and Casino.

“Our customers have come to expect a high level of customer service and the commitment of William Hill to cutting-edge technology will only improve our customers' experiences.”

IGT Signs California Deal for Double Down International Game Technology (IGT) has signed a deal that will see the Golden Acorn Casino and Travel Center in California host an online casino application from its Double Down Interactive subsidiary.

Las Vegas-based IGT purchased the casual games developer in January and revealed that the Golden Acorn Casino is set to utilise its technology in order to offer casino players free-play gaming experiences.

“Golden Acorn recognises the opportunity to provide gaming entertainment to its players across various channels,” said Eric Tom, Global Sales Executive Vice-President for IGT. “This solution is allowing it to grasp an opportunity to evolve as the landscape of gaming also changes permitting it to drive engaging game play directly to its casino guests and fans of the Golden Acorn Casino and Travel Center brand.”

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webmaster news

EveryMatrix Receives Alderney Licence

Software supplier EveryMatrix Limited has announced that its OddsMatrix sportsbook has been awarded with a Foreign Gambling Associate Certificate by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission.

EveryMatrix stated that this represents ‘one of the first licences’ to be issued under the jurisdiction’s recently tightened guidelines for its Category One licensees and “validates that the infrastructure, processes and procedures” of OddsMatrix as well as its GamMatrix gaming management platform meet the rules, regulations and practices of the Alderney Gambling Control Commission.

EveryMatrix declared that holding a licence from Alderney is “highly profitable for gaming operators” as they can select to have their sponsored products and services placed under the supervision of the respected European jurisdiction.

“We are delighted to have met the strict criteria set out by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission and this is unquestionably a significant achievement for EveryMatrix,” said Ebbe Groes, Chief Executive Officer for EveryMatrix.

“The license demonstrates that our award-winning products and services are adaptable and fit for purpose within regulated markets on an international scale.”

Ladbrokes Builds La Liga Presence

Less than a month after agreeing to serve as an official sponsor of top-flight Spanish football club Espanyol through its Spain-facing LBapuestas brand, Ladbrokes has signed a similar deal with Valencia CF. Although no official details of the agreement have been released, it’s believed that Ladbrokes will serve as the ‘official betting partner’ for the 93-year-old club throughout the 2012/13 season.

February saw Ladbrokes extend its sponsorship of the St Leger horserace by a further three years to take its backing for the oldest of the UK’s five Classic races to a full decade and this latest deal is an attempt to grow its presence in the newly regulated Spanish online sportsbetting market.

One of the most successful top-flight Spanish football teams, Valencia has won La Liga on six occasions, most recently in 2004, although it finished last season’s campaign in third spot a full 39 points behind champions Real Madrid.

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Cantor Gaming signs California Online Poker Deal Cantor Gaming, an affiliate of global financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald and a provider of mobile and in-play betting and gaming technology solutions, has entered into an exclusive provisional agreement with Californian non-profit horseracing group Horse Racing United.

Cantor Gaming runs sportsbooks for seven Nevada venues and stated that the deal will see it provide Horse Racing United with the technology and supporting infrastructure required for a “world-class intrastate Internet poker platform”, subject to pending state legislature approval.

The agreement is also subject to Horse Racing United being selected by the state as one of a limited number of licensees permitted to operate an intra-state Internet gambling website.

“In concert with its affiliates, Cantor Gaming has more than 800 professionals in California serving gaming, financial, real estate and other industries,” said Lee Amaitis, President and Chief Executive Officer for Cantor Gaming.

“As a leading innovator in mobile casino gaming and race and sports wagering, Cantor Gaming is excited about the potential opportunity to support the state’s effort to generate significant new sources of revenue during these challenging budget times."

Horse Racing United represents the interests of a majority of California thoroughbred racing and breeding organisations including Santa Anita Park, Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, Golden Gate Fields, Oak Tree Racing Association, Thoroughbred Owners of California, California Thoroughbred Breeders Association and the California Authority of Racing Fairs.

“In order to provide new revenue for the state, protect California jobs and make sure California is economically competitive, Horse Racing United is committed to working with the state of California to seek a legal Internet poker solution that works for all parties,” said Josh Rubinstein, Development Senior Vice-President for Del Mar Thoroughbred Club.

Committee Calls for Modernisation of UK Gambling Laws The cross-party Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has published its report into the current state of domestic gambling legislation and has called on the government to further deregulate the activity in recognition of its global nature.

According to a report from the BBC, the Committee’s report found that current regulations are ‘outdated’ and ‘ill-equipped’ to deal with social and technological changes and recommended that online gambling taxes be set at a ‘correct level’ in order to encourage offshore firms to return to the UK. Other suggestions made by the Committee include permitting land-based casinos to relocate more easily as long as they have backing from the local council while betting shops should be allowed more than the current four high-stakes slot machines in order to reduce the clustering of shops. These units feature cash prizes of up to £500 and the report suggested that up to 20 of these could be permitted in casinos with strict access rules. The Committee stated that the

2005 Gambling Act, which sought to liberalise the industry and came into force in 2007, had resulted in ‘numerous inconsistencies’ and it called for specific research to be conducted into the risks of problem gambling among children.

John Whittingdale, who has been a Conservative MP since 1992 and serves as Chairman for the Committee, declared that his colleagues supported further liberalisation where appropriate along with more decisions being taken at a local level rather than by central government or regulators.

“While we recognise the need to be aware of the harm caused by problem gambling, we believe there is considerable scope to reduce and simplify the current burden of regulation,” said Whittingdale.

“The ‘reluctantly permissive’ tone of gambling legislation over the last 50 years now looks outdated. It is also inadequate to cope with the realities of the global market in online gambling and even seems ill-equipped to cope with the realities on our High Streets.”

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webmaster news

UK Online Bingo Activity Slows Online bingo wagering and player activity during the second quarter of 2012 has dropped in comparison with Q1 according to a new report from www.

Bingoport.co.uk.

The independent authority’s exclusive Bingo Trends data revealed a decrease of 6.1 percent in online bingo wagering from January to March, with an estimated £255,626,262 wagered on bingo tickets in the UK from April 1 to June 30, 2012.

This is the first quarter that Bingoport,

which started data tracking in June 2011, has recorded a decline in bingo wagering and in player activity levels.

“Obviously the April to June quarter has historically been impacted by the warmer weather and summer holiday season, but in previous years, ongoing growth of the industry has countered any reduction in activity during this period,” said Bingoport. co.uk Managing Director, Scott Logan, “It seems clear that the industry is no longer growing at such a rate.”

Social Gambling Conference Set for November iGaming Business has confirmed that the first Global Social Gambling Conference will take place in London this November after the success of July’s Social Gambling MeetUp. Over 100 gambling operators, game developers, investors, games producers and casino technology companies were on hand at London’s Verve Bar on July 17 for the social networking event organised by iGaming Business.

“The MeetUp was set up to gauge the level of interest in the market and to allow people from all facets of social gambling, who may not be involved in the gambling sphere yet, to network and do business,” said Alex Pratt, Head of iGaming Business.

“We felt that the interest in this MeetUp went beyond networking, with people

needing information and education on the subject. Our two speakers gave a quick overview, and attendees gave us such positive feedback, a full day conference felt like the next logical step.”

The two speakers in question were the Managing Director of Enteraction, Andy Rogers, who spoke about the opportunities in the market and the CEO of Plumbee. com, Raf Keustermans, who elaborated on how a social casino games company can secure funding.

“The social space is exciting and we are throwing ourselves behind it,” added Michael Caselli, Editor in Chief at iGaming Business. “As the only dedicated conference in the space, we want to educate and connect everyone, including our competitors, to the emerging world of social gambling.”

Scientific Games Acquires Parspro US lottery specialist Scientific Games has acquired Icelandic online sportsbetting systems provider Parspro for an undisclosed sum. The deal will see Scientific Games obtain all of the elements necessary to operate an online betting site, including software, secure hosting, traditional sports wagering and live betting propositions as well as a full range of support and ancillary services.

The Parspro assets will also enable Scientific Games to offer a full-service Internet platform, integrating casino, poker and other gaming content from multiple third-party providers.

“Given the rapidly liberalizing regulatory landscape, we believe sports wagering is a significant opportunity for regulated operators in Europe and other jurisdictions over the next few years,” said Bill Huntley, President, Lottery Systems for Scientific

Games. “Parspro’s experienced development team, who will be joining Scientific Games, and its comprehensive risk management tools and strong track record will be key advantages for Scientific Games’ existing customers as well as potential new lottery and commercial customers.”

Sigurdur Baldursson, Founder and Chief Executive of Parspro added, “Teaming up with Scientific Games, a global leader in the lottery and gaming industry, is a winwin for our company and our customers.

Scientific Games has integrated our sportsbetting interactive system with their venue-based lottery system, which supports nearly 4,000 retail points of sale in Norway for Norsk Tipping. This combination of product offerings should be attractive to lotteries and licensed private sports book operators around the world as they seek additional sources of revenue.”

PokerStars Sunday Million Seat on Offer at BAC

IGB Affiliate has partnered with PokerStars to offer attendees at this year’s Barcelona Affiliate Conference entry into a special poker tournament with the winner set to walk away with a seat in the PokerStars Sunday Million.

“We’ve run this freeroll for the last two events and its popularity has increased each and every time.” said Alex Pratt, head of iGaming Business and iGB Affiliate. “We always try and bring increased value to our delegates, and whilst this might not be a traditional way of bringing ROI, it’s a nice added bonus to give to affiliates who attend our events.”

BAC 2012 will be held at the Fira de Barcelona from October 11 to 14 bringing together over 1,600 affiliates, affiliate programs and industry suppliers. This year, BAC is incorporating iGB Espana, bringing two events under one roof. Entry remains free for affiliates.

Intralot Moves into Mexico

Intralot SA, the Athens-based developer and supplier of gaming and transaction processing systems, has entered the Mexican market after agreeing to supply products to the nation’s Loteria Nacional via electronic lottery systems and services provider Sorteo Games Incorporated.

Intralot stated that it had already established a ‘strong presence in Latin America and the Caribbean’ while its keno game is scheduled to be the first gaming product deployed in Mexico. “As a fast developing market, Mexico was a natural target for Intralot,” said Nikos Nikolakopoulos, Latin America Managing Director for Intralot.

The New iGB Affiliate website is now online, visit www.iGBAffiliate.com

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Photo: Toby Maudsley

TRAFFIC

Social Media: The Good, The Bad, The Profitable Frank Watson, CEO of Kangamurra Media, examines the best ways to utilise the key social networks to ensure that you aren’t leaving money out on the table.

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We are by nature social beings. Even before the world wide web was introduced

by Sir Tim Berners-Lee 20 years ago, the Internet was a social platform. We had IRC to chat, email and news groups to share opinions and information in general.

As Jay Neuman1 noted, “a new marketing terrain was created at the end of the Twentieth Century. A generation of pioneering entrepreneurs set out on a great adventure. They invented new technologies and carved out new business models from an uncharted virtual frontier. Many did not understand the terrain they would have to pass through. Hundreds of failed Dot-Com start-ups would litter the landscape of the, so called, ‘New Economy’. Those who did succeed figured out what the new terrain looks like. As time went by, they adjusted their business plans to meet the realities of that terrain. In the process, they forever changed the way marketing is practiced.”

With the advent of the web, our social animal was truly set free and affiliate marketing emerged as a serious business.

The gaming and adult industries were the early leaders in developing programs and many people made a lot of money pandering to our baser desires – hey, if you have been actively making a living from the web for more than 15 years, you played in the space.

Forums were the early learning centres as we all waited for connection speeds to increase. There were hundreds of them covering all aspects of then current online marketing methods. A few have survived and others have come and gone, replaced by the ‘New Social Media’, but to totally disregard them would be foolish. They can be great resources for sparking new creativity.

But enough about the past, after all, you are reading this in the hope of learning what works today. No longer are we waiting for faster computers and modems, people

now want the latest app, the cool sites and tools for enriching their lives in whatever form our creativity can provide.

Online consumers are fickle; they will drop social media in an instant if something new or more engaging comes along. MySpace is one of the bigger ones that have been left behind, the rest are too numerous to name. What that tells us is not to invest all your efforts in just one or two social platforms. Like Google’s algorithm changes, the possibility of a shift is ever present and can leave you scurrying to make up the drop in profits.

So what are the hot properties right now? Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and newcomer Pinterest top the list, with Instagram quickly catching up.

YouTube, though the second largest search engine, does not make my cut, nor do sites like Flicker. The social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, Digg and others can be used effectively but really are only second tier – so unless you have a team or are using good tools, they should be treated as such.

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Facebook Which of these offers the most headaches?

The biggest, of course. Facebook has been good, but now holds the title of ‘The Bad’.

If you are aware of this, you can work cautiously and do well.

Why am I so down on Facebook? ‘Likes’ are a very dicey measurement; numerous reports, as well as admissions by Facebook itself, show it includes a lot of fake accounts clicking the upturned thumb. So if you were planning on using Facebook advertising for building followers you need to be aware of these pitfalls. Facebook has been made aware of this and is not issuing refunds like PPC engines do when shown evidence of fraud.

Building real ‘friends’ takes time and interaction, but if you do it that way you can build a good pool of potential conversions.

Once you have them, there are a number of ways to work them.

After you build your Facebook account and Fan or Business pages, you need to use the social crossover ability to successfully promote your products. Whether you are using Facebook as your gateway to your affiliate programs or have standalone sites, you need content to convert them to profits.

Here are a few ways to use Facebook that should be in your repertoire.

1. All pages of your website should have ‘Like’ buttons – people can click on them without being your friend and, in doing so, are touting your stuff to all their friends.

2. If you are using Pinterest (and you should) install the Pin It plug-in for your browser – whenever you add something to Pinterest you can then post it to your Facebook account. Apart from your own pages getting more traffic, your other pins should be to sites you have affiliate programs with and the URL should include the code.

3. Find new followers inside the walled community. One good thing about Facebook is that it has free versions of many gaming products. So, if you are promoting poker, start playing and be social, chat with players and then send friend requests. May as well build the right demographic.

4. Use an analytics product that specialises in social media with strong Facebook features. I like PageLever but there are others and Facebook itself has Insights which is good to learn on.

5. Organise contests: give away your initial commission to the winner to entice them over. I know of a female poker player who uses her good looks to build followers and holds private poker games where her ‘friends’ can play in closed tournaments.

6. Pin posts in your timeline to get more views of your main call-to-action.

7. Posting on your Facebook Page between 8pm and 7am receives 20 percent more user engagement.

<a href=”http://thecompleteinternetmarketer.com/about_the_book.html”>The Complete Internet Marketer</a>,

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8. Use: <a href=”https://www.facebook.com/ about/subscribe”>the Subscribe button</a> on your Facebook page and also: <ahref=”https://developers.facebook.com/ docs/reference/plugins/subscribe/”> on your website. Then post all your articles from your website on Facebook – its closed walls do not allow Google to crawl so none of the content will be seen as duplicate.

Twitter Twitter can be a very good platform for getting visitors to your website and even straight to your affiliate vendors. The popularity of this microblogging platform has spawned conferences, numerous tools and made a lot of people a solid source of income. Like most social media, other people were making money long before Twitter did.

Twitter is a cross between a soapbox and a global bar and the people who are using it profitably know how to walk the line between the two. There are tools that can build your followers, but remember for success that this is not a vanity play, as with all social media the numbers you want are sales and conversions.

I am not recommending against using tools – Twitter is a fast-paced platform so any help you can get is good. There is no specific method as you need to develop a style you find works for your approach but like all marketing, success is measured by conversion. However, I do have a few suggestions that may help focus your time.

1. Do not lump everyone together. Just like setting up email lists and qualifying them through responses to your email cycles, Twitter followers should be grouped – be it by words used in their tweets, who they have in their following lists, and where they are based. Separate by language, by type of gaming interests and location (this helps where the laws differ).

2. While tools can help you build lists, there are ready made lists you can access to get the exact people you are looking for. Where? Try all of the accounts of the celebrities of the space. If you have not followed all of the people who follow Phil Hellmuth you are missing a big opportunity.

LinkedIn LinkedIn is the most business-oriented social platform and is great for B2B marketing, but it is also a great resource to reach the right age demographic, as well as a group with the discretionary income to spend on gaming.

While many of the tips for using LinkedIn do not pertain to what the gaming affiliate needs there are a few to consider.

1. Create groups: gaming discussions can be popular and can be grown by reaching out to your contacts and have them pull in their contacts. Don’t use this as a pure push for your products – make them want to engage, come back to learn and have fun.

Use the social proponents.

2. Given you are not looking for people within the industry (unless you are looking for other affiliates) this platform allows a broader approach. Go to other groups and look for people who engage as they will add to the discussions and build user generated content, as well as share with others.

3. Most people use LinkedIn in a location-specific manner and while most of you are now thinking ‘but we don’t have to’, you are missing the possibilities.

We have the opportunity here to tailor groups to specific countries where different games and different offers can really improve conversion.

4. Use creative text for your website links. ‘Secrets to winning poker’ or ‘Even you can beat Phil Hellmuth’, for example.

Google+ Google+ may be the newcomer to the party but success here has other benefits. The more pluses your content gets can help lift your pages in the organic results.

Google+ offers a number of different areas that can be used effectively to lure followers to circle you.

1. Flesh out your ‘About’ page: this is, in most cases, the first contact point. People look at your profile before deciding to add you to a circle. Create an introduction that will garner you followers.

2. Upload pictures: a trick I learnt recently is to make photos 720 x 720 pixels that contain tips or coupons. It will draw people in and can make people aware of what you are offering.

3. As with Twitter and the other social media I always look at other people’s followers.

4. “You need some stinking badges”: Google+ has them to add to your websites and people have a tendency to click on them. You need to go to the <a href=”http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/ platform-preview/”>Platform Preview page</ a> and sign up, after that you can <a href=”https://developers.google.com/+/plugins/ badge/”>customize the Badge look</a>.

5. Offer educational Hangouts: have a time when people can come and learn something or discuss industry news.

The more you provide, the stronger your presence will become.

Pinterest Pinterest is getting hot at the moment and is more than a picture bookmarking tool.

1. Use Pin It or any of the other tools that help post to your boards, as it allows you to share the post on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ while you are at it. Cross posting saves time and broadens the ties between your various social accounts; a good way to convert visitors from one to the other.

2. Name your boards interestingly: if the naming is plain, many will think the info is too.

3. If you are going to pin others’ sites that you do not have an affiliate connection to, then separate them into a board of their own.

4. All direct pins to your affiliate vendor sites must have your code. Pinterest has been known to override affiliate codes in some cases, especially Amazon, but after some serious pushback that could have threatened the platform’s existence, it has changed back. But this is something to be aware of and monitor if it reverts back.

To sum up So you now have some things to think about and try. Social media is growing as a major area of profitability and if you are not using it as part of your marketing method, you are leaving a lot of money on the table.

Frank Watson is CEO of Kangamurra Media and has been involved with the web since it started. For five years, he headed SEM for FXCM, which was once one of the top 25 spenders with AdWords. He’s worked with most of the major analytics companies and pioneered the ability to tie online marketing with offline conversion.

He has now started his own marketing agency, Kangamurra Media. This new venture will keep him busy when he’s not editing the Search Engine Watch forums, blogging at a number of authoritative sites, or developing some online community sites. Frank was one of the first 100 AdWords professionals, as well as a Yahoo! and Overture ambassador. He is on the Click Quality Council and has worked to diminish click fraud.

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Backlink Profiling: Your Competitors’ Performance Knowing what your competitors’ backlinks look like is key to understanding how to reach the top spots in the SERPs. In the previous issue, we showed you how to exclude crash-and-burn spammers from your radar and focus on your real competitors; we will now show you how to discover what’s going on under their hoods. By Matteo Monari, COO of BizUp Not having the right quantity and quality of links is one of the main factors preventing most sites from achieving top rankings for the main keywords of a certain niche. Being too aggressive in your link building strategy, however, could turn out to be counter-productive, especially now that Google has added the new Penguin algorithm to its anti-link-manipulation arsenal. Knowing how your successful competitors are acquiring links, how aggressive they are in their link building strategy and what they consider ‘good’ or ‘bad’ when it comes to link building means knowing where to draw the line in your link building campaigns. Find out how many links your competitors have, how good and genuine they are and how fast they grow and you will know half of the reasons why they rank the way they do – and how to do the same.

Step 1: quantity and genuineness The first data you want to know about your competitors’ links is their quantity and how genuine they are. In order to get the raw numbers we will work on to draw our conclusions, I recommend using Majestic SEO . Using Majestic SEO’s Site Explorer or even better its Bulk Backlink Checker, it is possible to extract the following data for each of your competitors: ●●Links ●●Linking domains ●●Linking domains on a different IP ●●Linking domains whose IP belongs to a different C class On`ce you have obtained the data, you should export it to a CSV file, load it in Excel or Open Office Calc and add the following calculated values to the raw ones you already have: ●●Proportion of links/linking domains: this factor will indicate how aggressive the

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backlink profile is in terms of site-wide links. More site-wide links may mean bought blogroll links or genuine blogroll recommendations. In our business, the former will be the case most of the time. ●●Proportion of linking domains/linking IPs: this factor will indicate how many of the sites linking to your competitors belong to easily identifiable networks – the lower the number you get, the more ‘genuine’ the linking sites are. ●●Proportion of linking IPs/linking C classes: like the previous factor, the result of this proportion will also be a representation of the (estimated) genuineness of your competitors’ backlink profile: the lower the number you get, the more ‘genuine’ the linking sites are. A particularly high score in the linking domains/linking IPs or in the linking IPs/linking C classes proportions clearly indicates a wide use of networks, possibly related to mass purchases of links or to a self-owned link pyramid.

Step 3: deep-linking strategies After having obtained a satisfying overview of your competitor sites’ links, it is now time to see how incoming links are distributed across the different pages composing each of the sites. Using Majestic SEO’s Top Pages function, it is possible to easily extract link data relative to the top pages of each site (stopping at the top 50 pages will normally be enough). This data can then be compiled in two ways to understand more about your competitors’ deep-linking strategy. Calculating the proportion between the amount of links to the homepage and the total amount of links will tell you how much deep-linking is going on for each site. Turning each site’s page-specific link data (links and linking domains) into a graph ordered by the amount of referring domains, instead, will quickly show you which of your competitors’ pages are receiving site-wide links. Is this a natural consequence of some viral piece of content or the result of an aggressive link building strategy towards key pages? In both cases, this information will be useful to you.

(Figure 1: Spikes possibly indicating sitewide links to deep pages of a competitor’s site [Homepage omitted due to graph size].)

Step 4: deep-linking standards Step 2: estimated quality Quality can hardly be defined by a number, and to really understand the qualitative aspects of a single link, one would need to sit down and carefully evaluate tens of factors related to the link, the linking page, the linking site, etc. However, parameters such as PageRank and Majestic’s AC Rank can provide an approximate representation of a site’s quality. Once we have collected these values for all sites linking to our competitors, we should look at the percentage distribution of every PageRank and AC Rank class. This will give us a quick representation of the linking site’s ‘raw quality’. (Note: beware of suspicious amounts of high PR ‘.edu’ and ‘.gov’ links – in our segment, these types of links are most often obtained by comment-spam or parasite hosting and are, in the long run, definitely not to be considered high quality links).

Considering the amount of linking domains towards top-pages and putting the data relative to all selected sites in the same graph will provide a good overview of your industry’s deep-linking level. How many ‘top-tier’ pages do your competitors normally have? How deep is your industry’s standard deep-linking? Are you missing out on some important search cluster your competitors dedicated a specific page to? This analysis will help you to answer these questions.

(Figure 2: Different distribution of linking domains across top-tier deep pages.)

Step 5: follow vs nofollow Links Nofollow links do not pass ‘link juice’ and, theoretically, have no impact on rankings.

However, a high amount of nofollow links may mean a site is heavily discussed in forums or blog comments, in which links are normally nofollow. Apart from genuine

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citations in blogs and discussion boards, a high amount of nofollow links could also indicate blog and forum spam. A second look at your competitors with the highest percentage of nofollow links will help you identify what their strategy is. As we said, nofollow links have theoretically no ‘link’ impact on your rankings. However, they could still be considered as a social signal and contribute to your site’s level of trust in Google. Therefore, you should also make sure your backlinks’ follow/nofollow proportion does not stick out from your niche’s standard levels.

(Figure 3: Different distribution of follow and nofollow links in different sites.)

Figure 1

Step 6: link acquisition speed Majestic’s backlink history function allows you to see a rough estimate of your competitors’ link-growth rate. Comparing the link-growth of several competitors over the same time will help you to see who is investing more resources in link building, who may be involved in mass-acquisitions (watch out for bizarre spikes in time) as well as your niche link generation seasonal trend. Natural links do not grow in a linear way throughout the year, but follow trends depending on sport events, celebrations, holiday seasons, and so on. If you are planning an aggressive link acquisition campaign, you should use your knowledge of your niche’s link generation seasonal trends to camouflage your possible link spikes as part of a seasonal growth.

Figure 2

Step 7: time to use your data If you have followed our suggestions stepby-step, for each of your main competitors you should now know: ●●How many links they have ●●How natural those links are ●●How supposedly good those links are ●●How those links are distributed ●●How fast those links are being acquired

Figure 3

Combining this information with your knowledge of your competitors’ ranking history and connotation, you should now be able to get an idea of where you stand compared to them: should you acquire more links, no matter their quality? Is your profile too unnatural? Should you focus on acquiring a few, high quality links?

In the next instalment of our backlink profiling series, we will look at different link building techniques to solve the problems you have possibly just discovered, so make sure you do not miss the next issue of this magazine.

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How to Remain Sane while Google Plays with your Mind There are a number of psychological issues which plague SEOs. The impact ranges from impeded performance through to total self-destruction, usually in the form of vice-driven addiction.

This is a serious issue I’m seeing more and more within the SEO industry: extreme behaviour coupled with increased paranoia among the community.

The amount of debauchery going on at one SEO conference I attended lately got me thinking that this was certainly a trend that was on the up. The conferences I used to attend involved SEOs bragging about their trophy rankings and their techniques for understanding algorithm changes, but these days, more and more SEOs are bragging about altogether more recreational pursuits.

This has got me thinking. There is certainly a shift of sorts taking place, so I asked myself what could be driving this increasingly common behaviour.

One thought was that as the industry evolves, there appear to be parallels in other underground movements reaching the mainstream. In fact, there are many additional similarities due to the sector’s lack of barriers to entry, lack of formal training and its Wild West origins.

There are two distinct areas which

appear to be in play: (i) ego and (ii) fear, uncertainty and doubt.

“Fear uncertainty and doubt has historically been Google’s biggest method of plugging the gap in the failings in its own technology.”

The paranoid Penguin Vs the dishonourable Panda Extreme behaviour aside, other recent observations within the SEO community includes: ●●An increase in SEOs turning on each other and outing link buying ●●A notable increase in negative SEO activity ●●Increased communication between SEOs and Google Following the last two Google algorithm updates, Penguin and Panda, fear uncertainty and doubt are at an all time high. Several conspiracy theorists within the SEO industry blame the introduction

of these updates and the ‘Notice of Unnatural Links Detected’ as the cause of this increasingly widespread paranoia leading to a breakdown in the SEO’s code of honour.

The secretive and sometimes murky SEO industry seems, in some ways, to have numerous parallels with the old Chicago Mafia story of Anthony Spilotro.

After Spilotro had been sent to Vegas to run the Mafia casino operation, the FBI were unable to prove his crimes and failed to catch him on numerous occasions due to a strict code of silence. Spilotro was untouchable; he had witnesses, police and judges in his pocket and was able to slip the net time after time.

Only when the FBI teamed up with the Las Vegas Police Department did they hatch a plan that would result in his removal from the casino skimming business. The FBI and police used ‘fear, uncertainty and doubt’ as a method to ensure the mob believed that Spilotro had become too risky and may turn on his bosses to save himself. This ultimately

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led to Spilotro’s Mafia bosses, back in Chicago, executing their own man and his brother – they were left with no choice as Spilotro knew too much and had become their biggest threat.

Fear uncertainty and doubt has historically been Google’s biggest method of plugging the gap in the failings in its own technology. I’ve noticed a huge increase in the use of PR and media when rolling out algorithm updates; this stepped up significantly when Panda 1.0 rolled out. Ironically, as an SEO, I noticed that Google’s media communications were far from organic. It appeared in its

to your head, and never take your eye off the ball. You are a service provider and are responsible for the search traffic growth of your clients’ business.

Employers: beware of unjustifiable fees – never hire an SEO based on them being reassuringly expensive. Your SEO is part of your business plan. You need to make a profit on what they do, otherwise you’re not going to be in business this time next year.

Your SEO should understand this, so don’t be afraid of renegotiating the commercials if your projected commercial model doesn’t match the commercial reality.

“Never hire an SEO based on them being reassuringly expensive. Don’t be afraid of renegotiating the commercials if your projected commercial model doesn’t match the commercial reality.” scale and delivery to be driven by Google’s press team. This is how Google cripples an SEO’s confidence and prevents them from manipulating their results. The effect is amplified by the nature of SEO and its inherent uncertainty, shrouded by a black box.

One policy I recommend you adhere to is never to base an assumption or strategy on hearsay evidence. Always base this on an accurate primary data sources and careful testing.

So, while Google is thought to be introducing disinformation, we also have an entirely separate dynamic driving SEOs to implosion, often through excessive egotism and, in some cases, minor God complexes.

Don’t believe your own press It’s very easy to lose perspective as an SEO; most will freely admit that there is a prolific problem with egos, largely driven

by PR and media. Over-inflated fees also go a long way towards confirming a top level SEO’s over-inflated self worth.

SEOs: just because you get paid more than the British Prime Minister, don’t let it go

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theories, helping to define direction in an ever changing and dynamic environment.

Affiliates, if you have hired an SEO consultant having tempted them away from an agency, be mindful of this shift in mindset, anticipate its onset and put measures in place to prevent it from happening.

Note: since we are SEOs and not experts in specialist mental health or addiction cases we would naturally advise these cases are referred to a recognised specialist.

Remember... ●●Follow

your instincts when hiring expertise ●●Don’t believe the hype If you have any specific questions email me directly at paul@mediaskunkworks.com or follow me on http://twitter.com/paulreilly or stalk me on http://foursquare.com/user/ paulreilly

Keeping perspective in a crazy world In July 2012, Media Skunk Works quietly launched the world’s first SEO counselling service. This service was to help ensure that lone SEOs have someone to talk to on a regular basis with a view to reducing any feelings of isolation or simply a shoulder to cry on if they need one. I know from experience how easy it is to develop feelings of isolation in my previous in-house roles and have come across it countless times when dealing with inhouse SEO while working agency-side.

It’s common for SEOs, once they are removed from a pack (for want of a better collective noun) to an in-house situation to ‘lose their bottle’, and doubt their own ability, often losing faith in their own methods. However, this is a result of narrowing your field of view, and reducing internal SEO to SEO cross-talk.

Once the isolation sets in, these problems can be reduced or entirely eliminated by regular counselling sessions with peers, whether one-on-one sessions or group sessions depending on the severity and nature of the case, as well as access to specialist data which confirms your own

With over 12 years’ experience in Search Engine Optimisation, PAUL REILLY is amongst the most experienced and influential professionals in the industry. With a wealth of experience in highly-competitive sectors, Paul has worked on many of the UK’s largest brands in the toughest spaces, both in-house and at large reputable search marketing agencies. In most recent years Paul has focused and specialised in online gaming, delivering consistent results that matter, time after time.

Paul is the founder of MediaSkunkWorks, a new and pioneering service provider which dissects the traditional agency model, building world-class, hand-picked specialist teams either in-house or as outsourced think tank and creative problem solving service.

MediaSkunkWorks which has built its reputation on innovation and optimised methodologies that really do deliver results.

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An Idiot’s Guide to Affiliate Social Mentions After saying over and over again that affiliates NEED to move into the social sphere and time and time again hearing stories of failures or lack of ideas, I thought I’d run through some basic strategies that should be within the budgets of most serious affiliates. The idea of this article is about being cost effective as much as being big; we don’t need to generate millions of shares, but we should generate enough to justify link profiles.

Competitions This is the bread and butter of generating social metrics. It is the easiest way to get lots of +1s, shares and tweets. Essentially, you offer the chance of winning a prize for people sharing a certain post. Try and work a keyword into the stipulated tweet.

It is probably a good idea to start being smarter with these if you’re already running them as it seems very likely that going forward, Google will either start discounting or potentially penalising people who have been overly gaming this system.

Try and stay away from ‘retweet to enter’ type competitions, make users give you a reason as to why they should win and that will give you some diversity in the posts.

With Twitter, you should also include the ‘via’ option when you generate the button as this will add to the likelihood of new users following you. A well-crafted comp tweet may look like “I should win the generic BINGO comp because (insert reason) (insert URL) via @genericbingo”.

Remember, competitions don’t seed themselves, people aren’t going to find them if you don’t help them. Fortunately, there are a lot of communities which will help you with this. In the UK, you can submit to the following for free: ●●Moneysavingexpert – forum ●●Loquax – forum + site (excludes bingo affiliates) ●●Hotukdeals ●●Ukcompetitions.com ●●twitter.com/competitionclub/ (tweet the comp at them and there is a good chance of a retweet)

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There are many more, but this should be enough to get you started.

Don’t forget that you also have the option to capture emails here which you can use for future competitions. You should also know that the prizes don’t have to be massive. I’ve seen competitions for products which cost less than £50 generate thousands of shares if seeded correctly.

Authority account outreach We all know it is unlikely that you’ll get a backlink from your direct competitors too easily, but what about those people in your niche who you aren’t directly up against?

While backlinks are again unlikely, social mentions are certainly possible. You just have to track down authority accounts and ask their opinion to contribute to an article. Most people will quite happily share when they’ve been quoted. It is very easy to contact people through social media, meet them at the conferences and so on.

It is true that this is easier in other niches, but it’s not impossible in gambling. If you’re lucky, you may even see some natural interlinking cropping up with people linking to pages where they have been cited. Not too likely in our sector, however.

Visually representing data Yes, I mean infographics. Not the ones that certain agencies will rob you blind for, but the ones you can make yourself with infographic builders like Piktochart.com do allow you to create professional looking infographics in minutes rather than hours

and, if seeded correctly, these can generate some nice social links, and you can always submit them to the infographic directories to get this process started. You can get lots of free data from public records, or you can always repurpose someone else’s research – you should probably ask before doing this and really link to the source but if you do, there is every chance that they will share your content in turn.

Share other people’s content People will be more likely to share your content if you share theirs; those who stick too rigidly to never wanting to boost a competitor without something in return may get left behind in the world of social SEO. It is going to be essential to create lasting relationships and many of you who regularly attend the conferences will already have cliques which may be willing to do that for one another.

Quick wins ●●Pictures:

pictures get shared very quickly.

I recently saw a picture of a palm tree with the tag line wish you were here under it generate hundreds of likes on Facebook in a few hours. That can be replicated by anyone, although it does help if you have a decent account to share it through, but if your website’s account is poor then share using your personal account, or make your website’s account better. ●●Be controversial: not everyone wants to go down this route, but if you write something horribly controversial that’s current and seed it well, then people will share it to denounce it. Not ideal, but still gets shares.

Promoting the content The real battle with socially provocative content is not about creating something people will want to share; it’s getting it to those people. The best thing you can do is

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identify the people you want to share the content with before you write anything.

Think about who will share it then write it for them, then it’s simply a matter of putting it in front of them. There are, of course, numerous direct ways to do this. An easy example would be doing a top ten list, maybe your top 10 casinos in the UK, you

“Too many affiliates are still burying their heads in the sand or doing the bare minimum when, presently, the social sphere is still open to be capitalised on.” can call them up and speak to the manager asking for what makes them special? You could justify this based on you putting them in the list on a recommendation. When you post this piece of content contact them all – a lot of smaller brands will willingly mention this content socially.

SEO and SMO: one and the same?

As the two disciplines increasingly merge, it is becoming essential that anyone practicing SEO is aware of what works and what doesn’t socially. Those who fall behind in the social sphere will be those who are doomed to fail in the next few years as it becomes more and more important. It could even be said that SEO is moving more towards the PR discipline in that outreach and branding are essential. As the algorithm changes so must the skill sets which we need to get the best results. If you don’t get social then hire someone who does or work at it – too many affiliates are still burying their heads in the sand or doing the bare minimum when, presently, the social sphere is still open to be capitalised on. And whilst it may not directly drive the conversions we want, the integration with SEO is very clear and it is only going to become more apparent in the coming years. Remember that even if you have one of the more dry

and dull niches, there is still a lot that you can do; you just have to be creative with your tie-ins. Gambling is an exciting world (or at least it should be), and it is the perfect time to take advantage of the growth in social.

Mike Litson has been in Search Engine Optimisation for several years and specialises in competitive markets, predominantly iGaming. Having worked with many major players in the sector he has a solid understanding of what goes into making a successful campaign, both on and off site. Focusing mainly on SEO, Mike is also very well versed in SMO, PPC, Affiliate Management and Email Marketing believing that none of the skills are mutually exclusive and that having strong knowledge across online marketing channels can provide unique opportunities. Mike currently heads up the Blueclaw iGaming and affiliate department.

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Affiliates Beware: Google is Watching You If you are an affiliate making money by ranking on Google, beware, because Google is looking at you. Whilst its market share has remained flat, the company’s revenues have grown a massive 35 percent year-on-year. Where has this revenue come from? Partially from de-ranking the affiliates who act as alternative middlemen to Google’s AdWords. By Nick Garner, Head of Search at Unibet.

It’s been a tough year for SEO. Google ran Panda which affected a number of big content sites and then went for Penguin which was aimed at over manipulation of a website’s link profile.

It’s important to differentiate between the two updates.Panda is about the content makeup of a site. It’s looking for duplicate and low value content which Google believes will not help the user experience.

It is essentially Google profiling a site and deciding whether your site fits a ‘bad’ profile or not. For affiliates, this wasn’t a huge issue because most affiliate sites are small content sites which focus on specific niche phrases.

Penguin, however, was massively damaging for affiliates. The idea behind this update was to look at the link profile of a site to see whether it was ‘over optimised’.

It simply means; is there too much apparent manipulation of links to your site?

It’s important to define what ‘over optimised’ means here. For a normal non-commercial site, the model is to create superb content where links will naturally be attracted to you. These links will be a jumble of things from Twitter retweets to the occasional good link from a high authority site. The anchor text (text used on the links to your site) will be a mix of things from ‘click here’ to ‘this is interesting’ and occasionally the money phrases will be used, i.e. ‘free bet’. The main point is that a natural profile is natural looking.

An affiliate site working a commercial phrase like ‘free bet’ has to beg, buy or spam its way to getting decent links. The complication occurs when you are trying to create a nice ‘natural’ mix of links and anchor text. From experience, this is very

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hard and there are only a few ways to really hit this head-on.

One final concept: links are votes. The better the votes are to your site and the more relevant the people who vote for you are, the more important Google thinks your site is and so will rank you.

My process for beating Penguin Firstly, two concepts. If you imagine a dartboard, you aim your darts, fire and hit the bullseye with all three darts – you win because you hit the target right in the middle. With Penguin, you have to time when you throw the darts and make sure they get close to the bullseye without actually hitting it. If you got three bullseyes, then it would be statistically unnatural and you would lose. Yes I know, it’s bizarre, but that’s the world of search engines.

The other thing I think about is ‘trustrank’. I look for volume and competitiveness of phrases Google ranks a site on, along with the amount of ‘buzz’ surrounding a site. This could be social followings, new content and quality of content. It seems Google is putting a far greater weighting on high trustrank sites.

Typically for iGaming, these would be operator sites. I want links from high trust-rank sites.

All things are relative with Google. This means there are patterns you can analyse but, as a rule, if you want to rank for a given phrase you have to do the analysis for that phrase. You can segment by country, by industry category and by keyphrase and depending on the profile of the phrase, there will be differences on the anchor text make-up and the volume of links you need over time.

The practical part The first is having a good understanding of why a site ranks. I typically pick a ‘root’ phrase, something like ‘free bet’ or perhaps a more niche phrase. I then look at the make-up of the inbound links to the top ten sites ranking for ‘free bet’ using MajesticSEO.com. I want to look at small sites ranking for my target phrases because their link profile is cleaner and easier to pick through.

I group all the inbound links by Majestic’s AC rank. This is a metric equivalent to Page Rank that Majestic uses.

With this I have these groupings of links: ●●0* AC rank 0 ●●1* AC rank 1 and 2 ●●2* AC rank 3 and 4 ●●3* AC rank 5+ Once I have grouped these links, I typically discount all links AC rank 0 because they are just noise. With probably 75 percent of the links to a given site out of the dataset, I then organise the links this way: ●●Brand: the name of the site, i.e. myfreebets.com ●●Brand phrase: the name of the site and other words, i.e. myfreebets click here ●●Exact phrase match: the exact phrase being targeted, i.e. ‘free bet’ ●●Phrase match: something related to the target phrase, i.e. ‘£25 online bet’ ●●Broad phrase match: vaguely related to my target phrase, i.e. ‘gambling winnings’ ●●Other: something random, i.e. ‘http:// thisisarandomlink.com Then I review the anchor text per AC rank grouping and look for the patterns in the data. Typically, this would be: ●●Pre-Penguin: more brand in lower AC rank links, more exact match on higher AC rank links. ●●Post-Penguin: less brand on lower AC rank links, less exact match on all links, replaced with more brand on higher AC rank links.

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What I find post-Penguin is that the analysis process has become much more complicated and the link and anchor text patterns are more diffused for high ranking sites. This effectively translates into fewer affiliate and more brand sites ranking.

Last year, I could have run this report and taken some simple averages; i.e. brand phrases 1* @ 20 percent of all anchor text, exact match 3* @ 15 percent of all links and so on. However, because of Penguin’s over optimisation filter, you have to really understand the competitor link patterns for your phrase in order to rank.

Now, I find more high authority sites ranking and more weight needing to be given to onsite optimisation for those brand sites to capitalise on the ‘free pass’ Google is giving them.

Volume of new links We have heard a lot about the emergence of negative SEO. Effectively, this means Google’s filters are far more aggressive penalising sites that have ‘unnatural’ link profiles.

This includes suddenly getting 5,000 new links with exact match anchor text from 300 different ‘disposable’ sites in a day.

Because of this, it’s really important to carefully work out the volume of new links you should acquire over time. Too few and you don’t rank, too many and you are penalised or you just waste your money and don’t move in the rankings.

I use Majestic SEO to analyse the volume of new domains linking into a site. I think a unique domain is a far better indication of a ‘vote’ than volume of links from a given site. So, I look at those sites which have a tight profile, such as small sites ranking for a given phrase, and see what the link growth figures look like there. My aim is to acquire the best links with a diffused anchor text spread, at a rate that is just above the average of the sites I have analysed. Too many links and I trigger a filter, too few and I don’t progress up the rankings. I always say, ‘look like everyone else, just a little better’.

I then methodically acquire these links, make sure they are placed randomly during the month and bide my time.

Typically, I assume four to six months to rank a money phrase.

I use one more variable which is site authority. I assume if a site has a lot of authority, then for every new link I place, it will have a greater weight than a low authority site. For instance, I might assume that for a Unibet subdomain I need to bring in 15 good links a month. For an affiliate site, it would have to be 20 really good links a month.

As you see, there are a lot of processes involved here. If you don’t like spreadsheets, then the best thing is to remember these rules: ●●All things are relative with Google ●●Links are votes, get the best votes you can ●●Judge sites from your ‘human perspective’

●●With

links, be like the best ranking sites, just a little better

Then once you have these ideas in mind, use paid tools like MajesticSEO.com or free tools like opensiteexplorer.org or Blekko.com to get a feel for anchor text mix and link growth for the ranking sites you are competing against.

It will take a few weeks of trawling around to assimilate the data, but once you get a ‘feel’ for the information you will be able to get your onsite optimisation plan and your linking plan in place and beat Penguin.

NICK GARNER is the head of Search for Unibet, the large European bookmakers. He is a recognised expert in SEO within the gaming industry, having had several commercial successes at Betfair where he was SEO manager and greater commercial successes with Unibet. An internet marketing veteran, Nick has been architecting and executing search strategies for the last 12 years.

He is a prominent conference speaker who loves to share his knowledge.

He puts his SEO successes down to a practical understanding of internet related technology, human behaviour and ‘outreach’ to win the best links from 3rd party web sites. He is always prepared to get stuck in to win the rankings race. Nick is a family man and competitive international sportsman based just outside London.

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INTERVIEW

The Lay of the Land With the London Olympics well under way, iGB Affiliate speaks to Aaron Yarm, UK Account Manager at William Hill about how the Games have impacted the sportsbetting market, as well as surveying the lay of the land in today’s gaming affiliate sector.

We’re in the middle of a significant summer of sport – we’ll come to the Olympics in a moment, but what sort of activity has William Hill been experiencing from the likes of Euro 2012, Wimbledon and the traditional annual major events?

Football is the biggest betting product for operators. There are so many markets and opportunities such as mobile, in-play betting and more. For William Hill, we aimed to combine all of these and therefore offered affiliates some great opportunities and the results did not disappoint with online staking volumes up 289 percent from the previous Euros. Overall, it’s a strong platform for us to continually build on.

In terms of the Olympics, there has been some discussion as to London 2012 being more viable betting opportunity than previous Olympiads due to coverage, the accessibility and prevalence of in-play and mobile betting and other factors. What activity are you seeing around these Games so far and what are you expecting from the event?

Some more gold medals for Team GB would be nice. In terms of betting, as with all sports we provide some of the largest markets in the industry. In-play betting is one of the biggest branches of online betting. With fantastic odds and a range of specials, we have launched new models for some minor sports ahead of the Olympics (including beach volleyball) and there are plenty of markets for affiliates to promote.

This issue of the magazine deals with the casino sector specifically, but what gaming products currently hold the best opportunities for affiliates to build their business strategies around?

We consider ourselves to be strong across all verticals but one of the best opportunities we have at the moment is with our Vegas product – one of the only products on the market offering customers a cash back bonus incentive. It provides affiliates with a great converting product with excellent profit potential. Further to this, our Italian product is now one

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of the strongest out there and we expect the Spanish product, which has just been launched, to go the same way.

support, whether it be creative or unique content or a friendly chat. We are here to help build their online businesses.

There has been some concern that with Google squeezing affiliates out of the equation that operators will rely less and less on the traffic that they generate.

How important do affiliates remain for William Hill in today’s market and for the foreseeable future?

We value our affiliates highly and look only to build long-term professional partnerships with them. It’s always a delight to start working with new people, be it today or in five years time. Affiliates have always and will continue to be one of the foundations that have helped build our online presence to be one of the industry leaders.

And from your perspective, how challenging is it to remain competitive amidst the increasing competition across all gaming sectors?

Affiliates are in a very strong position; just attend one of the conferences such as Barcelona (BAC) and you will get an insight into what is on offer in the industry. It comes down to a ‘value added’ service; a good account manager is the face of an operator to the affiliate and at William Hill we take this one step further – we strive to cultivate a partnership between us and the affiliate. Communication, flexibility and understanding are all of prime importance when building this relationship with affiliates.

Elaborating on this somewhat, what specific challenges are you seeing in the affiliate sector that pose obstacles to both operators and their affiliate partners?

When people start out in affiliation it is a tough journey from the start; there is a lot to learn and, at times, it can be frustrating.

One of the greatest tips we can offer is to enter the affiliate industry with a good game plan. Think about what niche you’re going to target, write down how and from where you think you can get traffic, speak with people in the industry and prepare for the unexpected. It can be a turbulent but highly rewarding ride.

From the affiliate’s perspective, partnering with a brand such as William Hill has its obvious benefits, with the company being one of the best known betting businesses in the UK and Europe. What other benefits do affiliates enjoy from being affiliated to William Hill?

When joining William Hill as an affiliate, it is as if you are joining a family. The account managers here are always on hand to help answer questions in a timely manner and are eager to work with all affiliates to achieve the best possible results. We aim to provide our affiliates with the best possible

The main feature this issue looks at the social gaming space – what strategy has William Hill employed in the social space and what sort of campaigns can affiliates also employ to maximise their presence there?

As one of the industry leaders, we are always looking for new methods of acquisition. We have found social media to be a great method for affiliates to attract players. We can provide affiliates with the relevant tracking links for mobile and web-based social media acquisition. In terms of specific campaigns, it would be best to speak to your individual account manager to find out the latest and best offers from William Hill.

Additionally, William Hill has been one of the forerunners in the mobile betting space with a visible advertising campaign in UK media. Where in your opinion can affiliates derive the best value from their efforts for the mobile channel – what should they be doing to push products in this space; does it involve a change of mindset?

Our mobile position is growing stronger all the time, offering sportsbetting and mobile casinos with the latest development being

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INTERVIEW

mobile bingo. Mailing campaigns work very well with mobile (think about all the emails you check on your Smartphone). A change of mind-set is required in our opinion – everything is smaller and quicker so the affiliate’s offering has to reflect this. It is important to remember that just because the site looks great on the web does not mean it looks so good on a four inch phone screen.

For operators it very much requires a change of mindset and strategy, as simply transferring desktop strategies to mobile has been proven to be ineffective. What are the specific challenges for operators in this space?

We have seen tremendous growth in our mobile products and it does require a different mindset; speed and style are everything. Our mobile sports and casino products are designed to have the best possible user experience as well as looking great. As with any product, usability is key as well as providing the affiliates with the right tools to promote the products successfully.

For affiliates entering the iGaming space for the first time, what sort of environment

INSIGHT

“Affiliation is a tough journey from the start; there is a lot to learn and, at times, it can be frustrating. Enter the affiliate industry with a good game plan, think about what niche you’re going to target, speak with people in the industry and prepare for the unexpected. It can be a turbulent but highly rewarding ride.” are they entering and what advice would you offer to help settle them into the industry?

For me as an account manager, I am there to provide someone who has just started out with the same amount of time and energy as the bigger affiliates – everyone has to start from somewhere. Look through the key publications and online resources as provided by the likes of the iGB and GPWA. Get out there, speak with other professionals in the industry, develop a relationship with your account manager as they can give you everything you need from an operator point of view (i.e. creative, content, news) and, finally, get on the forums and see what’s buzzing in the industry. Most importantly, do not lose sight of your end goal – affiliation should be seen as an on-going long-term business, not an overnight wonder.

And finally, how do you see the industry progressing in the coming 12 months – will we see sportsbetting and in-play continue on its impressive growth path, and what fate awaits the other gaming verticals?

The industry is reporting strong growth all of the time. With markets opening up in Spain and Italy as well as our acquisition of a licence in Nevada, we see our brand going from strength to strength. The Vegas and live casino products are newly emerging and strong performers, bingo has seen a boost with the new mobile product and sports, as always for William Hill, is the foundation of our business.

We see strong growth across all products and look forward to creating new and exciting partnerships with new and existing affiliates in the industry.

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OPINION

The Psychology of Social Gaming

By Dr Mark D. Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies at the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University.

The online social networking phenomenon has spread rapidly in the UK (and elsewhere), and playing games such as Farmville or poker via social networking sites like Facebook have become commonplace. However, social gaming is very different to other massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft because most social games are specifically designed to be played in short bursts when people have a few minutes to spare. This has opened up gaming to particular groups who may have never played games previously (such as housewives looking after small children at home who might play for 30 minutes while their child is asleep).

Similarities On first inspection, playing games like Farmville may not seem to have much connection to gambling but the psychology behind such activities are very similar.

Companies like Zynga have been accused of leveraging the mechanics of gambling to build their gaming empire. One of the key psychological ingredients in both gambling and social gaming is the use of operant conditioning and random reinforcement schedules. Basically, random reinforcement schedules in games relate to the unpredictability of winning and/or getting other types of intermittent rewards.

Receiving rewards every time someone gambles or plays a game leads to people becoming bored much more quickly.

However, small unpredictable rewards lead to highly engaged and repetitive behaviour. Both gambling operators and social gaming developers can use intermittent and unpredictable rewards to get repeat custom. There is also a growing body of research showing that players can become aroused and excited even if they are playing with virtual representations

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of money (e.g., fake money used in many games on social networking sites).

Some observers have accused companies like Zynga of exploiting well-known psychological principles to increase their player base and to bring in new players from a demographic who may never have played games before.

However, that alone does not explain the success of Zynga games. Other features, such as stylish and appealing characters and graphics, and (what some might deem to be) aggressive viral marketing tactics, also appear to play an important part in the acquisition, development and maintenance of social gaming behaviour.

The introduction of in-game virtual goods and accessories (that people willingly pay real money for) was a psychological masterstroke. In this sense, it becomes more akin to gambling, as social gamers know that they are spending money as they play with little or no financial return.

They are buying entertainment and the intrinsic play of the game itself is highly psychologically rewarding.

Price of entry The one question I am constantly asked by the media in relation to social gaming is why people pay real money for virtual items in games like Farmville (or why people will pay real money to by virtual money to play Zynga poker games). As someone who has studied slot machine players for over 25 years, the similarities are striking.

Many of the hardcore slots players I have interviewed claim they know they will lose every penny they have in the long run, and they are playing with money rather than for it. To me, this appears to be the same attitude adopted by social gamers.

Like slots players, they actually love the playing of the game itself. Money is the price of entry that they are willing to pay.

Unlike those involved in social gaming, gamblers do at least have an outside chance of getting some of the money they have staked back. Therefore, allowing those who play social games the chance to actually get their money back (or gain more than they have staked) is why companies currently operating social games want to get into the pure gambling market. This extra dimension to social games could be a huge revenue generator.

Those high up in the Zynga management team believe that their games tap into some of the fundamental drivers of human happiness and give people pleasure, friendship, and a sense of accomplishment. Nicole Lazzaro, who has been interviewed in the mass media about gaming psychology, claims there are four elemental keys that determine game success. These are (i) hard fun (i.e., players having to overcome difficult obstacles to progress in the game in pursuit of winning); (ii) easy fun (i.e., players just enjoying the game even if they don’t win), (iii) altered states (i.e., players engaging in the game because it makes them feel good psychologically and changes their mood for the better), and (iv) the people factor (i.e., players wanting to socially interact with others in the game).

Put in the most basic form, Lazzaro says the most successful games “will engage players’ curiosity, allow players to socialise with friends, challenge players to overcome obstacles to achieve goals and somehow relate to people’s lives in a meaningful way”.

Over the past few months, the rapid growth of social media gaming has come to the attention of the UK’s Gambling Commission, particularly as the lines are beginning to blur between social gaming and gambling, and because online gambling operators and gambling software developers are now positioning themselves for entry into the social gaming market, and vice-versa.

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INSIGHT

Offline Creativity to Achieve Online Results Did you know that there are other methods to drive traffic to your site aside from online resources when it comes to affiliation? Online traffic can be generated through other means such as offline; you just have to be creative and follow some of the principles laid out in this article. Joshua Krimberg, CMO at AffStars, explains.

an effective sales funnel. A good example of this is handing out scratch cards in a train station entrance with a QR code. The user scratches, wins a free $7 and has a QR code to lead them to the site/app while they enjoy their train ride to work.

Today’s player is bombarded

Exhibit uniqueness from the competition

with advertisements each and every day.

Therefore, when looking at accessing them, one needs to have a creative game plan because, if done properly, it can be extremely profitable and amazingly effective.

The main points you should look at when trying to achieve positive results from offline advertising are: ●●Target the appropriate target audience ●●Establish relevance to the target audience ●●Catch the user at relevant touch points ●●Exhibit a uniqueness from the competition ●●Increase and add to player knowledge Before we further explain the main points, there are a few golden rules that must always be taken into account when conducting an offline campaign as an affiliate. These include: ●●Always having a call-to-action ●●The call-to-action must have a destination point (a site, for example) ●●The destination point and results must have the capability to be both measured and tracked Now, let’s get down to business and further discuss how we are going to get better affiliation results and make more money with offline promotions.

Target the appropriate target audience It sounds simple but, when you really think about it, one question comes to mind: “how am I going to target the right players?”

First and foremost, you are going to achieve this by researching the market you would like to penetrate and knowing the product you are going to push (bingo, casino, live casino, lotto, poker, flash-

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based, download, etc). Once you have this information, you can start to identify the proper target audience in order to get the best results possible and, hopefully, make a lot of money. A great way to do this is to find the areas where your target audience congregates.

Some key methods (all of which can be placed easily) of targeting the correct player demographics are: ●●bingo dabbers with a code on it outside local grocery stores or small bingo halls ●●bookmarks with bingo codes on them for people who purchase romance books at the local bookstore ●●free matchbooks with a promo inside at local nightclubs, etc

Establish relevance to the target audience So now you have sent your offline promotion out to the right players, but you must make sure it is relevant; if it isn’t, it will be thrown straight into the trash without being looked at. A great way to make your offline advertising efforts work can be catching the player at a moment where they need the method of advertising.

A great example can be placing a poker advertisement in several local newspapers offering free classes to teach people how to play the game and, thus, push them into your affiliate site and sales funnel.

Trying to catch the player at relevant touch points Catching the player at the right time where they come into contact with your offer is pivotal in making your mark. You may have a maximum of two to three seconds should the player give you their attention so make the most of it by reinforcing and fulfilling your marketplace promise with

What makes you different and why should a potential player go through your sales funnel and not another affiliate or operator?

Uniqueness will help to separate your offer from the hundreds and even thousands of advertisements a player sees each and every day, and actually make some money. One potential example of offline uniqueness could be hiring five to ten cabs in a smaller city with a wild paint job to drive the streets for a month or two all with your site’s URL and logo painted all over them.

Increase and add to player knowledge Anytime you can introduce any type of statistic or factual data, you should, as players love to learn interesting facts about their favourite games. Poker players might like to know that there are real celebrities playing at the same sites as them, or bingo players may be interested to learn that there are ten raffle winners each month. Either way, the more players know or think they know about a product, the more confident they feel in choosing to enter the sales funnel. A great example of this would be a television or specialised magazine advertorial on how your website manually analyses all casino software from a quality, service and security standpoint and how players are safe playing at the gaming rooms your casino recommends.

Following these tips and principles with an element of creativity can really drive your commissions to the next level.

These tips can help you to build an effective and creative offline marketing campaign that can earn you big bucks on your next pay date.

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MOBILE AND SOCIAL GAMING

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feature Mobile and Social Gaming

Mobile and Social Gaming Aideen Shortt, author of the iGaming Business report ‘Social Marketing and Strategies’, provides an overview of the convergence of two of the fastest growing business sectors in iGaming.

Alongside the meteoric growth of social networks has been the growing pervasiveness of Smartphones and their incorporation into our lives as so much more than communications tools. Almost three quarters (73 percent) of Smartphone owners use a social networking app on a daily basis and a further 19 percent at least weekly, according to a survey by Lightspeed Research.

Skopos’ MTrack research identified that one in four UK ‘digital actives’ use mobile for sports content, with sports news, info and updates being key to their use: ●●68 percent get the latest news ●●68 percent check results/league tables ●●51 percent look for team updates ●●29 percent want articles/gossip about athletes and teams ●●20 percent watch live video ●●20 percent use mobile for the build up to a game or event ●●19 percent place bets

Social media apps The UK alone has a 50 percent Smartphone penetration rate, and Ofcom has identified that in the UK, social networking is the most common Internet use on mobile phones and, simultaneously, mobile use of social networks is 80 percent up on last year. In fact, on average, people install 25 apps on their Smartphone, but only use 12, with most of the used apps being for social networking.

Arbitron Mobile’s Market Trends have outlined that Facebook is the most prominent mobile app in terms of reach across the market, in part due to organic growth, but also by the deals it has in place with carriers and device manufacturers, which guarantees them top position on today’s Smartphones, specifically in Android and iPhone devices. Facebook has 60 percent reach in the USA, France and UK, but less in Germany at around 46 percent, due to other brands such as Nokia and RIM (Blackberry manufacturer) remaining strong. Therefore, the Facebook app doesn’t have the same reach. The same survey found Google Search and

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YouTube amongst the highest apps.

When it comes to Facebook, over half of the user base access the network via mobile on a monthly basis, and mobile is outgrowing desktop use at a ratio of two to one. Of those people who do use mobile, usage is approximately double that of non-mobile users. In the UK, Facebook sees 60 percent of its activity on phones and tablets, representing one in every two minutes of mobile Internet use as identified by comScore. In light of the growing importance of the mobile, Facebook recently revealed plans for a variety of mobile-centric products, including the introduction in 2012 of the Timeline feature on mobile and enabling brands to advertise in mobile news feeds through Sponsored Stories. More recently, the company rolled out larger photos on the mobile application and website. They are now three times larger than before and all posts will fill the mobile screen from edge to edge.

Arbitron Mobile’s study also outlined that due to its real-time nature, Twitter is also a natural fit for Smartphones. While its cause and effect remains unclear (are Twitter users more likely to own Smartphones or are Smartphone owners more likely to use Twitter?), Smartphone users are the most avid users of Twitter. ●●Five times more likely to check Twitter ‘constantly throughout the day’ ●●More than three times more likely to check Twitter several times a day ●●More than twice as likely to check Twitter at least once a day Despite the extensiveness of use on Facebook’s app, the mobile platform is recognised by Mark Zuckerberg and critics alike as the company’s Achilles’ heel and, to this end, Google+ has the potential to dominate on this platform, and given that mobile is slowly replacing the desktop as the primary source for content and social activity, this is no small feat. In fact, Google recently announced that Google+ gets most of its activity and traction on the mobile platform (see article on page 50 for more on Google+).

Smartphone versus nonSmartphone Social networkers who have a Smartphone follow brands on social media more often than non-Smartphone users. Marketers can expect more impact reaching social networkers through Smartphones, but mobile social networkers expect more from companies and brands. They want to be more involved than their desktop counterparts and they expect companies and brands to start conversations.

InSites Consulting’s research found that 56 percent of connected Smartphone users follow a brand on social media: Smartphone with Internet/ data

NonSmartphone users

Europe

56%

49%

North America

69%

50%

Brazil

86%

49%

India

78%

65%

Asia

78%

28%

Australia

65%

51%

So-Lo-Mo One of the buzzwords of the moment in the social media community is So-Lo-Mo which stands for ‘social, local and mobile’.

It represents the amalgamation of all three concepts in order to personalise and target customer experience and potential revenue generation. Although locationbased marketing is in its infancy in the gambling domains, So-Lo-Mo is eminently suited to sports events, LBOs (licensed betting offices) and casinos and is widely expected to have a significant impact in the upcoming months and years.

Augmented Reality Augmented Reality (AR) is a live view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented through a mobile’s camera using computer generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.

Total Immersion, Metaio and Blippar are amongst the leading companies using image-recognition phone applications aimed at bringing to life real-world

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Mobile and Social Gaming feature

newspapers, magazines, products and posters with exciting augmented reality experiences and instantaneous content.

Overlaying digital information onto the real world, viewed through a camera phone, is technically impressive, but the business models and usage patterns are still evolving. In some cases, AR is directly linked to social media brand sites and is used for advertising especially in the sporting domain, which leads to opportunities for betting, particularly in-running betting. Brands and teams often display sponsored images using the technology, and these ad images can be customised on a user basis.

Other companies are using AR in innovative ways to engage with customers or monetise services/launch products.

Some examples include: ●●Footballmeister is a social-based soccerfocussed mobile gaming app enabling competitions between friends to predict matches of all the European leagues.

Titles, trophies, badges are all available as users compete for the ultimate goal of becoming the ‘Meister’ of their leagues. ●●Heineken have a mobile application that allows soccer fans to interact in real-time with action on the pitch. Fans are given eight attempts to accurately predict whether either team will score within the next 30 seconds. There are also extra points that can be earned through quizzes (Heineken and general knowledge questions) and player generated leagues. ●●Tottenham Hotspur have made their logo interactive (in any format from the website, a jersey or simply a match programme), and on pointing their phone at the club emblem, fans can watch video footage of the the team in action.

Social gaming Zynga’s announcement that it will be offering real-money play by 2013, and Facebook’s long anticipated move into real-money gaming in partnership with Gamesys, are the latest evidence of the long, but slow progress that is being made towards social gambling.

Gamesys’ brand Jackpot Joy was one of the first movers from real money gambling into freemium social gaming and, collectively, the company’s casino and slots Facebook apps have in excess 1.7 million monthly users. Also, despite 888 having had to write down its acquisition of Mytopia, it now has 830,000 monthly users and generates in excess of $10 million

in revenues per year from Bingo Island.

However, this pales in comparison to Bingo Blitz with three million monthly users and Zynga Bingo which is now approaching the nine million mark. Zynga Poker also recently passed CityVille as the single largest game on the Facebook network.

The latest traditional gambling company to make a marked step toward social gambling is bwin.party. The company’s co-CEO, Jim Ryan recently outlined that the firm hopes to capture a “meaningful place in the social gaming market” using the freemium and virtual currency business models citing an anticipated contribution to EBITDA in 2012 and 2013 of between €5 million and €10 million.

Part of bwin.party’s strategy for social is inherently focusing on the mobile social networks. As social networks and Internet use in general are moving full speed to mobile rather than desktop platforms, it is imperative for gambling companies to take heed and make appropriate preparations and plans for the mobile social space.

Aideen Shortt is an experienced consultant, author and researcher in the gambling industry with 12 years of work across all sectors and verticals. aideen.shortt@gmail.com.

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FEATURE MOBILE AND SOCIAL GAMING

THE SOCIAL MEDIUM One of the hottest topics in the Gaming industry is the rise of the social space as a medium and the role it has to play, both for operators and affiliates. It’s especially relevant with news that Facebook will now allow applications in which players can stake real money.

Exciting LIKE MANY PREVIOUS exciting developments, it’s easy to get carried away in the early stages and lose sight of what we’re actually looking to achieve from a campaign and how it fits into any overriding business objectives. Coming from an operator background, I’ve seen several companies attempt to integrate a social media strategy and am yet to come across one that can be described as successful. My view is we’ve yet to see social being used effectively and efficiently within gaming. It’s comparable to mobile as a platform as it took operators several years and researching, testing and optimising and only recently have we seen polished products hit the market.

Before I look at the subject in detail, it’s worth pointing out that the following comments are from the perspective of the UK market – largely because it’s one of the most established markets worldwide and it’s reasonable to assume that many of the trends that we have seen here will be replicated in other territories. Also, social is being assessed here in the context of sportsbetting. It is by far the dominant product when compared to poker, casino and bingo and is perhaps the biggest test for operators when it comes to converting valuable players.

Commercial model One of the biggest social marketing challenges facing operators is apportioning a commercial value to judge success. This is a big restriction for marketing teams, as it can hinder their decision making when allocating budget to social or another channel, for example affiliate marketing, PPC, SEO or CRM. Part of the challenge lies in determining the actual metrics by which success is measured and whether it should even be described as an acquisition channel, as it is commonly considered. If social marketing is judged as a method of signing up new players, for example through posts, tweets or traditional banner advertising with tracking links, then it is

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unlikely to compare well when benchmarked against the other main channels.

Experience shows that sources that convert best are those with relevant sportsbetting-related content – the list of top affiliate partners of any UK operator demonstrates this. Even sports content websites with huge traffic figures are not guaranteed to convert if they do not have a direct betting angle. The audience isn’t often looking to open an account or place a bet at that time. This is further exaggerated when it comes to social as the audience has shown very different patterns of behaviour and has demonstrated an even lower propensity to convert to real money players. This has led to the introduction of new commercial metrics, such as ‘cost per likes’ on Facebook pages – a metric that is commercially unproven as a ‘like’ is many steps from an actual conversion.

Loyalty We need a mindset change when evaluating social as a retention tool. The UK sportsbetting market has become ultra competitive and, arguably, has reached the point of saturation. CPAs have been consistently rising through all acquisition channels and have reached record levels, especially around key events such as major football tournaments and race meetings.

This means that UK operators who have been largely acquisition focused have to adapt and shift their focus to retention.

A good comparison is the mobile network industry in which the major firms – including Vodafone and Orange – have actively shifted their strategies from pure customer acquisition to retention as the pool of new users has been drying up.

KM iGaming is working with a company who has successfully introduced third-party loyalty plans within the mobile industry and are now targeting gaming in much the same way. Their objective revolves around building extremely loyal customers in competitive markets, ideally to the point at which players can be considered brand

advocates. In real terms, this can contribute directly to companies by extending the average tenure of a player’s lifetime and increasing their value to the operator.

One of the mechanics used to engage players and develop these advocates is the world of social. It is a direct way to communicate with the player base and react to live events. When used in tandem with loyalty and reward schemes, CRM campaigns across multiple platforms and special promotions, it can provide a consistent message to players with clear calls-to-action designed to change behaviour. If this is done over an extended period, we will see a growing number of brand advocates, and player values will rise.

Future We remain some way from seeing effective social campaigns within gaming.

There needs to be a change in the way we view social as a platform – specifically viewing it more as a retention tool than acquisition – with metrics to suit.

Metrics will obviously vary depending on each operator’s individual priorities, but common KPIs will be built around increasing player values through turnover and margins, extending player lifetime and reducing churn of player base. Once this happens, we will see, for the first time, a valuable and measurable contribution made by the social space.

JAMES MCMASTER is the Business Director at KM iGaming having joined from Betting Partners, where he managed the affiliate program for one of their largest clients, the Bodog Brand. James is one of the industry’s most respected affiliate managers, having been responsible for some of the most competitive and challenging betting markets at Sportingbet prior to joining Betting Partners. James can be contacted at james@kmigaming.com

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feature Mobile and Social Gaming

Fort Strategy One man who has successfully straddled the social and gaming worlds now drives the strategy for one of the US’ leading software development companies. Lou Castle, Chief Strategy Officer at Shuffle Master, talks to iGB Affiliate about the social gaming space, his time at Zynga and devising a strategy to succeed in the modern converging market.

How important do you foresee the online and social gaming element becoming for traditional land-based suppliers? Do you think that those that remain inactive in the space will be left behind?

I think it’s critically important that landbased operators around the world have an online presence. That doesn’t necessarily mean they have to operate a full-stop online casino with all verticals. It may be a very good strategy to be an affiliate or a super affiliate to an existing network. Most importantly, they have to recognise that the world is changing and although gaming is one of the last places to change, it is coming and it’s coming pretty heavily.

You look at the growth of numbers in mobile and online gambling and you realise pretty quickly that it’s a market force that cannot be ignored. That’s not to say that people won’t go to casinos.

People will still go to land-based casinos as there’s something very attractive about the location-based entertainment.

But if you can’t get your message into this new medium, you may find that your old methods of acquiring customers are becoming less and less efficient.

That’s why Shuffle Master’s strategy is two pronged.

The first prong is to bring our products and intellectual property into real money gambling where it’s legal, as a casino vertical. Our second prong is to help our land-based and online customers extend their brands into all areas of online media.

So even online casinos that aren’t terribly good at mobile, that aren’t terribly good at social; we’re looking to be the one-stopshop that can help any operator.

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Let’s look at Zynga. You clearly have the inside track having been VP of Studios…

That was my title… my job at Zynga for the vast majority of the time I was there was really training/trading on the various products and various jobs in the company. It’s a lofty title, but I was much more in the trenches than that title would suggest (laughs).

Even so, you have foot in both camps when it comes to social and real money gaming.

What do you think will happen first: will social gaming move to real-money or is it more likely that real-money operators will follow the non-payout social models that have been pioneered by Zynga?

I don’t think either one is going to wait for the other. I think that you can already see that – it isn’t supposition, it’s a fact that casino operators are moving into a space that they see as a place where they can be successful and follow the model that, on the surface, appears to be fairly straightforward. I think they have some challenges that they’re not entirely aware of and I think that they miss the values that Zynga offers. That being said, obviously the social media companies, Zynga included, look to the real-money space and think “we offer something that holds on to people and keeps them engaged and they don’t have a chance to win real money. Imagine if we could have real money prizes as part of our offering?”

They’re eager to go into that space but are equally ill-equipped to understand the nuances of the business. The good ones, the smart ones, although very interested, have been very cautious. Eventually, I

think it will happen. I don’t think that anybody’s made that leap yet. There are some very good reasons for that.

Since Shuffle Master pulled out of the deal for Ongame, an interesting development has been the rumoured interest of Zynga in acquiring Ongame.

Having worked for Zynga, does this come as a surprise to you?

I hate to speculate on other people’s plans when I’m not party to them, but it doesn’t surprise me. Zynga has made it very clear, especially Mark Pincus, that the company is interested in the realmoney gaming space and thinks that the special ‘sauce’ or special methodology Zynga imposes will be very powerful in the gambling space. I tend to agree. Once Zynga does get itself into the market, it’s going to be very powerful.

“The social media companies, Zynga included, look to the realmoney space and think, ‘we offer something that holds on to people and keeps them engaged and they don’t have a chance to win real money. Imagine if we could have real money prizes as part of our offering?’”

That said, part of the reason Zynga is so powerful is its speed and its ability to rapidly integrate a product offering, and that’s very challenging in regulated markets. It’s much easier for Zynga to acquire a company that has a worldwide licence and all sorts of properties, like Ongame, but to take the thing that makes Zynga successful and apply it to the Ongame platform – and having intimate

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knowledge about both of those things – is an operation and process that’s not easily transferable. I think that any acquisition would create a very powerful marketing relationship. Zynga has such great reach for customers. As for technical and operational synergy, I just don’t see it initially. Both companies would have to go through pretty dramatic change to unlock each other’s value.

Given your experience, how different is directing and implementing strategy for Shuffle Master compared to your previous roles with Zynga, and those with Electronic Arts and Instant Action?

It’s a very, very different job. Because I’m currently the most experienced person on staff here when it comes to our suite of offerings, I’m the natural person to drive the overall product strategy for our Internet group. My work in that space started many years before. I was brought onto the board of Shuffle Master over seven years ago to help build a technology agenda and be a resource to the company.

As a board member, I’ve been very involved as a resource for high-level strategy for many years. I don’t think it’s a new experience for me but it’s very different from the role that I had at Zynga and at Instant Action where I was CEO, and at EA where I was a creative director (amongst other roles).

I guess it’s an extremely different position and the industry is very different.

I rely very heavily in my day-to-day role on the experts who are here at Shuffle Master and know a great deal about how to drive the company. My goal is to look for the efficiencies of the different businesses: how can we get better at delivering what we deliver? I know the term ‘synergies’ is an overused term, but I think there are a lot of synergies in our company that are just getting realised and helping us be much more efficient in delivering content.

Looking at the global digital gambling sector, we see various companies looking to partner, acquire, be acquired, create specific interactive divisions, amongst much else. How challenging is the

“Part of the reason Zynga is so powerful is its speed and its ability to rapidly integrate a product offering, and that’s very challenging in regulated markets.” landscape in leveraging a leading position and devising a strategy that not only caters for long-term sustainability but also deals with the demands of the short-term?

It’s a big challenge, and you summed it up well. When people ask me about the hardest part of the job, I always say it’s achieving the short-term company goals for the public markets as well as our existing portfolio and existing presence and making sure we don’t miss any of those beats, while also looking to the long-term and identifying where things are going. Nobody wants to be the dinosaur that didn’t change.

I think we have the right team to do that. I would be guilty of great hubris if I were to say I have all those answers

(laughs). Quite the contrary; I’m a component of a very important team in a very important puzzle and each one of the pieces is extremely relevant to our approach. The biggest challenge for me and our executive team is not coming up with new opportunities, but deciding where we’re going to invest our time and energy. There are a plethora of possibilities, it’s exciting and challenging but you nailed it. I suppose it’s true of all business, this (sector) just feels much more complex than the ones I’ve been involved with in the past. There are so many different factors – hardware, software, worldwide markets, regulatory changes, legal changes – the complexity of the business is really vast.

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feature Mobile and Social Gaming

The Importance of Social Media for iGaming Affiliates Jeremy Enke, Founder of Poker Affiliate Listings, explores the growing importance of social media strategies for operators and affiliates.

As the online gambling space has matured throughout the last decade, so have the ways in which iGaming affiliates drive traffic and convert new players to the various online gambling destinations.

With the recent changes and updates to Google’s algorithm, it has also become increasingly important for iGaming affiliates to explore strategies beyond search engine optimisation for driving additional traffic. One of the emerging areas outside of SEO where many affiliates have been focusing their efforts is within social media, primarily Facebook and Twitter.

And in the rapidly changing world of iGaming, more and more gambling enthusiasts are relying on these social media outlets to get their news and find new sites to play at. Because of this, both operators and affiliates are finding that having a presence on the social media scene is essential to their overall businesses.

There is no question that player conversion rates from social media may not be as high as traditional marketing efforts, however, the ability to increase your brand’s recognition by participating in social media cannot be overstated. More than likely, your followers or friends do not visit your website every day. Yet, there is a good chance that these folks check their Facebook or Twitter feeds multiple times per day.

With the number of Facebook users alone quickly approaching 1 billion, there is no better platform in the world for iGaming affiliates to attract potential new players. Being active on Facebook or Twitter is an excellent way to build a fan base and get your brand in front of a global audience on a daily basis.

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Whether it be Facebook or Twitter that you’re utilising in your marketing efforts, it’s important to also keep in mind that both these social media communities are not ‘marketing platforms’. Instead, they are communities that give you the opportunity to engage with others who are either friends or have similar interests.

One sure-fire way to destroy the perception of your brand in the marketplace is to annoy your followers with useless spam each day. People don’t go to social media sites to look at advertising or be sold to, they go to be social. So let’s explore some specific social media strategies that iGaming affiliates can use to successfully drive new traffic and conversions, as well as build their brand recognition amongst gambling enthusiasts.

“As the global consumer use of social networking continues to increase, it will be imperative that both iGaming affiliates and operators adapt with this new culture of communication.”

Branding Your social media page should be an extension of your existing brand. Invest the money and get a professionally designed cover or background on your page that immediately engages visitors and let’s them know exactly what the page is about. It’s also beneficial if you can pick up the social media’s vanity URL for

your brand (for example, facebook.com/ yourbrand). Take full advantage of the opportunity to give your users a branded experience when on your page.

Call-to-action Just like affiliates rely on calls-to-action to convert players, you also need a strong call-to-action to get followers. Give people a reason to follow you or become a fan of your page. One gambling operator recently ran a Facebook promotion where they offered new Facebook fans entry into a $1,000 freeroll. Combining this promotion with a Facebook ads campaign, they were able to increase their fans by over 600 percent. If you want individuals to like or follow you, don’t be afraid to ask them to.

Stay on topic Remember that un-liking a page is just as easy as liking it. As your fans and followers grow, it’s critical to stay on topic and post only information, articles, or news that would be pertinent to these followers. Be sure that your posts are adding genuine value to your followers and not just attempting to sell them something.

Engage your audience One of the biggest mistakes many iGaming affiliates make when posting to their social media accounts is that they do not engage their followers. A good social media post is one that inspires thoughts and gets responses from those reading it. One of the best ways to do this is to ask questions, especially questions that are easy to answer. For example, if you are a poker affiliate, you could post “Facebook fans, is there ever a good reason to fold pocket aces”? Another great method to engage your audience

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is to use fill-in-the-blank style posts. For example – “Fill in the blank – The only time you should ever fold pocket aces is ______________”

Get creative Being creative with your social media efforts will bring you more followers and keep your audience excited when they see you have made a new post. Don’t get stuck in the rut of posting promotional updates or tweets just for the sake of posting. Link out to industry related news, share fun videos relating to your gaming niche, and most importantly always be sure what you are posting is in some way adding value to your followers.

Less is better In a comprehensive study done by Buddy Media, research determined that posts between 100 and 250 characters, one or two lines of text, get 60 percent more likes, comments, and shares than those of more than 250 characters. This same study also found a similar trend determining that posts with 80 characters or less in length have 27 percent higher engagement rates.

Contests and promotions Sponsoring contests or running exclusive promotions to your social media audience is a great way to engage your existing followers, as well as attract new followers or ‘likes’ to your page. After all, everyone loves a chance to win something. One of the easiest types of contests to run is any type that involves sports, especially for gambling affiliates, whose audience is more than likely intrigued by the opportunity to win. With both US and European football seasons around the corner, Facebook contests or promotions are a great way to increase your social media following.

Summary Until the emergence of social media, unless affiliates operated a forum or blog there wasn’t an effective way to correspond with their players on a daily basis. With the rapid growth of social media, however, iGaming affiliates who are active on the

“One gambling operator recently ran a Facebook promotion where they offered new Facebook fans entry into a $1,000 freeroll. Combining this promotion with a Facebook ads campaign, they were able to increase their fans by over 600 percent. If you want individuals to like or follow you, don’t be afraid to ask them to.” top social media sites are realising its effectiveness in respect of increasing their websites’ trustworthiness and goodwill amongst their followers. When affiliates are able to have conversations with their customers, the result is going to be an increased amount of credibility.

For both affiliates and operators, there is no better or more cost effective method than social media to announce promotions or company news. Likewise, leveraging social media makes it easy

to spread the news, or create a viral marketing campaign.

As the global consumer use of social networking continues to increase, it will be imperative that both iGaming affiliates and operators adapt with this new culture of communication. And with social networks such as Facebook preparing to introduce real money gaming applications, there has never been a better time to fine tune your social media presence and strategy.

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feature Mobile and Social Gaming

Social Gambling’s Chip Leader Simply put, Zynga is the dominant force in the social gaming market, boasting over 30 million monthly players and lacking a serious contender to challenge its leading position. Earlier this year, the company branched out into social bingo and has just launched a new slots game under its casino franchise. With its reach in social gambling spreading, iGB Affiliate spoke to Nicole Opas, Executive Producer of the sector’s most influential and innovative developer, Zynga.

In this age of social media, networking and gaming, was bingo a natural extension to Zynga’s portfolio given the game’s inherently social nature?

Absolutely. Games such as bingo have been around for years in one form or another and represent some of the most cherished forms of entertainment. We’ve learnt from our players’ feedback that they want to play their favourite games with their friends, so Zynga Bingo was definitely a natural fit for us.

What are the specific challenges in creating content for the Facebook platform in terms of technology, design and playability?

I think we always ask ourselves how we can use Facebook’s social graph to its greatest potential to make games that people love to play with their friends.

We want to create an experience that fits into what they are looking for on Facebook. It’s also an evolving platform, so it always keeps us thinking about our design and how to make our games as compelling as possible.

In terms of template, I know your studio team in Austin created the bingo platform, but was this purely in-house design and build?

Yes, we designed and built the entire

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game with our Zynga employees. Not only did Zynga Austin work on the game, but we also worked closely with Zynga New York and multiple teams in San Francisco.

Was this process the same for your poker offering?

We’ve learnt a great deal from Zynga Poker over the past five years. We know what people like to play, how they like to play with their friends, and have applied the information we’ve accumulated in building Zynga Bingo.

Zynga Poker was our first social game and we have built up a great relationship with our players by improving the game with the features that they’ve asked for over those five years.

launched a series of bingo tournaments with new, special rewards and a new tournament room to play in.

What has been your assessment of the launch so far – what sort of data/ feedback have you been able to glean from your beta test?

The feedback has been that our players love Zynga Bingo. Since its launch, we have added new features and we’ll continue to do so. One thing in particular that we’ve seen players enjoying are the ‘Achievements’, which reward players for playing in different ways.

“I think gamification is a huge strategy for all types of brands, regardless of industry.”

What are your plans for the bingo site in the future and what sort of development can we expect?

We are always looking at new social features and are constantly listening to our players. We also play a lot ourselves, so that also helps us brainstorm. So, in terms of what is next, I’d say to watch this space.

What is Zynga Bingo’s USP? The difference with Zynga Bingo is social.

As one of the largest bingo games on Facebook, there is always a room to play in and a lot of new people to play with.

We also offer several different room styles and evolving games with new features. For example, we have just

And what are your expectations for Zynga Bingo? Do you think it will have the same sort of appeal as your successful poker brand?

We want to make Zynga Bingo a beloved, long-lasting social game. We’ve achieved that with Zynga Poker, and we think we’ve done a great job with Zynga Bingo so far.

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Social gaming is a hot topic in the real money gaming industry at present. How do you see the social gaming environment developing into the future?

I think we are just at the beginning.

Zynga’s vision is to bring ‘play’ to the world and get a billion people to play together. We want to make play a daily habit for everyone, everywhere – on any device, on any platform.

Rather than brands like Zynga moving into real money gambling, do you foresee traditional gaming brands adopting ‘nongambling’ strategies for the social space and its demographic?

I think gamification is a huge strategy for all types of brands, regardless of industry.

An example is how Nike+ inspires people to interact with its brand and its friends by challenging and rewarding runners after they accomplish milestones.

And why do you think the social demographic is keen to embrace casual applications like bingo and casino? Or rather, why do you think Zynga’s gaming products have been so successful?

In the case of our casino franchise, we’ve taken games that people know and love. For generations, people have been

Finally, what can we expect from Zynga Casino in the future – are there any developments to follow on from the bingo launch?

We recently announced the next game in our Casino franchise, Zynga Elite Slots, which is a story-based slots adventure. Players will journey

“We want to make Zynga Bingo a beloved, long-lasting social game. We’ve achieved that with Zynga Poker, and we think we’ve done a great job with Zynga Bingo so far.” playing these games with family and friends, and we’ve been able to make them super-accessible and social in a new way. We then inject lots of surprises and heightened game experiences for our players that they learn to expect. As a company, we are always looking to innovate and invent new social game play.

through the enchanted forest, fight the evil witch, discover lost treasure in Atlantis, build a CityVille skyscraper or test their mettle in a showdown in the Wild West. The game will offer new stories and game features on a regular basis after the initial launch, so stay tuned.

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INSIGHT

MOBILE SEO: A SEPARATE STRATEGY? Aires Loutsaris, Senior SEO Specialist at eGaming Consulting, assesses the growing importance of a mobile-specific SEO strategy within the maturing gaming industry.

There are those who say mobile SEO is the same as traditional SEO. Some even go as far as saying the term ‘mobile SEO’ shouldn’t exist since mobile screens are nothing more than smaller computer screens. Others say that mobile SEO is a new and real concept that can stand alone and should be given the importance it deserves especially considering the exponential rise in Smartphone users.

For the moment, I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle ground but be ready for change.

How to spend?

The difference

“Mobile search accounts for 22 percent of all searches on Google and with the swift migration towards the use of Smartphones coupled with an exponential growth in mobile technology, this value is only going to get higher.”

The major difference between mobile and desktop searches is the number of keywords per search. One must remember that mobile users are accessing the web using a tiny keypad, mainly with one hand and probably whilst eating with the other or having it squashed in a jam-packed train.

Therefore, mobile-focused SEO should be geared towards an absolute maximum of three word keyphrases which is confirmed by Google’s reports that the average query on mobile search is 15 characters long. This statement can be further proved by a recent study by Experian Hitwise where it was found that in the past year, the percentage of the number of clicks by number of searches fell substantially for long-tail keyphrases having only risen for single keyword searches.

Given the limited screen size, it is more important than ever to be in the top half of results. It has also been reported

by Google that an average mobile search takes approximately 30 key presses and approximately 40 seconds to enter. In order to prevent giving users finger cramp, most search engines have introduced ‘predictive search’ which reveals a new SEO prospect, making it imperative to be ranked for the most common ‘predictive search phrases’ for one’s business field.

There is a legitimate question as to whether there should be separate budgets for mobile and for desktop SEO. This naturally depends on how search engines view mobile sites and whether they are separate to desktop versions.

Consolidating the SEO work is going to provide decent results in the short-term and the potential extra expenditure could better be served optimising content for the thousands of Smartphones out there.

However, things will change.

At present, people do not link to mobile sites in the way they do for desktop sites so, consequently, a mobile site will have fewer inbound links. Yet, another substantial factor to take into account is that these standard inbound text links will be devalued as social media is an increasingly important factor and ranking factors such as popularity will be more dependant on sharing through sites such as Google+.

One URL or two?

Many online betting companies have already committed themselves on this question, preferring an ‘m.subdomain’ or ‘.mobi’. Both Bing and Google now suggest that keeping one URL which shows different content based on different devices would be best and will not be considered as

‘cloaking’. Certainly from an expenditure point of view, it makes a lot of sense.

Ideally, a site should be automatically searchable when written and designed with a humble content layout that is easy to read for a mobile audience. This means no frames should be used, no Flash or Ajax either and a lot of optimising and testing for every potential phone, given that different devices and different browsers might render overlapping or other errors in site content. In practice, this isn’t straightforward especially as mobile gambling sites tend not to mirror desktop sites and, consequently, they offer different content. Secondly, if your mobile specific URL is long established, changing things now may not really help that much.

So what?

Mobile search accounts for 22 percent of all searches on Google and with the swift migration towards the use of Smartphones coupled with an exponential growth in mobile technology, this value is only going to get higher. It is inevitable that mobile searches will be geared towards mobile results. Google has introduced Googlebot-Mobile for feature phones and Smartphones and this will increasingly serve up results that are device specific.

This means that a mobile site will have to be optimised and mobile specific strategies will evolve out of current hybrid strategies.

AIRES LOUTSARIS is Senior SEO Specialist at eGaming Consulting and has a great desire for optimisation. Since graduating from Kings College University in London he has placed many sites within the first page of Google. That’s what he does. Aires is not only multilingual but also familiar with many different web operating languages and PLC programming. aloutsaris@egamingc.com

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INSIGHT

The Clever Affiliate’s Guide to Mobile SEO For affiliates considering going mobile, an effective SEO strategy is of vital importance, explains Janet Plumpton, SEO Strategist at Latitude Digital Marketing.

Mobile technology is revolutionising the way we live while continuing to develop at breakneck speed. A recent study by IAB UK reports that six out of ten UK adults now own a Smartphone, compared with a European average of just over four out of ten. While 18 to 29 year olds still own the most Smartphones, the 30 to 49 age group is briefly catching up, with a huge seven out of ten now possessing a Smartphone, according to data from Google. What is even more impressive is the massive 62 percent of UK Smartphone users who now ‘dual screen’ using a tablet device or Smartphone while watching TV, according to the IAB. It is no wonder, then, that the gaming industry has been and continues to be one of the most mature mobile advertising markets – after all, perhaps more than any other sector, due to fierce competition, it needs to be where the customers are. The industry is also used to adapting to new technologies quickly and, as a result, many gaming advertisers have already taken their offering mobile.

Surprisingly, there is still a number of gaming companies who aren’t paying attention to their mobile audience which leaves room for affiliates to take a slice of the mobile cake.

If you do decide to go mobile, thinking about your SEO is a crucial step towards a successful mobilisation.

Mobile and SEO A recurring query that Latitude is presented with is whether or not a separate mobile site poses a duplicate content issue.

As anyone who is accustomed to basic SEO best practice is well aware, duplicate content is frowned upon. This has become even more important following recent Panda algorithm changes where quality, fresh content is of paramount importance.

But what exactly happens with mobile sites? Are we penalised for having the same copy on www.examplesite.com and subdomain www.m.examplesite.com or www.examplesite.com and specific mobile folder www.examplesite.com/ mobile? After all, a subdomain is viewed as a separate body by the search engines

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Figure 1

Figure 2

and presents external duplicate content concerns whilst folders will be seen as duplicate internal content. Surely, having the same content on either is a huge red flag to the SERPs?

Is this the case?

Let’s take a look at Wikipedia – using the search query ‘SEO’ presents Wikipedia at the top spot in Google. Wikipedia’s mobile site is hosted on an ‘m.’ subdomain. We can see in Figure 1 that we also have an additional English subdomain with ‘en.’

Let’s take the following snippet of text: “Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s ‘natural’ or un-paid (‘organic’ or ‘algorithmic’), search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page) and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users.”

The above text is present on both the desktop: http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Search_engine_optimization, and mobile site on the subdomain: http:// en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_ engine_optimization.

Is this duplicate content in Google’s eyes? Actually, Google’s spiders understand the difference between mobile and desktop URLs and will not penalise a website for this type of duplicate content. The user agent redirection is key here – the skip/ redirect update ensures that mobile URLs are crawled as they should be.

As a precautionary method, the use of canonical tags is also recommended.

Canonical tags The canonical tag, which Google has been supporting since 2009, allows webmasters to state where pages may be seen as a copy of another. The placement of the tag tells the search engines where the primary copy can be found and, in turn, allow link value to flow to the preferred page.

If we take a look at the source code of the Wikipedia mobile site, we can see that Wikipedia is also making use of a canonical tag in the head of the document (Figure 2).

This alerts the search engines to the most relevant URL – the desktop site.

Final musings…

It’s important to ensure that you have the correct User Agent redirection put in place so that Googlebot-Mobile can crawl your mobile content. Your desktop site will be crawled by the regular Googlebot. As an added preventative measure, look to also include canonical tags into the headers of your mobile site URLs. For more insights into mobile marketing and the gaming industry, email mobilereport@latitudegroup.com for your free copy of Latitude’s Q2 Mobile Report.

JANET PLUMPTON is SEO Strategist at Latitude Digital Marketing. Janet’s SEO experience reaches over three years. Before joining Latitude, she worked as an SEO Consultant for Pagehog. Janet was promoted to SEO Strategist in 2012 and is a key contributor to Latitude’s quarterly Mobile Report.

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The Key to Social and Mobile Application Marketing Prior to promoting or even building any mobile or social application, it is of key importance to completely understand the market, how it evolved, who uses social and mobile apps and for what purpose, and to also try to visualize where it will be in six months, a year and even five years from now.

Understanding social There are many opinions on the subject but it is recommended that you read everything out there, whether for or against, and truly understand the main differences between online gaming, social gaming and mobile gaming.

Recommended reading would start with obvious sites such as Mashable, Inside Facebook, Social Times and then drill down to blog sites written by key individuals within these industries. Additionally, it is crucial to know and fully understand the changing face of virtual currency and the implementation of a social economy.

For example, the recent announcement

by Facebook to replace Facebook Credits with real currency took a little time to be fully understood. But the bottom line is that Facebook Credits turning into real money will elevate social gaming to a new level and take away the ‘blur’ of separate virtual currencies. Most social games have their own virtual currency (for example, Farmville has Farm Cash), therefore, it makes sense that users can spend real money to buy Farm Cash and cut out the need for a double conversion with Facebook Credits in the middle. Additionally, it adds a new business revenue model for other applications on Facebook such as music and video downloads and online news, where Facebook applications will have the ability to run subscription-based models.

Pinpointing a social strategy Ultimately, as with any business, the purpose is to make money. Achieving this through social and mobile applications is

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usually associated with micro payments for virtual chips and virtual goods. For anyone from the world of real money gaming, it’s not an easy concept to understand. The answer to “why would someone buy virtual chips that can never be redeemed?” is a question often repeated by real money gaming companies. The answer is quite simple: the supply and demand of an entertaining, captivating application which gives users the opportunity to experience it for free but progress to higher areas for a cost.

The psychology of social behaviour dictates that users are heavily influenced by their peers. It’s one of the reasons why Zynga Poker has been so successful.

Human nature dictates that if someone has achieved a higher level, whether it is in a social or mobile application or in the real world, others want to emulate it. The power of a social network is that known achievements are made by people inside the users’ network of connections and not just an unknown name on a leader board or winners circle.

Therefore, the key elements of social strategy are threefold: 1. A captivating offering 2. Achievements which make the user want to share and ‘brag’ about 3. The ability to progress and be rewarded based on game-related factors

and mobile applications are based around mass. When revenue is made from the sale of virtual goods the average sale is approximately $1 to $5. Bearing in mind that an industry average of depositing users is around two percent of the player base, mass really does matter.

However, the 98 percent of users who do not make a real money deposit are the collective reason why your application will be a viral success. It is, therefore, just as important to understand and nurture this demographic.

Knowing your audience

The cost of a social player

Prior to running any marketing campaign for social or mobile applications, it is not only important to know who the audience will be but also to understand why. Social

There are many key performance indicators (KPIs) used in social and mobile applications. The primary KPIs include the cost of a social user and the

Reaching your audience SEO, PPC, CPM and affiliates are all terms that are familiar within the online marketing departments of real money gaming companies. Throw a little money everywhere in order to test the water then, whatever works best, go all-in.

Advertising for mobile and social applications must be made where your audience currently is and where it will be when they start using your application.

It certainly isn’t rocket science to figure out that if your application is on Facebook, then the best place to acquire new users is Facebook. The same is true for mobile.

The only choices to make are whether you need external help for user acquisition and where to turn to for a strong social media acquisition partnership.

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INSIGHT

“There are many key performance indicators (KPIs) used in social and mobile applications, including the cost of a social user and the cost of a depositing social user. Without knowing these figures early on, it would be impossible to project whether or not your application may one day be profitable.” cost of a depositing social user. Without knowing these figures early on, it would be impossible to project whether or not your application may one day be profitable.

The initial cost depends on the type of ad running, targeting, ad text, click through rate and geographic location.

Additionally, factor into the cost that between 20 percent and 40 percent of additional users will be acquired from the viral actions of media acquired users. The next KPI is value per depositing user.

Realizing the value of your users As mentioned earlier, just because a user does not make a real money deposit does not discount any value factor.

Another KPI is successfully measuring how many additional users came directly as a result of social interactions, identifying the user(s) responsible, the cause of their viral activity and adequately rewarding them in order to continue their viral activity.

Game elements: progression and virality The importance of virality can never be stressed enough. Within the game mechanics of every application, the two key factors are progression and virality.

Virality represents acquisition and progression represents retention. Two terms that are very familiar in the space of real money gaming.

Look at companies who are doing this right and learn. Understand why a user would share a notification and then why another potential user would act on it.

An example would be a posting like this: “John Smith just did a basic action in Cool Game and received a gazillion gold tokens.

Join John and get a gazillion gold tokens.”

This example is shared by John Smith

simply because it gives him something that game developers call ‘bragging rights’.

If a user spends hours playing a game and then makes an achievement, the user has earned the right to brag. And every game developer graciously assists the need to brag. On the flip side, anyone viewing this can see that John Smith received gold tokens. They also see what John Smith did to receive the gold tokens. Subconsciously, the mind is putting a value to the word ‘gold’ and is already wondering what to do in order to achieve the same. Up to 30 percent of the people seeing a post like this will try to copy this feat at least once.

The future: regulation?

Sooner or later, everything connected to money, both online and offline, comes under the scrutiny of the authorities, and virtual currency is no exception. In a recent report on Network World entitled Farm Cash vs Hard Cash, Deborah Thoren-Peden, a partner within a US law firm, stated, “There are a couple of hundred laws that could trigger or not trigger depending on how the virtual currency is set-up. If a company is holding money that belongs to someone else, the states want to make sure that there’s oversight of the fund. Generally speaking, you either need to have a bank licence or

a state money transmitter licence or you need to be an authorised delegate of one of those entities”.

In addition to all of the ‘banking’ issues, there are also safety and security issues for minors becoming potential targets of sex offenders. Habbo Hotel has recently come under scrutiny on a Channel 4 documentary. This caused the popular virtual world application to temporarily turn off its chat functionality until there was sufficient security monitoring measures implemented and publicised.

With these two issues in mind, and following the way that real money gaming changed from a grey area to one that is completely black and white, it is only a matter of time before regulation for social and mobile gaming is enforced.

MICHAEL KATZ is CEO and founder of Sociarati Media, a full service social media marketing agency specialising in strategy and campaign planning for the online gaming industry.

Michael has been a part of the online gaming industry since 2002 and has specialised in social media since 2010.

Michael can be contacted by email at Michael@sociaratimedia.com.

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Don’t Miss out on Mobile: Five Top Tips for Affiliates in the Mobile Space Daphna Silberman, Director and mobile specialist at BrightShare Affiliate Program representing All Slots Casino and All Slots Mobile Casino, shares some pointers for affiliates looking to capitalise on the fastgrowing mobile casino market.

Mobile phones have been the hot technology of the last five years. So called ‘feature phones’ have given way to Smartphones. Large touchscreens, better quality graphics, new web browsers and greatly improved processing power have all redefined how people interact with their device. Consumers are increasingly living their online lives on their mobile devices – representing a huge mGaming opportunity.

Because of this versatility, and the new world of apps and the mobile Internet, Smartphones are exploding in popularity.

Analyst house IDC reported1 that the Smartphone market has grown to see over 150 million devices shipped globally in Q2, 2012 alone.

What does this mean for the gaming industry and for affiliates? Initially, there was uncertainty about whether Smartphone users would embrace mGaming but, with operators’ figures showing that mobile now represents around 30 percent of all activity and continues to grow month-on-month, it’s a booming market.

The conclusion is clear: mobile is a ‘must have’ for gaming sites. It’s becoming a major – if not the major – channel for player acquisition and for mobile game play. But how can affiliates make the most out of the mobile opportunity?

1. Choose wisely The mobile market is growing as we speak – but that doesn’t mean you should rush into any decisions for fear of missing out.

Offering a poor product is worse than not entering the market at all, as it will damage the brand and drive people away. Selecting the right casino – and its affiliate program – is the most strategically important decision you have to make.

It may seem obvious, but you should select a reputable casino, ideally with an established and proven mobile offering.

If there’s a corresponding online casino, there’s a great cross marketing opportunity to maximise revenues and player retention.

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A mobile casino should be optimised for all of the major Smartphone and tablet operating systems, including Android, iOS and Java. There’s no point in developing and promoting a killer product if it can only reach one part of the market. The landing pages must be light and fast, designed specifically for mobile and not just rescaled versions of the full website. End users aren’t going to tolerate a sluggish and second-rate experience when their phones are capable of so much more.

Affiliates should also expect to receive close support from experienced mobile account managers. Your account management team needs to understand how online and mobile gaming can complement each other – and help you get the most out of the platform. You should expect help with building new strategies and campaigns focused on mobile.

Similarly, look for someone who can offer specialised mobile marketing tools and the ability to provide intelligence around the effectiveness of the mobile programe.

There’s also the opportunity to use an iFrame tool to promote mobile gaming on an online site. The player simply inserts their details and instantly receives a link by email or SMS direct to their mobile device. ●●Think about the promotional materials available. Banners will be key and should be provided in a range of sizes and formats available both for online and mobile.

3. Take advantage of the growth in mobile search It’s important that any player searching from his mobile for a casino should see mobile casino sites ahead of less relevant online alternatives. With one in seven searches now made on a mobile device, according to Google, it is essential that you shape your offering to perform well in mobile search. But bear in mind that mobile SEO is a different ball game to online SEO, with algorithms and results managed in different ways.

4. Arm yourself with analytics 2. Make sure you have the right tools for the job The interactive casino you choose should provide a wide variety of marketing tools which match your business strategy and requirements and are optimised for mobile to give you the maximum impact. ●●Think about the customer experience.

The casino should have the tools to recognise whether the player is using a tablet or a Smartphone, and redirect people to their optimal platform for the best possible gaming experience. ●●What other technologies could promote your affiliated casinos? Hosting a dedicated mobile site is a must. It should be easy to view and navigate – with a small amount of casinos and information offered – and should load in less than three seconds. QR (Quick Response) Codes can help automatically direct players to the optimal casino for their device simply by taking a picture.

To learn and deliver more effective campaigns in the future, you must have the tools and time to analyse ongoing performance. You can even monitor in realtime, providing invaluable intelligence in terms of demographics, and which games and mobile platforms are most popular.

5. Stay on top Operators must keep pace with the evolution of Smartphone technology. It is a fast moving industry and it is imperative that you select an operator that has its eye on the market and is committed to supporting the latest handsets and operating systems. An experience that is one or more generations behind will harm the experience and, ultimately, your reputation and success.

The number one rule is to keep the customer experience front of mind. Find a casino partner with the same passion and commitment and you won’t go far wrong.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120726006920/en/Strong-Demand-Smartphones-Quarter-Continues-Drive-Worldwide

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INSIGHT

A Multi-Media Social Approach that isn’t Half Baked Six years ago, an online gaming marketer could set up an affiliate program and an SEO program and sit back and watch the players roll in. As the space has saturated, leaving everyone searching for new ways to find players and get them to return, it has lead to operators and affiliates looking for new traffic generation opportunities.

Further adding to this difficult

Step 2

Step 6

new landscape is an unrelenting Google Spam policy and a transition of players from standard desktop play to mobile. It is an understatement to say that the online marketing landscape has evolved in the gaming space.

However, it simply isn’t as tough as it seems to find new places to drive traffic and turn them into actual players. Smart marketers know this, and are making the transitions I will discuss in this article.

Let’s take a look at a recipe to turn seemingly meaningless mobile social traffic into high-end players.

To help you build your audience employ the help of Optim.al. They allow you to drive ‘Likes’ on the cheap, and specialise in mobile users. They help you target the Likes as well. You are already likely saying, “How valuable are likes?” Patience.

You are going to take this growing list of people and manage them in PAR. PAR is a company started by my good friend Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker. It allows you to take your boring old email list and extract really vital information about your members. This includes all of their social profiles registered to that email, age demographics, sex, location, occupation and other information.

From here you can do a couple of things with PAR. First, you can create acquisition sequences created by the information.

For example, I can send one offer to 35 to 50 year-old women in London that use Facebook, and another offer and mailer to men aged 18 to 35 in Germany. The sequence will run until they became players.

Once they are attained you can then initiate retention sequences for your groups.

Once this system is set up, the only thing you need to add is quality content and new incentives for signups.

Step 3 Build out a really great content offering off your Facebook page, and incorporate a newsletter sign-up. Let me reiterate, GREAT CONTENT. Your standard ‘Ten Tips to Higher Payouts’ isn’t going to cut it, and don’t tell me this strategy didn’t work if that is what you are pushing.

Ingredients: ●●Facebook

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●●Optim.al

Now begin to share that offline content on your page, and utilise the Facebook promotion ads to maximise the visibility of this content to your growing fan base.

The importance in the promotion makes a difference of about 80 percent.

Fan Page account ●●A strong piece of content to offer (Infographics, odds sheets, etc) ●●PAR Program ●●iPad

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Instructions: Step 1

Step 5

You want to build up a high quality Facebook fan page that has high quality content, polls, and other usable content.

Simply filling up the page with offers is about as useful as a one legged chair.

As the traffic begins to trickle into Facebook, make sure to hit the traffic with an exit pop asking them to sign-up for your newsletter to receive awesome tips, tricks, and register to win a free iPad.

How to cook this in the multimedia mix This set-up is perfect to target the everexpanding mobile user base. However, you do need to follow some basic best practices, because the reality is that not all content

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INSIGHT

renders the same on desktop as mobile.

350 million users log-in to Facebook using mobile devices. In addition, nearly 21 percent of the emails opened in the entertainment market will come via mobile email. This means that a nice portion of your traffic using this method will be mobile users.

Make sure the content you create is mobile friendly. If you are offering PDFs, make sure they are housed somewhere that a user can navigate to and not just download. PDFs should be optimised for both downloading via, and being read on, mobile devices.

Content such as infographics need to be optimised for mobile users. We have found using a mobile friendly jQuery lightbox does the trick.

The one key is to make sure that your newsletter landing page has a very good mobile version, and that your strategy for optimising for this conversion is mobile friendly. One route you could also go is adding a form field for phone numbers so that you can build an SMS list as well.

Expand your flavour pallet You can easily expand outside of this structure to drive even more traffic.

A great place to start is StumbleUpon, which allows targeted demographic content delivery at a nominal cost. It is a very clean

“The main issue with social traffic is that the user is not in the mindset to convert immediately. By utilising PAR and retargeting, you can maximise the effectiveness of your mobile and social traffic.” and straightforward route towards viral marketing. Also it allows you to target only those people with a gambling interest, and hone in from there for topics like poker and specific sports.

Another great way to maximise your effectiveness on this traffic is to incorporate a retargeting pixel onto your site. The main issue with social traffic is that the user is not in the mindset to convert immediately.

By utilising PAR and retargeting, you can maximise the effectiveness of your mobile and social traffic. Retargeter.com manages mobile retargeting well. This will work especially well with StumbleUpon since the users are likely ‘stumbling’ across your content as they look for other content.

The icing on the cake The acquisition and retention emails are really the icing on the cake in this process.

If you don’t have solid acquisition collateral, none of this is going to work. One suggestion I would make is not beating your list over the head with constant sales pitches but, rather, you should mix in

usable content to retain your list and move them closer to a sale. Info product affiliates have made an art form of this, and there are a plethora of amazing resources online to help you create these campaigns.

Don’t get lazy The key to this entire process is that you can’t do any one portion of it half baked.

Great content with a terrible use of demographic targeting in your acquisition sequences isn’t going to yield strong results. However, once this process is set up, you can repeat to increase conversions, so don’t get insanely caught up in the details to the point that you never get this functioning.

This process turns the traffic that most gaming marketers see as low value into valuable gains. Low value traffic is where other people aren’t looking, and the lack of saturation can yield you an advantage.

Furthermore, the traffic and social signals from this strategy can have profound benefits on your SEO strategies and, thus, lead to increases in your ROI.

Dave Snyder is SVP of Product Development at BlueGlass. Dave is a world renowned Internet Marketing Consultant and has spoken around the world on search marketing and social media, and has consulted for some of the world’s largest companies.

Dave parlayed his gifts as a former teacher and writer into his current role as a thought leader in the arena of search marketing. He is also one of the publishers of SearchEngineJournal and DailySEOTip, where he shares his unique perspective on concepts related to search marketing. Dave’s strengths lie in both organic and paid search marketing, and he excels in utilising social media for brand building and online reputation management.

Dave is considered one of the foremost authorities on link marketing.

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ARE YOU FROM THE PAST?

This fantastic expression was first used a few years ago by the technical support of the “IT Crowd” sitcom (scan the barcode here to watch the clip). I was thinking about it when starting to write this article as honestly, if you are not already dealing with social and/or mobile gaming already, you are probably quite satisfied with accessing your MySpace account using that solid Nokia of yours…

Let’s begin with some facts: ●●By

2014, mobile browsing will be bigger than desktop Internet (Morgan Stanley, April 2010) ●●Total value of mobile wagering, across casinos, betting and lottery, totalled $19.5 billion in 2011, and the market will be worth more than $100 billion by 2017. The major online UK sportsbooks – Ladbrokes, William Hill, Paddy Power – are all now seeing around 40 percent of their sportsbook users accessing their services via a mobile device (Juniper Research, June 2012) ●●Facebook is the largest social network on earth, with nearly 1 billion registered members (Facebook, July 2012) ●●62 percent of adults worldwide now use social media; social networking is the most popular online activity, with 22 percent of time online spent on channels like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest (May 2012, The Social Skinny) What would you do, knowing that this is the type of content people consume, and knowing their preferred means of consuming it? Surely, you will go and try to enhance your social media presence and strive to own some kind of mobile capabilities.

Hand-in-hand I want to explore with you why these two aspects of Internet content, social and mobile (particularly when it comes to online gambling, you can’t really spot one without the other), always go together.

I personally believe that there are several layers to this phenomenon, starting with the fact that both are relatively new and dependent on each other. Facebook was big and growing, but only when the iPhone emerged and took the Smartphone category by charge did the real penetration of ‘being connected’ became part of our

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daily routine. So, people are interested in other people, which makes sense, and now they have the ability to do so all of the time – one reason is feeding the other, and visa versa.

Secondly, you might be old enough to remember a minor amendment to US Internet law called UIGEA, which dates back to 2006. My claim is that the USA, unarguably the largest market on earth in terms of gaming, was shut out of any easily accessible online gambling option.

And then came Zynga. So, people, while trying to poke other people, were also looking engage in some recreational activity. Being used to anything served instantly, poker was starting to rise on social networks as well, and you know that whatever happens in the US catches on around the globe shortly after.

Meanwhile, Facebook kept enforcing its strict “players cannot withdraw money out of their gaming balance” rule, regardless of the highly moral and sincere efforts of the industry.

Certain ex-iGaming execs, with last names like Playtika, saw this and quickly did the math: (people are always on Facebook using their mobile Smartphone) + (with no ability to legally wager online) – (any ability to cash out their winnings) = an untapped multibillion dollar opportunity. Let the social casino style games begin.

So-Lo-Mo If we take a broader perspective, looking at online marketing in general, there is in fact a modern approach called So-Lo-Mo, standing for Social-Local-Mobile. And combining these three together does make sense as, from a marketing manager perspective, it’s an ideal materialisation of how best to connect with future customers. Foursquare would be a good example of an app that adopts the guidelines of this approach.

Drilling down back to what interests us most, we find out that our industry simply mimics this trend: at the annual CRM & Retention Seminar I moderated during the last ICE conference in London, one of the speakers said that “mobile is not just another channel. It will provide the highest chunk of revenues in the very near future. One third of our online players are engaged in mobile as well, with a very easy cross-sell”. Another speaker pushed the idea further, saying that his analysis of a leading brand’s activity shows that it’s no longer enough to act based on customer comments, saying: “because online operators own all the possible data, they should already have everything in place to respond to any player-initiated scenario, before the player even thinks about it.”

How does this fall into the So-Lo-Mo approach? By analysing all aspects of your players’ behaviour, you should know at all times what kind of marketing messages you can serve, and on what medium. And if you have got that working right for your business, you will start to see the benefits in terms of revenue.

SHAHAR ATTIAS, the Founder and CEO of Hybrid Interaction Ltd, is a globally recognised Retention Marketing and Loyalty expert and the blogger behind iGamingCRM.com. He is a frequent speaker at iGaming conferences, and has a deep understanding of all verticalspecific KPIs in the online gambling industry, as well as an extensive experience in Forex and Binary Options, and recent case studies with applying Player Development Strategies at casino-style gaming applications on Facebook. Office: +972-77-6646213; Mobile: +972-52-8577539; shahar@ hybridinteraction.com.

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CASINO FOCUS

Sponsored by:

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Casino FOCUS

CASINO AFFILIATE MANAGERS AND THEIR DRIVING FORCE

By Igor Samardziski, Head of Casino at bet-at.eu.

Over the years and throughout the evolution of the online casino industry, the job of an online casino affiliate has become more challenging and competitive. Affiliates in the casino sector are probably the only ones that operate in a completely unregulated gaming market, as opposed to the online poker and sportsbook sectors.

This lack of regulation could mean that online casino affiliates face the risk of having their players refused access to gaming software, meaning that players who have been providing them with longterm revenue could suddenly fall through, or regulators within different jurisdictions could end up blocking IP and player access to gaming sites at any time and not always with sufficient leeway to make amends.

In addition to this grey area in which casino affiliates must operate, the consolidation of the industry has seen small to medium sized operators acquired by major operators, including the acquisition of the affiliate programs they had developed, which has created a spin of change throughout the affiliate industry. Before, major casino affiliates would generally trust their business with big operators, however, the perception has now changed somewhat after a handful of them announced that affiliates’ players will not be carried over with the affiliates’ accounts, giving little to no consideration to their business partners nor the heavy contribution they gave to the profit and respective growth of these online casinos since the beginning of their operations.

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This naturally brings us to a major question:

What could an affiliate program do to attract and retain their affiliates?

Most casino affiliate programs offer a number of marketing tools for an affiliate’s perusal. These generally include a blend of media, reviews and promotions as well as competitive commission plans supported by an affiliate interface that provides a comprehensive amount of

in place, putting the program in better position to be able to provide the affiliate with the right knowledge of their offer. If the request develops out of the affiliate’s initiative, then the program should compile a review automatically upon sign up. This would be the first, crucial step for an affiliate program in order to provide its casino affiliates with the right level of understanding.

It is often the presumption of casino affiliate managers that once an affiliate signs up, it is then up to the affiliate to take

“What affiliates are often lacking is the inside knowledge that affiliate programs have acquired, together with the decision making capacity on how to use the marketing and reporting tools available to them.” information, allowing each affiliate to evaluate their performance. All well and good, but what affiliates are often lacking is the inside knowledge that affiliate programs have acquired, together with a knowledgeable grasp and decision making capacity on how to use the marketing and reporting tools available to them.

A knowledgeable acquisition team should provide assistance and direction before an affiliate signs up – or upon sign up, depending on the circumstances. If a casino affiliate is going to be proactively approached by the affiliate program in order to develop a business relationship, then the assessment of the website including the review media advertised and the content published, should be correctly

the reins in order for the partnership to commence reaping rewards. This is simply not the case. Affiliate programs hold the key individuals that have the insight and knowledge of the business that will help the growth of each affiliate’s business.

An affiliate program should also understand that each affiliate has different needs. In order to acquire this level of understanding, a casino affiliate program should segment their affiliates’ database on a regular basis in order to strive towards nurturing growth for each and every affiliate irrespective of which category they fall under. It is only then that the required level of individual advice, attention and support can be provided to its full potential.

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Casino FOCUS

KPIs The key performance indicators that a casino affiliate program should look for are mainly related to the performance of media (views, clicks, sign-ups) according to its placement on the casino affiliate website, the conversion ratio of players from sign-up to deposit, as well as the ability to provide each affiliate with an in-depth evaluation of their performance on a monthly basis. This information is part of the bigger picture, as it points to the performance of the overall affiliate program and makes monitoring and strategy easier for both affiliate program optimisation as well as for the affiliates themselves on how to develop and improve their individual performances.

One must also never forget that an affiliate program should be constantly incentivising its affiliates for providing new players. This should not only be done through conventional methods such as

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Affiliate programs should keep their affiliates abreast of all activation and retention activities that are undertaken with their casino players, so that the business partnership between the affiliate program and the casino affiliate remains strong and profitable at all times.â&#x20AC;? commission plans, but also by offering special incentives for delivering new sign-ups, new depositing players and new active players as well as VIP players on a monthly basis. This can be accomplished by being highly competitive in your commission strategy, but also through custom-made commission plans that can be applied to individual affiliates and also to individual players.

Another crucial point would be the activation and retention of players.

Affiliate programs should keep their affiliates abreast of all activation and retention activities that are undertaken with their casino players. Casino affiliates need to understand that all

efforts are being made to keep the players on the site, so that the business partnership between the affiliate program and the casino affiliate remains strong and profitable at all times.

Payments are another factor taken too lightly far too often by affiliate programs. An experienced affiliate manager understands that casino affiliates take substantial risks and work hard to deliver players to casino sites. With that in mind, and as with any other business partnerships, casino affiliates should be paid promptly as is agreed on contract, and never a day later in order to guarantee a smooth and mutually beneficial business relationship.

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Casino FOCUS

Data Centre

What would happen if Vegas Casinos moved online?

Myron Saacks, Affiliate Manager for Red Returns, explores the challenges that would face online casinos should Vegas casinos and land-based brands decide to venture online. bwin.party’s announcement of a joint venture with MGM and Boyd Gaming last year has highlighted the appetite for terrestrial US casinos and land-based brands to extend their reign online. The questions arises as to how would this affect the current online gambling industry, and what challenges would online casinos have to face in the race for online dominance?

It wasn’t long ago that online gambling took the world by storm. Millions of users signed up to play anonymously at home on a multitude of casino sites. Then the bubble burst when Congress passed a law (UIGEA) in 2006 that prohibited the transfer of money to casino sites. Consequently, many casino sites left the US market.

“From a distance, it would only make sense for overseas operators to gain an advantage for partnering with US casinos. At the same time, very little would stand in the way of Vegas casinos dominating the online sector.”

However, a bill is now making its way through Congress that would regulate and tax online gambling, making it very attractive for terrestrial casinos and landbased brands to move online. In 2006, Las Vegas Sands showed interest in opening an online casino, followed by MGM last year.

Should these titans succeed, competing in this multi-billion dollar industry will become all the more difficult.

Under the agreement, bwin.party, the operators of Party Poker and the World Poker Tour, would own 65 percent of the company, MGM would own 25 percent while Boyd Gaming would own ten percent.

For bwin.party, such agreements would give the company immediate access to the American online gambling demographic.

Las Vegas Sands, another company aiming at online dominance, obtains 85 percent of its revenue from Asia. The company owns one of only two casino licenses available in Singapore and one of six licenses in China. The two regions alone provide extraordinary growth possibilities, making Las Vegas Sands a possible partner for online operators that are looking to reenter the US market and other regions.

Domination Logical step The marriage between bricks-and-mortar casinos and online operators is a logical step for many. In the instance of bwin.party’s joint venture with MGM and Boyd Gaming, the companies would be aligned to form a ‘super group’ that would own and operate one joint website and multiple individual sites, giving them a clear advantage as far as online visibility is concerned.

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Provided that intra-state legalisation takes place, new regulation would favour Vegas casinos and land-based brands that are already under regulation in the US. From a distance, it would only make sense then for overseas operators to gain an advantage for partnering with US casinos.

At the same time, very little would stand in the way of Vegas casinos dominating the online sector. By extending their brands

and operations onto the web, an influx in business and revenue would come as a direct result of their already prominent presence in the minds of casino players.

In addition, Vegas casinos would be in the position to offer incentive structures that rival operators would only be able to dream of, particularly when overnight stays for regular players and VIP tickets to shows become the norm. Online casino operators and their affiliates would need to become extremely inventive to remain competitive and uphold the trust of their users.

To add weight to the intent of Vegas casinos and their desire to move online, MGM Resorts, the largest operator on the Las Vegas Strip, announced earlier this year that it would launch a social gaming site.

Although users will be able to play for fun only, MGM is expected to use the platform for promoting its casino brands and the unique experience of playing on the Strip.

MYRON SAACKS is the Affiliate Manager for Red Returns, where he manages the affiliate program for Red Flush Casino and Casino La Vida.

Myron can be reached at myrons@ redreturns.com, www.redreturns.net.

iGB Affiliate august/september 2012

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10/08/2012 16:36

Casino FOCUS

Data Centre

UK iGaming Search Trends Search marketing agency, Greenlight, has released its latest report into search traffic trends within the gaming sector for the month of June. Here, we can see the latest from the UK market in relation to search queries for our featured vertical of casino and how it fares in comparison to its traditional counterparts, poker, bingo and sportsbetting.

Greenlight’s report into UK search trends for the month of June show a significant fall in the overall number of searches for the combined keywords casino, poker, bingo and sportsbetting. Our previous reporting period showed that April’s figures had increased in overall search volumes to 859,603 having fallen to 736,470 in February, which represented the second lowest figure since June 2011. However, June’s data sees overall searches down at 646,589, with casino accounting for the smallest portion at a mere 128,505.

The drop in figures would suggest that seasonality is playing a large part of the decline, particularly for casino (warmer summer weather) but is something of a surprise for sportsbetting which at 143,230 is the second lowest amount, despite the presence of the Euro 2012 football championships and other leading events such as Wimbledon. However, we shall discuss potential reasons for the uniform decline later on.

Searches for bingo-related content overtook both sportsbetting (previous leader) and poker to claim 34 percent voice of share with 221,737 searches (down nearly 20,000 from April), establishing it as the most searched keyword, or at least, the term with the most cumulative searches with regards to variations (sportsbetting/bets/ betting/etc). The numbers for poker-related keywords were the only ones to show an increase, jumping from 148,417 in April to 153,117 in June. As mentioned, casino keywords remain the least searched, falling from 136,529 in April to June’s figure of 128,505.

The decrease in searches over the period is almost wholly driven by the drop off in searches for sportsbetting – falling from 314,512 in April to just 143,230 in June, a loss of over 171,000. Considering how April’s figures were arguably positively impacted by seasonal betting events such as the Grand National and pre-Euro 2012, it is difficult to identify exactly why events such as Euro 2012 (June) and the pre-Olympic period hadn’t continued the upward trend.

The uniform decrease in search volumes can be attributed to any number of factors, one of the likeliest being the changing search patterns of the UK betting demographic. As consumers become more aware of how they navigate between the sites they use to bet or play at, their reliance on search engines decreases for shorttail terms such as those detailed here, but may increase for more specific, longer-tail keywords for which is it almost impossible to monitor and chart successfully. Many of the searches recorded for these core keywords such as ‘casino’, ‘bingo’ and ‘poker’ are more likely to be the reserve of those new to betting online, or those seeking information rather than ‘action’, hence the constant presence of Wikipedia at the head of the Greenlight results.

The results for sportsbetting are also slightly muddied by the presence of short-tail terms such as ‘bet’ and ‘betting’ which although are grouped into the sports results, don’t necessarily represent accurate sports betting traffic.

Summary of data ●● Searches for gaming-related keywords in June 2012 totalled

646,589 down just over 213,000 on the previous reporting period (859,603).

56

Rank

Domain

Monthly Reached Volume

Monthly Missed Volume

Percentage Reached

1

wikipedia.org

170,808

475,781

26%

2

ladbrokes.com

163,832

482,757

25%

3

cheekybingo.com

132,642

513,947

21%

4

888.com

90,927

555,662

14%

5

galabingo.com

89,770

556,819

14%

6

foxybingo.com

86,453

560,136

13%

7

pokerlistings.com

82,595

563,994

13%

8

paddypower.com

77,462

569,127

12%

9

pokerstars.co.uk

74,271

572,318

11%

10

betfair.com

72,911

573,678

11%

11

costabingo.com

72,642

573,947

11%

12

partybingo.com

71,245

575,344

11%

13

casino770.com

69,660

576,929

11%

14

williamhill.com

64,935

581,654

10%

15

jackpotjoy.com

59,489

587,100

9%

16

bingo770.com

57,271

589,318

9%

17

888ladies.com

56,549

590,040

9%

18

meccabingo.com

54,503

592,086

8%

19

pokerstars.com

52,292

594,297

8%

20

888sport.com

50,633

595,956

8%

21

whichbingo.co.uk

50,628

595,961

8%

22

bet365.com

50,032

596,557

8%

23

coral.co.uk

48,942

597,647

8%

24

skypoker.com

48,444

598,145

7%

25

pkr.com

46,998

599,591

7%

26

miniclip.com

44,142

602,447

7%

27

freebingo.co.uk

43,846

602,743

7%

28

partypoker.com

43,404

603,185

7%

29

bingoport.co.uk

41,865

604,724

6%

30

skybet.com

41,391

605,198

6%

31

betfred.com

38,426

608,163

6%

32

wtgbingo.com

37,924

608,665

6%

33

games.com

37,285

609,304

6%

34

comparebingosites.co.uk

36,476

610,113

6%

35

32red.com

33,026

613,564

5%

36

ukcasino-club.co.uk

31,319

615,270

5%

37

spinpalace.co.uk

29,589

617,000

5%

38

imdb.com

29,248

617,341

5%

39

oddschecker.com

29,197

617,392

5%

40

fulltiltpoker.com

28,706

617,883

4%

41

bet.com

27,100

619,489

4%

42

onlinebingofinder.co.uk

26,058

620,531

4%

43

latestcasinobonuses.com

25,934

620,655

4%

44

32redbingo.com

24,444

622,145

4%

45

freebingohunter.com

24,191

622,398

4%

46

galacasino.com

23,083

623,506

4%

47

thepokerpractice.com

22,994

623,595

4%

48

winkbingo.com

22,547

624,042

3%

49

gentingcasinos.co.uk

21,792

624,797

3%

50

mansioncasino.com

21,379

625,210

3%

●● Casino-related terms accounted for the fewest share of searches

at just 128,505 (20%) with Casino770.com (64,660), Ladbrokes (56,829) and Wikipedia (42,453) making up the three most visible websites for casino-related keywords. ●● Overall, in June, Wikipedia.org, Ladbrokes and Cheeky Bingo were the three most visible websites in natural search. ●● Cheeky Bingo maintained its lead as the most visible website for bingo-related search terms, with Gala Bingo and Foxy Bingo making up the top three. ●● For poker-related queries, Poker Listings overtook Wikipedia as the most visible website, ahead of PokerStars in third. ●● Betfair is now the most visible website for sportsbetting-related terms ahead of Paddy Power and William Hill.

iGB Affiliate august/september 2012

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Data Centre

Casino FOCUS

The most visible websites for online casino-related keywords in natural search (June 2012)

The most visible websites for online bingo-related keywords in natural search (June 2012)

Rank

Rank

Domain

Monthly

Monthly

Percentage

Reached

Missed

Reached

Volume

Volume

Domain

Monthly

Monthly

Percentage

Reached

Missed

Reached

Volume

Volume

1

casino770.com

69,660

58,845

54%

1

cheekybingo.com

132,642

89,095

60%

2

ladbrokes.com

56,829

71,676

44%

2

galabingo.com

89,770

131,967

40%

3

wikipedia.org

42,453

86,052

33%

3

foxybingo.com

86,453

135,284

39%

4

32red.com

33,011

95,494

26%

4

costabingo.com

72,642

149,095

33%

5

ukcasino-club.co.uk

31,319

97,186

24%

5

partybingo.com

71,245

150,492

32%

6

spinpalace.co.uk

29,589

98,916

23%

6

jackpotjoy.com

59,489

162,248

27%

7

888.com

29,517

98,988

23%

7

bingo770.com

57,271

164,466

26%

8

imdb.com

27,578

100,927

21%

8

888ladies.com

56,549

165,188

26%

9

latestcasinobonuses.com

25,930

102,575

20%

9

ladbrokes.com

55,462

166,275

25%

10

galacasino.com

23,083

105,422

18%

10

whichbingo.co.uk

50,628

171,109

23%

11

gentingcasinos.co.uk

21,792

106,713

17%

11

meccabingo.com

49,487

172,250

22%

12

mansioncasino.com

21,379

107,126

17%

12

freebingo.co.uk

43,846

177,891

20%

13

grosvenorcasinos.com

19,320

109,185

15%

13

bingoport.co.uk

41,865

179,872

19%

14

netbet.org

16,620

111,885

13%

14

888.com

41,300

180,437

19%

15

goldentigercasino.com

15,552

112,952

12%

15

wtgbingo.com

37,924

183,813

17%

16

allfreechips.com

15,002

113,503

12%

16

comparebingosites.co.uk

36,476

185,261

16%

17

luckyemperorcasino.com

13,120

115,385

10%

17

onlinebingofinder.co.uk

26,058

195,679

12%

18

onlinecasinobonus.co.uk

12,046

116,459

9%

18

32redbingo.com

24,444

197,293

11%

19

casinoaction.com

11,710

116,795

9%

19

freebingohunter.com

24,191

197,546

11%

20

maxims-casinos.co.uk

10,840

117,665

8%

20

winkbingo.com

22,547

199,190

10%

The most visible websites for online poker-related keywords in natural search (June 2012)

The most visible websites for online sports betting-related keywords in natural search (June 2012)

Rank

Rank

Domain

Monthly

Monthly

Percentage

Reached

Missed

Reached

Volume

Volume

Domain

Monthly

Monthly

Percentage

Reached

Missed

Reached

Volume

Volume

1

pokerlistings.com

82,587

70,530

54%

1

betfair.com

66,527

76,703

46%

2

wikipedia.org

82,583

70,534

54%

2

paddypower.com

66,447

76,783

46%

3

pokerstars.co.uk

74,271

78,846

49%

3

williamhill.com

61,116

82,114

43%

4

pokerstars.com

52,292

100,825

34%

4

888sport.com

50,633

92,597

35%

5

skypoker.com

48,444

104,673

32%

5

bet365.com

49,623

93,607

35%

6

pkr.com

46,882

106,235

31%

6

coral.co.uk

48,942

94,288

34%

7

miniclip.com

44,142

108,975

29%

7

skybet.com

40,802

102,428

28%

8

partypoker.com

43,357

109,760

28%

8

betfred.com

38,257

104,973

27%

9

fulltiltpoker.com

28,706

124,411

19%

9

wikipedia.org

36,409

106,821

25%

10

games.com

26,754

126,363

17%

10

ladbrokes.com

30,921

112,309

22%

11

thepokerpractice.com

22,994

130,123

15%

11

oddschecker.com

29,102

114,128

20%

12

ladbrokes.com

20,619

132,498

13%

12

bet.com

27,100

116,130

19%

13

pacificpoker.com

18,211

134,906

12%

13

770.com

19,095

124,135

13%

14

texasholdem-poker.com

17,966

135,151

12%

14

olbg.com

18,317

124,913

13%

15

888.com

15,030

138,087

10%

15

bluesq.com

15,948

127,282

11%

16

thefreepokerroom.com

14,826

138,291

10%

16

www.online-betting.me.uk

11,779

131,451

8%

17

about.com

12,226

140,891

8%

17

tips-free-bets.com

10,964

132,266

8%

18

247freepoker.com

12,100

141,017

8%

18

twitter.com

10,840

132,390

8%

19

pokernews.com

11,754

141,363

8%

19

freebets.com

9,916

133,314

7%

20

youtube.com

11,194

141,923

7%

20

betrescue.com

9,427

133,803

7%

Source: Greenlight iGB Affiliate august/september 2012

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10/08/2012 16:38

CASINO FOCUS

THE SEASONALITY OF CASINO PLAYERS WORLDWIDE Casino affiliate advertising is not immune to seasonal fluctuations, so what are the best and worst times of the year? Michaela McNamara, Editor at CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com investigates.

CREATING CONVERSIONS CAN definitely be a seasonal game. Just like planting vegetables, certain times of the year will result in higher yields than others.

Players gravitate towards casino games at different times of the year for different reasons. Here’s what you need to know about those patterns.

Dog days of summer Any tenured casino affiliate has probably learnt to stockpile a little nest egg before the hot summer months roll around. This is because iGaming conversions tend to drop at points in the year when the weather is warm and inviting.

Think about the lifestyle of playing casino games online. It involves sitting indoors passing the time by placing recurring bets on a game with limited outcomes. That activity might jive with a chilly winter but not with a nice summer day.

There’s a reason Vegas hotels are cheaper in the summer and it’s not entirely because of the 100 degree desert heat. People would just rather be doing something other than sitting indoors gambling on casino games.

Holiday hustle The most bi-polar time of the year for creating casino conversions is around the holidays. A strange thing happens at this time of the year; web traffic and player conversions will plummet dramatically around Christmas only to bounce-back into

the most profitable few weeks of the year.

Casino games become very popular globally in the span of time following Christmas and before the New Year.

There’s a fairly logical explanation for

“The first handful of months in any year are often a season of abundance for casino affiliates. Revenues in January through April can often be nearly twice what you can expect to generate come August.” this: many people are off work on these days and typically want to relax after the hubbub of the holidays at the end of a busy work year. However, it doesn’t take too much time spent sitting around idly before a little action starts to sound appealing.

But with uninviting outdoor weather, what is one to do? Enter casino games.

Affiliates can think of this window of time as their year-end bonus. It can be a good time to send out an email marketing newsletter to keep casino games on the mind of a rather bored populous.

Steady start to the year The first handful of months in any year are often a season of abundance for casino affiliates. Revenues in January through April can often be nearly twice what you can expect to generate come August.

Of course, your precise variation in earnings from month-to-month also depends on plenty of factors within your

http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com/blog/best-part-of-being-an-affiliate

1

58

control. You can miss out on lost winter opportunities if you drop the ball on energising your players with exciting content and promotions. Conversely, the summer months don’t have to be as brutal

to your income sheet if you grind a bit harder to keep conversions afloat.

Part of the coolest things about being an iGaming affiliate is that you get to control your own destiny to a certain extent.

Seasonal fluctuations do not determine the totality of your fate.

MICHAELA MCNAMARA is Editor at CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com (CAP), the world’s largest online gaming affiliate marketing community. With more than 11,000 members, CAP is the Internet’s primary location for online gaming brands and affiliate marketers to come together and do business.

CAP is owned by Affiliate Media, Inc, an independent online publishing company focused solely on affiliate marketing. Our experts gather, create, and publish information about affiliate marketing and share it with the larger worldwide community to help affiliates better promote leading internet brands world-wide (and profit by doing so).

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INSIGHT

Inside Google+ Google+ launched on June 28, 2011, therefore, it is a little over a year old and to paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumours of its death have been greatly exaggerated. That’s not to say the future of the network is certain but the countless eulogies that have been written and preached may well be premature. Only time will tell. The big question that’s posed by critics is whether or not Google+ can mount a serious challenge to Facebook’s dominance. Yet, this outlook might be wide of the mark.

Google’s senior VP of Social

60

Business recently told Mashable that “Google+ is just an upgrade to Google.”

While Facebook began with social interaction and spread to other services and features, the reality is that although social interaction is very important, Google has a suite of extremely popular products and, through Google+, is persuading users to get social and personal with them.

Google+ has the potential to be the social glue that binds the otherwise disparate services of email, search, YouTube, maps, etc, by adding relevance through incorporating users’ personal data and preferences. For example, a user who has Google social search turned on sees links friends have posted on Google+. It’s now possible to log-in to YouTube using the Google+ network and email lists can even be pulled from Google friend ‘Circles’.

Therefore, while the world is already predisposed to socialise on Facebook, and unlikely to move to Google’s network any time soon, there is a role and a place for Google+ within the grand scale of nontraditional social products.

to Facebook’s 900 million). There is much scepticism around the definition of ‘active users’ as it refers to a range of products, and the statistic could mean that users simply check their email or go to a Google map, as once logged into the wider system, a registered user is auto-logged in to Google+. However, in the interest of fairness, it’s worth noting that Facebook’s user numbers are also similarly skewed in that anybody pressing a ‘Like’ button anywhere on the Internet is considered active without necessarily logging into the Facebook site itself.

The bigger difference, however, is the levels of engagement. US users spent an average of 3.3 minutes on Google’s social network in January, compared with 7.5 hours for Facebook, according to comScore.

Larry Page responded to criticism by saying the company’s early focus on search came at the expense of helping people socialise and at the end of June, the company revealed that ‘active’ users now spend an average of 12 minutes per visit to the Stream (which is the main social feature of Google+) up from nine minutes in March.

Statistics and data

Features of Google+

Google+ reached 20 million users in 24 days, 1,011 fewer days than Facebook, and in a company update in January 2012, CEO Larry Page said Google+ had more than 100 million active users (over 60 percent daily and 80 percent monthly). At the more recent Google I/O event, it was announced that the network now has 250 million registered users out of which 150 million are active on a monthly basis (compared

Google+ operates as a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook in that it has a ‘follow’-style relationship which allows a user to group people in any number of list-like ‘Circles’ to which selected content including videos, text and pictures can be disclosed to discrete groups, and the Stream which acts like Facebook’s inbound newsfeed.

‘What’s Hot’ is a Twitter-style feature monitoring current trends, and ‘Sparks’

allows a user to flag their own interests and that page collates articles, blogs and feeds on those topics. ‘Hangouts’ are another hugely popular innovation and possibly the killer feature of Google+. These are a type of video conference or chatroom into which a user’s friends can dip in and out, and is unique to Google+ (no similar features are yet available on either Twitter or Facebook).

Originally, Google+ Hangouts were limited to ten active participants (with unlimited viewers once it was posted to YouTube); however, the product has now evolved to include Hangouts On Air, which allows a limited number of participants, but an unlimited number of live viewers.

There was a hugely popular Super Bowl post-game Hangout where users dissected the big game’s commercials, where Google partnered with NBC to run the Hangout with sports business reporter Darren Rovell as the host. Barack Obama hosted a Hangout in January 2012, and the music group Black Eyed Peas used the technology to give fans a peek behind the scenes backstage at one of their concerts.

Hangouts with US Olympic athletes have been announced recently and David Beckham was the first sports star to seriously plug Google’s social networking platform, with an interview on the star’s YouTube page followed by the player hosting a hangout on his Google+ page.

At the time, Beckham’s page boasted an impressive 450,000 ‘fans’ and he has been on the platform since November 2011.

As celebrities drove the graduation of Twitter from a niche network of hardcore loyalists to a mainstream platform, Google appears to be hoping that something similar will happen with Google+, although it will have to push hard and invest time/ money/relationships in order to reach the true critical mass.

To coincide with the first anniversary of its social platform, Google announced a number of new features along with an overhaul to its mobile product and a brand new tablet app. As with all other aspects

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INSIGHT

of Google’s products, the new ‘Events’ feature automatically coordinates with Google Calendar, and offers a wide range of graphic invite templates for users to choose from. Posts from an event can be uploaded and filed in real-time during the event through ‘Party Mode’ along with hosting Hangouts.

Mobile Where mobile is Facebook’s Achilles’ heel, Google+ has the potential to dominate on this platform, and given that mobile is slowly replacing the desktop as the primary source for content and social activity, this is no small feat. In fact, Google recently announced that Google+ gets most of its activity and traction on the mobile platform.

Its iPhone app was recently completely overhauled, with Android to follow, and with the recently launched tablet app (Android first, iPad is coming soon) Google has used the added screen space to great effect, unlike Facebook which simply upsized it’s iPhone app for the tablet with a slightly better navigation. Google+, on the other hand, steps away from a static feed with every post being the same size, uses an ‘endless scrolling’ format, and incorporates popularity signals from an individual’s network and friends to optimise placement and size of posts based on relevancy and interest. The re-imagined app design is a nod to the very popular Flipboard app which is graphic heavy and magazine-like in its post distribution.

Along with Hangouts, the new Events and Party Mode features of Google+ have a natural home on the mobile/tablet given how people use their devices and social networks at live events and gatherings.

Yet another feature, called ‘Huddle’, allows users to conduct multi-person/ group chats with people in your circles and communicate with them in real-time. This is widely considered Android’s answer to BBM and iMessage.

The effect on search Another reason Google+ has so much power is because of Google search and since the Google Panda and Penguin updates, the social signal is a strong cue in SERPs. Search ranking factors include personal recommendations and content

based on the interests users enter (e.g. blogs, posts, articles, videos) – and also takes into account the number of times a user has clicked Google’s +1 button (which is the same as a Facebook Like, but with the added increased relevance to SEO). +1 recommendations appear next to ads, and are shown to all Google users. More interestingly, from a marketing perspective, is the recent Google Search Plus Your World launch, which links the user’s own social network to their search results. When someone in a user’s Google domain (email, Google+, etc) +1s a page that then appears in SERPs, their name/picture is also shown as part of the search results, which is a massive increase in confidence and interest to the search users.

When it comes to advertising on Google, the company’s AdWords Social Extensions package links their brand’s Google+ page to an AdWords campaign, so that all +1s from the Google+ page, website, ads and search get tallied together.

This results in more recommendations for your ads, helping inform users about your content, regardless of whether the

(potential) customer is looking at an ad, a search result or the Google+ page. In fact, according to Google, search ads with annotations have an average five to ten percent uplift in click through rate.

The critics of Google+ are not wrong in their belittling the network on the basis of user numbers and activity levels, however, from the product and technology perspective, it’s an impressive platform with considered and innovative features.

Facebook had the luxury of exclusivity when it launched, but Google arguably has a better product which may well stand it in good stead over time. It shouldn’t be written off just yet. Let’s wait and see.

AIDEEN SHORTT is a freelance researcher and consultant in the gambling industry and has recently authored the iGaming Social Marketing and Strategy report for the iGaming Business Group. For more information email aideen.shortt@gmail.com

iGB Affiliate AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012

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INSIGHT

Social and Real Money Gambling Simon Burridge, Virgin Games CEO, offers his account of the social gambling space, asking whether social and real money gambling is a match made in heaven or hell.

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The talk in the gambling industry

Convergence

these days is increasingly focused on social gaming, where it is going and how, if possible, could it converge with traditional online gambling and, if so, what would be the effect on overall revenues. And the stakes are high. Annual revenues for social gaming are, according to the market research firm, Parks and Associates, forecast to be $5 billion by 2015 and traditional gaming revenues are at €32.4 billion according to H2 Gambling Capital.

Increasingly, operators are looking for the ‘Holy Grail’, where the ability of social gaming sites to create more entertaining mass market experiences, combined with the proven expertise of traditional online gaming to maximise their return on investment, could lead to a significant rise in revenues.

Over the last 18 months, there has been a discernible increase in interest in and preparation for convergence, although, in absolute terms, the chasm that divides the two (social and gambling) remains as wide as it has ever been. In May, 2011, Caesars purchased 51 percent of Playtika, the Israeli social gaming company, at a $90 million valuation, purchasing the remainder in December, 2011. In January, 2012, IGT, which makes real world casino games and gambling systems, agreed to pay circa $500 million for Seattle-based Double Down Interactive, a developer of casino-style Facebook games that – at least, technically – don’t involve any actual gambling. Interestingly, both these acquisitions point to a growing belief that the land-based industry in the US is

viewing social gaming as a route-to-market in a pre-regulated environment. Regulation to allow online gambling in the US is undoubtedly coming. The tax revenues it could generate are simply too high and, in the current economic uncertainty, too important to be ignored. But, as of today, no one, as the recent GIGSE conference in San Francisco demonstrated, knows how or when. What everybody does know is that when regulation does finally happen, it will be an expensive game to play. There will be licenses to purchase (a price of $30 million has been touted for California alone), marketing budgets for each jurisdiction (which are not insignificant), compliance with the varying regulations, staffing up, increased infrastructure costs and so on.

The days when, as Sir Mark Weinberg once remarked, it was the pioneers that got

iGB Affiliate August/september 2012

10/08/2012 17:16

INSIGHT

sale of virtual currency and virtual gifts in addition to income from banner ads, paid search and special offers.

scalped are over. First mover advantage is going to be absolutely key.

Recently, bwin.party announced that it was setting up a social gaming division, to be called Win Interactive, in which it was proposing to invest up to €40 million over the next two years. Part of that investment has been the acquisition of Orneon Ltd, a Ukrainian development studio who were reputed to be involved in the development of Mytopia’s Bingo Island and some mobile games for

Facebook Previous to announcing its entry into real money gambling in tandem with Gamesys, Facebook had been conducting a will they/ won’t they debate on whether it would open its platform to real-money online gambling in the UK. In November last year, it was rumoured to be in exploratory talks

“En route to convergence, any hybrid of social and cash gaming is likely to be viewed through subjective and puritan perspectives, particularly in the US.” Slotomania, which would be consistent with bwin.party’s confirmation that ‘Win’ will develop products not only for desktop but also importantly for mobile social networks. The plan is for Win, like the majority of other social gaming companies, to operate on a freemium model with revenues derived from the

to do so. Even as recently as May this year, however, it was announced that Facebook had no plans to offer gambling or even cash-based social gaming, according to David Altaner of Gambling Compliance.

Before the company’s about-turn, Julian Cordorniou, Facebook’s head of European Partnerships said that he thought it unlikely

as “there’s too much money in free-to-play games.” Meanwhile, Zynga, operator of Zynga Poker as well as the cow and cropraising favourite, Farmville, has apparently said it is in talks with partners to explore real-money gambling, leading many to speculate that it would begin with social games where you can win cash as well as spend it buying virtual chips.

Three steps It seems to me that there are essentially three scenarios as to how this convergence could pan out. The first is that social casino games reach a wider, more mass market than real money gambling, and this generates a large user base which could act as a feeder and push players through to real money games. This is essentially what Gioco Digitale did in Italy pre-regulation with its free poker offer. Once regulation happened, a lot of ‘free’ players switched, allowing it to be sold to bwin five months later for a considerable premium. In effect, it acts as a pre-regulation land grab and that is why,

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iGB Affiliate August/september 2012

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INSIGHT

with America inching towards regulation, there is so much activity and interest being shown by putative US operators.

The second scenario accepts that ‘social’ and ‘real’ appeal to different audiences for different reasons. They both have viable business models and will, therefore, continue to operate within their own separate verticals.

The third is that social will meet real somewhere in the middle to create an as-yet-unidentified hybrid. This could be social; not just offering chips for no return, or real; not just offering real cash play. More likely still is the possibility that it is not just a hybrid variant of an existing ‘real money’ game but is, in fact, something entirely new.

Incidentally, all three scenarios are capable of being both independent and interdependent. If that all sounds complicated, however, the waters are about to be muddied still further by the announcement that the UK Gambling Commission is to investigate the rise of social gaming in a move that could affect the strategies for online operators looking to increase their presence in the sector.

Companies that make games for social media sites such as Facebook are under scrutiny as fear grows over the increased blurring between social gaming and gambling for money. “The key question is, ‘is it gambling or not?’” asked John Travers, the Commission’s corporate affairs manager. However, as it stands, the key question should be ‘what constitutes gambling?’ Currently, it is possible to play on social gaming sites absolutely free, providing you’re not adverse to watching a few advertisements, and, if you are willing to hand over some cash to ‘buy’ chips, you are not allowed, in the event that you win, to ever cash any of them in. None of this sounds like gambling. If it did, it would be akin to having a betting strategy that only allowed you to bet on ante-post non-runners. More importantly, it is conceptually much closer to subscription based Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG) like World of WarCraft, where you pay to be involved and to keep on playing and, if you want to improve your performance or extend your time, then it’s possible to spend

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thousands of dollars on a suit of virtual armour. The Gambling Commission cites a social gamer that spent $13,000 in just three month’s on free-to play games as an example of its ‘gambling’ nature.

Surely, however, whether it’s more chips or more weaponry, the motive is exactly the same. Yes, there is an issue of how old players can be. It’s 18 for cash games and only 13 to be on Facebook; and yes, there is a danger of normalising gambling games through social gaming but that is no different from many cash gambling sites that offer players the opportunity to play for free. And the average age of the new social gamer is 50 according to a survey carried out by Information Solutions Group for PopCap Games. Cash gambling, it seems, is bad, not only when it lets you lose too much money, but also when it doesn’t allow you to lose any. Perhaps we should distinguish between the two types as ‘social’ and ‘anti-social’ gaming.

Joost Van Dreunen, managing director of New York City-based Games Analytics and a Professor at New York University (of video gaming no less) did not believe Facebook would ever accept cash gaming.

“It’s like saying, ‘let’s advertise Tobacco and make lots of money’”, he said (although I’m not sure it is at all). Indeed, he went on: “there’s never going to be a casino section – a red light district – on Facebook. It’s just not in the nature of the company. They have to be wholesome.”

Despite the fact that Facebook has now made the jump, he is right to acknowledge that en route to convergence, any hybrid of social and cash gaming is likely to be viewed through subjective and puritan perspectives, particularly in the US.

Margin However, there are practical issues to be considered too, of which the elephant in the room seems to be one of margin. The margin in online gambling is low at about five percent, while for virtual chips it’s 100 percent – or 70 percent, once you’ve given Facebook its mandatory 30 percent. This, to me, is the dilemma. Both industries (social and cash) are looking at it from operator-driven perspectives and are being informed by the current situation on what, let’s face it, has already been a roller

coaster ride. As Einstein once remarked “very few problems are solved in the same context in which they were created”.

It is in this light that any fusion should be considered. What will drive revenues, margins and the success of any hybrid games will not be regulators or operators (directly). For convergence to be a success, it must tap-in to future consumer behaviour. David Abbott, the advertising guru, once likened launching a product to shooting a bird, in that you had to aim in front of it if you wished to hit it. Give consumers something they enjoy playing and enjoy spending money and time on and – forgive the expression – you are off to the races. More practically, whatever game it is that achieves that must also be able to work across the multitude of different screens and the multitude of different behavioural patterns that appertain to each type of screen. Research has shown that the same people look for different things at different times of the day on different screens: mobile on the move, mobile at home, tablets, laptops, PCs at work and at home, Connected TVs, and so on. Moreover, when you consider that in the US more time is spent consuming mobile media than in reading newspapers and magazines combined, it is an important consideration. The barriers this time are not technological. They are human.

SIMON BURRIDGE is CEO of Virgin Games. Having completed his degree in History at Queen’s College, Oxford, Simon spent 18 months traveling around Africa and France, where he taught English extremely badly to a series of increasingly bewildered Parisian secretaries, waitresses and unemployed, before finally succumbing to the lure of a career in advertising in 1979. In 1999, he was asked by Sir Richard Branson to set up the People’s Lottery in order to contest the second License, formally becoming Chief Executive of The People’s Lottery in September, 2000. In 2003, Simon rejoined Richard Branson, working on a number of projects, one of which has led to him starting Virgin Games, of which he is now the CEO.

iGB Affiliate August/september 2012

10/08/2012 18:42

New for 2012, BAC incorporates

BARCElona

aFffiIliate conference 11th-14th October 2012 The Fira de Barcelona This event will bring you:  1600 Expected delegates  Over 100 AffiFIliate Programs  70% AfFiliate attendees  Conference sessions that will increase your revenue  Amazing networking parties, in incredible venues, in a stunning city

And all this FREE for afFIfiliates

More details including sponsorship packages, conference schedule, official hotels, all the parties and much more can be found on

www.BarcelonaAffiliateConference.com

CoNFereNCe PreVIew

webmaster world

FOCUS ON THE SPANISH MARKET For the first time, the 2012 Barcelona Affiliate Conference will incorporate iGB Espana to bring an added focus on the newly regulated market in Spain, with a dedicated Spanish Language conference track.

THE AUTUMN AFFILIATE conference has long been regarded as a key point in the calendar, bringing together the industry’s operators and affiliates in preparation for the busy run-in to the New Year period after the relative calm of summer.

After a brief stint in Budapest, the autumn conference returned to Barcelona in 2011 and this year’s BAC event, following the opening of the Spanish market and subsequent issuance of licences, provided the perfect platform to integrate iGB Affiliate’s dedicated Spanish language conference, iGB Espana.

What October’s event promises is a structured balance of top level conference tracks covering operational, marketing and acquisition strategies with a tailored insight into Spain’s newly regulated iGaming market from the people at the heart of its development and implementation.

The main BAC conference schedule will encompass two separate streams focused on the latest in affiliate marketing, giving affiliates the perfect platform to learn about the latest trends and opportunities in this profitable market. A host of well-respected industry experts, such as SEO guru, Ralph Tegtmeier (Fantomaster) are being lined up to help affiliates improve their business strategies, discover what really drives conversions, improve SEO and get the most out of social media and mobile strategies.

The Spanish market insight on the iGB Espana schedule will provide detailed analysis and discussion of the inner workings of the market, and will have translation services available for nonSpanish speaking delegates.

By way of introduction to the Spanish market that prepares to welcome BAC 2012, Xavier Muñoz Bellvehí, gaming partner at Spanish law firm ECIJA, offers a brief insight into the advertising setup under the new Spanish regime, the infringement proceedings for companies and partners who breach the new law and also a list of those companies to have been awarded a Spanish licence to date.

Xavier Muñoz Bellvehí, gaming partner at Spanish law firm ECIJA. xmunoz@ ecijalegal.com.

Advertising and sponsorship in the new Spanish market Under the new Law, the advertisement, promotion and sponsorship of gambling activities is only permitted when referring to gambling activities duly licensed in Spain. Companies with gambling licences granted in other countries are prohibited from offering, advertising or promoting games in Spain. Those that choose to do so will be subject to heavy fines imposed by the Spanish Gaming Regulator (SGR).

Advertising agencies, media channels, or Internet website publishers are

responsible for ensuring and checking, before publishing any advertisement or promotion, that the operator/advertiser is duly licensed and that such particular advertising is allowed within the frame of the operator’s licence. These checks are carried out through the registry of licensed operators which is maintained by the SGR. In any case, if these media entities do accept publicity from non-licensed operators they would also be responsible.

Additionally, the SGR may issue a formal request to media entities to cancel any proposed attempt to publish an illegal advert. This request carries a two day notice period. If this deadline is not complied with, the media entity could face a fine.

The new Law provides a broad definition of the persons or entities that could be liable, which comprises “any person or entity that performs any of the breaches provided by the Law, as well as any other that gives them support, advertises or promotes them, or in any way obtains profit from them”.

Unibet’s Nick Garner speaking at BAC 2011

iGB Affiliate august/september 2012

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Betfair International, PLC

X

Bingosoft, SAU

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

2

TOTAL AMOUNT OF LICENSES

X

X

X X

TOTAL AMOUNT OF SL

X

TOTAL AMOUNT OF GL

X

CONTESTS SL

X

CONTESTS GL

X

COMPLIMENTARY GAMES SL

X X

BINGO SL

X X

2

6

8

3

5

1

0

1

X

2

5

7

2

3

5

X

1

2

3

X

7

Bluesblock, SA

X

X

1

1

2

8

Carousel Game, SA

X

X

1

1

2

9

Casino Barcelona Interactivo, SA

X

10

Casinos Ocio Online, SA

X

11

Cirsa Digital, SAU

X

12

Codere Online, SAU

X

13

Comar Inversiones, SA

X

14

Desarrollo Online Juegos Regulados, SA

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Digital Distribution Management Ibérica, SA

X

X

X

X

Electraworks España, PLC

X

Esgaming, SAU

X

X

19

Eurojuego Star, SA

X

X

20

G2 Gaming Spain, SA

X

X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

21

Gamesys Spain, PLC

X

Giga Game Online, SA

X

23

Golden Park Games, SA Hillside España Leisure, SA

25

Hillside Spain New Media, PLC

X X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

30

Luckia Games, SA

X

31

Money Factory, SA

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X

X X

X X

34

Paf-Consulting, ABP

X

X

Première Megaplex, SA

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

36

Prima Networks Spain, PLC

X

37

Pt Entretenimiento Online, EAD

X

38

Rank Malta Operations, PLC

X

39

Reel Spain, PLC

X

40

Sileuta, PLC

X

X

X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

45

Tómbola International, PLC

X

X

46

Trade4win, SA

X

Unidad Editorial Juegos, SA

X

Ventura24games, SA

X

Vive La Suerte, SA

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

18

4

9

8

1

44

X

X X

X

X

X

X

some Spanish media groups or new market entrants such as Antena 3, Unidad Editorial, Suertia Interactiva and Winga. It also includes the Spanish state company, Loterías y Apuestas del Estado.

A portion of these 53 companies have focused on

26

20

1

3

4

1

0

1 10

X

28

2

3

5

2

6

8

1

4

5

2

7

9

3

5

8

1

1

2

1

1

2

2

0

2

2

7

9

3

8

11

5

6 3

1

2

3

1

1

2

1

5

6

X

X

X

3

2

5

X

X

3

7

10

X

X

12

X

X X

X

X

X

X

X 31

10 10

2

X

X 29

X

X

X

7 8

1

X

48

3 2

1

X

49

7 9

X

X X

5 6

X

X

X

47

X

X

Sociedad Estatal Loterías, (Selae)

X

X

X

Spread Your Wings Spain, PLC Suertia Interactiva, SA

X

X

X

41

Tele Apostuak, SA

X

X

42 43

X

X

35

44

X

2 3

5

X

X X

X

6 4

4

X

Kambi Spain, PLC Ladbrokes International, PLC

X

5 3

3

X

28

X

1 1

1 X

On June 1, 2012, the SGR granted 277 gaming licences distributed amongst 53 companies, including international operators such as Betfair, 888, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power; Spanish terrestrial gaming companies such as Cirsa, Codere, Comar, Casino Barcelona and

11

X X

World Premium Gaming, SA

2

8

8

X

Zitro Online, SAU

0

3

4

X

52

2 X

2

X

53

3

1

X

Whg Spain, PLC

8

0

X

X

Winga Spain, SA

6

3

X

X

50

2 X

X

X

51

2

X

X

Ongame Markets Malta, PLC

6

0

X

X

Interwetten España, PLC

Pady Power Europe, PLC

5

2

X

X

Juego Online, EAD

29

X

X

26

32

1 X

X

X

27

33

X

X X

X

22 24

X

X

Ebingo Online España, SA

17

X

X

X X

15

18

X

X

16

Total

68

X

BLACK JACK SL

5 6

BACCARAT SL

X X

POKER SL

Apuesta Ganador Online, SA Banegras Unión, SA

ROULETTE SL

3 4

OTHER GAMES GL

X

Antena 3 Juegos, SAU

POOL HORSE BETTING SL

X

2

FIXED ODDS HORSE BETTING SL

888 Spain, PLC

* GL: GENERAL LICENSE ** SL: SINGULAR LICENSE

OTHER FIXED ODDS BETTING SL

1

Spanish licensed gaming operators chart produced

by ECIJA law firm on 20 June 2012

POOL SPORTS BETTING SL

Gaming Operator

FIXED ODDS SPORTS BETTING SL**

CONFERENCE PREVIEW

BETS GL*

webmaster world

25

7

18

9

3

9

1

0

1

1

1

2

3

0

3

2

1

3

1

0

1

1

5

6

2

4

6

2

6

8

1

1

2

1

1

2

91

186

277

obtaining licenses relating to betting, some on casino games and a few others on competitions (a particular type of licence for the organisation of ‘call TV’ contests and similar games). Of course, many have applied for most, if not all of the licenses available.

iGB Affiliate august/september 2012

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10/08/2012 17:00

CONFERENCE PREVIEW

The following are examples of gross breaches of the Law, punishable with fines from €100,000 to €1 million and suspension of the activity for up to six months: ●● To promote, sponsor or advertise games, or provide any intermediation service, when those offering the games lack the corresponding licence, or when the games are advertised breaching the conditions and restrictions set out in the licence or in the regulations, whatever media or channel is used for the advertising. ●● Failure to comply with information or termination requirements issued by the SGR. A media owner and/or the advertising agency could be jointly liable for these types of infringements with the gambling operator.

In my opinion, the SGR and other Spanish authorities will be very strict in clamping down on any illegal gaming activity and advertising. The Spanish government cannot afford the gaming and betting market to continue as it has in recent years, with foreign operators freely offering their games to Spanish residents without holding any domestic licence and without paying any taxes in the country.

webmaster world

Punishing regime

company or intermediary who benefits from its participation in any type of illegal game. Any type of gambling activity not under the umbrella of a Spanish licence shall be illegal in Spain.

The Law foresees gaming operators, as well as any other company which offers them support, publicity, promotion or which obtains profits from the illegal gaming activities, to be responsible for any breach of the Law. This is a very wide definition, which may include any company which directly or indirectly participates in the illegal gaming activity in any way.

The SGR has powers to implement the relevant penalty procedures and impose the corresponding fines. Other public bodies, such as the media, TV regulator and bodies from the autonomous regions, may also be accountable depending on the type of breach.

Those violations classified as ‘light infringements’ may be punishable with a fine of up to €100,000. Those classified as ‘gross infringements’ may be punishable with a fine ranging from €100,000 to €1 million and/ or the suspension of the gaming activity for a six month period. Finally, those considered as ‘very gross infringements’ may be punishable with fines ranging from €1 million to €50 million and/or the loss of the licence and the closure of any gaming activity.

It is expected that the SGR will act with forcefulness against any operator, media

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Conference session at BAC 2011

Conference session at BAC 2011 The ever-popular Barcelona event is set to be the best attended to date

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Copyright © Optimal Payments Plc. All rights reserved. Optimal Payments Limited is authorised by the Financial Services Authority under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 (900015) for the issuing of electronic money. The NETBANX® trademark is the property of Netbanx limited. The NETELLER® and Net+® trademarks are the property of Optimal Payments Plc. Net+ cards are issued by Conister Bank Limited, pursuant to a licence from MasterCard International Inc. MasterCard is a registered trademark of MasterCard International Inc. NETELLER is a registered agent of Conister Bank Limited.

iGB Affiliate august/september 2012

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MARKETPLACE 7314 bet365 affiliates (148x52+3mm). 24/11/2011 15:38 Page 1

Welcome to the Market Place listings section of iGB Affiliate magazine. All listings are taken from the 2012 version of our iGB Affiliate Directory; a 150 page guide to the affiliate programs and service providers who are currently active within the iGaming sector.

To request a free copy of this publication or to have your company listed please contact Richard W on E: Richard@iGamingBusiness.com or T: +44 (0) 207 954 3437 ADVERTISING & PR

Market Ace

Game On

www.market-ace.com

www.gameon-marketing.com

Star Games

Global Gaming Events

www.stargames.com

www.globalgamingevents.com

Virgin

Media Skunk Works

www.virgingaming.com

www.mediaskunkworks.com

CASINO AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

Omni-lInx

888

www.gamb-linx.com

AFFILIATE NETWORK Bet365 www.bet365.com Betsson www.betsson.com CAP www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com CPA Industry www.cpaindustry.com Game On www.gameon-marketing.com

ALTERNATIVE GAMING Affstars

www.888.com 32Red www.32red.com Aff Europe www.affeurope.com

bet365affiliates.com www.gambleaware.co.uk

Commission Lounge www.commissionlounge.com Europartners www.europartners.com Everest Poker www.everestpoker.com/en Fortune Affiliates www.fortuneaffiliates.eu Gala Coral www.galacoral.co.uk Gambling Affiliation www.gambling-affiliation.com GURU www.gururevenue.com iGame www.igame.com Intertops

Affiliate Club

www.intertops.eu

www.affiliateclub.com

Live Partners

Affiliate Lions

www.livepartners.com

www.wgmg.co.cr

Logispin

Affiliates United

www.logispin.com

www.affutd.com

Mr Green

Asian Logic

www.mrgreen.com

www.asianlogic.com

MyBet

Bet-at-home

www.mybet.com/en/

www.bet-at-home.com

Paddypower

www.affstars.com

Bet365

BINGO AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

www.bet365.com

Affiliates United

Betfair

www.affutd.com

Officially sponsored by

www.betfair.com

www.paddypower.com Referback www.referback.com Roxy

Bet365

Betsson

www.bet365.com

www.betsson.com

Betsson

Brightshare

www.betsson.com

www.brightshare.com

CAP

CAP

www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com

www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com

www.stanjames.com

Gala Coral

Casino City/GPWA

Star Games

www.galacoral.co.uk

www.casinocity.com/cy/

www.stargames.com

Live Partners

Commission 365

Victor Chandler

www.livepartners.com

www.commission365.com

www.victorchandler.com

www.roxypalace.com Slotland www.slotland.com Stan James

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Virgin

Guru

Betfair

www.virgingaming.com

www.gururevenue.com

www.betfair.com

Vuetec/Dublin

iGame

Betsson

www.dublinbet.com

www.igame.com

www.betsson.com

FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS

InterPartners

Brightshare

Aff Europe

www.interpartners.com

www.affeurope.com

Intertops

Bet365

www.intertops.eu

www.bet365.com

Live Partners

CAP

www.livepartners.com

www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com

MyBet

Easy Forex

www.mybet.com/en

www.easy-forex.com

Paddypower

LCG

www.paddypower.com

International All Sports

www.londoncapitalgroup.com

PKR

www.iasbetaffiliates.com

Plus500

www.pkr.com

Intertops

www.plus500.co.uk

Poker Tracker

www.intertops.eu

24option

www.pokertracker.com

Ladbrokes

www.24option.com

Stan James

www.ladbrokes.com

Aff Europe

www.stanjames.com

Live Partners

www.affeurope.com

Star Games

www.livepartners.com

PAYMENT SOLUTIONS

www.stargames.com

Intercash www.intercashuk.com

SKILL GAMING AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

Wire Card

Affiliates United

www.wirecard.com

www.affutd.com

Algocharge

Bet365

MyBet

www.algocharge.com

www.bet365.com

www.mybet.com/en

EMS

Betsson

Oddsfutures

www.emspaymentsolutions.com

www.betsson.com

www.oddsfutures.com

Netteller

Gala Coral

Paddypower

www.neteller.com

www.galacoral.co.uk

www.paddypower.com

POKER AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

Live Partners

Redbet

Affiliates United

www.livepartners.com

www.redbet.com

www.affutd.com

Paddypower

Asian Logic

www.paddypower.com

www.asianlogic.com

Star Games

Bet365

www.stargames.com

www.bet365.com

SPORTS BETTING

Betfair

Affiliates United

www.betfair.com

www.affutd.com

Betsson

Asian Logic

www.betsson.com

www.asianlogic.com

www.stanjames.com

Commission Lounge

Bet365

Vbet

www.commissionlounge.com

www.bet365.com

www.vbet.com

Everest Poker

BetDaq

Victor Chandler

www.everestpoker.com/en

www.betdaq.com

www.victorchandler.com

www.brightshare.com CAP www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com Gala Coral www.galacoral.co.uk iGame www.igame.com

Logispin www.logispin.com Lux bet www.luxbet.com

RGS Malta Ltd www.starlottosport.com SportingBet www.sportingbet.com Sportsbet.com.au www.sportsbet.com.au Stan James

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iGB Affiliate AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2012

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webmaster world

Paid or Organic Mobile Search: What’s Better for your Business?

There’s a new trend. Some marketers choose to use their Facebook page as a mobile PPC landing page – it’s actually quite clever. Michaela McNamara, Editor at CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com, explains why.

Basically, you’ve been able to display AdWords ads on mobile devices since forever, but the fact that it’s been possible doesn’t mean that people have actually experienced decent results.

(This is true for both AdWords and Facebook Ads.) However, there is now a new trend.

Some marketers choose to use their Facebook page as a mobile PPC landing page. Although this doesn’t sound like a big idea at first, it’s actually very clever.

What’s wrong with mobile PPC campaigns?

Even though it’s the 21st Century, many people are still not convinced enough to shop or gamble via a mobile phone. There are many reasons for this; one being that sending your credit card data through an unprotected free Wi-Fi is not a clever thing to do.

Using a Facebook page as your landing page, however, creates a completely different environment.

This means that every page you create gets an additional mobile-friendly look.

You don’t have to worry about tweaking your page to fit many different devices, Facebook does this for you.

However, aside from these advantages we have to mention one flaw. Even though Facebook is massive, not everyone has an account, so you might lose on a couple of people here and there. You need to test this out yourself (in your niche) to find out whether it’s a real problem for you.

The organic side Of course, you can always try to rank for your keywords in mobile search results

organically. If you want to follow such a path it’s probably better to optimise your own site on your own domain instead of investing SEO work in a page on someone else’s domain (in this case, Facebook’s).

PPC brings immediate results, and that’s why spending money on other domains is not a problem. SEO doesn’t bring the same immediate results, and you can’t just withdraw your assets in case anything goes wrong.

Of course, your mileage may vary. Feel free to experiment with different solutions, and don’t forget to let us know how using a Facebook page as a PPC landing page works for you.

“Facebook is mobile-optimised by nature. This means that every page you create gets an additional mobile-friendly look and you don’t have to worry about tweaking your page to fit many different devices.”

1. People are used to Facebook Facebook has a great mobile app that makes people comfortable connecting to Facebook from a mobile phone and actually makes them comfortable accessing the site from a mobile in general. Therefore, when you use your Facebook page as a landing page, it doesn’t look suspicious and people are not confused by having to interact with an unknown user interface.

2. People can take immediate action The most popular action on Facebook is to Like something. Whenever a visitor Likes your page they are giving you the opportunity to post to their News Feeds.

This makes it a great lead generation technique. You get someone to click Like on their mobile phone, and then you can contact them whenever you please.

3. Mobile-optimised environment Facebook is mobile-optimised by nature.

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New for 2012, BAC incorporates

11th-14th octoBEr 2012 inSidE thE Bac Expo Join us at the oldest and biggest event dedicated to the Spanish speaking iGaming market, iGB Espana 2012.

This year, iGB Espana will return as part of the Barcelona Affiliate Conference, maximising your exposure to the Spanish market. With all the latest developments and marketing strategies in this Spanish conference and Spanish speaking affiliates and exhibitors, this event will compliment the learning & networking flavours of BAC and bring you an international event with a local focus.

Take your place in one of Europe’s biggest markets and reach 400+ million Hispanic Speakers.

www.iGBEspana.com

event statistics • 2011 saw 403 delegates attend • 91% of delegates were native Spanish speakers • 47% of delegates were affiliates • 89% of delegates rated the event ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’ • 5% worked exclusively in the Latin American Market, 73% attract traffic from LatAm & Spain • 100% of conference sessions were (and will be) in Spanish with expert speakers in their fields helping you create language specific strategies

webmaster world

Affiliate-Marketing-Ville Why you should be paying attention to social gaming.

In recent years, the presence of social media has grown steadily in tandem with the increased consumer access to Smartphone technology. One of the major appeals of social media is that no matter the distance between two people, they can interact and share as if they were right next to one another. Funnily enough, this is a major force when it comes to gaming in general. With games like bingo or poker, the social aspect is just as important to the game as the eventual payout.

Thus, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no surprise that the two realms have begun to merge in the form of social gaming. Of course, in some respects the combination of social interaction and games is not necessarily a new concept. Plenty of Internet-based games have contained massively social aspects. However, presently, social gaming has managed to monetise the rewards of those games without sacrificing any of the sociality.

Another novel trait of the current approach to social gaming is how engaging it is, which is precisely what makes it such a fruitful opportunity for affiliates. Affiliates stand to gain revenues and visibility by engaging players in social gaming. Just what is it that makes social gaming so lucrative?

Naturally integrated marketing With a variety of channels available for your promotional purposes, it is important to integrate your marketing strategy to ensure that you are not wasting time or resources. Saturating one channel can often be inefficient, but by diversifying your marketing you can ensure that you are getting maximum returns on all of your investments.

Luckily, social gaming is a naturally integrated vertical. Social games often operate within the boundaries of a social media platform, think Facebook and FarmVille. By virtue of being inscribed in an existing form of social media, social gaming is part of both the mobile and social channels. People can play these games just

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as readily from their phones as they can from their computers. So when promoting social gaming, you would be hard-pressed not to hit two birds with one stone. Your efforts have an expanded reach that is not limited to a single medium, which means more visibility and, if done properly, more acquisitions and referrals.

Additionally, your reach with individuals within both channels increases. Think about yourself. How often during the day are you away from both your phone and your computer? Chances, are not very often. This means that by promoting social gaming, you have the ability to reach your audience more often than by being solely social or mobile oriented. More time with your audience can easily correlate to more conversions.

Audience targeting Social gaming also has rather unique implications for the type of audience you can promote towards. Since social games are built for mobile devices and existing social media platforms, they can be limited in their technical functionality making them less complex than the games you would play on a console. As such, these limitations mean that social games are highly focused and stylised. In turn, the standard social gamer is often a unique player compared to serious console game players and players that deal in real money stakes. A social gamer is someone with an interest in gaming, and generally no desire to buy a console or sign up for a real gaming site. Rather, the social gamer plays through other sites he is already on which means that using social media to draw in social gamers is much easier than driving players to specific sites.

The sociality of social gaming also means that your demographic research is already complete, you simply have to analyse it.

People with common interests will often play common games, which means that when promoting a social game, you already have an idea of what potential players will respond

favourably towards. Besides interests, you might find that social gaming divides players by age and gender as well, which further helps you craft bespoke approaches. In general, the more tailored your promotions are, the more engaging they will be.

Personal approaches help illustrate your interest in the players and their experience while simultaneously avoiding the dreaded hard-sell. No one wants to be sold to, and social gaming naturally divides your target audience in a way that allows you to inform rather than sell.

Even better, the interactive portion of social gaming means you can get involved with players personally. In the end, being part of the community that is also your audience means that you will know their needs best and your opinions and recommendations will be respected.

All in all, social gaming is a force to be reckoned with, and a great opportunity for all affiliates. The games are simple, which means that almost anyone will try them out. Such a large audience is already favourable when it comes to successful affiliate marketing, and the natural, visible segmentation that occurs from the social nature of the games makes personalised marketing that much easier. Traditionally, the affiliate industry has strived to divide audiences for marketing purposes. With social gaming, you achieve that division while integrating your marketing channels.

As it stands now, social gaming is a wonderful tool for building your visibility, generating revenues, and providing a fun, interesting product. When it comes to iGaming marketing, what could be better than that?

Nicky Senyard is CEO of Income Access, overseeing their independent iGaming affiliate network, market-leading affiliate software and expert affiliate management services.

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