iGB Affiliate 20 April/May 10 by iGaming Business

april/may 2010

Gaming Affiliate Nirvana – the Road to Repeatable, Scalable Strategy Web Performance – Mobile and Online Sex and Gambling – a Peer Industry Insight Interview – Bebo

The Affiliate Life Cycle SEO, Finance and Business Tips for Affiliates at all Stages of Business Maturity

INFORMATION, INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS FOR THE BUSINESS OF INTERACTIVE GAMING

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CONTENTS 04 Events Calendar 08 Webmaster News 12 Chinese Whispers – Forget About Google 13 Will Current SEO Strategies Soon be out of Date? 14 Advanced Operator Techniques for Link Building 16 Gaming Affiliate Nirvana 21 Best Practice PPC and Basketball 22 Are SEOs Betting on the Wrong Horse? 24 Interview – Sophie Gane, Kerching Casino 26 Interview – Monica Rangel, Vegas Affiliates 28 The Affiliate Life Cycle – from Rookie to Super Affiliate 30 Peer Industry Insight – Sex and Gambling I have to share a secret with you – I always considered myself a social media moron. I know the basics; I use Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. But I always felt that the ‘real deal’ social media guys knew some archaic wisdom that was miles beyond me. Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I was asked to chair a session at the Social Media World Forum. With such an impressive sounding title, I figured I’d better get up to speed on my social network knowledge fast. I began reading and researching everything I could find on the subject online. I read Zynga case studies and opinions on revenue models for social media and a dozen or so blogs from the ‘experts’ in the space. With a good few hours work, combined with my existing knowledge as a social media consumer, I was up to speed and ready for the show. The moral of this rather long story – if I could do it so could you.

33 Interview – Sinead Lambert, Online Betting Guide (OLBG) 35 How Affiliates are Viewed by their Affiliate Managers 36 Affiliate Finance – Payment Preferences 38 Affiliate Finance – Tips for Rookie Affiliates 41 Winning Strategies for Players, Affiliates and Operators 42 Specialised AM Roles – the Sportsbook Affiliate Manager 44 Affiliate Conversions in Live Gaming 46 Bingo Supplement 56 Scratch Cards and the Mobile Future 59 Facebook Vs Google – the Battle Continues 60 Web Performance Matters – Mobile 62 Income Access Insight – Device Divergence 64 Connect Four – Software Solutions for Decision Makers 66 SEO for the Apple iPad 68 Masters of the Internet – Bebo 70 Top Web Performance = Top Affiliate 72 The Lowdown on US Legislation 74 Maximising your time at Industry Conferences

Social media is not a dark art. You can get into this space and win; it’s a big space and there are plenty of opportunities if you get in now. Michael Katz shares some insight into the importance of social media in his eye-opening Google Vs Facebook article this issue. If you read that, along with a few dozen other gems online, you will no longer feel like everyone else knows more than you do in the social media space, and you will be confident to embark on your own social media strategy – a move that is essential for your business going into 2010. Indeed, there are a few ‘essential reads’ I want to highlight in this issue. Dominique has given a great ‘Cliff Notes’ version of iGaming legislation in the US, Peter Dowse has given you a cheat sheet to print out and keep next to your computer for link analysis, and John Wright has laid down a simple to follow template for affiliate success. Oh, and don’t forget to read Evan Shein’s article on getting the most out of conferences – something for affiliate and affiliate managers to read before we all meet up again at the Prague Super Show. See you there! Michael Caselli, Editor in Chief

Editor in Chief: Michael Caselli

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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. GIGSE Montreal, Canada, May 11 – 13, 2010 Summary: The Global iGaming Summit and Expo, known to the industry as GIGSE, is Clarion Gaming’s flagship event that had served the industry since its early beginnings and attracted over 1,700 delegates in its peak year. Organised for nine years until 2008 (due to UIGEA) GIGSE is now re-established after a two-year hiatus to help the industry get a head start in the reemerging US iGaming market. www.gigse.com

G2E Asia Macau, China June 8 – 10, 2010 Summary: Global Gaming Expo Asia (G2E Asia) is the premier trade show and conference for the Asian gaming market. This event highlights the remarkable growth in Asian gaming and gives you access to new products and the latest trends, delivering qualified buyers, and fostering optimal networking in the Eastern hemisphere to ensure you can grow your business in this rapidly growing market. As part of the G2E portfolio of events, G2E Asia is an event by the industry and for the industry and it evolves each year to keep pace with industry demands and the latest industry trends. www.g2easia.com

iGaming Super Show Prague, Czech Republic May 25 - 27, 2010 Summary: The iGaming Super Show is a completely new concept and is set to attract over 2,500 delegates, making it the biggest event in the iGaming calendar. The concept is simple: to create a comprehensive show for what has become an established global industry. The aim of the iGaming Super Show is to provide a meeting place for the whole industry whether you are a vendor, media, affiliate, operator or regulator. This will be the first time the whole industry will meet under one roof. The show will be completely free of charge for all attendees, and will include multiple networking events, high level conference streams and the biggest exhibition the industry has ever seen. www.iGamingSuperShow.com

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a4uexpo Europe Munich, Germany May 18 – 19, 2010 Summary: The a4uexpo brings together some of the best players and affiliate marketing specialists from across Germany, UK, US and Mainland Europe to discuss the latest trends and opportunities within today’s affiliate marketing landscape. www.a4uexpo.com

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webmaster news

farewell to london’s fifty The Duke of Wellington, Top Shop boss Sir Philip Green and X Factor judge Cheryl Cole aren’t names you’d expect to find in the same sentence. So what do Napoleon’s nemesis, Kate Moss’s fashion guru and the gossip mag favourite have in common? The answer is that they were all partial to a night out at one of London’s top gaming clubs, Fifty. However, the casino will no longer be receiving high profile visitors as the venue, which opened in 1827, has closed its doors for good. Fifty hit financial difficulties in November of last year citing, “a severe reduction in the club’s target market”. The lavish St James’s Street venue, described as “one of the most famous and visually impressive gaming rooms in the world”, initially closed its gambling tables “to limit any trading volatility” but kept its prestigious restaurant and award winning bar open. Joint owners Robert Earl and London Clubs International (LCI) were hopeful of selling the club, but LCI’s talks with a prospective buyer (rumoured to be Russian businessman Timori Kartchava) about

a reported £9 million sale fell through, one stumbling block supposedly being its decision to sell the freehold six years previously in a £25 million sale and leaseback arrangement. Administration was widely forecast, but the reality proved far worse with Fifty going into liquidation and shutting permanently. Speaking to London’s Evening Standard, co-owner Robert Earl said, “High level gaming is very ill – it’s a dying sport. The amount of people at the top level is very small. The high roller market has become very constrained.” Earl, founder of Planet Hollywood, is said to have lost a seven figure sum in the venture. Fifty, which charged gamblers £650 a year for the privilege of playing in its luxurious surroundings, was noted for attracting high profile, high rolling players. Inviting cash heavy gamblers to part with their money is usually a recipe for success, but an untimely run of bad results can wreak havoc. It’s believed that Fifty was on the receiving end of just such a run at its roulette and blackjack tables. One famously big winner was Newcastle

United chairman and founder of the Sports Direct chain Mike Ashley. The sportswear tycoon won £1.3m in just 15 minutes playing roulette at the club. After his lucky number 17 came up, Ashley is believed to have said, “That’ll do me, thanks very much” walking away with a round of applause ringing in his ears (not something he’s been used to at St James’s Park). London Clubs International, itself owned by US gaming giant Harrah’s, was swift to offer reassurances that its other casinos were unaffected by Fifty’s closure. A statement from LCI read, “Fifty is the only joint venture in the LCI portfolio and the organisation remains committed to its core business of managing its fully owned high quality gaming venues across the UK and overseas. This development does not affect any of LCI’s other successful venues.” Its other operations include the Casino at the Empire, The Rendezvous, The Sportsman and The Golden Nugget in London as well as properties in Southend, Brighton, Leeds, Nottingham and Glasgow.

Harrah’s Launches UK Bingo Arm Staying on the Harrah’s theme, Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment, Inc. (HIE), to give it its full name, has branched into the online bingo market with the launch of its Caesars Bingo property, which will be available solely to UK residents. As you would expect, the bingo site comes armed with the full array of Caesars Casino games and will use the latest Gamesys technology.

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“We’re thrilled to bring one of the world’s most renowned gaming brands to UK residents with Caesars Bingo Online,” said HIE CEO, Mitch Garber. “CAESARSBingo.com will bring players the fun and excitement found in our casinos in addition to offering exclusive Caesars Palace Las Vegas prize packages.” Gamesys founder and CEO, Noel Hayden, added, “Harrah’s and Gamesys

has to be a dream relationship. Caesars is one of the most prestigious and famous brands in Las Vegas and Gamesys is well known for its innovative technology and games. Understandably, we’re extremely happy to be launching one of the UK’s most exciting bingo sites.” The announcement follows Harrah’s initial entry into the iGaming market through its Caesars Casino and World Series of Poker brands.

The Future is Orange for FDJ Ahead of the planned deregulation of the French gaming market, mobile phone network provider Orange has signed a three-year deal with national lottery operator Francaise Des Jeux (FDJ) that will see it incorporate online sportsbetting into its Internet, mobile and television portals. Users of Orange.fr will be offered direct access to FDJ’s sportsbetting website at ParionsWeb.FDJeux.net within the domain’s sports and gaming section. Lottery games are also to be made available. In addition, this summer will see Orange mobile subscribers given access to FDJ’s sportsbetting and lottery services while viewers of the Orange Sport and Orange Sport Info channels are to be able to bet with the operator before the end of 2010

subject to various legal and regulatory provisions. Orange stated that the two partners would ‘develop innovative interactive content and services’ for viewers of its channels ‘in line its editorial policy’. “The integration of online sportsbetting will enable Orange to further enhance its sports and gaming worlds and offer an entertaining and responsible service relying on the know-how of FDJ,” read a statement from the telecommunications giant. “This three-year partnership is in line with the group’s network publisher strategy, which is designed to enable content editors who have a partnership with Orange to benefit from the interactive capabilities of group’s networks.”

Playtech Investments to Drive Strong 2010 Never far away from the news in 2010, Playtech has posted a 71% rise in full-year net profit and raised its dividend, claiming that new license agreements has provided a boost to its bottom line. The positive start to the year, according to CEO Mor Weizer, in speaking to Dow Jones Newswires, was accounted for because “Current trading is being driven by the group’s investments in Italy, Spain, and Serbia over 2009,” adding that the company has seen a stabilization in the economy generally. Playtech reported net profit for the year ending December 31 rose to 69.51 million from 40.69 million last year. Revenue

rose 3% to 114.78 million in securing 13 new license agreements, with clients including Olympic, the Serbian state lottery, and entertainment brands such as Sega and Virgin. The group, which has had a joint venture with William Hill PLC (WMH.LN) since 2008, said the results highlighted strong performances in its casino and Italian poker products. Playtech has been heavily in the news so far this year having joined up with New York-based Scientific Games Corp in January followed by the acquisition of online bingo provider Virtue Fusion in February.

Gala Coral to go Public The Gala Coral Group has made the rather surprising announcement that it is planning to list on the stock market in less than three years despite being burdened with total debts of £2.6 billion. According to a report from the Telegraph newspaper, a deal being put together by lenders could see Gala Coral’s arrears cut by £750 million while Executive Chairman Neil Goulden, who had been expected to step down, would sign a binding contract to stay on and oversee the firm’s progression to a public company. Gala Coral has been at the centre of a bitter restructuring that has pitted private equity owners Permira, Candover and Cinven against debt holders. However, months of talks have seen mezzanine

lenders led by Apollo and including Goldman Sachs, Cerberus and Park Square put together an agreement that would see them win complete control of the operator while leaving private equity owners with virtually nothing. The proposed finance agreement would cut Gala Coral’s arrears from £2.6 billion to £1.85 billion with the mezzanine lenders swapping £540 million of debt for a 30% stake in the company. In addition, a further £200 million would be injected to take control of the remaining 70% while former owners could receive between one and five percent for their consent. In addition, management could end up with a ten percent stake depending on performance.

Chinese Web Users Boycott Google The fallout from the Google saga in China continues apace, with Chinese citizens now having their say over the search giant’s decision to end censorship. Although crowds gathered outside Google’s head office in Beijing in support of its decision to end censorship, there are other, more deriding voices making themselves heard above the sympathy. Chinese citizens have expressed their anger, posting views on Chinese website sina.com.cn that included “Google, out of China” and “Go away, we have Baidu”. BBC journalist, Jasmin Gu summed up the mood by saying, “I think Chinese people are offended by Google’s action. It has aroused nationalistic fervour. Many people choose to stop using Google and support Chinese search engine Baidu.” Baidu already boasts a 59% share of the market in China to Google’s 30%, reason enough, for some, for Google not to overly worry about its absence from this market. Google’s decision to move its search facility to servers in Hong Kong, from which it can legally operate an unfiltered service, was branded “totally wrong” by a government official speaking to the country’s official news agency Xinhua. With communications companies now terminating contracts with the search giant, the dispute is set to rumble on for some time yet. Paddy Power Can’t see the Woods for the Trees On a slightly lighter note, Paddy Power has revealed that it has failed in an audacious attempt to lure fallen golf star Tiger Woods into a sponsorship deal worth a reported $75 million. Woods is scheduled to make a hugely anticipated return to the sport at April’s Masters at Augusta, following a somewhat enforced sabbatical after various run-ins with golf clubs, neighbouring trees and a fire hydrant. Before his break from the sport, Woods allegedly earned over $100 million a year in endorsements but the controversy has seen the 34-year-old dropped by numerous »

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« sponsors including Accenture,

AT&T, Gatorade, Buick and Gillette. “At this stage, when other sponsors seem to be ditching him, there’s an opportunity there to step in,” read a statement from Paddy Power. “He’s still somebody we would very much like to align ourselves to.” However, Woods has rejected the offer, said to be a five-year deal, with Paddy Power reportedly looking into an enhanced offer in order to tempt the 14-time major champion. “Paddy Power remains keen to work with Tiger Woods and will reengage with IMG,” read the statement from the Dublin-based firm. “An enhanced offer will be made, the details of which will remain confidential.” GTECH G2 Launches CRM Tool GTECH G2 has announced details of its innovative new social CRM platform for its bingo sites. Using OOSOCIAL’s OOCONNECT platform, GTECH G2 and its clients will be able to send targeted communications to existing players via widgets inside social networks, start pages, blogs and via desktop. A host of GTECH G2 bingo sites including the Littlewoods and Butlin’s brands will soon be able to take advantage of this new marketing technology, with players set to benefit from more relevant and personally related information. Matt Nash, CEO of OOSOCIAL said, “I’m delighted that a company of the stature of GTECH G2 is our launch partner on OOCONNECT. The easy to implement platform which is primarily focused on CRM also delivers new customer acquisition via our proprietary ‘syndicated authentication’ technology and Facebook API integration”. Andrea Fois, CRM Manager at GTECH G2 added, “We know that the key to success is in getting the right messages in front of the right people at the right time. OOCONNECT is like a personal broadcast channel direct to every one of our players.” The last 12 months has been a busy period for GTECH G2, having upgraded its bingo software and moved all of its UK sites to the new and improved network late last year.

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Kentucky Supreme Court Overturns Ruling The ongoing battle between Kentucky and the online gaming industry took a new turn last week after the southern state’s Supreme Court ruled against the owners of 141 seized domain names. Kentucky has been attempting to seize website names associated with online gambling such as AbsolutePoker. com, BodogLife.com, DoylesRoom.com, FullTiltPoker.com and PokerStars.com since September of 2008 but was blocked in January by the Kentucky Court Of Appeals in a case brought by a number of industry groups including the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA), the Interactive Gaming Council and Sportsbook.com. However, the state appealed and the Kentucky Supreme Court, after hearing oral arguments in October, has now overturned the earlier decision, which found that the domain names couldn’t be classed as

gambling devices under local law. The Kentucky Supreme Court also stated that iMEGA and the Interactive Gaming Council had no standing in the case because they had not informed the body of their membership. “Because the parties seeking the writ (of prohibition) have failed to demonstrate that they have standing to do so, this Court reverses, though this does not foreclose the possibility of future relief,” wrote Justice Mary Noble. “While the Interactive Gaming Council claims to represent 61 of the seized domains and iMEGA purports to represent ‘some’ more, this Court cannot simply take their words for it.” “In the written decision, the Court clearly indicates they agree with our arguments and are inviting us to re-file so that the technicality of the standing issue can be resolved,” said Joe Brennan, Chairman for iMEGA.

Sportingbet to Premiere French domain Sportingbet has signed an exclusive two-year deal with French news provider Le Monde to launch a co-branded wagering domain at LeMonde.fr/Sport. The sportsbook operator stated that its new partnership includes advertising provisions with the site set to go live next month. “LeMonde.fr users expect a high-quality and innovative service that respects both French and European regulations and Sportingbet has shown that it will meet this expectation through its policy to date,”

said Philippe Jeannet, Chief Executive Officer for Le Monde. Sportingbet revealed that the move proves its commitment to becoming a major player in the French online betting market once regulation is complete with the site due to be launched in two stages. A free betting application will initially be made available (April) followed by a real-money website as soon as the market officially opens to operators in France, which is forecast for June.

UK’s 2010 Budget to Offer Games Firms Tax Breaks It’s always interesting to keep tabs on what’s happening in our peer industries, and of keen interest in the UK is the government’s decision to offer tax breaks to its games industry, which would, according to reports, create more than 3,500 jobs over the next five years. The move is designed to allow the UK to compete “on a global stage”, according to Tiga CEO, Richard Wilson. “This is an inspired decision. Games tax relief is good for the UK video games

industry, good for UK consumers and good for the UK economy.” He predicted it would allow £457 million to be invested in new games over the next five years. The UK games industry is very successful despite the fact that there are few games publishers based in the country and the games development sector only employs around 9,000 people. The games industry contributed £1 billion to the UK economy in 2009, according to Tiga.

traffic

SEO expert Bob Rains looks to the Chinese Search Engine Baidu for iGaming success in China. If you pay attention to search engine news at all you will have undoubtedly heard about Google’s recent efforts to get other companies and the US government to join them in putting pressure on China’s government over alleged human-rights violations. Following a decision to stop censoring search results in China, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said in a March 25 interview with the UK newspaper The Guardian, that the US government and other businesses should put a ‘high priority’ on calling attention to human-rights abuses in China. On March 22, Google said it had stopped censoring its Chinese website and shifted search services from the mainland to an unfiltered Hong Kong site, an act criticized as “totally wrong” by China. Some might argue that Google is doing this to maintain its policy of ‘do no evil’. Others would say that it’s a stunt to sway market share from Chinese search giant Baidu, by providing better results for users in China (granted they may not be able to see it thanks to the great firewall of China). No matter what you think, the reality is that if you are in the iGaming business, you better start thinking about China. When you look at the raw data, the risks, the struggles and the potential rewards, the reality is we have barely scratched the surface of the potential global iGaming market i.e., we’re still in diapers. The truth is that China is enormous, and has tremendous potential for traffic, and if you want your chunk, you need to understand the search landscape for the search engines that matter. In China, Baidu makes up 63% of the search audience and is the best place to focus your efforts if you want to appeal to the Chinese iGaming market. Given that the tactics you need to follow to rank well in Baidu will also get you in serious trouble with Google, you may want to use a unique domain for your China efforts, and not your cash cow site.

What’s important for Baidu? Keywords (obviously) I find using a combination of Google Translate and Baidu’s awesome keyword research tool can be quite beneficial. You can find the tool at http://index.baidu.com/

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Feeds Although Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft agreed on Google’s sitemaps as a standard, Baidu has something else with what has been translated as “Baidu’s News Protocol”.

Site submission Submit your site to Baidu through http:// www.baidu.com/search/url_submit.html . Baidu is a bit slow to start crawling the site, so hang in there and wait patiently.

Site structure Tweak your .htaccess and try to avoid 403/404/defected-links pages. Note that Baidu doesn’t care as much for robots.txt and content duplication.

Crawlability Make sure your site is crawlable by using a text browser like Lynx. Translate more than just your copy make sure it’s not only content and text that are written or translated in Chinese, but also other important SEO parameters like the image ‘alt’ field that describes the images in your site.

Location If you are opening a Chinese website/ mirror/translated-mirror, then you should know that it seems Baidu wants you to have a China domain, like .com.cn or .cn, or hosting in China.

Content translation Consider using automatic tools to translate your blog/website as those might give you a better first exposure in the Chinese market than you think.

Content language Simplified Chinese text in the right encoding (not many Chinese search in English). It doesn’t have to be much, say a sub-heading of the title in Chinese.

Links Anchor-texts for incoming links are, like in Google’s case, a very important SEO factor. Baidu attributes a little more importance to internal anchor-texts. Baidu still doesn’t have a very advanced authority mechanism, so there’s less focus on where your anchor-text is coming from.

Some facts: ●● China has 338 million

Internet users (US population 307,006,550). ●● China-based blogs total 107 million, with more than 42% of netizens running a blog. The number of blogs was about 40 million just a year ago. ●● The number of online gamers in China rose 23% to 40.17 million last year. ●● Sales of online games in China topped 10.57 billion yuan (US$1.45 billion) last year, up 61.5%. ●● Industry analysts estimate that China’s online gaming population will hit 84.56 million by 2012, with regular subscribers totaling 50 million and sales of 26.23 billion yuan.

Content description Naturally, optimize your pagetitles, your headings, and try to achieve optimal keyword density for important keywords in your website pages (5-8%), same as Google.

Content Baidu is extremely sensitive to some information, so totally avoid mentioning or writing adult content, pornography or Chinese government forbidden keywords. Having any of those may not only affect the page the content is on, but the entire website. The next time you hear some wind-bag going on about how the iGaming space is saturated, and we will see no growth, think about China and ask yourself, ‘are you there, and what are you doing now to be there tomorrow?’. Granted, there are many hurdles with payment processing, firewalls, and other factors to consider, but for those brave enough to venture into these unchartered waters, the spoils may be abundant. Never forget that to improve at anything we must at some point push ourselves outside of our comfort zone.

traffic

Current Gaming SEO Strategies Why they may not work in the near future I look at hundreds of websites every month in the online gaming space and the majority of them are simply terrible from an SEO and user experience perspective. Yet these sites still rank for high volume, converting keywords … why? There are a number of reasons, of course, however, without doubt one of the biggest influencers in these otherwise poor sites achieving rankings is inbound links. Inbound links are always cited as the major contributing factor for rankings and currently, for a lot of sites, this is true. However, I have seen many shifts in the focus and requirements of SEO over the last decade, and while I have no doubt that links will continue to play a major part in achieving rankings for the foreseeable future, they are not now, and will not be in the future, the only strategy you need to employ in order to make your gaming site rank, and rank profitably.

Chasing the dragon This doesn’t mean that you should be chasing the next fad that comes along. Yes, SEO is a constantly evolving medium, but the best strategies are those that have already been tested, across thousands of websites in hundreds of sectors. As an Internet Marketer you should not be ‘chasing the dragon’ as it is like a drug addiction and will get you by for short periods of time. A balanced approach with proven strategies is the best way to approach SEO. So what are these strategies that are going to assist with your success in the search engines, what should you be doing in addition to acquiring inbound links, and what more is there to do once you have achieved the rankings you were aiming for on your high volume key terms?

Divine influence I take direction with my SEO philosophy

from the ancient Greeks. I believe in Harmonium – which is a sense of equality among all factors that will help you achieve balance in the cosmos. Does it sound a bit new age? Maybe, but I can tell you it works very well in SEO. By taking the Ancient Greek philosophy and applying it to your SEO strategy, you can then achieve that state of being “Algorithmic Immune” (credit to Bruce Clay for coining the phrase)... so when the search engines change their algorithms you will barely notice it because you are balanced and not relying upon one heavily weighted set of factors to rank that may or may not have the significance they currently do. SEO should always incorporate a threetiered approach, integrating site architecture, content and popularity to create a balanced site that isn’t at the mercy of changes in search algorithms. As I mentioned previously, I like to call this ‘Algorithmic Immune’ – which is simply a state of being in harmony. Having a really strong link portfolio by itself may work for you now, but this will not always be the case. As links are becoming more and more of an issue of relevancy for the search engine (due to the fact they are an easily gamed factor) algorithm, the less weight they may carry in rankings. Having a very well balanced strategy will definitely give you an advantage over your competition now and future-proof your site. The added benefit of this is that strong site architecture and content not only helps your rankings but helps increase conversion too (which is a topic all on its own). Let’s define the three areas of focus: Site Architecture HTML structure ●● ●● Server platforms ●● Technology usage ●● URL structures ●● Themed content ●● Inter-linking of pages

Content Textual content (paragraph) ●● ●● Multimedia content (video, images, audio, flash) Heading tags, title tags, etc ●● Popularity Link equity (anchor text, diversity, etc) ●● ●● User engagement and interaction ●● Brand authority ●● Social involvement and interaction So, how do you balance this all out? It may appear easier than it really is. As a marketer, you really need to plan for the future, yet so many SEO strategies do not even come close to looking at the two and five year plans. They focus on the ‘now’ … while this is important, it is not the silver bullet. Be better than your competition – not by solely getting more links than your competitor, but by creating relevant user-friendly content, perfecting your sites architecture and developing a natural looking link portfolio. Scott Polk has built his expertise as a knowledgeable and experienced Search Engine Optimization/Internet Marketing strategist for more than 11 years. He concentrates his resourcefulness and skills on the diversified aspects of Search Engine Optimization for clients. Scott is consistently involved in technologies that maximize conversion, usability and accessibility when optimizing and developing large websites as well as identifying problems/solutions that result in major cost saving strategies. Highly successful and respected within the SEO industry, Scott Polk has consulted and been employed by successful Internet companies such as Bruce Clay, Edmunds.com, AT&T Wireless, ABC News, PGA.com and PGATour.com, Sports Illustrated, Toyota.com, Direct Brands and online gaming clients.

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

TRAFFIC

ADVANCED OPERATOR TECHNIQUES FOR LINK BUILDING IF YOU’VE BEEN in the afﬁliate or webmaster game for a while you would be used to using certain techniques and tools for your link building. Today, I hope to educate you about some advanced operators and search queries that you can use to enhance your link building strategies.

Command Sometimes an obscure link building technique or advanced query string might be enough to help you ﬁnd relevant sites (you otherwise might not have found) that will link back to you. Upon starting out in search engine optimisation (SEO) or web development, most people are pretty quickly acquainted with the link: command. This command when done in Yahoo! will bring back all the sites that link to a speciﬁc URL. Here’s how the command looks in the search box: link:www.yourcompetitorswebsite.com.au This is a great way to spy on what your competitors are up to in terms of the sites that are linking back to them and how many links they have in their link bank. Here are some other operator commands and how they can help your business in terms of SEO:

Find people who mention your site or brand but aren’t linking to you “your brand name” -linkdomain:www. yourwebsite.com This is a great technique to ﬁnd out websites that use your brand name (or website address) but don’t link back to you. Basically, you’re telling the search engine to look for your brand name (using quotation marks means the search engine will search only for the name or phrase in the order you’ve typed it). The negative linkdomain operator tells the search engine to only show results of websites that are not linking to the Figure 1

website after the operator command. If, for example, iGB Affiliate Magazine wanted to do some link building, it might be a good idea to start with people who are already mentioning their magazine on their blogs and websites but aren’t linking back to them. To do this I would type into a search engine: “igb affiliate magazine” -linkdomain:www. igbaffiliate.com Here’s the result in Google (figure 1).

Find directories that your competitors are listed in “add url” linkdomain:yourcompetitorswebsit e.com.au This is a handy little operator to ﬁnd many directories and websites that your competitors are listed in. What you’re telling the search engine is to look for any page that has the term ‘add url’ (this is mostly found on directories or other types of submission based sites) and are linking to a particular website.

You can also use the site: operator to search on particular services like Blogger, Wordpress or other hosted solutions. For example, you might be looking for all the poker marketing websites on the Wordpress hosted solution – this query would look like this: site:wordpress.com intitle:poker marketing or you could try: inurl:wordpress.com intitle:poker marketing

Find blogs and sites that allow you to submit content “Online Poker” “guest blogger” This is a relatively simple search query but a lot of people overlook it as it’s so simple. Finding sites that have guest bloggers is a great way to offer your content out to other sites in an exchange for a link back. You can also narrow your search down to particular platforms like: “online poker”, “guest blogger”, “powered by Wordpress”, etc.

Find sites that do specific reviews Find sites that have certain keywords in their title allintitle:”keywords go here” This is a fairly simple operator that allows you to find websites that have particular keywords in their title tags. If, for example, you were targeting “poker chip manufacturers” you could create a search query like this: allintitle:“poker chip manufacturers” There are other variations of this query such as: ● allinurl: ● inanchor: You can start incorporating multiple search queries into your searches, for example: allintitle:“poker affiliate” intitle:blog This will show you results for all the poker affiliate blogs out there.

[poker site reviews inurl:submit] This is another example of a creative way to ﬁnd links. By having the inurl:submit within the search query it takes you to all the sites that have this keyword term in their URL and potentially directly to their submission pages.

Find sites that allow you to add html tags to your comments “Allowed HTML tags” Poker This query will give you all the sites that allow comments on their sites along with the added beneﬁt of adding html tags to the comment itself. Now if you’re going to add comments to sites in your industry it’s always important that you add value and conversation to the article. Don’t spam your industry’s blogs as that’s a sure-ﬁre way to get yourself a name... a bad name. These are just a few ideas for advanced operators and search queries to help you gather links. Happy hunting!

PETER DOWSE is an online marketing consultant who has been specialising in SEO for the last 10 years. He frequently presents seminars and workshops for both government and private enterprise on the subject of search engine optimisation. peter@seohub.com.au.

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

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Gaming Affiliate Nirvana Let’s get a few things straight. Let’s forget about niceties and politeness. Let’s have some direct talk. You’re an affiliate and you want to send people to online gambling sites and get paid loads of money for doing it. It’s nice to be able to think that you’ve ‘added value to the overall experience of someone visiting your site’. It’s nice to know ‘you’ve assisted your operator partners by increasing their liquidity’. It’s nice to know you’ll be enlivening your visitor’s day by sending them to some great entertainment and it’s really very nice to know you’ll be rewarded for doing so, but nice only goes so far. Nice doesn’t pay the mortgage ●● ●● Nice doesn’t warm the house ●● Nice doesn’t pay the bills ●● Nice doesn’t put food on the table ●● Nice doesn’t do a thing for us! ●● Money pays the mortgage

effectively and efficiently as possible. So let’s get started on the step-by-step plan to gaming affiliate nirvana – or at least, stage one on your road to a repeatable and scalable strategy.

1. Invest for success Just like a good poker player, it is imperative that you manage your money wisely. Do you have a bankroll? It doesn’t have to be huge but it better exist and if you have no money to spare then go down to McDonalds and get a job! You need some money behind you to be able to invest in your future. If you don’t have it right now then do what you have to until you have some ‘Wonga’ to invest.

●● Money warms the house ●● Money pays the bills ●● Money feeds the family ●● Money is what we want and

we want it now! So now we know what we are aiming for, we need to look at how we are going to get it. We’re reading a publication about gambling so let’s define our income generation route. We shall send visitors to gambling sites to become real money players for which we will be paid by the gambling site a fee for each and every one. OK, so now we know what we want and how we will be rewarded. Let’s go one stage further and start to define what the hell we are going to do to get that done! Let’s make our challenge as difficult as we can and treat ourselves as brand new to the game, no website, no industry knowledge, no experience. We are amateurs aiming to become pros as quickly,

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

2. Landing pages should start a relationship When the traffic starts flowing in you better have somewhere to send it to. Somewhere that aims to capture a relationship with the visitor and is tailored to the core demographics that users of the product fall into. You’ll need, at the very least, four different landing pages. for poker ●● ●● for casino ●● for bingo ●● for sportsbetting. You can easily add another for Forex, another for financial spread betting and lots of differing subtleties therein. In time, the granularity between the subtleties will be how we increase and continue to improve our income streams but for now, get four tailored and specific product demographic-

based landing pages put together. If you don’t know what I mean then take a look at this SPOOF landing page that was designed to show how a landing page ‘could be’ for poker but should NEVER be used as it breeches almost every standard in advertising there is. The UK’s ASA would have a field day if this landing page were ever used in the wild. (Figure 1) Having said that, there are many core elements we can learn from the page. It is targeted to males – the primary ●● group of poker players. It shows potential benefits that the group ●● may find enticing. It enforces the importance of signing ●● up to an email list, allowing us to have ongoing and continued communication with the prospect. Imagine you are that random person who might be interested in each of the products. Put yourself in their mindset and think what it is that would make them feel, ‘I want to be part of the game’. For bingo, is it the bet or the community? ●● ●● For sportsbetting, is it the thrill of the horses running or the potential win? For casino, is it the slots’ theme or the ●● progressive jackpot?

3. Emails are a courtship You need emails to send to continue the relationship building with your prospect and different ‘sets of mails’ according to each vertical we are promoting. Don’t think of email marketing as a one shot thing, think of it as a courtship. Imagine you’ve seen a girl (or guy) in the local coffee shop and (s)he is as hot as the

Figure 1 - http://clixx.co.uk/pokersystem

beverage that (s)he is drinking. “Mmmmmm”, you think to yourself and decide that THAT is a relationship you’d like to investigate! Would you: Go straight over and ask her out on ●● a date? Go straight over and ask her what coffee ●● she recommends? Think about what to say to her next time ●● you MIGHT bump into her? Use your prepared and proven ●● relationship building system that starts with“hello”? Think of your ongoing email communication with the prospect as seduction. It isn’t about what base you get to on what night. It’s about forming a long lasting relationship. Treat your emails like a courting process and then automate them! My pal Andre Chaperon is a master at defining winning email campaigns but he doesn’t work for others, only himself, although he has previously sold a guide to how to deploy these strategies. He isn’t selling it at the moment but a (Non affiliate) link to the system is at http://bit. ly/9riGXS As well as having the email copy make a choice from the myriad of auto follow up email systems out there. Aweber, GetResponse, Constant Contact or many, many others can all do the job. I don’t care who you use, simply make your choice, load the emails up and get ready for the next stage.

4. Landing pages to wed We now have landing pages whose aim is to get visitors to sign up to our email list. We have emails ready to fire off to our prospects that help them ‘commit’ to our relationship but we need to ensure that we have landing pages that will ‘sell our chosen partner’ for the vertical market that is relevant. The design of a great and motivating page that will be pushing one core operator over another can be argued until the cows come home but I would suggest that whatever design, layout and feel you decide upon you make it ONLY promote one operator, but in a manner that you can drop each operator in and out with each other. In essence, a templated landing page. An example could well be the sample landing page template available from http://bit.ly/oIcPI It isn’t the best, but it is far from the worst, and the basic principles lend themselves well to our goal for this stage – a templated landed page that will push the visitor to register and download the casino, poker client, etc. Build a landing page for every one of your operators and operator product combinations that you promote.

5. Hosting I don’t care who you decide to host with. I don’t care if you have a great, a crap, a new, an old, a borrowed, or even a free domain name. I don’t care what you call your site. All I care about is that when traffic starts to

flow your system is up, alive and ready to accept your visitors. Make your choice and just make sure your choice will handle the load.

6. Buy the traffic By now you should have in place your: Landing pages that aim to get prospects ●● to sign up to your email list. Emails written, loaded and ready to fire ●● in your email sending system. Landing pages ready to help convert the ●● prospects you are ‘courting’ via email. You have, in effect, a simple sales funnel. What you don’t have is any traffic to pour into the top. It’s now time to go CPM crazy and to go as crazy as you can. Find a provider, out of the thousands that exist, that will cut you a deal you are happy with to send you as much traffic as you can afford for 30 days. Make sure that no more than a third of your available budget is spent here as, referring back to my original point, you need to manage your bankroll and cashflow. Gaming affiliate programs are great, but you won’t get paid immediately. The so called ‘quality’ of the traffic truly doesn’t matter, what matters is that it targets only countries that you can promote to (your gaming company partners take clients from), and you have the ability to write, subcontract or acquire content in the appropriate language and cultural style. Most importantly of all is that the people

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

traffic

(the traffic in essence) are old enough to be gamblers! Don’t go promoting gambling products to under 18s or whatever age is ‘gambling legal’ in the territories you will be promoting within.

7. Where there’s muck there’s brass Where you signed up to buy traffic from will probably also allow you to sell traffic to them. Whether you sign up to the same company that you buy traffic from or to a different company doesn’t matter. Just make sure you sign up to a company that pays for full page advertising, also known as pops (unders or overs), for you to sell traffic to. We want to sort OUR gold from the muck then sell the muck onto someone else for them to mine for brass. Remember, where we think there is muck is someone else’s brass. You REALLY need a partner to sell your muck onto, so go get a broker working on your behalf.

8. Reduce your costs and increase your conversions – the secret sauce! In the days of the Wild, Wild West, “Thar is gold in them thar hills” was supposedly often shouted. If only those old time miners had a map to tell them the likelihood of their claim being laden with pyrite (fool’s gold) or gold. Every visitor that you pay for to visit your initial email sign up landing page is a cost to you. You don’t know if they are golden in colour or pyrite. Pyrite is muck to the old prospector. It takes the same energy to mine, the same cost to extract and delivers no benefit apart from a fleeting, and false prospect of wealth. You are the old prospector, your traffic is your claim and the visitors are the fruits of your toil. Your visitors may be a golden prospect – they may be muck, but generally you don’t know which group each and every visitor is likely to fall into. If only you could detect the likelihood of the visitor to be golden or muck coloured! What if you could not only tell the likelihood of the visitor to be golden prospect but also if they are likely to be a poker golden prospect, a casino golden prospect, a bingo golden prospect or a sportsbook golden prospect? What if you could also tell the propensity of them ‘converting’ with one gaming operator over another? You can, Pzyche, the new product that detects the propensity of a random visitor to a site to be a golden

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

prospect or in rare cases a virginal golden prospect, is live and delivering substantial bottom line increases. I’ll admit that I am biased as I have worked for eons on this project and spent medium sized fortunes to deliver it, but bias or not you can’t argue with 200%-plus conversion increases. Most importantly of all for this project, it is wise enough to tell us not only where the gold is but when it visits us. By using Pzyche we are in the enviable position of only targeting the best of the best in visitors we have coming to us. The rest? We sell the muck and reduce our operating costs to a negligible level – that is the simple cost of golden-only traffic! Imagine the following as a simplified process flow: Buy traffic ●● ●● Analyse traffic ●● Send poker people to poker sign up page ●● Send casino people to casino sign up page Send bingo people to bingo sign up page ●● ●● Sell whatever traffic is left ●● Send emails in a nice generic, though product-based way Go for the close often and ongoing ●● in email courtship Analyse clicks from emails ●● ●● On poker page show operator most likely to convert On bingo page show operator most ●● likely to convert On casino page show operator most ●● likely to convert On sports page show operator most ●● likely to convert Continue email courtship – no one ●● said monogamy was king! Rinse and repeat! ●● If you fancy using this tech then get on the waiting list at http://www.Pzyche.com

9. Test, refine and repeat again! If you don’t understand the principles of testing, tracking, recording and conversion optimisation then start to research, read, dissect and do it again and again and again. You will end up in a position of reducing costs, increasing conversions at every stage of your process-led funnel and each and every small increase can be the difference between an island of your own to retire on, or burning a pile of tires for you to keep warm! Once your business, as that is what you now have, is up and running, producing income, having costs and delivering players, keep doing it and do more of it. Also don’t

forget that the relationship you entered into with your visitor, the one you both had via email isn’t over simply because they’ve found a gambling operator to partner with. Keep the relationship strong, keep checking back to see if they are still happy with their choice of gaming partner. If they aren’t you can fix it, whether that be churn to a new operator (via your affiliate tracker of course) or retention of their first choice so your revenue share continues to grow!

10. Come under my wing All of the above, if you actually follow it, will deliver substantial revenue into your pocket. But let’s be honest here, the majority of people who read this will do absolutely nothing. Most people who read this will think it’s too much like hard work. Most people are lazy and expect the money to be handed to them on a plate. If you aren’t lazy, if you are a person who sweats enthusiasm and energy, if you are looking for someone to help you get to that gold then sign up to Pzyche and I will take one person under my wing. The condition is that we agree to report back here in six months detailing the highs, the lows and the rewards of the system for everyone in gory detail. Do you want access to Pzyche, me and my team for six months building your kids’ inheritance?

11. Understand the soul of the visitor - Pzyche.com Pzyche understands the soul of the visitor. You can always carry on business without it if you want to :)

Jason Duke, Director, Strange Logic, is a leader obsessed with search engines and the algorithms that power them. His enquiring and exploring mind linked with a drive to see things down creates a culture that constantly asks, “What if?”, “Where to next?” and “I know how!” He is focused at managing a business, with an emphasis on marketing in a holistic manner to deliver the pinnacle of rewards on and offline. He is very well known and respected within the blogosphere and the search communities as a worldwide search leader and is regularly quoted in public, private, print, radio, TV and the web, as well as being a public speaker regarding search matters. Organisations including the BBC, Forbes, News International, multiple gaming and gambling businesses as well as the British Government have all been advised by him.

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Smart NCAA Bracket Play Teaches Best Practices for PPC I love the NCAA tournament – three weeks of endless basketball – and numerous entries in to bracket competitions. I have them in my head right now, so while I was working on a PPC campaign I started to see how good PPC methods are similar to how to be really successful with the brackets.

The big tip is not to fill out your entire bracket if you can get away with it. Many of the online competitions will allow you to do it this way. Why? Because some of the teams you choose in that first round may lose and if you had picked them to go deeper into the competition you have automatically shot yourself in the foot by committing to these losers. In PPC, when you first start out, the urge to build a huge list of keywords is overwhelming. You want it all – all the possible traffic rushing at your website. But, just like the brackets, there will many losers amongst your lists and your ads. Many new PPC marketers waste a lot of money in this rush to start getting conversions. But taking the smart way – waiting to make decisions from the information you get from the restricted early testing will not only save you money but ultimately allow you to make smart choices as the campaigns grow. The other benefit you get by playing your brackets one round at a time is you get more information about the teams and players. Injuries, breakout surprise teams and how the later confrontations match up will help you be more successful. With PPC you need the feedback of your analytics and conversions to adapt a more solid approach. Bounce rates for various keyword/ad combinations will help you make changes to landing pages as well as how you pair up the keywords with various ads.

“With PPC, jumping in with highly competitive terms puts you in a battle with everyone else for a limited number of potential clients.” You may have an injury – a problem with your tracking code, wrong links or faulty form captures – and could be playing hurt without even knowing it because of the minimal success you may be getting against other areas that are showing no conversions at all. You are likely to waste more money by just dropping those words and ads and adding more. When you do it slowly you have time to check all aspects before adding more elements to your ongoing tests. When you start your bracket selection there is the tendency to go with the top seeds – they are the save plays. With PPC, many people go for the main, more competitive, keywords as everyone else is there and they must be the winners. But with the brackets, you need some upsets, otherwise everyone would have the same results and those pesky outsiders can ruin your efforts. With PPC, this is also true. Jumping in with the highly competitive terms puts you in a battle with everyone else for a limited number of potential clients. Playing with the longer tail terms can be a winning move. Using Yahoo! and Bing before making huge spends with Google is another way you can achieve this. You need to know the impact of the playing field – some basketball teams will have home court advantage when competing close to home. With Bing and Yahoo!, I have

found searches for financial services, sports and travel tend to convert at a lower cost because people have been using the content areas the two engines have in these sectors and then go to the search box of the site they are reading. So, I hope if you have already developed an advanced PPC system, the information I gave you about completing your brackets gradually – if allowed – will help you win some pool money you can put back into those profitable PPC efforts. 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.

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

traffic

Can there really be a corner of the gaming market that hasn’t already been fully saturated in Google’s natural search results? Search Engine Optimisation in the online gaming verticals has always been competitive. Affiliates have also lost ground to the big Gaming companies, who now spend millions of dollars every year on improving and maintaining their search rankings. Poker and casino proved to be the most aggressive niches in the space, with the bingo market closely following. But as high street betting brands push everything they’ve got into becoming yet another poker room or casino site, gaps have opened up on their home turf. In the UK sportsbetting market, high street brands Ladbrokes and William Hill have impressive rankings for search terms such as [sportsbetting] and [football betting]. Yet, this is not due entirely to a

solid SEO strategy and the brands do not rank well in the more competitive poker market. Based on information collected from the link profiles of websites in the sportsbetting sector, a brand new website could conquer the UK betting vertical in less than 18 months – an established brand in 6-12 months. Putting aside the poor site architecture issues that seem to plague websites in this market, the winners in natural search are still predominantly determined by the volume, quality and targeting of links pointing into the sites. By taking a snapshot of each site’s backlinks, it’s possible to determine the competitiveness and budget required to compete in any niche. The table above shows how raw link

data can be filtered down to give a better understanding of which websites are strongest and the gap between leading competitors. Paddy Power appears to win in the battle for links at first, until the data is filtered down to what Google would actually count. Anyone can create a website with two million links into their main site, or set-up thousands of linking websites on a server. Google only wants one ‘vote’ per person to count, so it discards multiple links from a single site, from the same web server and even the same group of servers. This leaves them with one vote per ‘organisation’, which is then used to help determine authority and relevance for a search term. Google already offers people a small

google pagerank website

links found

links counting

www.ladbrokes.com

17,149

www.paddypower.com

30,558

sports.william.hill.com

2,193

Source: Ayima

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

pr 8

pr 7

pr 6

pr 5

pr 4

pr 3

pr 2

pr 1

pr 0

n/a

1,381

349

463

451

866

653

420

12, 628

1, 3, 13

818

267

804

725

629

480

26, 960

678

160

1, 645

335

google pagerank anchor text

links found

links counting

pr 8

pr 7

pr 6

pr 5

pr 4

pr 3

pr 2

pr 1

pr 0

pr null

ladbrokes

3,418

www.ladbrokes.com

1,281

508

3, 0, 30

139

354

1, 200

http://www.ladrbokes. com

480

144

430

ladbrokes.com

252

114

212

http://www.ladbrokes. com/

253

234

sports betting

betting

2,475

116

134

125

201

107

971

802

non-latin character set

http://www.ladbrokes. com/bigbirdrace/

here

big bird race

http://www.ladbrokes. com/…

ladbroke

www.ladbrokes.com/ bigbirdrace

ladbrokes home | sports betting…

Source: Ayima

glimpse of the ‘authority’ assigned to a page via the green PageRank bar in its browser toolbar. This shows how important it views a page in comparison to every other page on the Internet. PageRank isn’t everything though; it’s what you do with it that counts. This is where relevance comes in. By filtering link data by the ‘Anchor Text’ used when linking into a website, we’re able to see what third party websites are telling Google about Ladbrokes.com. This is a major part of how Google judges relevance for a search term. Ordering the Anchor Text by the greatest number of counted links can also reveal a lot about a website’s SEO strategy. In the case of Ladbrokes, its brand and URL is the most commonly used text when linking to its site. This creates a very natural linking pattern in the eyes of Google, which many sites fail to achieve and can get penalised

for accordingly. The first ‘product term’ that appears in our data is for “sportsbetting”, which received 33,100 searches on Google in the UK alone last month. Ladbrokes has managed to rank number one for [sportsbetting] with just 16 PageRank 0-3 counted links. This is only possible because of the age and authority of their brand links, which helps to push up the site due to page authority. This apparent lack of SEO competitiveness can be found across most of the sportsbetting sector, both in the UK and in other territories. The high authority links pointing into Ladbrokes are no match for a future competitor if they acquired a greater number of ‘Exact Match’ links for the big search terms in a safe and focussed manner. William Hill has shot itself in the foot by using a sub-domain for its sportsbetting site, which is treated by

Google as independent of the main www. williamhill.com site – making them just as vulnerable. If Paddy Power were to compete effectively in SEO or a new player came into the market, it would take little effort in comparison to poker to become a market leader. This doesn’t even count the immense potential of long tail traffic, achievable through a well-structured site featuring as many sporting events and personalities as possible.

Rob Kerry is Head of Search at Ayima Search Marketing. T: +44 (0)207 148 5970 ; F: +44 (0)207 253 0147 E: rob@ayima.com; W: http://www.ayima.com/

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

INTERVIEW

iGB Affiliate takes some time out with Sophie Gane, Casino Marketing Manager for the evocatively named Kerching Casino. Firstly, what brought you to the gaming industry? I joined Million-2-1 back in 2007 as an Account Manager, when my role was with the interactive agency side of the business. I was responsible for operating SMS games and competitions for media and telecoms clients including talkSPORT Radio, Virgin Radio and Orange. Following the acquisition of Million-2-1 in 2008 by IGT-UK Group, the business began developing the direct-to-consumer brand ‘Kerching’, which includes Kerching Casino and Kerching Mobile – our mobile casino. I began working as Partner Manager on Kerching Casino, leveraging the relationships I had been building in the media and telecoms industries. I now manage the marketing for Kerching Casino as well as the afﬁliate program. Did you have any preconceptions of the industry before you entered? Not really. I maybe had some stereotypical views of what type of people are involved in the gambling business but this has certainly changed! Our customer base is, in fact, incredibly diverse. Additionally, working for an IGT-UK Group company you see how compliant and above board everything is. The AM is a specialised role – what are the most important aspects from your perspective? I place a lot of emphasis on building relationships, developing trust and having an open dialogue with our afﬁliates. We provide competitive commissions and timely payments, and try to go the extra mile to provide things that differentiate us from other operators. This includes distributing free SEO content, exclusive player

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

promotions, ad hoc creative and so on. Has your role changed in the time you’ve been in the industry? What are the main differences now, from when you started? Yes definitely. Kerching Casino has a lot more impact as a brand and has developed a great reputation, which makes it easier when going about my role. We now rank on page one of Google for key terms and the affiliate channel is really starting to take off. It’s exciting. What is the most rewarding aspect of your job? Seeing Kerching Casino grow at such a phenomenal rate is hugely rewarding. When we get positive feedback from customers and affiliates it’s a great feeling. What aspects of affiliate management do you think could be improved to make the role easier/more effective? I think having one big affiliate directory would be extremely useful! Affiliates know where to find us but they are less easy to track down. What about the role of the affiliate – what could be improved from their side of the relationship? I think communication could probably be improved, the more feedback we get from affiliates, the better we can help meet their requirements. However, affiliates are busy! You’re heavily involved in the mobile space, in terms of marketing and games but how do you see the mobile space progressing in the coming year or two? Much has been expected of this platform – is now the time when it will assume the growth expected of it?

We currently have eight slot games available at Kerching Mobile, with an aggressive product launch roadmap for the remainder of 2010 – including roulette, blackjack, video poker and games for the iPhone and other Smartphones. The mobile space will progress at a phenomenal rate in the next two years. As Internet and mobile technologies continue to converge, it will be interesting to see how player behaviour adapts. Customers will be able to play their favourite game online, and resume the same game play on mobile when they’re on the move. Is now a time of growth for the iGaming industry as a whole (online/mobile/ interactive)? It’s definitely a time for growth. New technologies are making the gaming experience increasingly rich and exciting for the customer, ranging from the quality of the graphics and sophisticated features to community gaming and live gaming. There are also opportunities for the industry as a whole when new territories open up. In line with your thoughts on this, how is the affiliate segment of the industry positioned? Is it in rude health or is there still much to be done to fully maximise the effectiveness of affiliate marketing in this sector? I think it is in a good position. There are affiliates worldwide to facilitate internationalisation. With regards to mobile, the affiliate segment is in an earlier stage of development but well placed to grow at the same rate as the industry and maximise opportunities as they become available.

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interview

Affiliates – iGB Affiliate sits down with Mónica Rangel, Head of Marketing and Acquisition for Vegas Affiliates/ Minivegas. www.vegasaffiliates.com.

Firstly, give us some background on your history within the gaming industry. I have been active in the online gaming industry for the last three years; however, I’ve been active in the marketing industry for about eight years. During that time I was involved in a lot of high profile sporting events like the UEFA Champions League and Euro 2004. I had brushed against the betting industry during those eight years and it was only a matter of time before the leap was taken. When I was offered my current position by the shareholders at Vegas Affiliates/MiniVegas, I happily took the plunge. Despite my love for the occasional game of poker it was actually in the casino industry that I further developed my skills. I was excited to put the skills I have picked up in the marketing business to use in the most lucrative industry online. Vegas Affiliates has a great set of casinos behind them and there were plenty of them to exercise my skills on. At the end of the day, I do believe the skills that help me the most is my ability to listen to people (which is a big ally to my natural bourn tenacity) and, of course, the pinch of healthy madness necessary to be in this industry. It has all created the perfect balance to get things done in a positive and constructive fashion. The AM is a specialised role but what would you say were the most important attributes an affiliate manager should possess, particularly where it concerns the gaming industry? Apart from knowing the product inside out so they can better aid in promoting side by side with affiliates, in my opinion, an affiliate manager is a specialized listener and communicator, and one where affiliates can deposit their trust. The affiliate manager must conduct himself with loyalty and respect towards affiliates,

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

creating an environment of transparency and reliance, making him someone that affiliates may depend on, and that is what we defend at Vegas Affiliates. He has to be someone willing to look past numbers and truly understand the individuals he works with everyday. In the past, a good affiliate manager was a quiet one who just made sure you were paid accurately and on time. Today, the affiliate manager needs to be available much more than they did in the past. Help affiliates grow and you will grow alongside them. That leads perfectly into my next question, as to how the AM’s role has changed as the gaming industry has matured? I believe the Affiliate Manager’s role has evolved tremendously over the past few years. It has gone way beyond keeping track of numbers and acquisitions; good AM’s establish true relationships with their affiliates, they are aware of not only their needs as webmasters, but also their personal interests. Aiding an affiliate not only when he has a high turnover but also when he needs an AM’s support the most, either at his starting point or overcoming difficult periods. An affiliate manager needs to be able to quickly answer emails and be available through the major message forums. They should also have at least one instant messenger that they can be reached on. As the Internet advances we need to advance with it, working hard on our management to make sure affiliates have the tools they need to promote us effectively. An AM has grown to be someone you speak to every day/week, someone that can take and give advice, not just a name on the bottom of a newsletter. What is the most rewarding aspect of your job? Diversity. I get to speak and socialize with

totally different people from across the world and be in touch with their opinions, concerns and culture. Sometimes, I go around the world by sitting at my PC, having a cup of tea with a friend from India, catching a coffee break in Malta with our Affiliate Manager Daniela, hopping between London and Milan after lunch and ending the day by saying good morning to those who have just woken up on the other side. What aspects of affiliate management do you think could be improved to make the role easier/more effective? Actually, at Vegas Affiliates we are already implementing some of those changes. We are continuously creating user-friendly marketing tools for our affiliates, multiple language materials (such as banners and reviews), communication methods that allow affiliates to reach us at any time and in an expedite manner, progressive feeds and promotional feeds among many others. Our Grand Hotel Casino, for example, has a fantastic tool set that can be used by affiliates, including free-touse games, landing pages made to fit and it all has a great time-saving turnout. Internationalization is huge. Our sites must be in multiple languages and we must actually work hard within our position to push our management, design and development teams to action. It is also extremely important to know when to take a step back to move forward, and that is why we are in constant contact with our affiliates and affiliate associations to make sure we are keeping up with them when it comes to our offering. Our policy is one of listening to our partners and affiliates, taking them into account in our business decisions while working towards a more effective program.

“The affiliate manager must conduct himself with loyalty and respect towards affiliates, creating an environment of transparency and reliance, making him someone that affiliates may depend on, and that is what we defend at Vegas Affiliates.” What about the role of the affiliate – what could be improved from their side of the relationship? You know, these are crazy times we live in and, seriously, not many people have the time to just sit down and have a long conversation about their work. Affiliates work hard every day to improve their websites and to convey the messages we have for potential players, constantly updating information, getting the best bonuses around and setting the bar higher and higher in terms of quality for all gambling companies. So what would I improve? Our ability to listen when they speak, which, of course, means they have to come to us with their thoughts and ideas as well. We are not a corporate wall; there are people on both sides so it is just a matter of finding the perfect balance. As we enter a new decade – is the industry set for further growth with the prospect of regulation in Europe and possibly the US?

Given the economic downturn of recent years, I believe that we will have fewer but stronger players when it comes to the gambling industry. Consolidation could be the better word to describe the scenario for the next decade. The regulation of the European market is, at this point, so heterogeneous that it makes it very hard to analyse Europe as a whole. There is still a large disparity among countries to predict an even growth, but nonetheless, an improvement is forecasted for the next decade. Regulation will drive companies to be more efficient and organized, creating country by country micromanagement units that will compel a proximity brand strategy nested in the now existing global strategies. We cannot assume that regulations alone will bring our brands closer to players – we need to educate our audiences into seeing the gaming product as a safe entertainment venue and not the source of all evil some local voices set it out to be. Regarding the US market, it

would be, without a doubt, an exercise of democracy and a unique opportunity for many established companies to increase their value and voice. The US audience is entirely different from the European one and they are far more advanced when it comes to online proficiency, which, of course, would enable better brand and product diffusion.

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

FEATURE

THE AFFILIATE ROADMAP TO SUCCESS iGB Affiliate gave me the challenging task of exploring the roadmap to becoming a successful affiliate. To the few that have made it, these secrets of success won’t sound like anything new. For others, hopefully there are a few tips you can take from this article to build your affiliate business and make it to the next level. By no means am I a successful affiliate myself yet. I have worked on sites in the past that failed but taught me lessons of what not to do. I am starting over myself with new affiliate sites and I can share some of the plans and strategies that I’m putting into the new sites. When I worked as an affiliate manager I got a glimpse into which types of affiliates were the most successful. I feel I now have everything I need to become a successful affiliate and I’d like to share my strategies and what I have learnt.

Characteristics of successful affiliate websites I hope this should be easy to identify but if you want to be the best you have to ﬁgure out who is the best and why. ● Rank high for many keywords ● Have lots of content ● Have lots of links pointing to the site ● Make more use of buttons, lists, logos and icons ● Less use of banners ● Easy navigation ● Research everything ● Calls to action are very simple and straightforward

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

● The site has value to it and it’s worth

Intermediate

sharing to a friend ● Always has new content and updated pages

There are many afﬁliates that I would put in this category – those that have some experience and have made a bit of money. They might know some SEO tricks but they don’t stay on top of the latest SEO trends and news. They still like to use banners and their calls to action on their site are inconsistent. I know of a few afﬁliates that earn over $20,000 per month yet, I would still put them in the intermediate category as they have a lot to learn and therefore, a lot more to earn.

Well, that sounds simple enough, so why isn’t everyone just copying this formula for instant success? Some of these top affiliates have been around for at least two years and some for as long as ten. I have seen affiliates make very good money in their first year and take it to the next level in their second. This is not a common thing but it’s also possible to pull off.

High roller What affiliate life-cycle stage are you in? I like to put afﬁliates into three categories: failures, intermediate and high rollers.

Failures As the name implies, we’re talking about the typical affiliate that signs up to all the programs, starts a website and then gives up either immediately or anywhere up to 90 days in. Most of these affiliates simply give up more towards the ‘immediately’ end of that scale, thinking it’s impossible to make money as an affiliate. Their sites have almost no content, provide no real value and make excessive use of banners. Adding value to their site is an afterthought and they will never understand what ‘call to action’ means. Most new affiliates will end up in this category and would be lucky if they got a depositing player on their account.

Call them ‘High Rollers’, ‘Advanced’ or ‘All Star’ affiliates. These affiliates understand the industry very well and can easily explain why their site makes money while other sites don’t. Their strongest characteristics are that they work hard, they work smart and they know how to sell. Affiliate marketing is more than just producing content; when you get a visitor to your website you need to know how they got there. You need to know what they are looking for and be ready to help them make the next step, which is to convert. These top affiliates make it look easy and sometimes their strategies are very simple but they all work hard and that is their common characteristic.

So how do I go from Zero to Hero? If you are at the beginner or intermediate levels I think the ﬁrst thing anybody should do is search for a network and an afﬁliate

“You need to establish a work routine based around building more content, increasing links to your site and finding ways to add more value to your site. That might be stating the obvious but it is what separates the ‘All Star’ affiliates from the rest.” coach. I will mention at the end of the article where you can find some affiliate coaches. New or intermediate affiliates don’t have to start from scratch and if anything, if you have a domain with content on it, that is a good start. I will go through each stage for a brand new affiliate but, of course, these can be applied to all levels of affiliates.

Sitemap and layout I ﬁnd this the toughest part about building a website yet most afﬁliates seem to think about this at the latter stages of the process. Write out the sitemap in advance and write out the full navigation of the website and where all pages and links will go. When in doubt use the KISS model (Keep It Simple Stupid).

Stage 1: Planning and research At the very start I would find some affiliates to chat with to help you with your marketing plan. An affiliate coach would be perfect to help you stay focused on the task and prevent you from making early mistakes. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel!

Research Your research should start with Google and find some of the top ranked affiliates. Write down everything you like about their sites. Keep asking yourself “what value do these sites provide to players and what makes them special?” Do keyword research and find out what people are searching for these days. If you really have to ask, then visit the following link: https://adwords.google.com/select/ KeywordToolExternal

Domain selection You should pick a domain you want to use with a site focus in mind. You might have ten domains you want to develop but it’s better to focus your time and energy into one topic so your mind doesn’t get too cluttered. Keywords in the domain can be good but it’s not the most important factor. The older the domain and website the more respect it would have from a search engine. Otherwise, start with a brand new domain.

Topic Your topic should, of course, match the domain and you need to explain in detail what your site will provide. The toughest question I like to ask affiliates is “what value does your site give?” If you can’t answer this then ranking for any keyword won’t mean much if your visitors feel your site is a waste of their time and they leave. Look at the competition and see if you can provide a service better than they do. All the top affiliates have a clearly defined topic and all provide good value to their visitors.

Stage 2: Execute If you take the required time for Stage 1, then Stage 2 will go smoothly. For most afﬁliates, this is where they get stuck; because they didn’t do their planning and research, when they want to execute they fail and get discouraged. Launching the website the way you planned it will take some time but once you have everything established it is a lot of work that you don’t have to do again!

Loading initial content Your new website could have anywhere from ﬁve to 100 pages of content to get the site started. This won’t happen overnight and it is content that you will want to update.

Link building Getting links to your site is important and there are some you can get that are fast and easy. Down the road, you will want to build more links for your sites but start with the obvious ones from the gaming industry. Do the same for social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Stage 3: Build This last stage might sound like an obvious one but after planning and launching the site you need to establish a work routine based around building more content, increasing links to your site and finding ways to add more value to your site. That might be stating the obvious but it is what separates the ‘All Star’ affiliates from the rest. New affiliates might get discouraged at this stage but this stage will make or break your business.

Content and links Adding more content to the site will only help to get more sales, more opportunities to be searched and add more value to it. Always stay focused on where you can

get quality links pointing to your website. These two items go hand in hand and should become part of your routine. The ‘All Star’ afﬁliates I know love to work and they never stop updating their pages and creating new content.

More research The online marketing game changes fast and constant research will keep your skillset sharp. When search engines change how they will rank your site it’s important to understand these changes and make adjustments to your strategies. Research will help you stay proactive not reactive to any change in the industry.

Get an affiliate coach If you want some help getting started with a new affiliate project or you feel you are not getting the most out of your existing set of websites then look for an affiliate coach. This might sound like shameless self promotion but it is one of the reasons I became an affiliate, with my focus on helping other affiliates. Affiliate coaches are rare but if you want help with strategies, link building, SEO, graphic design, calls to action, site optimization, programming and content management, then an affiliate coach can help.

JOHN WRIGHT is a marketing consultant and works as an affiliate coach for GamingAffiliatesGuide.com. After obtaining a Bachelor of Applied Science in robotics at the University of Toronto he decided a career in gambling would be more fun and exciting. In 2002 he began playing poker, card counting and bonus hunting despite the requests from concerned friends and family members to pursue a real job. In 2003 he began creating his own affiliate sites teaching players the rules and strategies for online gaming. In 2005 he providing marketing services for 400affiliates.com and became the affiliate manager for ThisisVegas in 2007. In 2009 he helped launch the Rockbet casino brand and at the start of 2010 decided to work on his affiliate sites and become a consultant. In his spare time John enjoys traveling, reading, surfing, muay thai kickboxing and meeting new people. He can be reached at john@gamingaffiliatesguide.com.

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

Feature - Peer Industries

Sex and Gambling – a Natural Business Intercourse? These are two areas of consumerism that share shelf space in more ways than one, but what do the online sectors of porn and gaming share in terms of marketing and acquisition methods, and how can they better work together to create what some see as a marriage made in heaven? A Stanford University study that took place in 2008 proved that a natural link between sex and gambling existed. Articles reporting the evidence proclaim it to confirm what we have known all along – that sex and gambling go together like peas and carrots. Can sex and gambling work online? Certainly, Sin City earned its reputation on the back of both vices and where would a James Bond casino scene be without ‘Rouletta Outinthat’ loitering around the craps tables in search of riches and fame. Yet, for all the money that spins around the adult and gaming industries online, we’ve not seen this so-called natural partnership come together to make sweet financial love. Strong iGaming establishments have tried, but even working alongside powerful and credible brands such as Playboy, Tila Tequila and Page3, they have struggled to reach beyond the example of a fleeting niche concept and into the realms of serious money spinning gaming. Even less credible brands such as Swank Poker have come and gone embarrassingly quickly for an adult site, and Roulette69’s conservative step towards a Microgaming facelift would please many an ageing porn star. The sum of all of this seems to indicate that sex and gambling’s online affair cannot grow beyond a casual fling.

Sexual frustration The issue with the aforementioned

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

examples is that the sexual aspect of their brand and product make-up was pure window dressing for what turned out to be (from a player perspective) just another RNG casino or poker room. Sure, the promotions could entail innuendo with $69 on offer here or there, but there is no genuine fulfilment to one of the two vices iGaming operations have tried to unite. They flattered to deceive their audience and consequently, failed in terms of player volume and profitability. The adult industry is the number one online industry in terms of revenue and volume – 25% of all Internet searches are porn-related. Competitors work together far more coherently than in online gaming to ensure all-round growth, and there is far more differentiation for discerning patrons and site visitors – things that are distinctly lacking in the iGaming world. What made us think that throwing a couple of models on to a homepage would tap in to this profitability?

A great divide Despite the natural link from a player perspective, there is currently too great a market intelligence divide for a quick fix to work. This is the standpoint taken by Sexy Stars Casino, which has developed a far more intuitive product that allows players seeking adult-themed gaming to receive precisely that. Using a Parlay software

framework, the development team have created a series of fun, cheeky adult themed casino games that do offer a unique gaming experience. Their promotional strategy does go far enough to attract naturally tentative casino players linking to Sexy Stars Casino from an affiliated adult site, and commercially this could be the first brand to transcend the unnecessarily great divide. As a result, it will no doubt receive significant attention from affiliate and strategic partners on both sides, interested in the opportunity of sending traffic to a repetitively yielding destination – not normally the case from an adult affiliate’s perspective, and in significantly higher volumes than a gaming affiliate would be used to.

Potential From a future standpoint, both the adult and gaming online industries are reaching critical stages of their relatively young lives. Porn has traditionally gained success from the subscription based model, but is increasingly focusing on social networking in terms of outreach, with sites such as AdultFriendFinder gaining more and more traction. Mobile technology is also being adapted to cater for more personalised contact (apparently there is now a vibrating app for the iPhone) and virtual worlds, such as Second Life and Red Light Center, are

springing up and revelling in the demand for more targeted differentiation. This is all being done to safeguard the monetization of an industry that is technically in decline. The proportion of people searching for porn related material online is growing at a lower rate than the overall Internet population. When looking at the number of people entering the online world, there is less activity in the porn industry and more in social networking and communication. In brief, the web is no longer the red light district it was in the mid-nineties and porn is adapting. Can the same be said of online gambling? If we cover the same areas, which carry as much resonance in terms of importance to gambling, we can see the answer clearly. Without a doubt, gaming has yet to truly crack social networking sites. Mobile

technology may or may not be at an advanced enough stage for secure, transactional game play to take place, but the gaming industry has yet to focus its attention on this everdeveloping corner of the market and make it happen. Online communities are holed up in practical forums such as Casinomeister and TwoPlusTwo rather than venturing in to exciting new 3D virtual reality worlds. Sure, there will be critics out there who will question the demand for such evolution, but online gaming really should be at a stage where it is creating the demand through innovation. This is where ventures such as Sexy Stars Casino can prove a success (scheduled April launch) and combine the prolonged financial merits of online gaming with the genuine fun, excitement and forward thinking of the adult space. This is an area where the multi-channel

affiliate should be chomping at the bit, as the potential for effectively linking sex and gambling would create brand new keyword competition, a different audience and a potentially massive one at that.

Tom Galanis is a Director at GameOn Affiliates, a specialist iGaming affiliate management agency. GameOn Affiliates works alongside clients and affiliates to develop new or emerging products and markets. Previously, Tom was Marketing Manager at bet365 and managed the affiliate program at Victor Chandler. To find out more, visit www.GameOnAffiliates.com, or you can reach Tom at tom@gameon-affiliates.com or on +44 (0)7805 638742.

Porn and Gaming – Industry Comparisons In February, I attended the Barcelona Summit, which is an adult industry conference. I decided to attend because I wanted to see how this industry was faring and to see if I could network with some smart marketers. I was also hoping to gain a better insight into mobile marketing and perhaps see if anybody wanted to cross over into the gaming markets, which are still growing. The adult industry matured long ago and these marketers seem to know how to sell better than the people in gaming and I think this comes strictly from experience. The worst case scenario from this visit is that I don’t learn anything but get to attend a few parties and maybe come away with some good stories. I am not preaching that gaming people cross over into the adult industry but both industries have a lot in common and much to learn from each other. Although each industry might seem like they offer wildly different products, the method in which customers search out their product and pay are almost identical. When it comes to conversion, sales and retention, while the adult industry seemed to have figured this out many years ago, the gaming industry clearly has more to learn and some way to catch up.

place to protect everyone. Gaming is still fighting for regulation ●● and it may take some time yet before online gaming is accepted by most countries if not all. The adult business has matured in the ●● last few years while gaming still has more room for growth. Marketers in adult have had more time to ●● figure out how to convert, sell and retain while many gaming companies are still trying to master this art. Adult is estimated to be worth $4 billion ●● per year in profits while gaming is pegged at $15 billion per year and growing.

How the industries are similar ●● In online marketing circles, PPC translates

as: porn, pills and casino. In both industries I see more innovation and more competition from operators to affiliates. The revenue share models are almost ●● identical and far more profitable than mainstream programs that you would find at linkshare or cj.com. The affiliates in both industries do ●● almost the same jobs: site optimization, SEO, content writing, link building and catering to their visitors. Instead of doing casino or poker reviews adult affiliates are doing adult reviews, webcams or dating programs.

How the industries are different ●● The adult business is well established

with enough laws and regulations put in

The irony is that both industries are scared of crossing over to the other side of the

“When it comes to conversion, sales and retention, while the adult industry seemed to have figured this out many years ago, the gaming industry clearly has more to learn and some way to catch up.” fence. The frequent question I got asked at the conference was ‘is online gambling illegal?’, and of course I had to explain the current laws and where the industry will be in five years. On top of this it’s been proven that the two industries don’t mix; for example trying to make an adult themed gambling site – I have yet to see a successful attempt in the past eight years. The next influence that I think is going to catch both sides off guard is mobile marketing. 2010 is the year when things will change and it’s happening right now. In two years time the mobile adult and gaming industries are probably going to take off. The same forecast was issued five years ago and I think everyone was disappointed. However, now is the time to get started.

John Wright is a marketing consultant and works as an affiliate coach for GamingAffiliatesGuide.com.

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

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Case Study

interview

The Odds are in your Favour Sinead Lambert, Online Marketing Manager for OLBG, answers our questions about the new ValueChecker Live Odds Service. What was the catalyst for developing ValueChecker? From experience, we found ourselves asking the question, “have you ever wanted to offer best odds on your site but it was either too expensive or you had no control over what was being displayed or worse yet, you didn’t earn commissions through your own affiliate links?” We encountered these problems when we started out, so we decided to develop our own solution – ValueChecker Live Odds Service. 18 months and a fair bit of blood, sweat and tears later, and we have developed a solution which allows affiliates to display best odds on their site. What are the primary benefits for affiliates? Affiliates have full control of what is displayed, earn through their own links and most importantly it’s free – there are no set up costs. Affiliates can display the best odds within their content or choose to display the odds alongside their content in what we’ve very originally called “odds boxes”. The best odds boxes are neat, smaller units which can fit into any site layout. Affiliates choose what they want to display, grab the code and then add it to their site. The size, colour and style of the box are fully customisable to fit the affiliate’s site template. There’s little technical knowledge required. There’s no need to hire a team of programmers to roll this out. Anyone can set this up on their site. Is there any significance in the timing of the release? Why now? The halcyon days of earning easy commissions through advertising sportsbook are over. Bookmakers are tightening their budgets and people have

less money to spend in these recessionary times. It’s getting more and more competitive to acquire new customers and retain them. Affiliates need to provide valuable content, to entice and convert site visitors, resulting in a new bookmaker account. Providing best odds on your site does that. It offers valuable information, gives real-time data and prevents leakage to larger odds comparison sites. Previously, offering best odds on a small to mid-tier affiliate site was near impossible. The only option for affiliates was to sign off full control to a larger odds comparison site, allowing them to tag all referral traffic with their affiliate IDs. This is what we wanted to change – to open up the market and allow affiliates like ourselves to display best odds. Valuechecker Live Odds allows the affiliates themselves to have full control. They choose the bookmakers, the markets and sports they want to display and most importantly, they earn through their own affiliate links. They retain their customers. What about the development of the service – are affiliates likely to encounter updates and amendments to the product? Over the coming months, based on affiliate feedback, we’ll be working on updating and improving our service, adding more markets, bookmakers and sports, making it the most adaptable, customisable live odds service available. There are many benefits to offering best odds on your site, some I’ve previously mentioned like increasing competitiveness and, in turn, commissions. But, one of the most substantial benefits is preventing site leakage to odds comparisons sites. Affiliates do all the ground work, and the

odds comparison site reaps the benefit by converting the transaction and earning the commission. We’ve had a great response so far from the affiliates who are using our live odds service. They can’t believe how much control they have and how easy it is to set up. I think sportsbook affiliate marketing has been waiting for a product like this to be developed.

ValueChecker Testimonies “The new ValueChecker odds solution is really the perfect match for my World Cup site. It’s easy to integrate, simple to customise, offers clear reporting and importantly all referrals are shared.” Kate - www.betworldcup2010.co.uk “Valuechecker has delivered a great product that is much in need within the sports betting affiliate industry. Their platform is easy to use, has some great usability features and the integration is straight forward. The biggest asset is the transparency in which information is made available. Going down the traffic share root is great, but requires a big deal of trust - which they have provided in a clear and concise manner.” Bryan Kelly - www.gambling-guru.com

For information on how you can get more competitive contact sinead@invendium.co.uk

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

MAKE YOUR CHOICE

Commission 25-50% No negative carry over Multiple networks, one wallet Unique Creatives and promotions Experienced Multilingual affiliatemanagers

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INSIGHT

How affiliate managers view their partnership with affiliates. SO YOU’VE GOT your SEO guy, content writer, webmaster and graphic designer. You’ve spent hours late into the night getting the site set up, doing some, all or none of the legwork yourself. The only person you’re missing now is the member of the team that’s going to help you the most and you don’t even need to pay him! Enter your affiliate consultant. Admittedly, ‘affiliate consultant’ is just a fancy way of saying ‘affiliate manager’ but think about it… who spends their entire day looking at affiliate websites, talking to affiliates themselves, hearing about how other affiliates are building up their business, discussing ways to improve the site’s rankings, which positions on a site perform the best, knows which products deliver the best results and has more experience in the development of all types of affiliates from small to large and so forth? Answer: your affiliate manager – your man on the inside.

The essence of partnership A good affiliate program will be backed up by an excellent player conversion and retention team and state of the art software offering players the latest in exciting gameplay and promotions, for without this there is nothing to offer you, the affiliate, who passes on this product to your site’s visitors. Indeed, this is the operator’s commitment to you and they invest in this commitment for the long-term by continuously looking at ways to improve the games, usability, websites, payment processes and product as a whole. Likewise, and although it is an oftrepeated notion, their partnership with you is also a commitment for the long-term and it is this idea of commitment that is at the essence of the partnership. A good affiliate manager will be

committed to helping you and your website achieve its potential. That is the end goal and everything else is a result of this goal being achieved. For this reason it is essential that the afﬁliate managers do all they can to understand your side of the business. In order to be able to do this they need to constantly be learning and keeping track of what is happening, not only in the online gaming market but also in regards to online marketing trends in general.

Ingredients for a good partnership Like in any good marriage there are three main ingredients for building a good partnership: incentive, a willing partner and L.U.C.K (Love, Understanding, Compassion and Kindness). Let’s look at each of these in turn to see how they manifest themselves in the afﬁliate world.

Incentive Both you and your affiliate manager have an incentive to make this partnership successful and profitable. The best example of this is a rev share partnership; the more high value players you send to the operator the greater the revenue earned by both parties and the more chance your affiliate manager will optimise your deal to reward you better. Should you be working on a CPA basis, a little more attention and sensitivity should be paid as to how the partnership can be fair and profitable and we will return to this point soon.

A willing partner For the partnership to work it is crucial that both parties are dedicated to a common vision and goal of building up your business so that it delivers success for all. From your side this means investment of time and effort, and probably money too, in the site,

whereas from your afﬁliate manager’s side it means offering advice, keeping in touch, being available to help with tracking your players, customising marketing materials for you, and offering the best deal possible to make your efforts pay off.

L.U.C.K. The best way for your affiliate manager to understand you and your business is by listening to you, asking questions and getting to know you and your traffic better. Only then will he be able to give you the best service to make it happen. Furthermore, an important part in your affiliate manager showing compassion for your business and appreciation for your efforts is by ensuring your payment is made promptly each month. Cementing all of these ingredients together is the glue of communication, for through this, and much of the above too, comes trust. Indeed, it is through the efforts of the affiliate manager and the demonstration of his understanding of your position that enables trust and confidence to be built up. Both of these elements cannot be emphasised enough in making sure the partnership is long lasting, stable and successful for all.

RICHARD CLAYTON is Affiliate Team Manager at AffClub.com, part of PartyGaming, and has been working in online gaming for over five years. Based in Tel Aviv, AffClub prides itself in promoting some of the best converting casinos in iGaming and a highly customised service for all its affiliates. For more information, Richard can be contacted at Richardc@AffClub. com.

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

INSIGHT

AFFILIATE FINANCE

Affiliate Payment Preferences For affiliates at varying points of business maturity, identifying the correct payment delivery mechanism for their business, and then the right partner to provide it, can prove to be a bit of a headache. On page 38, Neovia has provided some insight for new entrants to the market, but first, Paul Davis, MD of Counting House surveys the options available for affiliates of all levels. “You load sixteen tons, what do you get Another day older and deeper in debt Saint Peter don’t you call me ‘cause I can’t go I owe my soul to the company store.” The classic plaint of Tennessee Ernie Ford reflects the reality of the worst conceived affiliate payment programs – the least common denominator is that after working hard to build traffic as an introducer of new business, your earnings are credited to your account on the operator’s site and your only option is to play them there. The inevitable happens and not only do you spend them, you are seduced into further funding your account and end up in a net negative position. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. If your sole purpose in signing up as an affiliate is to earn money to play on the operator’s site, you may be happy with this. Increasingly, however, affiliate status is viewed as a job, business or profession, and successful affiliates look to maximize flexibility in withdrawal of their revenues for personal use. How the operator pays you becomes a critical factor in determining whether its proposition is viable for you. Today, very few sites offer only the option to go back and buy in the company store. You don’t need all the options; you need those that work for you. Here’s a rundown of the main options along with their pluses and minuses.

Credit to wallet Very popular with operators and afﬁliates is the option of a credit to an internet wallet, the leading players being Moneybookers and Neovia (Neteller). A wallet credit is quick (can be virtually instantaneous), inexpensive for the operator, and if the funds are re-spent from the wallet, inexpensive for the afﬁliate.

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

There is also great certainty in the delivery of the payment, which is a huge plus for all parties. The downside is that if you want to withdraw the funds in cash, or if the desired currency is other than those supported by the wallet, you may incur expenses either in exchange conversions, ATM withdrawal fees, or in acquisition of an associated plastic card to use for deployment of the funds. None of these is terminal if you are a high earner, but if your revenues are under $100 a month they become a signiﬁcant percentage of, andxdetractor from, your income.

Virtual cards Credit to a virtual card, while presently limited to major currencies (EUR, GBP, USD) shares with wallet credit speed and certainty of delivery. An email is sent to the afﬁliate, who goes to the card provider site to ‘claim’ the funds and is instantly provided with a fully usable credit card number. Again some costs are involved, typically around 2% of transaction value, but the solution is universally available and highly reliable. Entropay is the clear market leader for this product.

Wire transfer For large earners, secure wire transfer using the SWIFT network, subscribed to by all banks, is a realistic option. Somewhat more expensive for the operator, and possibly incurring an incoming transfer fee (costs can be as much as $30 at each end), nevertheless, wires are universally available and delivery is fast and veriﬁable. Don’t be surprised if your operator uses a third-party provider for its wires, many banks in most countries are reluctant to process payments directly for Internet gaming operators and specialist payment providers are frequently employed.

Domestic electronic transfer The best operators almost universally offer localized electronic transfer solutions, and will send cash via the domestic RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlements) system to a designated bank account. This process is highly cost effective, typically with sending fees under $2 and no cost at all to the recipient. Transfers may be immediate (in the UK, Faster Payments have a typical delivery time of 15 seconds), but can take up to three days. You may variously hear such transfers referred to as ‘domestic ACH’ (in the US), ‘international ACH’ (a wrongly applied term typically used by North Americans to refer to in-country electronic payment systems), BACS (in countries where the British monarchs once ruled) or SEPA (Single European Payments Area) payments, the latest correct term for the former ESP (Euro Standard Payments). Like wire transfers, domestic electronic transfers typically require provision of the beneﬁciary’s bank account information. Local EFT payments are easy to arrange in North America, throughout Europe, Australasia and several Asian countries. Selected spots in Africa have excellent RTGS systems (the standouts are South Africa and Nigeria) and in South America, Brazil leads the pack with its DOC and TED systems. More exotic locations may well present challenges for this delivery method.

Visa original credit transfers (OCT) An emerging option of which little use has been made so far is the OCT, previously referred to as CFT. Extremely inexpensive and with certainty of delivery, this involves a credit transfer onto a Visa card, and is typically delivered within three days. As this is not a ‘gaming’ transaction per se, the credit limit is $50,000 USD which

should account for the vast majority of potential users. Thus far, we’ve talked exclusively of electronic delivery options. However, the very best afﬁliate programs also offer what is regarded by some as a ‘legacy’ payment method, but which is in fact enjoying a resurgence in the afﬁliate space.

Paper cheques The major payment providers to the gaming space offer paper cheques for more than 90 countries, satisfying the demand from an overwhelming majority of afﬁliates the world over. It remains the case that local cheques are a great option for many afﬁliates as they provide local delivery of local funds in a negotiable form. Before requesting this cash out method, however, make sure that you will receive a currency that makes sense to you and drawn on a bank in your country, to ensure you do not have ‘collection fees’. It is of little use to you to receive a USD cheque drawn on a Canadian bank if you live in Romania! If you use cheques as a cash out option, ensure your operator delivers a cheque drawn in your currency, on a

bank in your country, and capable of local deposit so that you get full credit for it in your bank account. Notable exceptions to cheque availability today are Finland, the Netherlands and Russia, all countries where there are active affiliates but cheques have been all but eliminated from the banking systems. If speed is an issue, a paper cheque with its combination of mail delivery and clearing time, may not be entirely appropriate. Options to improve the process while staying with paper are to request courier delivery (this is usually available at a cost to the affiliate) and bank draft rather than normal cheque. Once you have a paper cheque in your hand, make sure you deposit it promptly and report any problems to your affiliate relationship manager. AMs spend their lives improving the affiliate experience and will be highly responsive to your needs. On this same note, if you are attracted to a site as an affiliate but it doesn’t deliver the payment method that makes sense for you, again talk to the AM. It may well be that a special arrangement can be made for you, or that the feedback will be welcomed as a

direction for improvement of the operator’s afﬁliate program.

*The author welcomes feedback and questions on afﬁliate payment delivery systems, and is a major provider of afﬁliate payments globally. paul@countinghouseltd.com

DR PAUL DAVIS is the Managing Director of Counting House (IOM) Ltd., a payments and cash management consultancy based in Douglas, Isle of Man. A Canadian lawyer by trade, he entered the world of commerce in the early 1980s and successfully built first a chain of retail stores which expanded to online sales, then Canada’s largest privately owned foreign exchange. Cashbycourier.com, which traded successfully for five years before merging into a larger operation, was his first pure Internet venture. Since the millennium year he has worked in Europe to establish and build the European payments routing empire of one of the world’s largest third-party payments processors. His responsibilities included the group’s footprints in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and parts of South America. Comments and correspondence welcome: paul@countinghouseltd.com

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iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

INSIGHT

AFFILIATE FINANCE

Tips for Rookie Affiliates – What to Look for in a Payments Partner With a vast array of payment options available to gaming affiliates, it can be bewildering choosing one to work with. It’s important to choose a payment partner that is right for you now, and will also accommodate your changing needs as your company grows. Neovia Financial EVP, Dan Starr advises new entrant affiliates to pick a partner that is flexible, trustworthy and able to offer the right services. LET’S LOOK AT SOME of the most important areas to consider in selecting a payment partner. Firstly, look for a free way to get paid out from your merchants – you shouldn’t have to pay for doing all the work. While bank wires and transfers have been popular in the past with affiliates, they can be costly – there may be incoming transfer fees for the affiliate, as well as the costs for the operators. Then it makes sense to pick a partner and system that will mean you get paid instantly – why wait if you don’t have to? Bank wires and transfers can be fairly slow, meaning your cash flow will suffer, and paper cheques are even slower once the cheque has been physically posted, paid in to a bank and allowed to clear. Convenience is another big factor. Look for a system that easily enables you to carry out peer money transfers so you can pay your customers, subscribers or partners. And you should choose a payment method that enables you to easily use your earnings to pay business expenses. Debit facilities like a Prepaid MasterCard are ideal for allowing you use your earnings to pay for your business expenses on and offline. With the near-ubiquitous acceptance of cards, you can pay for Google AdWords, domains, site hosting, translations or whatever else your affiliate business needs, without fuss. A virtual prepaid MasterCard will give you a onetime use card number that is accepted anywhere online that MasterCard can be used, providing a convenient and secure mechanism to spend your funds. Many affiliates find it convenient to

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

use their payment system as their business bank account – it allows them to track and monitor their earnings/commissions and their expenses. With the right payment system, you will be able to seamlessly bring funds in, pay customers and partners and handle your business expenses, while keeping all the money and tracking in one secure online place. You should look for a system that will pay you in your own currency. This makes everything much more convenient, and avoids costly FX charges. Almost all global currencies are covered by the major payment systems, so getting paid in the currency that suits you should be achievable. Of course, you’ll want to pick a payment system you can trust with your hard-earned money. Look for a reputable payment option – choose one that is secure, has good anti-fraud measures, is well known in the industry and has a solid track record over a number of years. You’ll also want to choose a payment provider that many of your customers and sub-afﬁliates use, so that you can easily circulate money in the system without hassles and exorbitant fees. Industry awards are a useful guide to which systems are respected by other afﬁliates and by operators. Another indicator is to go for a payment company which is fully regulated and publicly traded, which ensures a suitable level of transparency and governance. As well as the payment mechanism itself, you need to think about customer support – what happens if you need help? Will there be someone there to answer your queries? What if they’re in a different time zone,

or you need help outside regular business hours? Look for a payment provider that will offer 24/7 support for you and your customers, and provide a dedicated account manager. Some payment systems have their own afﬁliate programs which means that you can ‘double dip’ – while you are promoting your merchants, if you also promote the payment system you’ll get earnings from both the merchant and the payment provider. Effectively, you get two rewards for the same amount of work. In conclusion, whichever way you decide to go, it’s important to do your research. Popular options include bank transfers, e-wallets (with a linked prepaid card) and paper cheques. The key factors to consider are the security of the payment system, the reputation of the payment partner, and the simplicity and speed of the payment options on offer. By picking the right partner at the start – which means one that will grow with you – you can focus on building your business, and let the payment processing system take care of itself.

DAN STARR is EVP of NEOVIA Financial with over 15 years experience in the tech industry. Seen as the leader of payment processing in the online gaming market, NEOVIA’s product NETELLER was chosen as the best payment system for the second year in a row at the second annual iGB Affiliate Awards earlier this year. For more information regarding NEOVIA’s own affiliate program visit: http://www.neovia. com/content/en/products_affiliate.htm

tisk-dc.ai 22.3.2010 17:22:15

CMY

operator

insight

Creating Win-Win-Win Scenarios for Players, Affiliates and Operators Given that affiliates act as one of the selling arms of an operator, it is clear that both operators and affiliates have a congruent goal, that of attracting the highest number of good-quality players to their program in order to increase the customer base and earn higher revenues. So what strategies should an operator adopt to help high value affiliates attract and retain quality players?

Provide accurate relevant statistics As affiliates are rewarded on performance, their main aim is to attract the best quality players and get them to sign up to the program that offers the highest return for both the player and the affiliate. Given this race for the best players, affiliates are constantly seeking new ways of attracting players to their website; some offer comparison guides, others promote online coupons, while others foster an environment based on a community, where players can socialise and share advice. Considering all these different promotional channels, affiliates are thirsty for information – information that tells them which strategies work best. Remember that what is measured can be managed. Like in any other business, including the operator business itself, affiliates need up-to-date statistics that can provide information on the performance of the different marketing channels being used in order to be able to optimize the returns from these channels. Affiliate marketing statistics represent all the data that operators get from all of the activity deriving from affiliate marketing efforts. Such data would relate to areas such as customer traffic analysis, including statistics about traffic conversion rates and individual customer statistics. These figures are an essential element of the business for the operator when assessing the quality of the overall customer base as well as affiliate performance. However, such information is also critical for affiliates themselves because as the sales channel of a company, they need information to optimize their strategies. They should be provided with statistics that enable them to take action, isolate areas where they are not performing well and hence, work on improving their offering to increase the amount of sales. So is the provision of statistics an option? I don’t think so. Such information will enable affiliates to provide players with what

they need and want, and hence, be able to attract better players that generate more revenue for the affiliate and the operator.

Pay for performance reward plans The provision of quality statistics is not enough to lure affiliates to sign up to an affiliate program. The reward that affiliates finally get at the end of the month is one of the most (if not the most) essential parts of the operator’s offering. It’s that element that motivates affiliates to push an affiliate program over another one. So are we saying that we should increase the rewards to ensure affiliates choose a particular affiliate program? Increasing rewards across the board will have the detrimental effect of increasing the cost of maintaining affiliates and at the same time attracting others which are only seeking higher rewards – basically, less loyal affiliates. A better strategy would be one where affiliates are seen as partners and not merely as another acquisition channel. A reward strategy should be developed based on the quality of each and every partner and it should work in such a way that rewards those who meet and exceed established targets while at the same time attract new affiliates who have the potential to grow into valuable ones. At the end of the day, motivation is the key to success. A motivated affiliate will work harder to promote your services and will make sure to devise player acquisition strategies that allow the affiliate to earn higher commissions (especially if rewarded on revenue share) and the operator to increase net revenue.

Dare to be innovative Operators wishing to attract online affiliates have to make sure that they make media (including banners and text links) readily available. However, in this day and age, when the Internet is full of diverse forms of online advertising, it is not enough to supply standard banners and links to convince affiliates that your media converts better than that of other operators. It is important to think outside the box and explore methods that make your advertising stand out. XML and RSS feeds have become a standard feature and operators must make sure that these are made available to affiliates wishing to use such feeds on their website. However, with the world becoming

more connected and customers using social networks on a daily basis, operators have to start thinking of new, effective ways that enable them to take advantage of the latest social media trends. The use of innovative media attracts attention, which in turn leads to improved conversion rates. Providing innovative media such as dynamic widgets, online games and mobile applications to quality affiliates enables them to attract more customers to their website and results in a win-win situation that does wonders in establishing a long-term fruitful relationship with quality affiliates.

Conclusion There is only a minority of good quality affiliates and as the affiliate industry continues to consolidate, the challenge to acquire these affiliates and retain them will become even more challenging. If you already have a good relationship with these affiliates, you can consider yourself in a privileged position; however, do not lie back and relax as other operators are striving to attract the same affiliates. Make sure that you are always listening to them, treat them as your preferred partners and be a step ahead of the competition. Above all, be transparent as trust is paramount for business relationships to succeed in the long run. Remember that your top affiliates might be generating as much as 95% of your net revenue hence, their importance is not only an issue of status. Keep in mind that while affiliate marketing could be a very profitable marketing channel and used as a supporting channel for the operator to increase its exposure to a larger target audience, operators still need to make sure that the product/service they offer is continuously reviewed and improved as no partner will agree to push an inferior product to what competitors are offering. The key to succeed is to make sure that you provide the products/services your end market really needs, and to work closely with your partners to help you deliver these efficiently and effectively to a wider customer base. MATTHEW CASTILLO is Key Client Account Manager at NetRefer. Matthew can be reached via m.castillo@netrefer. com.

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

INSIGHT

OPERATOR RECRUITMENT

SPECIALISED AFFILIATE MANAGER ROLES – THE SPORTSBOOK AFFILIATE MANAGER In the coming issues, we will give you an insight into the processes operators should go through in recruiting specialised affiliate managers for specific product programs. With the Football World Cup approaching in June, there is no more apt a place to start than sportsbetting. WHOEVER SAID THAT recruitment isn’t seasonal should have been at our stand at the recent London Affiliate Conference on 28 – 31st January, 2010. As the only recruitment consultancy to have a dedicated stand at the show there was an obvious interest in our services which is testament to how much our industry relies on and appreciates the affiliate model. Recapping on the following Monday morning, we all recalled the many conversations that had taken place around the topic of sports, sportsbetting and in particular, the upcoming Football World Cup in South Africa. The football World Cup is an exciting time for sportsbook affiliates and operators alike as they look to capitalise on the hype around the event. With all the news and coverage leading up to and following the event, even novelty betting (if pitched right) can attract significant revenues. The fulltime professional punters may spend their entire bankroll on this event alone, whilst new customers appear wanting to back their favourite team, player or to simply bet on the most unlikely of events. So what does this mean for operators? Well in order to attract these customers, you need to have the right deals in place and for that to happen you need to have the right people working for you to secure these deals.

Four year gap The climate has changed since the last World Cup. When we recruited a sportsbook affiliate manager in 2006, our client’s competition was the obvious place to look and while this is still the ideal preference today, there are more options now than there were back then. In 2006, many argued that the industry led the way in the use of affiliate (partnership) marketing and while that opinion still holds true today, other industries are now using the affiliate model with good results. Today there is better awareness, knowledge and appreciation of the industry than ever before and this means a better pool of candidates to hire from. Whilst a sportsbook affiliate manager with two years experience working at your competitor

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

could attract a salary of anywhere between £28,000 – £35,000 (depending on their responsibilities during this time), you could get someone with twice as much work experience employed at a publisher, media company or sports portal for the same salary. Despite the advantages of hiring someone with more work experience, the automatic conclusion is often to go for that person with ‘industry’ experience. While this is understandable it shouldn’t always be the automatic decision as it really depends on what you are looking to achieve by the hire. In order to discuss this further, it is worth looking at some scenarios of why you may be recruiting and considerations for you to take into account. In each scenario, the answer will depend on the relationship the company has with the afﬁliates and the relationship your previous employee had with them (if we’re talking about a replacement). It also depends on the platform you run as this directly impacts on the personality traits of the individual you’re looking to recruit. This in turn reﬂects on how much experience they should have which directly correlates to your overall brief.

Are they a replacement for someone who left? If you run a program envied by your competitors then you may want to consider hiring someone from outside the industry with experience in affiliate or partnership marketing and a strong interest in sport. Unlike poker, casino or bingo for example, it is possible to find these people because of the popularity of sports in comparison to the other products which are restricted to those who frequent casinos, bingo halls or play online. The advantage of hiring someone with industry experience is that they can bring existing connections with them which in turn could add immediate revenue to your affiliate program. However, a candidate from a publisher, media company or portal can bring new revenue through channels your competitors may not yet have yet thought of or been able to secure. If they’re required to look after a specific market culturally known to be very relationship driven then hiring the

latter could prove to be more fruitful. The recession has attracted more attention to this industry and media companies, in particular, want their share.

Perhaps you need them to manage existing key accounts or bring the super-affiliates on board? Here, someone with industry experience and a black book to match is very valuable. But beware. Just because they have a thick book of affiliates’ contact details doesn’t mean they can actually turn them into profitable ones. Apart from the differences your platform has versus the one they previously worked with, the affiliates’ perception of that affiliate manager is most critical. Your recruitment consultant will be able to provide priceless assistance here doing background checks on them on your behalf. While many affiliates are reluctant to speak with you as an operator because of loyalty, confidentiality or trust reasons, they are often much more open with us meaning we can find out exactly what you should know. If your recruitment consultant isn’t asking the right questions then they’re not earning their fee. Like casino affiliates, sportsbook affiliates have been around for a long time and the relationships affiliate managers have with them have either been nurtured to an art or squandered with irreversible consequences. Ask your recruitment consultant why their candidate is good and why they have put them forward for your brief. Affiliate managers more than most recruits at this junior management level, are a lot about the story they tell. Find out their story before your first interview with them. The insight will be invaluable and will help you prepare much better for your first discussion with them. DENNIS VAN MAANEN is the founder and Managing Director of Esanda Recruitment, with over six years experience in the iGaming recruitment industry. This wealth of experience means that he understands the challenges of recruiting for such a dynamic and fast-moving industry and can provide real solutions.

INSIGHT

case study

Affiliate Conversions in Live Gaming I’m not a serious gambler, but if I did dabble, I would only feel truly comfortable betting substantial amounts of money on safe and secure websites that used live gaming software as opposed to Random Number Generators (RNG). The main reason is trust. Being able to bet real-time, playing with real dealers on real tables in a real bricks and mortar casino from the comfort of my own home or office is, in my opinion, the future of this competitive online industry. That’s not to say there is no place for RNG in 2010 or beyond within online casinos. There will always be customers that hate change, and have got so used to RNG that they will continue to use it, just like some of my friends and family still have vacuum cleaners with bags even though those clever people at Dyson changed the ‘Hoover’ forever! Live gaming must greatly interest

affiliates as the potential earnings from companies promoting live games are enormous. My experience shows that conversion figures, on websites pushing the live gaming option, are exceptionally high. In fact, at the International Gaming Expo in London at the start of the year, I met with a well-known industry SEO guru. I explained to him that I wanted to re-brand the company that I had just joined and more importantly, re-design the company website, as from an aesthetic point of view I felt that it had become outdated. I didn’t believe we were making the most of our live software and the current site could be deemed as having a ‘Ferrari

DublinBet.com provides its affiliates with everything that they need to be effective, including multilingual creative and private bonus codes, and they have the most comprehensive reporting system available. In addition, they offer something quite unique in the industry, which is a share in all contests and promotions provided to their players. When a player wins a cash or merchandise prize with DublinBet, and that player has come to us as a result of the hard work of one of our affiliates, we recognize that and ensure that they receive a cash reward as well. One of our affiliates received a bonus of 1,200 for a player that won the new Mini Cooper that we gave away a short while ago, and in our current promotion that is awarding players with cash and Mediterranean cruises, our affiliates will earn bonuses as well. The next big promotion at DublinBet that we will partner with our affiliates on will be our World Cup event that will see DublinBet players win cash, World Cup related merchandise, and ultimately, several lucky players will win trips to watch the World Cup finals in South Africa. We know it will be popular for our players, and, of course, this benefits every affiliate that supports us, as acquisition and conversion rates will increase, and overall play levels will be very healthy.

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

engine in a Ford Fiesta body’. However, I explained to him that I had concerns about implementing these improvements, as conversion figures on the site had remained consistent for the last two years at around 35%. He did not believe these conversion figures as he informed me that they were significantly higher than industry norm. Being new to the job, he felt that I had maybe misread my KPI report or indeed, that it was factually wrong. However, my Affiliate Manager, Gian Perroni confirmed that my high statistics were indeed accurate. The conversion rates are among the highest in the industry – in fact the highest of any site I have ever worked with – and about double that of online poker. Equally important to our affiliates is the higher life time value of these players. The increased trust and familiarity provided by our live games keeps our players around for the long term, and we have literally thousands of players that come in every week for a visit, just like they would do with a bricks and mortar casino.

Grant Fraser is Deputy CEO of VueTech, a software development company specialising in providing live internet casino packages which will forever change the way we view online gaming!

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ROUND TABLE

BINGO SUPPLEMENT

LIVE BINGO ONLINE? Having discussed the changes taking place in the online bingo market since the turn of the year, we were intrigued by one particular recurring theme – bringing the ‘live’ element to online bingo. Would a live caller, host or presenter be an effective forward step for the online bingo consumer, or is this a demographic that cares little for such distractions?

Malci Daniels, Affiliate and Marketing Director Revenue Giants Since bingo arrived on the Internet, we have seen changes and innovations that have ultimately brought online bingo to heights that are truly impressive. I am thoroughly pleased to see how far the online bingo industry has come since its beginnings, with new exciting prospects constantly looming on the horizon. My opinion on the ‘next best thing’ online bingo has to offer – the incorporation of a live element in the online bingo rooms – I must say is an enthusiastic one!

I do believe that the presence of a live bingo caller/presenter is a good concept that, if integrated judiciously, can work very well for online bingo sites with booming player communities like Bingo Hall.com, for example. I think it has great potential and can provide for quite a fun atmosphere, bringing the online bingo experience that step closer to the live bingo hall experience. One of the challenges I can foresee, however, is the level of multitasking this live endeavor will require, with the live bingo caller having to call out the bingo ball number successively AND keep up with everyone chatting in the bingo room. I think a good way to overcome this would be to have some sort of back-up team, or have a CM (chat moderator) in the room as well, but that may take part of the fun away, and who should you talk to? The CM or the caller? This may also end up being more

expensive to the operator. It seems to me as well that, especially at ﬁrst, online bingo players will perhaps be skeptical and/or disbelieving in the legitimacy of the live bingo presenter actually being ‘real and live’, and thus, there could be situations of players effectively testing the live bingo caller to prove this – asking questions unrelated to bingo, or asking the live bingo presenter to raise his/her arms, for example, to see if the response is relevant and in real-time. I don’t see this as being an obstacle particularly, just that it means more time for credibility has to be spared by the online bingo site offering a live bingo caller for the ﬁrst time. I think that a live element in online bingo will also make the game seem more like a live TV show – and there is a strong trend of TV meeting the Internet; these days people rely heavily on being able to

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

BINGO SUPPLEMENT

combine two of their favorite entertainment pastimes – thus, much like a TV presenter/ show host, the live bingo callers must be people that have an affinity for ‘being on the air’, they need to be people who the audience wants to watch and wants to hear and can relate to. It would be, in my opinion, definitely advisable to offer several live bingo callers, as with the Chat Moderators, and offer a small profile on each one. That way the online bingo players will be able to identify with them on a human level. The tricky task is for the bingo caller to remain focused on calling bingo numbers at the required pace, because after all, that is the main concern for everyone playing the bingo game – filling their cards for the chance to win – without the bingo caller becoming bored or boring for the online bingo players. Nobody is going to enjoy watching someone with their head bowed down calling out B1, O6 in monotone every few seconds! Another truly exciting possibility with integrating a live bingo caller into the bingo rooms, would be featuring special guest appearances; the chance to see one of your favorite TV icons, for example, assisting the bingo presenter during a bingo game would be a surefire way to attract loads of players to a bingo session!

Edward Menmuir, Affiliate Manager Unibet – Maria Europe Live bingo The word live, has come to the forefront of online gaming in recent years. What many managers once viewed as a niche market, is finally beginning to bear economic fruit and product respectability. More importantly, live gaming, (especially with regards to casino play) has finally won over players’ trust and confidence. At its early stages, many players viewed live gambling with trepidation, due to the crass marketing of its operators – some legitimate, many indeed shady. Nevertheless, live gaming has made its leap into the mainstream of online gaming, with many major operators such as Maria’s parent company Unibet, focusing on ‘live play’, and offering players not only live dealer casino play, but in-play bets with live sports streams. It would appear that bingo, is next to follow the live route. ‘Live bingo online’ cannot be considered a new format, in the past years, bingo has witnessed a growth in TV bingo productions. However, we must recognise

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

ROUND TABLE

that TV bingo has seen many expensive casualties and we are now witnessing a shift towards live bingo integration in online bingo. In many ways, live bingo has a more comfortable grounding than early live casino formats had when entering this market, as player trust has been gained by established bingo rooms through their online bingo communities and their player rewards. Live bingo can add as much branding value and a sense of individuality to an online bingo room. If we look at the current online bingo market, we see that there is much similarity between online bingo rooms, since the majority are using network ‘white label’ technologies to operate, mature online bingo players are aware of this. Live bingo can battle this issue by promoting brand individuality through its presenters and production formats. Essentially, a good live bingo format should become a sales force for your online bingo rooms and other gaming formats – slots and table games. A factor that is imperative is that companies looking into live bingo study online viewer habits and respect cultural aspects. This is vitally important since bingo as a product varies from country to country, as does its type of audience. We do want exciting formats; however, cultural intricacies have to be addressed in order for success. In many ways, this is the acid test for production, as companies chasing a quick buck will be found out. Synergy between your live and online bingo rooms, I feel, is also integral. In order for success, both products have to be of a high standard. Start-ups looking to enter this market must remember not to lose focus on their online bingo product; this may sound obvious, but in practice it is very easy for this to come into play. This is also a valid point for afﬁliates looking to promote any live bingo site; I would suggest looking at the depth of the online bingo offerings of any live bingo site, afﬁliates have to assess whether these can retain players throughout all their gaming products.

Jamie Rosen, Founder, OnlineBingoFriends.com An Easter spirit – are live bingo games a resurrection of bingo halls? For most of us, until just a few years ago, bingo simply meant a smoke-ﬁlled hall full

of ‘grannies’ trying to pass their time. As far as I was concerned, that was as ‘live’ as bingo could get until the craze of online bingo was founded. The fast growth of online bingo has been going on for several years now. With so many online bingo sites practically carbon copies of each other, and so many bingo networks almost giving away a ‘skin’ for webmasters to be proud of, it’s hard to find a bingo site that stands out. So I find it perfectly understandable that software providers keep looking for more innovative ways to attract bingo players all the time. Is it, however, an attempt at going back to the roots of bingo when operators come up with the ‘live’ concept such as live games, live bingo callers or live chat hosts? Recently, we’ve seen a few examples of live bingo features available at various sites. Suddenly, we’re back to talking about ‘live bingo’ as if it’s some kind of nostalgia that we all wish we could get back. The misty, smoke filled halls, grannies with their lucky charms and rituals sitting at their usual desks, adrenalin-high sweeping through strips of bingo cards trying to stamp their numbers, the fabulous bingo callers with their unbearable rhymes and jokes and many other things we associate with our grandparents. All of this is now trying to creep back into bingo users’ lives in the form of live bingo callers and live chat hosts at online bingo websites. As an affiliate, I’m open to all new ideas and new features and functions that will help me attract more users and send more traffic to a certain bingo site. The more the merrier in fact! It is, in essence, a fun concept; it’s new, it’s interesting, and it sure as hell makes many bingo players’ evenings interesting from the feedback I am getting from my OnlineBingoFriends.com members. This could be just another trend in this business. Remember for a long while, there was a huge rush of free bingo bonuses, which has now run its course in my opinion. Then came free bingo games with real cash jackpots which attracted bingo players in their masses. But that is bound to lose its appeal at some point. Live gaming with video links to bingo halls or live show hosts, and callers and whatnot, could well be a breath of fresh air in the fastest growing gaming market in the UK. However, let’s not lose sight of the basics of online bingo. As well as an affiliate, I can comfortably say that players will fill up online bingo rooms in hope of winning a jackpot, play some free bingo or socialise online with other users; the whole idea is the excitement, simplicity and sociability. We’re choosing not to go to a land-based bingo club for a reason.

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The Lay of the Land In recent years, bingo affiliation has seen a sharp increase in UK and Nordic markets. This substantial growth has been aided by factors such as TV advertising in these regions and a growing emphasis of big gaming brands to push this product on to these markets. In these particular regions, bingo can no longer be considered a niche gaming market. Like major online gaming brands, top tier affiliates like to keep their options open by choosing to promote several gaming products – bingo, casino, poker and sportsbook. We must acknowledge that bingo is still an emerging product in the majority of markets, nevertheless, this does not imply the bingo players within are not as profitable as players of other gaming products, as brand loyalty and player lifetime value can often be better than in other established products – poker especially, where margins have been hit by player value/rake back. In this article, I would like to address any affiliate looking to promote bingo both in their respective markets and in new ones, by presenting a brief insight into the key issues, opportunities and marketing intricacies they may face.

Groundwork – there is plenty of good real-estate Affiliates that begin to place the groundwork and strategy within emerging bingo markets will most likely see the biggest rewards. As with all affiliation, affiliates should look to the long-term. At the moment in terms of Google keyword coverage and good value domain URLs, less established bingo markets appear to have very good opportunities to make quick gains in these less competitive fields. An investment of 15 on a prime value domain name could prove to become very fruitful in the future.

Communication of content – no need to dumb down For many affiliates developing their first bingo sites, one of the common mistakes is to misjudge the tone of communication to their bingo traffic. There can be no doubt

that to many multi-product affiliates bingo is primarily female focused; this is a move away from the more hardcore gaming products such as casino and poker that they are used to writing content for. Setting the correct and attractive tone is vital, in many cases with Maria, we have seen affiliates dumb down and write their content with bingo stereotypes in mind. These stereotypes being that bingo players are not as intelligent, media savvy or interested in good value marketing as player traffic from other iGaming products. This mistake often proves to be the difference in affiliates with good Google bingo coverage not being able to convert their traffic. Affiliates looking to promote bingo for the first time should remember that bingo players, like casino and poker players, recognise good value and want to be fed as much useful information as possible before they make their decision or final purchase. Like poker and casino reviews, factors such as payment systems, legislation and added value incentives come into play – core information to the player is vital, dumbing down on content is a mistake that will prove costly in the future. To many, this may seem obvious but in practice, this often becomes a reality.

Cultural intricacies – prep pays better An imperative factor is that affiliates looking to promote bingo in new emerging markets study their nation’s bingo culture and wider cultural aspects. This is vitally important since bingo as a product varies from country to country, as does its type of audience. A prime example of this is Spain where 90 ball bingo is ‘king’ and 75 ball bingo is unheard of. Further cultural intricacies come into play in this region

such as the siesta, eating habits, regional cultural intricacies/language and popular TV programming. Affiliates have to decide whether the bingo rooms they are looking to promote are really in tune with the cultural dynamics of their regions. Would their promotions be of any interest to their nation’s players – in effect, will the bingo room speak to your traffic?

New markets – looking beyond the UK and Nordics Finally, there can be no denying that bingo in non Anglo-Saxon and non Nordic markets is still very much in its infancy. However, it would be wrong to assume that this implies that there is no reward in these markets. By offering local support and play, Maria has seen a steady increase in player acquisitions from developing bingo regions. This is particularly visible in the regions of France, Spain and the Netherlands, were our affiliates are achieving gradual increases in commissions. It’s important at these early stages for affiliates to manage their expectations of bingo. It must be remembered that bingo rooms in new markets are learning tacit market knowledge everyday; like affiliates, these rooms are being educated on how to attract and improve player value. As always with gaming, expectations are high with regards to markets, however, I advise any affiliate looking to start pushing bingo to have long-term goals and partnerships. For new markets this is still very much a learning period for all involved.

Edward Menmuir is Affiliate Manager for Unibet – Maria Europe.

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

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Care in the Community

Why community is ‘king’ in the world of online bingo.

Much has been made of the recent proliferation of interactive and social media marketing in the iGaming sector, and understandably so. In an increasingly competitive marketplace where many customers have multiple accounts, it is important for operators and affiliates alike to give their users a reason to keep coming back – in other words, to make their site more ‘sticky’. Whether it’s tipping competitions in the sportsbetting vertical, online slots tournaments for casino players or rake races and free tools for poker, there is no shortage of new initiatives being taken in a bid to encourage players to interact with each other and the site. Where bingo differs from all of the other verticals, though, is that for many players social interaction is the key motivation for taking part – as perverse as it may sound, even more so than the prospect of winning money. In other words, never mind using social media to promote your product – an online bingo room is a powerful social medium in its own right! For these players, logging onto their favourite site offers the opportunity to meet their friends and make new ones, discuss what’s going on in their lives or catch up on current affairs and the latest celebrity gossip. Jackpots are not irrelevant, but a maintenance factor – players need to win a little every so often in order to keep playing at a site, and if they win a big sum then great, but when all is said and done this is not what’s going to keep them coming back. It is that social interaction, that sense of community, which is crucial. So what does this mean for bingo affiliates? Firstly, it should be something which you consider when choosing which operators to partner with. The most common piece of advice which you hear for any affiliate starting out is to choose brands which convert well initially, and I wouldn’t disagree. However, when working

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

on a reward plan with net revenue share at its core, you also need to think about what happens after the players have signed up and made their first deposit. Leading online bingo operators have established communities of players which they continually foster and seek to build upon through a variety of means. Some good things to research include: ●●The reputation of a bingo room’s chat moderators (CMs) – they are the glue which helps bind the community together. ●●What sort of promotional schedule they have and how well communicated it is both on the site and by your account manager – a packed schedule with a good mix of big jackpot games and smaller daily promotions is usually a good indicator of a strong site. Contextual promotions are also something to look out for – for example, some of the most popular events on Paddy Power Bingo recently have been the chat parties hosted by our CMs around shows like X Factor and Red Carpet Hour at the Oscars. ●●What other customer retention activities they do – sign up as a player and see what their mailers are like, check whether they have a loyalty scheme and see how active they are on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. If you are in doubt about any of these things, find out who your account manager would be in advance and ask them directly – at the end of the day, that’s what we’re here for! When considering the importance of community in the bingo vertical, though, you should not just limit your thoughts to the operators you partner with, but also consider how some of these principles could be applied to your own site(s). The affiliates from whom I consistently see both quantity and quality of players coming through almost always have some kind of

community element to their sites, and this translates into higher commissions for them at the end of the month. Simple things like allowing users to comment on articles and submit their own reviews of bingo rooms make your site stickier and have the additional benefit of helping you to gather feedback on your own site and that of operators. Competitions are easy to set up, and it isn’t usually difficult to find a friendly operator willing to sponsor these in exchange some extra exposure. Forums are great, although it can take time to build these up so you’ll need to be patient. I’ve also started to see some really impressive affiliate sites with social mediastyle features such as being able to create your own user profile, which again will help you build an active community on your site and benefit you in the long-run. Don’t be afraid to experiment and again, ask your account manager what they think – we’re generally a friendly bunch and willing to support new initiatives and even make a couple of our own suggestions. Whichever approach you settle on, though, play to your strengths and always keep your target audience in mind – in the bingo vertical like no other, community is king!

Mark Armitage is an Affiliate Marketing Executive at Paddy Power, with particular responsibility for Paddy Power Bingo affiliates. He has been working in the iGaming affiliate sector since 2007, having started at Rank Interactive working on the Mecca and Blue Square programs, and joined the ever-expanding affiliates team at Paddy Power in August 2009. For more information on the Paddy Partners program, incorporating Sportsbook, Bingo, Casino, Poker, Games and Trader, visit www.paddypartners.com or email affiliates@paddypower.com. Mark can be contacted directly via email and MSN at marmitage@paddypower.com.

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The Advantages of Social Networking For affiliates, it’s all about reaching your visitors by all possible means. First and foremost, it is vital to understand the audience you’re dealing with; online bingo players are not the same as other online gaming consumers and as a bingo affiliate, once you understand that online bingo players are all about their community, you will be better able to target potential players. As the online bingo industry grows and the Internet itself offers us more ways to communicate and share information, a marriage between promoting online bingo and social networking has become a hugely effective practice. By maximizing the benefits of social networking sites such as Bebo and Facebook, blogging and opening discussion forums you are, in a sense, putting yourself in the shoes of the player; allowing them to express themselves and giving them numerous open channels of communication increases their comfort level and thus, their likelihood to stay around. For affiliates and webmasters, implementing captivating and innovative marketing strategies is imperative to reputation, business success and ultimately, survival in the affiliate industry. Like many others, I have myself been witness to the overwhelming effects sites like MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Delicious, Digg and YouTube have had on the general public. Unless strictly work-related, many users have even ditched corresponding through their regular email and instant messenger services because it’s all available through their social networking accounts, and these sites are followed almost religiously, by not only younger generations (as perhaps initially, and erroneously thought) but by people from all scopes of life. Even those perceived as less ‘computer literate’ are quickly catching on to the trend; so why think that online bingo players wouldn’t follow suit too? They most certainly will and in fact, already do! Online bingo players love being able to communicate with each other, even away from the site they’re a member of, so it’s all about catering to their needs.

Profitable strategy I guess the big question for bingo affiliates is “how to make this promotion strategy marketable and profitable?” Well, the good thing about using social networking tools, blogs, forums, RSS feeds etc, is that as an affiliate, you don’t necessarily need to invest

in a graphic artist for instance; with a good content writer you can build an excellent rapport with your readers, and once communication is established in a ‘friendly’ manner, your readers (who may not already be online bingo players) essentially become prospective customers and will probably bring new friends with them. The result is that you have, in a way, lowered the cost of generating traffic. Although it may sound a cliché, using social networking strategies truly is an effective way of tapping into current social trends – online bingo is already a modern take on a legendary and historical game, and linking it to Facebook or Hi5 brings online bingo to mainstream pop-culture even more. Online bingo communities are already hyper-social, so using social media is, effectively, playing their game.

It’s not all about the game We are now seeing sites appearing on the Internet that are exclusively bingo social networking sites without hosting the games themselves; they offer groups, forums, chats and blogs, personal profiles and a dedicated news section. This is a forward thinking endeavor sites like BingoHall. com are taking as a serious next step towards transforming what is currently a flourishing bingo site community into an online bingo social network in its own right. Furthermore, as an affiliate, it is also important to be sensitive to the characteristic distinctions there may be within different online bingo communities because that will surely play a significant role in how a social networking strategy for a certain site is implemented. Let’s take BingoHall.com and VicsBingo.com as two perfect examples of this community disparity. The member community at Vics-Bingo is a close-knit unit of mostly women who are very set in their playing habits. They love the pinkthemed layout of the site and the female host, Vicky, but most of all, they like the comfort of being in a familiar place, where

they know what to expect. The BingoHall. com member community, on the other hand, resembles an international melting pot. Here, you can find men and women of all ages (legal age of course!) and thus, players with different interests and playing habits. This means that what the BingoHall players are going to look for when they engage in social networking through their online bingo site is fast-paced, constant exchanges of news, comments and tidbits – they are a lot more enthusiastic in their socializing than the Vics-Bingo crowd and so each of these consumer bases needs to be complimented with a customized social networking endeavor. This means that when an affiliate is building a network for online bingo players through social media sites like Facebook, factors like the niche of bingo players that is going to be targeted needs to be planned out. Let’s put it like this: if you know what your potential customers want, then you know where to take them. If you’re taking them to the right place, they’re going to be happy and will keep coming back. They are now no longer potential customers, but actual paying customers at the bingo brand you have directed them to. This means better conversions and thus, higher commissions, and ultimately means that your social networking marketing strategy is successful. It is important to have a clear focus on your goals and what features of social networking you implement as a bingo affiliate, be that through community sites, website encyclopedias like Aboutus.org, widgets or RSS feeds and make these tools your ally – it is a good marketing opportunity, so seize it!

Malci Daniels, Affiliate and Marketing Director Revenue Giants

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

INSIGHT

From online scratch cards’ global takeover to their mobile makeover. ONLINE SCRATCH CARDS have become a new vertical in the online softgaming industry. Whilst some operators still consider them ‘side games’ in their main gaming offering, with the main purpose to enhance player retention and offer games diversity, others have recognized the huge potential of scratch cards to be a highly beneﬁcial revenue source. The concept of online scratch cards, THE original mass market product, has proven itself in countries like the UK, France, Spain, Italy and the Scandinavian countries as a standalone game offering, through strong and appealing localized scratch card brands, reaching an impressive growth rate of over 32,000% of purchased scratch cards. Online scratch cards have not only grown in their revenue stream, but also in the amount of games available today, all localized speciﬁcally for the individual markets. Betsson and bet365, to name but a few, are some of the industry’s biggest names, who integrated the NeoGames scratch card games platform in 2009, whilst popular magazines and newspapers such as OK!Magazine launched their own scratch card brand, OK!Scratchcards, to reach the mainstream audience.

Mobile culture In today’s popular culture, technology doesn’t stop at the PC as the mass market destination websites such as Facebook and Twitter are going mobile, to give users the opportunity to access their sites on the go. The natural way forward for scratch card providers is to also go forward and provide mobile access for the number one mass market product. Not only would mobile scratch cards provide the mass market with scratch card games on the go, but also increase the widespread appeal for fun and instant gaming. Already, studies have shown

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

that 69% of Europeans had played games on their mobiles in the past year with 36% having made a gaming software purchase.* Research in 2010 has shown that 71 million Europeans browse the mobile Internet each week, based on 15,000 people across 15 European markets, whilst entertainment is also a big driver of mobile Internet use with many watching videos and playing games on their handset.**

Case study Leading online scratch card website Hopa. com, is the ﬁrst scratch card website to be available on a mobile platform. Considering that on the web Hopa.com grew over 100% last year in different markets in Europe, the potential for mobile to succeed is even greater. By having a strong product with mass market appeal at hand, scratch cards are able to expand in their product platform offering and move towards the mobile gaming world. Using Hopa.com as an example, we can see that it is using J2ME mobile technology, the recently launched application which is home to a package of ten scratch card games available in a single download and which are navigated via the games lobby. Currently, the Hopa.com scratch card platform is supported on over 100 different mobile devices, ranging across Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, the three leading mobile producers worldwide.

The future The mobile revolution has conquered our lives: today most of us are dependent on this little handset like we used to be with the FiloFax in the early 90s. It manages our daily calendar, stores highly personal data, and is the main communication tool for the majority of us. More than that, our prestige is inﬂuenced by the phone model we carry. As a natural consequence, the more

importance we give to mobile phones in our lives and the more time we spend with them, any form of entertainment will take a more signiﬁcant part in daily mobile usage. So what does the future hold for the gaming mobile market and the scratch cards in particular? With the whole world going mobile, online gaming will consequently take big steps into this industry. For well established operators, large afﬁliates who are looking for new revenue streams, as well as gaming technology providers, this is the right time to plant their seeds, where mobile gaming hasn’t even reached its peak. By bringing the right technological knowledge and industry experience to mobile, you will enjoy the fruit from the web mobile user of tomorrow. Sources: * http://techcrunchies.com/mobile-gamingindustry/ ** http://www.bizreport.com/2010/03/ mobile_internet_awareness_lacking_ in_europe.html

ADRIAN BAILEY is Managing Director of NeoGames Partners, the marketing arm of the NeoGames Group. After his switch from ofﬂine manufacturing to the digital world over four years ago, he joined NeoGames in its early days and with his outstanding marketing skills and strong leadership he played a crucial role in taking the company to where it is today: the leader of online scratch cards. Driven by high self-motivation, Adrian has ﬁlled many roles in his journey through the ranks of the company, from retention to customer service, from compliance to acquisitions. It is with this vast experience and diversity that allows Adrian to enjoy his success so far and continue to lead his team into the future, creating world renowned brands and growing the already established scratch card empire of NeoGames.

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INFORMATION, INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS FOR THE BUSINESS OF INTERACTIVE GAMING

INSIGHT

The Battle Continues Is it the end of the world if you’re an online marketer and your website is not seen on the first page of Google for your chosen keywords? A little while ago, there would have been no doubt about the answer to this question. However, the rules, yet again, have changed. OF COURSE, having a Google presence still matters, but there are so many other ways to get your offering seen by the masses and still remain in context. Google was, and still is, so important to penetrate with the right keyword. Every day the number of Google searches made by users grows. However, Google only shows the top 1,000 websites of relevance and only ten, depending on user settings, appear on the front page. Take some popular keyword terms such as ‘online poker’ and ‘online casinos’. If you’re a gaming affiliate or a professional marketer, do you really think you could compete with the sites listed on these pages for these very specific keywords. If you can’t should you give up now? The answer is no. As the struggle for Google placement and visibility continues, the sheer numbers of Internet users also continue to grow. News sources quoted on national and international television are no longer the well established daily newspapers we’ve all grown up with. Bloggers now have the credibility and legitimacy of being ‘experts’ on their chosen subjects. Television interviews with blogging experts now take place using webcams and show the true power of the nerd. People sitting alone in their bedrooms are finding their five minutes of fame with their YouTube video shows, their tweets and their comical Facebook statuses. Talks of a merger between these three entities began as someone’s Facebook status quoting that if such a merger were to ever take place, would the new company be known as ‘You Twit Face’? The landscape of online marketing is changing. Everyone and everything is ‘going social’. The most incredible thing about Facebook is the fact that people you couldn’t stand 20 years ago are now becoming your Facebook friends. You now even have the chance to beat the school bully at Facebook Texas Hold’em Poker. Search results on Google show up for seconds before a surfer clicks through to

their destination site. How many times have you gone back to the same result and taken a look at any more than at least three of the sites listed in the results box? However, how many times have you gone back to your favourite Facebook application? When trying to get a top position on Google how much time, effort and money has been spent in doing so, for a result that is not guaranteed and possibly only a temporary situation until the next person fighting for the same keyword comes along and knocks you off? What do you know about the people searching for your desired keyword? Where are they coming from? Why are they searching for this keyword? What are their interests? What is their age, gender, marital status, education and so on and so forth? Is contextual advertising a true competitor? Has there really been true contextual advertising in the past? Have the networks which have made past promises of getting your message to the right audience succeeded? What information do these behavioural networks realistically know about their users? Enter Facebook. As everyone is probably already aware, when creating a Facebook account the user is more than willing to enter full profile information. This includes birthday, religious views, relationship status, what the user is ‘looking for’, interests, favourite music, favourite television shows, favourite movies, favourite books, education and work places. The profile also contains information about which Facebook groups, fan pages and applications the user has already has either used or taken part in. Now imagine running a basic advert on Facebook which targets 24 year old males who are college educated, have played a little Facebook poker, live in the UK, are single and anything else that you could think of that may describe the profile of your target audience. Then build on this. Would a basic 110x80 pixel image with 135 characters

of text be enough to get this user to your website? Maybe, maybe not. How could you make this sticky? Does your website have content that offers value to the surfer? What else does your website offer? What additions could you offer users of Facebook, but still maintain a database? Pages, events and applications are the answer. Imagine being able to offer a free play slot machine or blackjack game through a Facebook application. It’s free and, therefore, does not come with the prohibitions of advertising online gaming through Facebook. Additionally, offering information through fan pages and groups is also acceptable within the rules of Facebook. Each time a user plays your application, joins your fan page or signs up for your group, a proﬁle message tells all of that user’s Facebook friends that their friend has shown an interest in your offering. Now that’s the true power of social media marketing. This is the combination of paid advertising and true, targeted, viral marketing. In the war of the giants, this battle has been won by Facebook.

MICHAEL KATZ entered the world of iGaming as a Brand Manager focusing on retention activities for a number of Microgaming online casinos back in 2001, while working at Spiral Solutions. He began to specialize in online poker marketing at the end of 2003 and has been involved with the Prima Poker network, Noble Poker and Titan Poker. Michael entered the Forex landscape in 2008 as the Chief Marketing Officer of an online Forex startup, and has since launched a specialized recruitment agency based in Israel, to handle specific niche markets and opened Netwise Personnel, to specialize in recruitment and placement in the Israeli job market. Additionally, Michael acts as a consultant for companies looking to increase brand exposure using online social media.

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

INSIGHT

WEB PERFORMANCE MATTERS Maximizing the Mobile Web Opportunity

Affiliates are the engines of the iGaming industry driving huge levels of traffic to the operators. As the sector has increased in size introducing both new games and territories so has the importance of affiliates, says David Flower, VP EMEA, Gomez.

“In the web application delivery chain, if the enduser has a poor experience with your mobile website, they will not care who caused the problem. They will simply hold you responsible.”

TEN YEARS AGO, very basic web browsers began appearing on mobile phones. These primitive browsers combined with the lack of suitably formatted mobile content held back the adoption of the mobile web. Fast forward to 2010 and the picture looks very different. Mobile gambling was one of the top performers in Unibet’s latest fourth quarter results and the number of players using this channel soared by 136 percent, according to its chief executive Petter Nylander. He was quoted as saying that the mobile channel will become a channel “with some prominence” for the future of the gaming industry. Mobile gambling is booming despite the recession and legal issues with the technology in some markets such as the US. Independent experts Juniper Research estimate that the global mobile gambling industry will be taking $16.6bn (£11.3bn) worth of bets – ranging from casino betting and lotteries to sportsbetting – by 2011, up from $1.35bn in 2006.

What does this mean for webmasters? Quite simply it means that they need to ensure that their websites are optimised for mobile browsing. To effectively manage your mobile web experience, leverage existing and proven technologies and best practices from the traditional web performance management world including

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

key metrics such as: ● Availability – customers expect websites to be available 24/7/365 ● Response time – how long does it take your customers to perform a transaction such as placing a bet ● Consistency – your website’s response time should be consistent in that the variability from transaction to transaction should be low When monitoring the performance from an end-user perspective you need to consider not only which mobile phones your customers are using to access your services or which mobile network they are connected to and where they are located but the mobile browser they are using as well. The performance in London on Vodafone will be different than using O2 in Bracknell, which will be different than on Orange in Bradford. All of these variables need to be considered as dimensions to your metrics. You should be able to determine which objects, servers, networks, locations, times of day, and phone types give you the most problems with response time, consistency and availability so that you can ﬁnd and resolve those problems and improve your end-user’s mobile web experience. The following best practices are designed to help afﬁliates maximise mobile web performance and the return on their current (and future) mobile investments.

1. Test across the entire web application delivery chain. Like the PC web, mobile websites have grown increasingly complex, incorporating numerous third-party services (mobile advertising, for example) from beyond the ﬁrewall. This is known as the web application delivery chain. Unfortunately, if an end-user has a poor experience with your mobile website, they will not care who caused the problem. They will simply hold you responsible. For this reason, you need to drill down to understand the performance of all the individual touch-points making up the whole of their mobile web experiences and validate third party SLAs.

2. Test and monitor from the enduser’s perspective. Any effort to optimize mobile web performance must begin with a true understanding of end-user experiences in different countries, across different ISPs, carriers, browsers and devices. Armed with this knowledge, webmasters can understand which end-user segments may be experiencing a performance issue; and

then proactively identify, isolate and ﬁx the problem.

measure and monitor performance across a shared set of key criteria.

3. Bring all stakeholders into the quality of experience (QoE) process.

5. Test and monitor at a frequency to ensure you can resolve issues before end-users are impacted.

In order to enhance collaboration and productivity among functional teams, all stakeholders in end-users’ mobile web experiences should have a clear understanding of existing performance levels versus ‘expected’ performance. The webmaster can help e-business teams see what effect (if any) new functionality may have on the end-user experience.

According to a leading independent research ﬁrm, 74 percent of web performance problems are identiﬁed by end-users. To avoid this scenario, businesses should test their mobile websites and applications not only before deployment but also afterwards (and frequently) in order to pinpoint and resolve issues quickly – before they impact endusers – and drive continuous optimizations.

4. Share common performance management technologies, metrics and best practices across your mobile and web initiatives. Today’s web performance management solutions are available in an SaaS model which makes them signiﬁcantly more accessible, affordable and easy-to-use than they’ve been in the past. By applying tools and established best practices from the PC web to the mobile web, businesses can

6. Establish a baseline for historical analysis and benchmark yourself against the competition. Today, there are mobile web performance benchmarks for several industries, which are updated monthly and allow businesses to compare and contrast their performance with their industry counterparts. Businesses can determine how well they are satisfying end-user expectations compared to the competition.

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

WEBMASTER WORLD

INSIGHT

DEVICE DIVERGENCE Managing advertisements across multiple platforms, by Nicole Fortunaso. WE’VE SEEN a lot of technological convergence in the last few years. It’s now commonplace to make a phone call, listen to music, take a picture and read a Word document, all on the same device. What’s happening is that, instead of using just one device to satisfy all of their requirements, many people are using multiple devices, be they a desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone, tablet PC, or other device to access the Internet. With many differing devices and platforms used by our target consumers, marketers are entering the age of ‘device divergence’ on the World Wide Web. Device divergence deﬁnes the separation of platforms on multiple devices, the restriction of native applications on those devices, and the differences in display sizes that we are seeing on these new devices.

dealing with this issue on two different screen sizes. So now, not only are advertisers dealing with adapting to different screen sizes, they also have to deal with multiple platforms for their advertisements. And within this equation are several proprietary platforms. Whereas, at some point, the web seemed to be moving towards a commonality that was going to make it possible for everyone to reach out across a similar platform, exactly the opposite thing now appears to be happening. How long this will last, and to what extent it will continue is anyone’s guess – especially since there is ﬁscal competition preventing platforms from creating unity. What we know now is that it is happening, and that advertisers are going to have to keep up.

Who does it affect and how? What is device divergence? There are numerous new devices out there, each running on a different platform and each designed to access the World Wide Web. The iPad will run on a different platform than a PC, which in turn runs on a platform different from a Blackberry, which will in turn render information differently than a Google Android phone. An advertisement, or even an application, that works on an iPhone, may not on a Blackberry. For example, neither the iPad nor the iPhone supports Adobe Flash, one of the most pervasive platforms for displaying content on the Internet, and you’re

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

For the largest part, advertisers using applications in social networks are going to be most heavily affected here. In order to reach out to the markets created by these devices, advertisers will have to adjust their campaigns to display on the different mobile platforms. In the same way that the ad agencies on Madison Avenue in the 1950s had to respond to the needs of advertising on TV, radio and magazines, the new advertiser will require the ability to communicate their message across multiple platforms. Is device divergence good or bad? Diversity is good. In fact, it is so good for advertisers that a recent study by Integrated

Media Measurement Inc showed that multiplatform advertisements actually boost the effectiveness of campaigns. Most people who use a mobile device also own a PC, etc, and getting your message out across these multiple platforms will give greater recognition of your message, thereby encouraging deeper levels of trust.

Budget considerations Where this divergence may start to decrease return on investment is in the additional development time required to adhere to the regulations set by multiple platforms. In addition, the cost of hiring a technical team familiar with the platforms, or training your existing team to be able to meet those speciﬁcations could also make your margins a little smaller. It is possible, however, that it will pay off in the long run. Understanding budget constraints will help you to move forward and decide where you want to apply your budget and focus your campaigns. To really know where your marketing efforts are going to be most effective, you’re going to have to gain a deeper understanding of the markets each of the devices represents.

Moving forward Reaching out to new markets over multiple platforms means integration of some new technological strategies into your advertising campaigns and market research. Once you have done the due diligence, you can start working closely with your technical staff to ensure that

your message will be compatible with the different devices.

Know the market What are the devices that people are using? When are they using them, and for what purpose? A recent study by Rudder Finn suggests that 91% of mobile phone users go online to socialize compared to only 79% of traditional desktop users. In addition, men are much more likely to go online with their mobile devices simply to ‘escape’. Studying how people are using specific devices will allow you to understand whether or not you’ll be able to reach your target market by tailoring ads for a specific device. Also, find out what your competitors are doing. Not in an effort to copy what they are doing, but as a means of finding openings in the marketplace that they might not be filling and needs that they are not meeting.

Test, test, test… Tailoring ad campaigns for speciﬁc devices is becoming more and more important. The way to establish what is going to work moving into the future is going to be exactly the same as it has been in the past: test, test and retest.

Get out of your comfort zone and just start trying things. When your ads work, continue to make them better and more effective, and when you’re not converting sales, try something else until they do convert. Employ A/B testing strategies and monitor your campaigns closely. And make sure to test within realistic time frames. Insufficient time devoted to testing will not yield results specific enough to be of any effective use. Going for too long may mean lost opportunities. Those involved in iGaming marketing will be limited to those spaces where operators have developed applications for specific devices, and there are quite a few already with more appearing every day. Creating relationships with your players will almost certainly be even more important moving into the future, so finding ways to develop these relationships will be a great way to get started with your marketing campaigns and allow affiliates to market the existing programs.

Finding leverage points Device divergence may appear to be somewhat daunting, mostly due to the new

strains that it could place on budgets. If budgets do not allow for new developments, consider partnering with someone else who already has an application launched and will allow you to advertise on their application. This will give you an indication as to whether or not this will be a worthwhile marketplace for you to enter. Missing out on opportunities to spread your message is not an option in a competitive industry like iGaming. Those who are willing to embrace multiple platforms and the opportunities they present will ﬁnd themselves reaching a much wider audience. And in advertising, getting your message out to the masses is job number one.

NICOLE FORTUNASO is the Director of Marketing at Income Access, and has been in the iGaming industry since 2002. She is responsible for developing strategic marketing and communication plans, organizing appearances at conferences and developing brand recognition.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR MOBILE BANNER ADVERTISING As we see platforms in a state of divergence, there are now special considerations that must be kept in mind when developing creatives for advertising campaigns, as John Cho explores. WITH MORE AND more divergence in the native applications that will run on specific devices, as well as the differing display sizes, a one-size-fits-all model for banner creatives is not, for the time being, a reality. What does remain is the fact that banner ads still need to reach out to your target audience and they need to effective, regardless of the platform they are designed for. When targeting mobile customers, there are a couple of significant factors to keep in mind.

Attention, not interruption A consideration that should be taken into account is the obtrusiveness of the advert. A good banner stands out, but is never obtrusive. Nobody likes to be had, so it should be clear that your banner is, in fact, a banner. Similarly, if your banner gets in the way of navigation, you risk having visitors leave your site with

a negative opinion of not just your site, but also the brand advertised and the advertisement itself.

Load times A weak point of the mobile platform is slower load times. Consider the dimensions (size, weight) of your banner ads, and test to ensure that they will load quickly on mobile platforms. If not, your ad may never be seen.

Future unification More and more developers are taking advantage of HTML5. Currently in development as the next major revision to the way we view pages on the World Wide Web, it may reduce the need for Flash, Java and more. With the advent of HTML5, many of the styles that have become deprecated over the years will ﬁnally be extinct. HTML5 will standardize how web pages are coded and

introduce a more semantic markup. This is exciting for developers who are seeking for the means to bring their banners to a wide group of Internet users, especially when those people are segmented due to device divergence. This new development, when fully realized, will greatly affect the way we advertise online. From displaying advertisements, to the methods we use to target the ads, it will add new functionalities that will simplify and unify the development process.

JOHN CHO works tirelessly to lead the Design Team at Income Access, bridging the gap between web design and web development. When he’s not wrangling with Wordpress and Drupal, he’s working extensively with designers and developers on the user experience of our software solution.

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

WEBMASTER WORLD

Software solutions for

CREATING IGAMING AFFILIATE marketing software cannot just be about providing a solution, but providing a solution that meets a variety of very distinct business needs. Its versatility, indeed its flexibility and customizability, must remain at the very crux of its innovation and development. In terms of software features and functionality, what’s important to an iGaming affiliate is not necessarily what’s important to an operator’s CEO or to an affiliate manager. Leading software, then, must not only provide a solution that meets the needs of a variety of businesses, but a variety of business people. On the iGaming operator’s side, there are at least three key groups a software solutions provider must cater to: (1) senior executives (CEOs, CFOs), (2) middle management (marketing directors) and (3) affiliate managers. An equally important fourth user, with distinct needs, is (4) the affiliate. At the core, each of these groups wants to know if the return on their investment of money/time/resources has been profitable to their business. How they measure profitability, however, varies greatly, and what they expect from their software solution will be equally unique.

Senior management At a top level, software should provide exact figures with speed, transparency and convenience. The bottom line is paramount, so the more ways executives can access this critical information, the better. While some will want to access this information through their system login, software should be flexible enough to present figures through API and email reports as well. Affiliate software should be completely customizable so that it can be branded to

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

decision makers.

suit the needs of operators. Key customizable elements include payment options, reward plans, affiliate communications, marketing tools, reports and user settings. From here, executives can automate reports that they can then use for analysis and review, to identify trends and assist in strategic decision making. Having a robust system that provides the best tools, insightful data and superior account support eliminates guesswork, thereby limiting wasted resources and allowing staff to remain effective and productive. Making informed decisions about marketing strategies also demands that acquisition channels be viewed side by side, under the same microscope lens. Having comparable data allows executives to see what’s working and what’s not in terms of investments in PPC, media buying and even offline promotional activities. Effective software will allow operators to segment their database to suit their individual business needs. This allows an operator to target specific affiliates by grouping them together and gives them the ability to analyse their statistics and create tailored promotions and direct communications. Operators should be able to create an unlimited number of groups for affiliate segmentation. Some popular segmentation options include reporting, mailing lists, banner promotions, mass communications and banner management. The more intelligence you have on your target market and actual customer-base, the more informed decisions you can make. In an ecommerce setting such as iGaming, affiliate software is an invaluable source of such business intelligence because it can be used to produce results-based intelligence in a controlled environment, help organize

it according to your goals, and then help you reﬁne that intelligence at a reduced risk.

Middle management Knowing the profitability, growth and ROI of a program is key to running a successful iGaming business. From a software perspective, this critical information is gathered from streamlined, customisable reports that are easy to access and clearly state these metrics. And while having these kinds of reports and information is important, marketing managers and other members of middle management want complete security, to ensure that confidential information remains, confidential. This means having software that has various levels of security access for different members of their organisation. So while the junior assistant might not have the permission to set up commission structures or handle the administration of monthly payments, they could have full access to affiliate applications and be able to respond to messages in the inquiry inbox. Being able to assign access rights is important not only in terms of security, but also in terms of meeting the needs of different organisational structures. Strong tracking and reporting features are two areas that middle management personnel need, both to ensure the success of the program and to report to executives. A comprehensive tracking solution is critical to the success of marketing campaigns. Whether executing traditional affiliate campaigns, paid tenancy models or exclusive affiliate deals, you need to know what’s working for you, and what needs to be dropped or tweaked. And when reporting back to executives on program ROI, reports should be flexible enough to meet their specific needs.

“If there is a common goal that many affiliates strive for in their software, transparency might very well be at the top of the list.”

Affiliate managers Having a direct line to affiliates, affiliate managers need tools that will help organise and effectively manage their relationships. Having the ability to group affiliates into separate categories, and assign different commission structures are two software features that are especially important to this group. When an affiliate manager can segment their affiliate base, they can group similar affiliates together, and analyse their performance more effectively. This may mean creating a separate group for PPC affiliates, incentivized affiliates and coupon affiliates, for instance. From there, software should then allow them to reward top performers with greater earning potential, and even give them the ability to assign short-term promotional commission structures. Often what distinguishes a good affiliate manager from a great one is their ability to communicate. Picking up the phone, attending conferences and responding to emails can all be effective ways of keeping in contact with affiliates. Software that features additional tools and CRM systems to manage communications between affiliate managers and affiliates can facilitate their relationship even further. The Income Access software, for instance, features a bulk email tool, an internal messaging system as well as a built-in email system to make

communication simple and intuitive. And last, but certainly not least, when it comes to handling administrative tasks, Afﬁliate Managers need software that will assist them in completing their tasks as quickly and seamlessly as possible. This makes day-to-day activities like uploading banners, running payment reports and processing afﬁliate applications that much more achievable.

even an email campaign – to best suit their individual needs. And at the end of the day, software can be full of great features, but if it’s not intuitive, it generally won’t be very popular with afﬁliates. Afﬁliates are building their online businesses, and need to be able to grab their creative links, check their performance and apply for new programs quickly and easily. Leading software will facilitate all these daily tasks, and then some, with as few clicks as possible.

Affiliates If there is a common goal that many affiliates strive for in their software, transparency might very well be at the top of the list. Our focus on transparency in the reporting and tracking processes gives our partners the information they need to make knowledgeable marketing choices that will help them maximize their ROI. We do this by giving affiliates better control over their data and instantaneous visibility on the status of their commissions. Having in-depth reporting is also critical to understanding how the player tracking journey works and how stats are displayed in the system. Having in-depth reporting of player activity means that an affiliate can not only see daily stats broken down by site and creative, but by individual player as well. From there, the more flexible options there are the better. This means that an affiliate can track by keyword, by banner or

Software solution, for four Focusing on four specific groups when building an affiliate marketing software solution is not the simplest proposition, but it is necessary to satisfy the requirements of each of the groups in order to have a successful application. The first step in the development of a software solution of this kind is to listen to needs and desires of each of the four groups. And once you know what their requirements are… endeavour to meet the needs of each of these distinct groups.

NICKY SENYARD is CEO of Income Access, overseeing their independent iGaming affiliate network, market-leading affiliate software and expert affiliate management services.

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

WEBMASTER WORLD

SEO Thoughts on the iPad As we’ve been looking at device divergence in this issue, it seemed prudent to examine one of the newer devices to be unveiled to market – Apple’s tablet computer, the iPad. TOWARDS THE END of January of this year, consumer electronics giant Apple announced the release of its hugely anticipated mobile computer, the iPad. What I found unusual about people’s reaction to the news was that it generated both love and hate in what appeared to be equal measure; when Apple release products you usually hear a lot of love from the fan-boys (and fan-girls of course), and a lot of indifference from everyone else. Apple products are always beautifully designed, work pretty much perfectly, and are generally a pleasure to use and work with. These are not the kind of products that inspire anything more negative than a mild annoyance from any but the most militant of Microsoft advocates. The most common complaints about the new device were no real surprise; no multi-tasking and no ﬂash. Others also complained that “it’s just a giant iPod touch” and that the name sucks. Personally, I fail to see the validity of those last two arguments; so what if it does look like a giant iPod? As far as consumer electronics go, the iPod is a pretty attractive device, and regardless of what it looks like, I’m sure most people are more concerned with how it operates. I won’t go into the exact speciﬁcations here because this isn’t a hardware review, but it is a netbookclass product that will meet netbook-class expectations. Sure it won’t be as fast and powerful as your desktop computer, but it’ll out-perform your mobile phone any day of the week. It’s designed primarily for casual, light use such as sending mail, browsing the web and consuming digital media, although it’ll be interesting to

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

see how popular other types of apps that typically aren’t used on the iPhone are, like programming or design applications, for example.

Multi-tasking… or lack thereof There are arguments both for and against multi-tasking, with those against it usually mentioning the decreased stability and an increased power consumption (and therefore, more heat generation and a shorter battery life) of the device, and those in favour of it just saying how great it would be. I’m on the fence; it would be great, but after having gotten used to only being able to do one thing at a time on an iPhone the fact that the iPad is the same doesn’t really come as a shock. Apple has introduced new popover and modal UI elements, so although true multi-tasking isn’t possible, it may allow additional information about advertisements to be displayed without the user having to leave whatever app they’re working in, which could work out to be a huge incentive for people to actually click on the ads.

Gone in a Flash… Flash not being available on the iPad is also the cause of much compliant, and although personally I could easily live without Flash, it’s easy to see why some people are upset. Millions of people use Flash (although not necessarily knowing or caring about that fact) every day to watch video or play games; it’s a pervasive technology of today’s Internet and its complete lack of existence (cue humorous picture showing screen shots of blue Lego) on a machine aimed primarily at Internet browsing (from a

netbook-market angle at least) at ﬁrst seems just a little short-sighted. But Apple doesn’t do short-sighted; in recent years it has released products that have gone on to dominate their respective markets, like MP3 players with the iPod and Smartphones with the iPhone. So is there an emerging technology that could, in theory, replace today’s most common usage of Flash? There sure is – HTML5, which brings native support for video (and audio) content in your browser, and much, much more. Watching video is easily the biggest application of Flash today, followed by advertising and gaming. The latest spec of HTML delivers to us the <video> element, which in the coming years should break our reliance on Flash. And the gaming? Well, there’s an app for that... Personally, I see no difference in going to a website and playing a Flash game for free, compared to going to the app store and installing a non-Flash game for free. There’s no contest in my eyes, and the fact that some of the games on the app store actually cost money only reinforces the fact of their superiority. I’ve never seen a Flash game yet that was good enough to charge money for.

Targeted advertising There’s no doubt that Flash advertising is big business, but with a total lack of ‘indexability’ it’s still not something we can use in our organic SEO campaigns with any real success. So while the iPad doesn’t detract anything SEO-wise by refusing to run Flash, it doesn’t actually add anything either. Not having Flash does nothing for us in terms of SEO. But luckily, there is still a

“Gaming? There’s an app for that…”

massive advertising opportunity in the form of the apps that can be used on the iPad coupled with the exponentially expanding mobile ad networks such as Admob. Admob has proved to be a resounding success on Apple’s iPhone, and it is services like this that will really drive SEO on the iPad platform. The great thing about targeted advertising on the iPad is that the device is able to do a whole lot more; it’s far more powerful and as well as the ‘viewer’ style apps available for the iPhone where data is displayed, there will also be many ‘editor’ style apps where data is created. More types of software like this can only lead to much more opportunity in targeted advertising, where ads more relevant to the apps being used can be utilised.

Apple describes the iPad as a device that’s between an iPhone and a MacBook; it’s not a netbook, although Apple is surely hoping to take a bite out of the growing market for small, cheap and portable devices, and it’s not being marketed solely as a tablet – the computer that never was. This could mean that the device appeals to a much wider range of people than more expensive, more powerful systems. I think it will be a huge success, and will go a long way in developing and maturing the mobile advertising market. There is also a lot of hope being put into the iPad by producers of digital content such as newspapers, magazines and eBooks; the device looks set to revitalize these forms of content in the same way that iTunes revolutionised how music is consumed. There will be a store that sells eBooks and other forms of traditionally printed media, which would offer cheap, high quality material in a format people wanted. This could also provide another source for advertising and foster new

relationships between advertisers and media producers.

In other iPad/SEO news, an SEO poisoning attack was launched very soon after the initial announcement regarding the iPad was made; in this attack, fake sites were listed as results for keyword searches such as ‘apple tablet’ and ‘iPad’ which redirected the searcher to fake security software sites which attempted to trick people into installing fake security software. While not related to legitimate SEO targeting the iPad, it does go to show how quickly all forms of SEO will be exploited and driven by Apple’s latest device.

Dan Wellman is a freelance writer and IT professional that lives and works in a thriving city on the south coast of England. He insists that he has other interests besides computers, and vows one day to prove this somehow.

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interview

Masters of the Internet – Bebo When looking through the list of potential candidates for the Masters of the Internet interview series, Bebo was one of the first names on the list. This issue, iGB Affiliate magazine and Rene Colin Magri got the chance to catch up with AOL/Bebo’s VP of Communications, Sarah Gavin. Social Media (and in particular, social networking sites) are a wide-spread phenomena with hundreds of millions of daily users. Where is Bebo’s place in the Social Networking/media matrix? It’s been a tough year and while social networking is often considered to be a fickle market (2006 was all about MySpace, 2007 was all about Bebo, 2008 was all about Facebook and 2009 was all about Twitter – we’re yet to see who’ll take the crown in 2010, but location based networking/ media in the shape of companies such as Foursquare and Gowalla, continues to gather pace), Bebo is focused on innovating in what it does best – discovery, connections and self-expression. We recently completed the biggest social networking deal of its kind with Samsung; took our users to meet the British Prime Minister; launched Bebo Open Mobile and a new Social Games Experience and have a number of other initiatives in the pipeline. We have also made major advancements to capitalise on Twitter and Facebook’s unquestionable growth by letting people stay in touch with their Twitter and Facebook friends from within the Bebo experience itself (through the Social Inbox). We’ve spent considerable time looking at what we do and marrying this with our ever changing user needs – and are now fine tuning our approach to allow us to execute against our vision for 2010. What changes/opportunities has AOL brought to the table since its acquisition of Bebo? AOL completed its acquisition of Bebo on May 19, 2008 and since that time we have made major advancements. One of the most significant is our capitalisation of Twitter and Facebook. The ‘Social Inbox’ mentioned earlier, combines email, social networking and media recommendations in one easy-to-use interface. It aggregates feeds and updates from Twitter, Flickr, Del.

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

icio.us, YouTube, AIM and others, so users can see at-a-glance what’s going on in their online world. The new experience also offers one-click access to Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, as well as user-selected media favorites, such as videos, music and photos. What was the strategy behind the Bebo Platform which you launched just over two years ago? Bebo launched its Open Apps platform at the end of 2007 and we have recently made our first foray into the Social Games space. The Social Games Experience on Bebo delivers a raft of new features to make gaming simple and easy. This dynamic page allows users to access social games applications, find out what the most addictive games are on Bebo, check out scores on the interactive leader board and receive recommendations. The new features are simple to use and understand, making it easy for users to engage and interact without a lot of clutter. As you mentioned, you are one of a quartet of social phenomena to have dominated the space in successive years. What separates Bebo from Facebook, MySpace and Twitter? Bebo’s mission is to provide an open, engaging and fun environment that empowers a new generation to discover, connect and express themselves. From a games perspective we have focused on not only making the experience as enjoyable and interactive for our users as possible, but have taken into account the needs of developers – as always we are focused on an ‘open’ approach. With this idea at the core we have created some of the first social game features that developers can easily build into their games. These features include a ‘smack talk’ mechanism that allows developers to let their users engage in friendly banter when they beat each other’s scores. This banter is then posted in each user’s

lifestream so that their friends can weigh in as well. A similar functionality has been created for challenges: a developer can easily integrate the ability for users to challenge each other in a game by using a simple SNML tag. We have also built out a leaderboard system to help smaller developers easily integrate user scores and ranks into their apps without having to develop their own system, which can be costly and time consuming. Larger developers can also take advantage of this leaderboard system by using the set score API call to display their users’ scores on the Games Homepage, alongside recent game activity from friends. Developers are able to choose from a simple menu of tools and integrate the functionality that makes sense for them, resulting in a more homogeneous user experience. Larger social networks are now starting to move in this direction with features like game dashboards where users can see their friends’ scores and recently played games. It is early days, but this is a very interesting space. Playfish and MindJolt were two of our original gaming partners, and Richard Fields, Founder and CEO of MindJolt Games, the leading social networking gaming portal had this to say: “Bebo’s new Game Tools provide a cutting-edge level of integration between the Bebo site and the hundreds of games we provide. We can now reach our players in a much more effective way than ever before, and have seen a dramatic increase in both engagement and new users.” What opportunities does Bebo offer as a business platform for Internet facing industries (such as online gaming)? There are many opportunities for brands in the social gaming space. From an industry perspective one of the most popular trends is in-game brand placement by either the

“It is even possible that the most successful (gaming) operators will break away and create stand-alone social destinations of their own.” creation of a branded virtual item to be sold in the game’s store, ‘sponsored by’ branding on the game’s main canvas page or, in some cases, even a fully branded version of a popular game. What we are seeing in this emerging space is that it all depends on how much a brand is willing to spend towards their social media strategy; a fully branded game on one of the leading social media platforms is more costly than a single branded good in a virtual store. Which application is the most successful on Bebo? App: “Quizazz” http://apps.bebo.com/ quizzaz/ hitting approximately 3 million installs. Game: “Mindjolt” http://www.bebo.com/ Profile.jsp?MemberId=5409364207 Social Games are becoming a great space where developers – if the game goes viral within the social network – can make a lot of money. A case in point would be Playfish – which was acquired recently by Electronic Arts Games for $400 million. Where do you see this trend going – and how can developers and brands take advantage of it? The social media industry is starting to see examples of brands using gaming as a marketing platform and it is working effectively – in many cases, brands have chosen to work directly with app developers to fully immerse their social media branding strategy into the individual applications. We are likely to see more instances of games being sponsored by brands or specifically developed for an organisation in which key facets of the brands identity are integrated into the experience. Gaming organisations have effectively utilised social networking platforms and tapped into and exploited the social graph, but as the industry grows and strengthens we are likely to see them move away from this reliance. It is even possible that the most successful operators will break away and create stand-alone social destinations of their own. Another area that deserves some attention and offers a growing opportunity is virtual goods. As more social networks begin to explore and implement opportunities in the virtual goods space, branded goods are also likely to become much more prevalent for a company’s

social media brand strategy. As users visit a social network’s virtual goods store, they will have the opportunity to purchase branded sports jerseys, sodas, fast food and even branded virtual cars. Bebo has made some initial in-roads with the launch of its Social Games Experience and we believe that exploration into new monetisation models and potential revenue streams go hand-in-hand with this process. Bebo is very much into Video and boasts the Open Media Platform. Can you tell us more about Bebo’s strategy regarding video content, and what is the opportunity for brands, and content owners? Bebo launched its first Bebo Original in August 2007 and we are fortunate to have been recognised for our success in original programming and the advertising revenue model that we developed to underwrite our shows. By integrating brands into our shows in this way we allowed marketing executives to take a concept to potential sponsors in order to get the show underwritten before it went into production. This allowed all parties to enter the creative process together hand-in-hand such as Sony Ericsson and Virgin Mobile who worked closely with The Secret World of Sam King, ahead of its launch in August 2008; Samsung who became the sole sponsors of music magazine show Beat; and most recently O2 who are the current sponsors of Bebo’s resident fashion show, The Closet. Bebo’s brand integration model has always been underpinned by traditional advertising in addition to our pioneering Engagement Marketing model (launched in 2005). Today, our attention has shifted and we are focused on better understanding our users, rapidly innovating in a number of key areas to further enhance our user experience and carve out our position as a place for a new generation to discover, connect and express themselves. That said, there are many companies out there that are continuing to push the boundaries of original content online – including Bebo’s parent company, AOL. Does the seemingly boundless opportunity of the Internet actually make it harder for today’s entrepreneurs and start-up businesses? The Internet undoubtedly creates

opportunities and you need only look at the latest lists of top start-ups coming out of the technology industry to know that entrepreneurialism is alive and well. There are many relatively young companies out there that are gaining traction e.g. Etsy, Foursquare, Hunch and Boxee to name a few, and the basic principles of a start-up technology business still apply: a strong idea, market differentiation, meeting user needs, speed of deployment, great execution and constant iteration, and user experience as the number one priority. Silicon Valley has for a long time been the Mecca for technology and it is true to say that certain markets have until recently had a somewhat negative perception of entrepreneurialism, but with strong networks and VC hubs now cropping up globally we are creating a strong foundation for a new generation of Internet success stories. What advice would you give to those looking to make headway in today’s online landscape? A few basic principles – in no particular order: Get to know your industry – develop a ●● strong network of advisors, ambassadors and supporters, and read… a lot! Create a strong focus and put in place ●● a clear strategy, but never be afraid to iterate on it, at the same time keeping your team focused on short-term objectives that instill an ongoing sense of achievement. Hire fast, fire faster, strive to attract ●● great talent and never be scared to bring people into the business whom you believe to be smarter than you. Building a company is not for the faint ●● of heart and you will need to be dedicated – work hard and work smart. Don’t be tempted to skimp on things ●● that perhaps don’t feel core to your business. You need to operate as a real business and put structure in place early on, e.g. separate your personal and business records, hire an accounting expert (likely a part-time bookkeeper at the start), hold board meetings, take board minutes etc… Closely manage your money and have a clear plan on how to get more. Remember that the Internet space, ●● though it at times feels vast, is small – so be mindful of how you treat people along the way. And remember to have fun – you’ll only ●● realise just how much fun it was once it’s passed!

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

webmaster world

Online gaming operators are starting to pay attention to their web performance, but it’s not really on the radar of affiliates just yet. This article will argue why it should be. Just because affiliates do not have the same traffic numbers as operators it doesn’t mean that they can’t have web performance problems. There are three main reasons why gaming affiliates should pay close attention to their web performance: 1. SEO – Google is about to include ‘website speed’ in its algorithm. 2. A fast website is key to player acquisition and retention. 3. Use of external Web 2.0 content on a website can hurt its performance.

SEO and the importance of website speed At the end of 2009 Google leaked its plans to include ‘website speed’ in its ranking algorithm. There is arguably no other business which is as dependent on successful SEO practices as iGaming, and particularly the affiliate sector, so this is news to be taken very, very seriously. What it means is that if you suffer from bad web performance for one reason or another, even temporarily, your ranking might be punished. If you’re starting to lose ranking and can see no reason why, this might be the answer. And the only way to know for sure is to start monitoring your web performance – every day. Just like you check your stats and analytics every day, you should make sure your most important pages have been up and running with healthy response times. Website conversion and retention

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

It’s a well known fact that Internet gamblers are impatient by nature and will leave your site if it does not give them what they want, when they want it. Results from different studies vary, but in general you have something like a couple of seconds before a user will start to look elsewhere. So imagine when that player you just persuaded to click, loads your page, the page goes into ‘hourglass mode’ and just hangs, and the customer goes back to Google, or, wherever he or she came from, and goes to the next site on the list. So much for beating your competitor’s ranking! Almost no other online business is as fiercely competitive in terms of customer acquisition as online gaming, so you simply cannot afford to let those expensive leads roll off your landing page.

How Web 2.0 content on your site hurts performance Modern web technologies have made it so easy to share, embed, link and collaborate. This means that many websites now are small versions of the web itself and present material which is gathered from a large number of other sites and services. There’s nothing wrong with that, but since you have no control over how all that external content is delivered you don’t have any control over your own web performance. We have seen

so many examples of sites that are packed with analytics trackers, embedded video feeds, jackpot feeds and similar. And when you sum up the loading time of all those components the result is a slow web page.

Web performance is now everybody’s game Web performance management tries to answer two basic questions: 1. What are the response times for my most important web pages under normal conditions? 2. How many simultaneous users can I handle with sustained response times, in other words; what’s my maximum capacity limit? These questions have been viewed as the headaches of high volume sites such as those of gaming operators. That’s because bad web performance is often a result of high loads. However, our experience shows that many websites have a ‘sore tooth’ response time pattern, even with few visitors. Uneven response times mean that even though many visitors have a satisfactory experience at your site, some unlucky ones will see a slow site and click away to somewhere else. Losing or keeping those leads could be what makes or breaks your campaign. So here’s a five-step introduction to taking control of your web performance.

“If you suffer from bad web performance for one reason or another, even temporarily, your ranking might be punished.” 100,000 90,000 80,000

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1. Monitor your web performance If you Google something like ‘web check’ or ‘site speed’ you’ll most likely find some service where you enter the address of your home page and in a couple of seconds you’ll receive a test result that shows the response time of your home page, sometimes broken down on the response times of individual components. This is what we call a ‘page scan’. The problem with this approach is that response times often vary greatly over time. If you have a typical ‘saw tooth’ performance pattern you don’t know if the scan hit your site at the top or the bottom of your performance curve. That’s why you need to set up a monitor that checks your site every five minutes or so. When you do this you’ll sooner or later hit the site in one of your ‘weak moments’ and you’ll be able to dig into the test results and start your troubleshooting.

2. Monitor from your user’s perspective You need to monitor using your visitors’ perspective. Hosting companies and IT staff often monitor that servers, databases and so on are fine. But just because your servers are up and the Internet connection is working doesn’t guarantee that your visitors have a fast website experience. There are still many links in the whole Internet delivery chain which can be broken or performing badly. That’s why Apica, and other web performance companies have networks of testing computers placed around the world. Software, or ‘testing agents’, act as ‘virtual Internet users’ and are instructed to go to your site, say every five minutes, using Internet Explorer 8, for example, and report the response times of page components. Make sure you run those tests from computers placed where your customers

are – Sweden, Poland, the UK or wherever they happen to be. Performance depends on how your traffic is routed over the Internet, which means that visitors from different regions will have different response times.

Easily ●●

3. Monitor your most important pages and components

When you have these and similar tools at hand, you’ll be able to find your performance bottlenecks and remove them.

Many webmasters go no further than measuring the response time of the home page. That’s not good enough in our opinion. Most sites have a few critical functions that really make or break your affiliate business. An example of this is a form to sign up for your newsletter or a chat/forum section. If you want to make sure that you are delivering a quality website experience you should monitor these functions. Make sure that a user can fill in the newsletter form, click submit and receive a ‘subscription confirmed’ page. And do it automatically, every five minutes. When you know that all your key components run without breaks every minute 24/7, then you know you are delivering a quality experience to your visitors.

4. Analyze and improve When you choose a web performance monitoring service make sure that the software has powerful analysis and reporting functions that will support your troubleshooting. You should be able to: ●● Locate

an individual test result with bad performance, drill down on the individual sample, sort all components after load time, find the slowest component which caused the bad performance and see the response time of that single component.

compare test results from different regions. ●● Display test results over time so that you can spot if there are certain days or hours when you have problems.

5. Be alerted when things go wrong The web performance service you choose should have SMS and email alerts. Then you’ll know instantly when things go down. SMS is, of course, better since it’ll be able to get your attention even when you’re not at your computer. When you set up email alerts remember to use a different domain address than the one you’re monitoring. If you have your web and email server in the same place, it’s not unlikely that your email will fail when your web does. What you have just read is basically a ‘Web Performance 101’ but it actually goes a lot further than most webmasters and other online businesses do today. The steps detailed above are quite easily accomplished, using the right software, and it’s not very expensive either. So dive into web performance monitoring today and start seeing the improvement in your stats tomorrow.

John Ekman is CMO at web performance company, Apica. John has been in the online gaming business since 2003, formerly as a VP of Marketing at NetEnt as well as a former Casino Manager at Betsson.

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

WEBMASTER WORLD

What’s Happening? Founder of Games and Casino, Dominique, looks at the iGaming picture in the US and the recent developments that may shed some light on the likelihood of regulation on both the state and federal level. THERE IS SO MUCH going on in the

Lobbying

US in regards to online gambling that it is almost impossible to write an allencompassing article. I won’t try to cover all of it, but here is an overview of relevant developments.

The BolaVerde Media Group (BVMG) recently released a new Internet Gambling Federal Lobbying report which estimates that $3.65 million was spent lobbying the US government over online gambling during the third quarter of 2009. This includes both supporters and opponents. This money is a 50% increase from the previous year. The leaders of the spending craze were Harrah’s Entertainment Inc., UC Group Limited and the Interactive Gaming Council. Their combined spending was $2.04 million, or 55.9% of the total. This is money spent in favour of online gaming. It stands to debate how much inﬂuence lobbyists had on the current ﬂurry of activity regarding online gambling, both on a federal and state level.

Previously passed laws The Wire Act was enacted in 1961. It was intended to prohibit sportsbetting by telephone to bookmakers. Then US Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, thought it would discourage organized crime and bookmaking. The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) of 1992 (Pub.L. 102-559) set out to deﬁne the legalization of sportsbetting throughout the United States. This act effectively outlawed sportsbetting nationwide, excluding a few states. The sports lotteries conducted in Oregon and Delaware were exempt, as well as the licensed sports pools in Nevada. Also excluded from the reach of PASPA are jai alai and pari-mutuel horse and dog racing. And, of course, we all know about the UIGEA. The Security and Accountability For Every Port Act of 2006 (SAFE Port Act, Pub.L. 109-347) was an Act of Congress in the United States addressing port security. An online gambling measure was added at the last moment. The House and Senate passed it on September 30, 2006. President Bush signed the Act into law on October 13, 2006. Title VIII of the Act is the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (or UIGEA). It (31 U.S.C. § 5361– 5367) prohibits the transfer of funds from a ﬁnancial institution to an ‘illegal Internet gambling site’ and excludes fantasy sports, online lotteries, and horse/harness racing.

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

Current activities on the federal level There were 37 separate Internet gambling bills introduced in Congress between 1995 and 2010, by 19 different politicians. Mark Balestra from BVMG said “It’s striking to me that while there’s been no shortage of political activity, no Internet gambling bill has passed both chambers of Congress as a standalone bill, and just one – UIGEA – passed as part of an unrelated bill and signed into law. Let’s focus on two of the more interesting ones. In the US Congress, House Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has promoted a federal resolution to legalize and regulate the Internet gambling industry in the US (HR 2667).

At the time of writing, Rep. Barney Frank’s Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act has signed on its 66th co-sponsor, Ohio representative Charles Wilson. The bill is designed to legalize and regulate Internet gambling while protecting and safeguarding players, and instituting safeguards against compulsive and addictive gambling, underage gambling, money laundering, fraud and identity theft. The bill also allows each state to decide whether or not to allow Internet gambling within its borders. It also provides for states and Native American tribes with experience in running regulated gaming, to have a role in the regulatory process. Wilson, a Democrat, is the third Congressman from Ohio to sign on to cosponsor the legislation. Most recently, on February 23, US Senators Ron Wyden (from Oregon) and Judd Gregg (New Hampshire) introduced the Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simpliﬁcation Act of 2010, a bill to simplify and reform the US tax code. The proposal includes a number of tax cuts, which the authors intend to offset by regulating and taxing Internet gambling. “For a variety of reasons, we don’t believe this particular legislation shows a lot of promise,” BVMG Managing Director Mark Balestra explained. “However, this marks an important step for Internet gambling in Washington. We believe the best shortterm opportunity to move a pro-Internet gambling measure at the federal level is to make it a funding component for necessary, expensive legislation, particularly as Congress faces this historic budget deﬁcit. Not only does the tax reform bill bring

iGaming back to light in the Senate, it is the ﬁrst case in which such a policy has been successfully attached to another bill.”

On the state level Many US states are on the verge of bankruptcy. They are looking for a magic bullet that will increase tax revenues without cutting even more services for their already over-taxed residents. Many state governors and state legislators are trying to push through laws in anticipation of overturning the federal law that prohibits sportsbetting on both professional and amateur sports, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (28 U.S.C. §3701) (PASPA).

New Jersey The state legislature of New Jersey passed State Resolution No. 19 on January 12, 2010. It authorizes Senate President to “take legal action concerning certain federal legislation prohibiting sportsbetting.” It aims to repeal the federal ban on sportsbetting. Senator Raymond Lesniak, who originally launched a lawsuit on his own in March 2009 against the federal government, claims that the 1992 law violates the 10th and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution, in that “it establishes a selective prohibition on sportsbetting in the US.” The argument is that it violates the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution by regulating a matter that is reserved to the states. And that it violates the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution by being unconstitutionally discriminatory against the Plaintiffs and the people of the State of New Jersey. Legislation was passed by the New Jersey legislature in its state Senate to amend the New Jersey State Constitution, allowing legalized sportsbetting, which the New

Jersey voters would ultimately vote on in a referendum as early as November 2010. There are other states proposing sportsbetting and expansion of casino gambling, including online gaming, such as Iowa, Delaware, Massachusetts, California, Texas, Alabama, Missouri, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Michigan, Kentucky, Illinois and possibly more.

Delaware and Iowa Delaware won the right to offer threegame parlay-style sportsbetting at its three racetracks (or racinos) for NFL games only. Delaware has not yet given up its ﬁght to expand its offering and has appealed to the US Supreme Court. Iowa is crafting legislation to allow legalized sportsbetting.

Revenue Generation Act of 2010. It is also planning legal, intrastate online poker. Florida may allow its 21 pari-mutuels to operate card rooms as licensees of online poker companies. The players would be pooled into a central network. This network would be run by a central hub operator, chosen by the state. Hub operators would be required to pay a non-refundable license fee of $500,000 to Florida’s Division of Pari-mutuel Wagering of the Department of Business and Professional regulation. They would then pay an annual license fee of $1,000. They would also pay an additional 10% of gross receipts from the intrastate poker. The state tax rate for the card rooms will be 20% of gross receipts of the rooms. Player protection and safeguards against gambling addiction are also in the bill.

Missouri California California plans to introduce an online gaming network. However, there might be a conﬂict with the Indian Gaming licenses entered into in 1999 with Native American tribes. California tribes threatened to stop paying California state taxes on its gaming revenues if California pursues the online poker network plans. The state’s position is that the contracts do not include poker and cover only games of chance. California wants its poker network to go nationwide, raising revenues by ultimately licensing interstate networks and thereby generating additional proﬁts through the ownership of such various licenses between states.

Florida Florida became the second state to ﬁle an intrastate iGaming bill, when State Representative Joseph Abruzzo ﬁled the Internet Poker Consumer Protection and

Missouri State Representatives Jason Grill and Mike Colona have also enlisted in the war against sportsbetting restrictions. They have put forth House Concurrent Resolution 22, calling on Congress to repeal the Federal Professional and Amateur Sports Promotion Act (PASPA) of 1992. The proposal asks congress to repeal PASPA and allow states that wish to do so, to offer sportsbetting and thus partake in the economic beneﬁts. This would include the estimated $81.5 million legally bet on last year’s Super Bowl.

The road ahead Things are definitely happening at a rapid pace now. Where will that lead us? How will affiliates be affected? How will existing online gambling properties fare? It’s hard to say. Most online entities use affiliates – but will they pay a decent rev share? Who will provide the software? Lots of questions and for the answers, only time will tell.

iGB Affiliate APRIL/MAY 2010

webmaster world

Maximising your Time on the Conference Circuit

Do you remember the days when operators whisked us off to those beach resorts for our affiliate pampering weekends away? Where we were wined and dined over five star ‘Martini lunches’ in true affiliate style. Where we would openly discuss ideas, topics of interest and all those crazy ways affiliates get their traffic. Now it’s all gone pretty much corporate and, like anything else, I suppose that has its pros and cons. I’ve been attending conventions of all types for about ten years now. They are definitely changing. Because of obvious economic circumstances companies were certainly forced to cut back on lavish budgets that bought huge floor space, crazy giveaways and unlimited bar tabs at convention sponsored parties. Now I think we are starting to get back to normal. Operators are using this time to properly brand themselves and show the market that they are still present. And they are doing it in a leaner and meaner way – with certainly less of that unnecessary marketing paraphernalia that was often just left in hotel rooms for cleaning staff to trash. The good thing is we are definitely finding many new faces coming through the doors these days – the ‘younger’ affiliate generation is starting to show itself. Many attendees are also however, the same faces. Some may just be carrying new business cards. It’s also interesting to see how things evolve and we find those who used to be affiliates now working as SEO consultants or have become employees for operators. Or, indeed, affiliate managers who have jumped ship and are now representing a new company under a new title or position, or have become affiliates themselves. So with so many conventions to choose from these days, how can one properly select and prepare for a convention in order to maximise your time there?

The affiliate perspective 1. Schedule appointments with exhibitors you really want to meet well in advance. Get to know your account manager. This is critical. There is no time like an exhibition to drive home a good deal. Often, we have

iGB Affiliate april/may 2010

never met the face behind the email address and as you know, there is nothing like a face to face meeting. Remember that exhibitors are often keener to say ‘yes’ to a deal at a convention versus when they are in the confines of their own office. 2. Review the exhibitor list and know each exhibitor’s location. Develop a plan of which exhibitors you want to visit and then organise your list into two parts – ‘must see’ and ‘want to see’ companies. 3. If you are a newbie, a convention is probably the best place for you to learn. Plan the seminars you want to attend. Jot down notes. Even try and get a copy of the presentation made. Speak to people before and after the session. Ask people sitting next to you what they thought of the session. Raise questions. Panellists often have Facebook groups – join the group after. Get tight with them. Make yourself known. It’s a good post-convention networking tool. 4. A particularly useful tip; Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or simply Tweetdeck if you just want to combine all three – will give you an opportunity to familiarise yourself with a few faces and schedule some meetings prior to arriving at the show. This can work well for both affiliates and affiliate managers.

full day or two day excursion. You would be surprised at what can come out of such a tight event. 2. Know what you want to achieve by visiting the show. Understand what your boss wants you to achieve by attending the show. Set yourself goals and work that floor so that you achieve them. 3. Focus on private meetings. One on one breakfast meetings are good. Often, there can be too many distractions at a booth. Take your big affiliates to a private session. You don’t want your competitors watching who you are having private meetings with at your booth and then they just catch the guy a few minutes after your meeting is over. 4. Stay at the convention hotel. Some of the best information and introductions can often be found right downstairs in the foyer or at the bar. No matter what side of the fence you are on, the key to getting the most out of a convention, in my opinion, is to know why you’re going. Figure that part out and you will leave satisfied. For me it’s about the relationships, the networking and the learning. I look forward to seeing you soon.

The operator perspective 1. Some of the best gatherings I have attended have been private ones. Five, eight, maybe ten affiliates. Just some food for thought; maybe fly in a few of your affiliates a few days before the convention. Take them on an exciting tour within or near to the city’s convention location. Let the guys get to know each other. Not a dinner where you basically only get to speak to the person on the opposite side of the table. I’m talking a

Evan Shein has been involved in affiliate marketing for over five years and runs Toptieraffiliates.com. For the last three years he has focused his attention on providing a very niche service in helping affiliates of almost all verticals monetize their website traffic. Evan can be contacted at evan@toptieraffiliates.com.

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