Affiliate Marketing Strategies

Presented by:Presented by:

Nicky SenyardNicky Senyard

CEOCEO

Income AccessIncome Access

Getting More Out of Your Bingo Affiliate Program Getting More Out of Your Bingo Affiliate Program

Introduction to Income Access

• Income Access Network: only independent online gaming affiliate network.

• Established in 2002

• Currently 17,000 gaming affiliates registered with network

• Partners in network: Ladbrokes, Unibet, Jackpotjoy, Gold Mobile and Lasseters Casino and Sportsbook

• Income Access Software: first unique provider of independent affiliate software to the gaming industry

Introduction to Income Access

• Established in 2003

• Currently provides software to over 20 different operators

• Operators include Victor Chandler, Sportingbet Europe, Purple Lounge, Game Account and Bingo.com

• The company employs 30 people - 15 affiliate managers and 8 in the technical team

Where to Get More Value

• The problem is that operators are constantly battling to get more out of their established affiliate programmes.

Overview of Bingo

• Bingo is one of the oldest and most popular games in the world. Playing bingo is arguably the most socially gratifying experience among all games of chance, with an appeal that transcends age and gender.

• Online bingo operators are usually specialists and excel in player retention mandatory.

Who are the Affiliates

• Usually successful online bingo affiliates are also specialists:

• Which Bingo

• Bingo Port

• Bingo Base

• Bingo Bliss

• Bingo Power

• Online Bingo.co.uk 

• Bingo Hideout

• Mad About Bingo

Who are the Affiliates

• Others doing well with Bingo:

• Reward/loyalty sites, e.g.:

• iPoints

• Greasy Palms

• Cash Back Rewards

• Slots-dedicated portals and an increasing trend among sites dedicated to blogs, celebrity gossip, and community news. 

About the bingo affiliate

• Located mainly in the UK and jurisdictions that allow open marketing of online bingo some presence in Spain

• Affiliates usually market through

• PPC

• SEO

• email marketing

• offline advertising, e.g. TV and print ads  

About the bingo affiliate cont… 

• Affiliates are looking for:

• Vibrant, live chat capability for their players

• High converting sites or registration pages

• Fresh content, particularly on player wins

• Continuous promotions including contests for cash prizes, cruises, holidays, household gadgets, etc.

What are the expectations of the affiliates:

• Conversions – What is a new customer costing me?

• Commissions – What am I being paid for my efforts?

• Promotions (for customers and affiliates) - How am I and my customers being rewarded?

• Retention – What is the site doing to get my customer back? How long are they staying? How much will I be making with this program in the long term?

What are the expectations of the affiliates:

• Payments – Am I consistently receiving my payments on time?

• Communication (Affiliate Management) – Are my inquiries responded to? Does the program take my needs into consideration? Am I provided with the information that I need to successfully promote?

What are the operators offering

• 25% - 35% revenue share

• What options do you have?

• Pay per Lead – player registration without deposit

• Revenue share – percentage of sale

• Cost per Acquisition (CPA)

• Combination of revenue share and CPA

• Special bonus – extra payment for achieved activity

• Sliding scales – more sales, higher commission rate

Getting the Best Results

5 Key Areas will be Explored:

• Your product and your site

• Your affiliates

• Your marketing and promotions

• Your flexibility

• Your success

Affiliate Program Facts

• Your affiliate program is one part of your marketing strategy. It will not work well in isolation

• If you set up your affiliate program and leave it – you will not be successful

• Affiliate programs need attention and resources to flourish

• Affiliate programs are a long-term marketing option

• Expect to give the program at least 4 to 6 months before you see results

• Stability is important

• Communication is vital

• Unique content is king

Facts about Affiliates• Affiliates are running their own business and expect to

make money from the partnership they have with you

• They are naturally weary of new sites and new brands – longevity and consistency are important, because it has a direct impact on them financially

• Usually they know their traffic and what will work on their site

• Good affiliates are in high demand and already have well-established relationships

• Once an affiliate has signed and displays a banner for your program this does not mean that he will become active or produce customers and sales

Your Site and Product

• Affiliates analyse new operators for customer usability

• Make sure your site is easy to navigate and to deposit with

• Know the facts about your site

• Affiliates want to know:

• Conversion rates

• Best selling games

• Best time to promote

Your Site and Product

• Be able to talk about your customers in depth

• Demographics

• Depositing patterns

• Motivations – time, discounts, special gifts

• Have active customer care and retention programmes in place

• Affiliates may become “secret shoppers” before actively promoting your site

Your Site and Product

• Ensure consistency of branding and promotions across your affiliate program and other marketing channels.

• Affiliates will do their research and will want to make sure they are not offering inferior promotions or content.

Your Affiliates • The key to productive affiliates is good relationships

• Achieved through:

• Effective communication

• Asking questions to clarify needs

• Demonstrating understanding

• Being consistent

• Paying on time

• Use experience and knowledge from other marketing channels to positively impact results

• Customer emails

• Product reviews

• Press releases

Your Affiliates

• Know your affiliates

• Research and analyse:

• Who they are

• When they became affiliates

• What they market

• How they market

• What their conversion rates are

• What resources you can offer to enhance their experience & improve results

Your Affiliates

• Become part of the affiliate community

• Understand the more holistic issues

• Look for the community leaders

Your Marketing and Promotions

• Marketing and promotions are broken into two different areas:

• Customer promotions

• Affiliate promotions

• Both areas need attention, planning and resources

• Fresh affiliate promotions demonstrate you are interested in your affiliates and willing to work with them

Your Marketing and Promotions

• Effective customer promotions will provide tools to affiliates to secure new customers for you

• Customer promotions need to be available to affiliates in advance

• For example, Christmas promotions available in November

• New customer promotions need to be accompanied by fresh creative and marketing tools

Your Flexibility

• Being willing and able to be flexible demonstrates your commitment to affiliates and their marketing efforts

• Special customer promotions for specific affiliates

• Specific landing pages for these promotions

• Tailored data feeds

• Change in affiliate compensation for increased volume of customers or specific types of customers

• Specially designed affiliate promotions

Evaluating your current affiliate program

For each of the following questions please answer yes or no

• Do you know the number of affiliates in your program?

• Do you know the number of active affiliates?

• Do you know how these affiliates are promoting?

• Do you know what is generating the most in terms of types of affiliates or creative - traffic, conversions, money and longevity of players?

• Do you know the response you get from affiliates when you contact them? - Consider modifying to: Do you know your affiliates’ impression of your program?

• Do you know your affiliate programme’s promotional schedule?

• Do you know what percentage of customers are coming from the affiliate program compared to your other forms of online marketing?

• Do you know where your affiliates are signing up from?

• Do you know your affiliate programme’s level of participation in the forums - and which forums and why?

• Do you know if you have an affiliate blog?

• Do you know if it is being read by affiliates?

• Do you know if your affiliates' compensation package is competitive?

• Do you know if your affiliate traffic is profitable?

• Do you know how recognised your brand is within the affiliate community? 

Affiliate health spot check:

• How many affiliates sign up to your programme a month?

• Of this number, what percentage become active in their first month?

• What is the trend of new players coming through the affiliate programme?

• How many affiliates are sending new players each month?

• Has this number remained stable?

• Is the number increasing or decreasing?

What can you do to build the channel for affiliates:

• Online and offline advertising to enforce brand and reputation

• Acquire quality bingo software to power the bingo room with free game features and flexibility to introduce new games consistently

• Develop a fun, interactive chat room with dynamic chat hosts

What can you do to build the channel for affiliates:

• Increase player membership (you can incentivise members to sign up for free by offering a gift card or voucher, etc) 

• Have flexible landing pages that are tested for conversion

• Have multi-currency features

• Include diverse games such as slots and lotto 

Your Success

• To be successful in the affiliate marketing channel, you need the following qualities:

• Motivation and enthusiasm

• Making the time to be involved and to understand the current issues

• Expertise

• Learn about the online marketing industry, the issues affiliates face and how your actions impact your affiliate community

Your Success

• To be successful in the affiliate marketing channel you need the following qualities: (contd.)

• Partnership

• Appreciate that affiliates are also in a business and decisions you make need to be commercially viable for yourself and them.

• Communication

• Take the time to listen – not just to the words, but to the needs of your affiliates.

Your Success

• To be successful in the affiliate marketing channel you need the following qualities: (contd.)

• Longevity

• Plan to be around for a long time. Established affiliates plan their partnership for the long term.

• Consistency

• By providing consistency with communication, actions, marketing approach and attitudes, affiliates will know you are someone they can trust and count on - an important quality in partnerships.

Last Tips• You can’t rush an affiliate program’s growth

• Paying attention to the small things pays off

• Be active in the community so affiliates learn more about you as a person

• Affiliates all talk to one another – gossip spreads quickly

• Affiliates are successful because they know their business – ask questions to learn about how you can capitalize on their success

• Pay on time

• The affiliate channel needs to be an integral part of your online marketing strategy (PPC, SEO, media buys/advertising, emailing)