OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
Europe by Numbers: France, Italy and the Netherlands Schleswig-Holstein and the German Market The Webmaster Guide to Business Apps Data Centre: H2G2, Hitwise and Greenlight
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
Inside Latin America An iGaming Market Insight
INFORMATION, INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS FOR THE BUSINESS OF INTERACTIVE GAMING
make a brand-wise choice! The best affiliates want to work with the best brands, brands that everyone knows, brands that are trustworthy, that make the most out of their traffic. Powered by William Hill, Affiliates United offers you the most trusted and reputable brands out there for a variety of gaming sectors: Casino, Sports, Poker, Bingo, Mobile and much more. We offer intensive high-player retention and undisputed player value with our customized support, exclusive promos that ensure your players are happy and keep coming back!
CONTENTS 04 Affiliate Events Calendar 06 Webmaster News 10 Europe by Numbers: France, Italy, the Netherlands 13 Defending Against Black Hat SEO 16 Maintaining Long-tail Page Equity 18 Social Media Acquisition: a Waste of Time? As I sit in my hotel room in Las Vegas, reading this issue on the eve of the G2E exhibition and conference, I can’t help but consider the different paths iGaming regulation has taken. There is the European route, which is generally gravitating towards regulating iGaming by country; the potential American routes, favouring federal legislation here in Las Vegas, but state-by-state legislation in many other parts of the USA; and the numerous and uncoordinated approaches taking form in Latin America.
20 The Webmaster Guide to Business Apps 24 Russian SEO Tips and Gaming Trends 26 Increasing Online Conversions 28 Social Media that Serves your Brand 30 Resource Management 31 Casino Supplement 40 Special Report: Inside Latin America – Intro and Market Stats 41 Special Report: Inside Latin America – Regulation by Country 44 Special Report: Inside Latin America – Payments 46 Special Report: Inside Latin America – SEO 48 Golden Wednesday? Schleswig-Holstein and the German Market 50 The Future for US-Facing Poker Affiliates
Central and South American countries may be linked by a common language (with Brazil being an important exception), but it is there that the similarities appear to end. Divergent iGaming regulatory and prohibition policies across Latin America make this a highly fragmented market. For the time being, it looks as if Latin America may be dominated by operators and affiliates that focus on specific countries rather than on the general region.
53 Affiliates and the Spanish Market 54 Changing Revenue Models 56 Profile Building for Affiliate Marketing 58 Data Centre: European Market Size 60 Data Centre: International Demographics 62 Data Centre: UK Search Trends 64 Market Place 66 Conference Highlight – BAC
iGaming policies will develop in each Latin American country over the next few years, however, there is no framework to force countries in this region to coordinate their policies or offer recognition of licensing outside each country’s border. Latin America isn’t Europe. It isn’t the United States – it’s a collection of countries that appear to be forging their own individual paths towards iGaming regulation and prohibition. Michael Caselli, Editor in Chief
Editor in Chief: Michael Caselli michaelc@igamingbusiness.com Editor: James McKeown
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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.
iGB Espana Madrid, Spain November 18 – 19, 2011
Sport and iGaming Conference London, UK November 23, 2011
iGB Espana is a niche event dedicated to one of the most lucrative markets in the online gambling industry; the Spanish speaking sector. Organised by iGB Affiliate and iGaming Business, the conference will offer an international event with a local focus. All sessions will be in Spanish with a live English translation available, ensuring all delegates can take advantage of the Hispanic marketplace and leave with practical relevant strategies.
The Sport and iGaming Conference takes a detailed look at all aspects of sport and iGaming – the sponsorship and marketing opportunities, the evolution of offline to online betting, the legal details, risk and reputation protection, the sponsorship success stories, the data behind the campaigns and the future of this industry. In exciting, fast moving industries such as this, information, data, best practice and networking is crucial. This conference will deliver all this and more.
http://www.igbaffiliate.com/events/igbespana/
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London Affiliate Conference London, UK January 26 – 29, 2012
iGB Affiliate Awards London, UK January 26, 2012
The London Affiliate Conference 2011 was the biggest and best event to date, with over 2,500 people in attendance. January 2012 marks the sixth annual LAC and iGB Affiliate is forecasting the attendance to break the 2,700 mark this time around. LAC will be opened by the glamorous iGB Affiliate Award ceremony on January 26 and will be followed by three days of conferences, exhibitions and networking events.
The iGB Affiliate Awards ceremony is the traditional curtain raiser to the London Affiliate Conference and once again returns to the glamorous Brewery London. Over 500 people are expected at this year’s gala event, as the industry joins together to honour some its leading lights and best loved personalities.
iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
webmaster news
Alderney Revokes Full Tilt Licence The Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) has announced that it has revoked the licences of Vantage Limited, Filco Limited and Oxalic Limited, trading as Full Tilt Poker, with immediate effect (as of September 29). The move follows the Commission’s earlier suspension of the licences, on June 29, in reaction to Full Tilt’s involvement in a Southern District of New York indictment and its subsequent failure to satisfy the AGCC that its “activities inside and outside the US were in order”. After an initial adjournment of 54 days at the behest of Full Tilt who didn’t want a public hearing so as to attempt a “commercial rescue” of its business, a six day hearing was finally held in London. It emerged that Full Tilt Poker had fundamentally misled AGCC about its operational integrity by continuously reporting (as liquid funds) balances that had been covertly seized or restrained by US authorities, or that were otherwise not actually available to the operator. Serious breaches of AGCC regulations include false reporting, unauthorised provision of credit, and failure to report material events. The AGCC’s actions follow news from the US that a Federal prosecutor claimed that the site’s board had operated the business “as a massive Ponzi scheme against its own players”. Preet Bharara,
United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, made the claim as he announced his office was filing legal papers as part of a civil money laundering complaint alleging that Full Tilt Poker had improperly used the funds of online poker players to pay members of its board $440 million since April 2007. Bharara revealed that the motion would amend the forfeiture and civil money laundering complaint originally filed in April and charge Full Tilt Poker along with board members Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Rafael Furst in addition to Chief Executive Officer Ray Bitar with defrauding customers out of some $300 million after failing to maintain sufficient funds to repay players. “Full Tilt was not a legitimate poker company but a global Ponzi scheme,” said Bharara. “Full Tilt insiders lined their own pockets with funds picked from the pockets of their most loyal customers while blithely lying to both players and the public alike about the safety and security of the money deposited.” Bharara claims that the Full Tilt board used player funds to pay itself large amounts of money largely transferred to accounts in Switzerland and other overseas locations. Specifically, the prosecutor maintains that Bitar pocketed $41 million while Lederer got $42 million with Ferguson allegedly paid
$87 million in distributions and at least $25 million in cash. Another owner, described by officials as ‘a professional poker player’, received at least $40 million in distributions as well as millions of dollars in ‘loans’ that have only partially been repaid. The government also claims Full Tilt continued to make payments to its owners of up to $10 million dollars per month even after becoming insolvent. According to prosecutors, Full Tilt Poker began to face cash problems in 2010 following the implementation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) which meant it was unable to collect funds from US-based players. The amended complaint suggests that the company’s own financial records showed that it owed its international player base over $390 million even before the onset of ‘Black Friday’ – over six and a half times the amount actually stored in the company’s bank accounts ($59.5 million). Just prior to going to press, Full Tilt announced that it had received an offer from French investor, Groupe Bernard Tapie, to buy the company. The potential acquisition, which would instigate the settling of some $300 million owed to players, is dependant on Full Tilt’s ability to resolve its legal issues.
New Jersey Voters Urged to Support Referendum In November, voters in New Jersey will be asked to go to the polls to decide on whether sportsbetting should be legalised in the eastern American state with the casino industry announcing that a ‘yes’ vote would provide an economic boost for the entire region. The Casino Association of New Jersey, a trade group that represents the eleven gambling venues in Atlantic City, issued a statement on Tuesday in support of the November ballot referendum that would allow wagering on most professional, college and amateur sporting events with the exception of collegiate events taking place in
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iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
New Jersey or involving teams from the state. “Legalised sportsbetting will attract more tourists to visit our city and enjoy our world-class entertainment, thriving restaurant industry, brand-name retail shopping and famous Boardwalk,” said Bob Griffin, President for the Casino Association of New Jersey. “Sportsbetting will allow Atlantic City to better compete, grow and reinvest in the region.” The Casino Association of New Jersey, which has a site at www.SportsVoteYes.com featuring additional information on the proposal, stated that the referendum, if approved, would be ‘an important step’
in efforts to overturn a federal ban in all but four states on sportsbetting. Owing to a brief experiment with parlay sportsbetting in 1976, Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon were grandfathered from 1992’s Professional and Amateur Sports Promotion Act (PASPA) prohibiting such activities. “If the referendum is passed and if the federal ban is subsequently overturned, legal sportsbetting would provide an economic boost for Atlantic City and the entire state of New Jersey,” said Griffin, who also serves as Chief Executive Officer for Trump Entertainment Resorts Incorporated.
European Commission Rejects State Aid Complaint The European Commission has rejected a State aid complaint that was lodged by a number of land-based operators in Denmark challenging the lower tax rate due to be imposed on online gambling firms via the Danish Gaming Duties Act of 2010. The UK’s Remote Gambling Association (RGA), which supported the Danish government’s ability to vary its gambling tax rate where there are clear and justifiable reasons to do so, provided detailed evidence to the European Commission and welcomed the judgement and its wider implications. The European Commission deemed the Danish tax policy compatible with the internal market, which is a view widely supported by the remote gambling industry. “There are obvious differences between the business models employed by off and online operators and the fiscal impositions on those businesses need to reflect that differentiation,” said Clive Hawkswood, Chief Executive Officer for the RGA. “In essence, land-based operations compete within physical national boundaries whereas online companies are
part of a highly competitive international environment and fiscal policy should be set accordingly. There are clear and justifiable reasons for a lower rate for remote operators. “Obviously, this has implications for other jurisdictions and their fiscal policies, both those that have opened their markets and those that are planning to do so in the near future.” Hawkswood stated that the RGA could now “not rule out taking action against any European Union jurisdiction which has, or intends to impose an unjustified tax rate on remote operators”. “Those favouring offline monopoly operations’ fiscal position should take note of this judgement,” said Hawkswood. With regards the opening of the Danish online gambling market, Hawkswood explained that “the State aid process has unfortunately delayed the introduction of the new Danish remote gambling legislation”, although he hoped that “the new regime would now be put in place as soon as is practically possible because it would lead to important benefits for the Danish authorities, licensed remote operators and consumers alike”.
Big Hitters Join FairPlayUSA Advisory Board The former Director for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Louis Freeh, has joined a previous Governor for the state of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge, in being named to the advisory board of the FairPlayUSA online gambling lobby group. FairPlayUSA is a new coalition of law enforcement officials, consumer protection experts and others concerned about the failures in current United States law regarding illegal Internet gambling. They are calling for better protection for consumers and the creation of a strict, safe regulatory framework for online poker. “Current Federal laws fail to provide United States law enforcement vital tools to address illegal Internet gambling, enabling a ‘wild-west’ atmosphere,” said Freeh, who led the criminal investigative body from 1993 to 2001 under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush. “I am joining FairPlayUSA to improve this environment by clarifying these laws, better empowering law enforcement agencies to crack down on
violators and using licensing and regulation to ensure safe and legal online poker.” FairPlayUSA stated that “millions of Americans regularly engage in Internet gambling on offshore websites that operate in direct violation of Federal and state laws and fail to provide necessary consumer protections”. The group wants Congress to define ‘once and for all’ what is illegal gambling and provide stronger law enforcement tools to ban such activities and provide a strict regulatory framework for online poker. “States and tribes have rights that must be protected by authorising them to decide for themselves whether to accept or prohibit online poker and make use of sophisticated technologies already in use in other industries to enforce those decisions,” said Ridge, who served as the 43rd Governor for Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2001 before going on to work as the Unites States Secretary for Homeland Security under President George W Bush.
Sportingbet Still an Option for Ladbrokes
Sportingbet has announced that it is still engaged in talks with fellow online sportsbook and gaming operator Ladbrokes regarding the possibility of selling some or all of its business. Sportingbet only recently finalised its purchase of Australian rival Centrebet International Limited, after nearly four months of negotiations, for US$183 million and is also in negotiations with Gaming VC Holdings SA over the sale of its Turkish business. “Talks between Sportingbet and Ladbrokes are still continuing and a further announcement will be made in due course,” read a statement from Sportingbet. Under changes to the Takeover Code that went into effect in September, Ladbrokes now has until October 17 to announce whether it intends to make a firm offer for Sportingbet with this deadline only able to be lengthened with permission from the Takeover Panel. Probability in talks with William Hill
Mobile gaming specialist Probability has revealed that it is in ‘preliminary discussions’ with William Hill regarding its sale to the British land-based and online betting firm. Probability disclosed in a brief statement that these initial talks ‘may or may not lead to an offer for the company’. “This announcement is not an announcement of a firm intention to make an offer under rule 2.7 of the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers and there can be no certainty that an offer will be made nor as to the terms on which any offer will be made,” read the statement from Probability. Like its arch-rival, Ladbrokes, William Hill now has until October 17 to announce whether it will be making a firm offer for Probability under the amended Takeover Codes.
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webmaster news
Massachusetts States Online Agenda
An amendment to the eastern state of Massachusetts’ new proposed gambling regulations that could see Internet poker legalised has passed the first stage of the legislative process. The amendment was introduced by Massachusetts State Representative, Dan Winslow, and would see the newly created Massachusetts Gaming Commission asked to prepare model legislation and regulations by July 1 “so that poker games have integrity and consist of games of skill and not games of chance”. Winslow’s amendment was approved by the Massachusetts House of Representatives and is now scheduled to be debated by the Massachusetts Senate before going up for a vote. Under Winslow’s proposal, Massachusetts would license up to five operators to offer games of online poker to its citizens for five years. Rake would be set at ten percent, which compares favourably with the 25 percent being sought by land-based casino and slot machine operators, while the state would receive 70 percent of the profits. The amendment also contains a provision that prohibits lawmakers from being employed by casino operators. “The gambling legislation has great potential to create jobs at casinos and for construction,” said the Republican. “Internet poker has great potential for creating high-tech jobs, developing the software and also the regulatory software to ensure the integrity of the games.”
The New iGB Affiliate website is now online, visit www.iGBAffiliate.com
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iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
Beraud Steps Down at BetClic Everest The BetClic Everest Group has announced that Nicolas Beraud has stepped down as its Chief Executive Officer after almost 18 months in charge and will be replaced by Ignicio Martos from travel agency website Opodo. Beraud has led BetClic Everest since March 2010 and helped the Paris-based firm to develop its range of sportsbetting and online gaming offerings. “I will remember what a pleasure it has been in the last six years to experience an adventure that was so out of the ordinary in the company of enthusiastic and innovative staff and in a sector where everything was yet to be created,” said Beraud. “I am grateful
to the board of directors for its trust in me.” For his part, Martos has worked as Chief Executive Officer for Opodo since 2006 and is scheduled to begin his new job (at the time of press) on October 1. “I chose to join BetClic Everest Group because I am now convinced that in the context of the market in Europe opening up this sector has major potential to be attractive and to grow,” said Martos. “The Internet has already revolutionised our way of life and our behaviour as consumers and there is a genuine opportunity to be taken to expand the range of leisure products and satisfy the passions of Internet users both for sport and poker.”
Schleswig-Holstein Ploughs Lone Furrow As detailed later in this issue, the northern German state of SchleswigHolstein has passed new legislation for the regulation of online gambling that will permit licensed operators to offer exchange and sportsbetting as well as poker and casino games with the exception of roulette, blackjack and baccarat. Instead of joining with Germany’s remaining 15 states in April and amending the current governing State Lottery Treaty, Schleswig-Holstein decided to submit draft regulations of its own for consideration by the European Union, which were subsequently ruled to be compliant. The new legislation is due to come into force from January with licenses valid from March and see Schleswig-Holstein implement a 20 percent gross profits tax rather than the 16.66 percent revenue tax favoured by its fellow states. In addition, the regulations place no limit on the number of operators awarded licences and states
that all online products should be permitted while implementing a strict consumer protection mechanism. According to a report from the Reuters news service, both bwin.party Digital Entertainment and Betfair revealed that they have plans to apply for licences from Schleswig-Holstein with both seeing a rise in their share prices as a result. “The resolution passed today is an important and groundbreaking step on the way to an open and regulated gambling market in Germany,” read a statement from bwin.party Digital Entertainment. For its part, Betfair declared that it hoped Schleswig-Holstein’s example was followed by the remaining German states. “We are now hopeful that the other 15 German states will make the regulated amendments to their proposed State Lottery Treaty in order to bring it into line with European Union law,” read a statement from Betfair.
Amazon Playing with Fire After Kindle Launch Amazon has thrown its hat into the tablet computing market with the launch of its Kindle Fire colour tablet device which will cost $199 (£130) and run on a modified version of vthe Google Android OS. Its entry to the intensely competitive tablet market will see the Kindle Fire go head-to-head with the current market leading Apple iPad2, as well as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Blackberry’s PlayBook.
But, according to the BBC, it’s likely to be the Nook Color, made by rival US bookseller Barnes and Noble, that Amazon has in its sights. However, there have been some reservations about the seven inch screen size which, although has helped to keep the price at point-of-sale low, has proved an unpopular factor with consumers to date.
TRAFFIC
EUROPE BY NUMBERS This issue’s instalment in the Europe by Numbers series of commentaries for iGB Affiliate, will detail and analyse top-level data for the iGaming markets in France, Italy and the Netherlands. This data is publicly available from Google Insights and Google AdWords and also takes into account information that I come across in my daily activity as an iGaming SEO working across international markets. IN THE LAST issue, we looked at the
skew the apparent size of the French betting market because it’s also the name of the French capital. Now we have that issue cleared up let’s first look at how much search volume there is in France relative to Italy and the Netherlands. As we can see from Figure 1, France has the greatest demand out of the three territories we’re looking at in this issue. Links don’t come cheap but given the legal situation in France, there are only a small amount of operators pushing themselves in this market targeting few product verticles, this makes it a great place to get aligned ahead of any regulation that would open this market further. Let’s look at the drop in brand search volume for one major European operator in 2010, following the change in legislation. Figure 2 shows relative search volume in Google.fr for ‘Unibet’ as a brand search query. There is an opportunity here if you’re prepared to get positioned and hold out for regulatory change. Legislation aside,
UK, Germany, Greece and Spain. This time we’re going to focus on France, Italy and the Netherlands. I think it’s important to state right now that my area of expertise doesn’t extent to iGaming regulation and regional law. My area of expertise is UK and international iGaming natural search. This expertise will assess the opportunities in these three markets which may influence your affiliate strategy and help you avoid obvious and sometimes costly mistakes.
France Last month, when we looked at the relative search volume for the major product categories, we used the single keyword translations of the major product areas ‘betting’, ‘bingo’, ‘casino’ and ‘poker’. For this issue’s analysis, we’re going to add the respective language equivalent to ‘online’. The reason for this is simply that the French word for ‘betting’ is ‘paris’. Obviously, this would
there’s a lot of interest in France for poker, which enjoys more than twice the search volume of casino, with betting coming in at half the volume of casino and a token volume available on bingo. Given the value of casino players and the volumes available for poker, I would be inclined to recommend targeting poker and casino in France (see Figure 3). Fig 3 FRANCE KEYWORD
GLOBAL MONTHLY SEARCHES
LOCAL MONTHLY SEARCHES
parier en ligne
49500
49500
bingo en ligne
8100
5400
casino en ligne
110000
90500
poker en ligne
246000
201000
Before getting involved in this market, there are a few things you should know about SEO in the French language.
France Fig 1
400000 300000
Fig 2
200000
100
100000
80
0
Ne th er la nd s
40
Ita ly
Fr an ce
60
20 0 Jan10
Feb10
Mar10
Apr10
May10
Jun10
Jul10
Aug10
Sep10
Oct10
Nov10
Dec10
100 80 60 40 20 0
2004
2005
2006
* The last value prior to the forecast is based on partial data and may change ** Future values are based exclusively on the extrapolation of past values
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2012
Firstly, the use of accents; Google distinguishes between results and rankings depending on whether an accent was used or not. As such, you really need to decide whether or not to use the accents in your SEO. Tip: Don’t use accents in your on-page or off-page optimisation. Unlike most other languages, which utilise diacritical characters such as Swedish, German or Spanish, French consumers don’t use accents when searching on Google. This is actually misreported in the Google AdWords Keyword Tool with local monthly search volumes appearing the same (suggesting that the accented version of a word is searched equally) but this is not true. This phenomenon led me to believe that Google.fr was ignoring the accent completely, however, when searching with and without the accent, there are slightly different results, which suggests Google is behaving normally and all is well (albeit being grossly inaccurate with it’s monthly search volume reporting, which one would argue is normal for Google).
Italy The Italian market is approximately 20 percent smaller than France. Competition is fierce, and there are many affiliates
battling it out with operators, particularly for casino and poker products. Poker is king in Italy, although high player values provide a lucrative opportunity across all products. Popular sports markets include football, tennis, basketball, even ice hockey and volleyball. As always, don’t be fooled by the relatively low search volume on ‘scommesse online’, Italian for online betting (see Figure 4) as the traffic always comes in through long-tail queries. While bingo carries significantly larger search volume than it does in France, there’s still little activity or aggression in this market. As such, gaining a strong position in Google’s Italian index is relatively easy. Poker and casino are far more of a challenge. Many of the affiliates and operators I speak with have interests in these markets. As such, I’ll tell you straight: the competition is tough and only the well funded will survive. My advice is not to gamble your entire SEO budget on Italian poker or casino. As a scholar of Latin, I find the origins of language quite fascinating. The word ‘casino’ is, in fact, derived from the Latin word ‘casa’, ‘a house’. Italian is the closest living descendent of the Latin language and, historically, the Italian word ‘casino’ commonly referred to a house where dancing, drinking or gambling
would take place. The word once meant ‘summer house’ in Italian, although it’s dissemination through all romantic languages took the meaning of ‘a place of gambling’. It also means ‘brothel’. Given its diverse and colourful usage in Italian, you may want to take Google’s reported search volumes for the single keyword ‘casino’ with a pinch of salt. Latin etymology aside, it should be noted that the accent is often used in Italian in the following way: ‘casinò’, although, in practice, the accent is often ignored in Italian search queries. Note: The Italian language isn’t isolated to Italy. You may want to keep this in mind when choosing to language or region-target your website. Italian is also widely spoken in Switzerland, Canada, Brazil and the United States.
Fig 4
ITALIAN KEYWORD
GLOBAL MONTHLY SEARCHES
LOCAL MONTHLY SEARCHES
scommesse online
18100
18100
bingo online
450000
27100
online casino
1500000
74000
poker online
1830000
165000
Italy 100 80 60 40 20 0 2004 2005 2006 2007 * The last value prior to the forecast is based on partial data and may change ** Future values are based exclusively on the extrapolation of past values
2008
2009
2010
2011
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iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
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TRAFFIC
Netherlands Of the three markets we’ve covered in this issue, the Netherlands is probably the most appealing for affiliates. The relatively soft entry, and high player values make it quite an exciting opportunity. In the Netherlands, casino is king and quite considerably so, followed by poker and bingo. Once again, don’t be fooled by the search volumes for ‘Online Wedden’ – the long-tail of sport once again makes for an exciting opportunity. Note: football, tennis, cricket and rugby are all popular sports markets in the Netherlands. Fig 5 NETHERLANDS KEYWORD
GLOBAL MONTHLY SEARCHES
LOCAL MONTHLY SEARCHES
online wedden
6600
5400
online bingo
450000
9900
online casino
1500000
49500
online poker
1830000
40500
Dutch players are extremely high value and bingo is on the increase. Casino and slots phrases drive significant player values in the Netherlands, however, an evolved market has lead to some expensive link costs due to the larger operators having inflated the market value of text links in their race to dominance. The general feeling that the Dutch market is soft and lucrative has resulted in an influx of opportunistic affiliates and operators, and particularly around ‘casino’ and ‘slots’.
Benefits of the prolific use of English I’ve found that Google Chrome’s autotranslate feature coupled with the widespread use of English among Dutch webmasters makes it far easier to work link deals without the requirement for native Dutch speakers. That said, it’s always better to use native speakers if you have the option. The Dutch language takes its influences from English and German, being a descendent of the Germanic language with many words borrowed from English. So always check the local search volumes before picking your target keyword in Dutch. You’ll be surprised how often the English word is the most commonly used.
Just tweet the products and territories where you have affiliate websites, along with #BAClink and share the love. (Only your money sites, no artificially inflated PR or link farms. Let’s keep this pure!) Remember... ● Don’t let your quest for perfection get in the way of progress. ● If you see a Guru in the road, turn and run the other way. If you have any specific questions email me directly at paul@mediaskunkworks.com or follow me on http://twitter.com/paulreilly or stalk me on http://foursquare.com/user/ paulreilly All data charts courtesy of Google Insights.
Battlefield Summary and #BAClink hashtag There are a number of potential battles to be fought. You should always do your own careful due diligence before engaging in any campaign. Each of these countries carries its own opportunities and threats, so always play to your own strengths and your competitor’s weaknesses and form alliances where possible. Remember: collaboration is programmed into all living things on a cellular level. At the recent Barcelona Affiliate Conference, I launched the #BAClink hashtag as a way for affiliates to collaborate and reciprocate links. I strongly advise using this as a method for collaboration.
PAUL REILLY has worked in Search Marketing for over 13 years and has earned multiple awards and honours. Today, Paul is regarded as one of the UK’s most Influential SEOs, and is the first port of call for most iGaming brands. He is the founder of mediaskunkworks.com, a new generation service provider which has built its reputation on innovation and optimised methodologies which dissect the traditional agency model, replicating success, building world class, in-house teams and providing outsourced think tank and creative problem solving services.
Netherlands
100 80 60 40 20 0 2004
2005
2006
* The last value prior to the forecast is based on partial data and may change ** Future values are based exclusively on the extrapolation of past values
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traffic
How to Defend Against Black Hat Techniques Everybody is talking about Black Hat, but no one is talking about defending against it. Kay Schaefer, founder of KSOM.es, details some basic strategies and tactics used by ‘black hatters’ and, importantly, a selection of methods you can use to defend against it. Definition: Black Hat SEO Let’s start by defining what we mean when we refer to ‘Black Hat SEO’ or ‘Black Hat marketing’. According to Wikipedia, Black Hat marketing, “involves SEO activities that are against the norms of search engines. It is difficult for the search engine alone to distinguish when black hat SEO is applied.” The prominent search marketer, Stephan Spencer, accurately defined what we term the ‘black hatter’ in one of his articles on searchengineland.com. He offered: “The black hatter is the ultimate pragmatist. He doesn’t concern himself with the ethics of spamming. He sees Google for what it really is — a global corporation looking to maximize its profits and its return to shareholders. Google Inc. isn’t the government — their ‘guidelines’ are driven by profit motives not by ethics or by the rule of law.” For the remainder of the article, however, I want to work with my own definition of Black Hat which excludes illegal attacks on websites (which is another article in it’s own right). My definition of Black Hat SEO goes something like this: Black Hat SEO is the
use of techniques which are in violation of the guidelines laid down by search engines such as Google. SEO of this ilk is considered ‘Black Hat’ so long as no law is broken – this would be deemed a crime.
Black Hat strategies As you would imagine, Black Hat strategies differ from those deemed ‘White Hat’. Their focus is on manipulating the search engines rather than on playing within the rules. Short-term strategy Due to the fear of being caught, any Black Hat strategy is a short-term solution, given that at any time, the search engine can de-rank or de-index sites that have been manipulated by techniques that violate its guidelines. Therefore, the main goal is to get quick results to reach a positive ROI as soon as possible. Automation To achieve their goals as fast as possible, black hatters are using automated systems as one of their main strategies. The more
automated the process, the less work (and cost) involved for the black hatter. Obfuscation Hiding what you do means that you can live longer in the shadows. Tactics such as hiding the referrer and cloaking the lifetime of projects all assist in reaching positive ROI quickly and anonymously. Negative SEO: Google Bowling This is a sabotage tactic that not only involves the manipulation of the black hatter’s own website, but also their competitors’ by provoking search engines to lower their ranking.
Black Hat techniques Here are some examples of the techniques used by Black Hat SEOs to achieve their strategies: Building fully automated websites One example of ‘automation’ is the building up of websites with nearly no manual work. Imagine a tool where you merely add three keywords to cover the niche you want,
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and then the tool does the rest of the work for you, using: i. Scraping ii. Spinning iii. Automated website set-ups Using the keywords you’ve inputted, the tool looks up content on the Internet, spins the words to make them into non-duplicate content and, using a central tool, sets up a blog or html website that has information from all of your web properties. Aggressive link building By having multiple websites using the techniques described above, you have to build up links and, obviously, in an automated way. This is where blog comment, forum, bookmark, wiki and guestbook spamming could come to the fore. Both link sources – the owned websites and the spammed ones – could be used to rapidly build up links to competitors and ‘bowl’ them out of the search engine results pages. The so called ‘link hijacking’ could be used to rob links from competitors or to build up links for money websites that outrank the competition. Link hijacking is the act of building up a similar website: when domain.com is the original website, the hijacker will build domain.org and communicate to all websites linking to domain.com telling them that the website has been moved to domain.org. Cloaking To cover their tracks, black hatters often use techniques such as IP-cloaking and user-agent-cloaking. These techniques provide different content regardless of the user-agent or IP; for example, if the IP is from one of the Google bots, it will show different content to the crawler than it will to an IP of someone in the UK. All these techniques can have very negative effects on your website’s ranking. It can result in drops in traffic
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or ranking or, even worse, it can and often does incur penalties.
How to detect Black Hat attacks Now we have assessed the impact Black Hat SEO can have on the ranking of your websites, one thing you can do to detect it is to monitor your statistics: Google Alerts Set-up Google alerts for your brand and your domain; this way you can monitor if someone is talking about you on the web or linking to your site. This might help to find massive link building or content scraping issues. Link growth Use tools to monitor your link growth. There are several tools available: i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi.
Majestic SEO SeoMoz Open Site Explorer SISTRIX Searchmetrics Server log file checker Google Webmaster Tools
Each of these tools provides in-depth analysis of a certain amount of links. Using your server logs to find each new referrer who came to your website is a very good way to start. Ranking Monitoring your rankings and those of your competitors allows you to react to new entries and any sudden changes. Build up a history so that you will not be taken by surprise. Some tools that could help you in this regard include: i. Raven ii. Advanced Web Ranking iii. SISTRIX Traffic Monitoring your traffic statistics gives you a good indicator of what is happening to your website. Connecting this information
with your actual rankings is even more important – this way, you can see where exactly you are getting attacked. Tools that help monitor your traffic include: ●● Google Analytics ●● Server statistic tools like AWStats ●● Piwik
Defensive strategies against Black Hat Many defensive strategies are preventive measures. You have to do your homework first and have a good optimised website to make you less vulnerable to attack. If you are not an expert than hire one to check your website. Monitor and build up a history of your stats and the statistics of your industry and especially that of your competition. Being fully aware of any movements in your surroundings will minimise your reaction time. Build up trust to your website; if possible, build up a brand. This way, it is a lot more difficult to attack you on many levels. Ultimately, be better than the black hatter; learn from their actions and react quickly and appropriately. Use the Google spam reporting tool if you are really sure that websites are cheating their way to the SERPs, and get them kicked out as soon as possible so to minimise your losses.
Kay Schaefer is Founder of KSOM.es. Kay studied business administration and marketing before he settled on Internet marketing and SEO in 2004. His main specialty is improving a company’s search engine visibility using creative and unique link building strategies. His client portfolio includes companies in online gaming and other industries outside of gaming. In 2007, he started building his own SEO company and currently resides in Barcelona, Spain. http://en.ksom.es
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Maintaining Long-term Page Equity There are many situations where search terms have short-term value, but what do you do when that short-term value (STV) keyword is going to become valuable again in the future? High profile sports games are a perfect example of this; from the Super Bowl to ‘vendetta’ matches between teams, there are many circumstances when you want to make sure that you can profit from a keyword time and time again. It’s easy to fall into the trap of having to work for these kinds of rankings every time they become popular, and without the proper planning and forethought applied to your site and page structure, you will have to continually work for them. However, the solution is within reach, and will not only help you to maximise your rankings on these keywords when they’re at their most profitable, but will also help you to profit from them for the longest possible period, and support your SEO efforts in other areas.
Evergreen page naming conventions In a way, we are talking about the evergreen tree… it keeps its colour for life. The strategy of using evergreen URL structures is not new, but is significantly overlooked. The keywords contained within the URL do marginally help with SEO, but not as much as most would think. It’s one of those visual items you see when checking the SERPs to see who is ranking and who isn’t. Let’s take the NFL Super Bowl as an example: there is one every year, but most SEOs will design the URL to be: /superbowlXXXI/ or /superbowl2012/ This is done because they want to capture that date or number as part of the SEO strategy. It does help some (I won’t tell you it doesn’t) but it’s not a long-term strategy at all. You need to think about next year and the year after that – not later. A better example would be: /superbowl/
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Yes, it’s really that simple. This way, as you are building equity to the page/section, it has longevity and you don’t have to redirect to try and recover it. To optimise for that year or number, use it within the <title> and heading tags within the content of the page. Once the event is over, immediately move to the next year or number and start optimising for it right away. If you think about it… no brainer! The easiest change to make for maintaining your long-term page equity is to ensure that you use a single page for each STV keyword. So, your Super Bowl page would always be at the same location, renewing content as it becomes pertinent. Duplicate the page for the 2011 Super Bowl, for instance, and re-upload it to / Superbowl2011/ and update the content on your main Super Bowl page to start the run up to Super Bowl 2012. Using ‘evergreen’ URL structures for repeat events is the better long-term strategy.
On-page elements to improve date-based searches While your evergreen page will help you to maintain page equity year after year and to create a page that ranks well for STV keywords and their derivatives long-term, there is no denying that the argument for date-based keywords remains. People do search for ‘Superbowl 2012’ as soon as the 2011 Super Bowl finishes, and at the same time, they’re also still searching for 2011 results; so how do you manage the switch and make sure you’re sending people to the right place? Again, the answer is very simple. Let’s say your main Super Bowl page is at /superbowl and it’s the day after the 2011 Super Bowl. You’ll need to update that page to reflect the results, and comment on the game. At this point, however, you’ll also need to start including some content about the 2012 event on its page, even if it’s just to say ‘watch
this space’. As the discussion around the 2011 game starts to quieten down, move the 2011 content to a /superbowl2011 page. Link it from your main Super Bowl page and start targeting that page to content for 2012. The relevancy for the date-based terms on the page is going to come from the content on the page, not the page name. This approach also allows you to create banks of well linked, well architected themes and content sections that, over time, will make your Super Bowl page become a ‘home page’ for a full bank of information, creating content that will be linked to and visited time and time again. This same strategy can be applied to many situations, not only in sportsbook (team and player match ups and any regular event), but also to casino and poker (it works for regular tournaments, star players and specific news categories). It also provides a long-term content creation strategy that will help you to build up content steadily over time. Create evergreen pages for events when you would normally start creating them for that specific time – create a back catalogue of previous content and, suddenly, you have a large content themed section of your site at almost no extra work.
Sarah Carling is Director of Search Services at ObsidianEdge. Sarah has been creating and implementing integrated SEO and PPC strategies for some of the most competitive industries, including finance, travel and gaming for over seven years. She was also an early adopter of social media, and has been speaking on and training businesses in its use for over five years.
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TRAFFIC
IF SOCIAL MEDIA ACQUISITION HAS BEEN A WASTE OF TIME, THEN WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE?
Nick Garner returns to deliver part two of his insight into the far reaching implications of Google’s market research on the ‘Zero Moment of Truth’. FIRST OF ALL, to recap from my previous article, there is now something called the ‘Zero Moment of Truth’ (ZMOT) that sits as the second step in our buying cycle: Step 1: Stimulus. Step 2: Research (ZMOT). Step 3: Decision time on purchasing. Step 4: Evaluation and sharing of opinion. This buying step has emerged largely because users can easily feed back their views online from where Google can make this information available to other users interested in making a purchasing decision about a product or service. The sorts of phrase themes used to find information are: ●● Compare: is ‘A’ better than ‘B’? ●● Question: what do others say? ●● Cross Check: is there a consistent opinion? So, what about the state of ZMOT in iGaming?
Operators Ultimately, ZMOT is stimulated by individuals feeding back their experiences onto the Internet. However, because of the way marketing money is designated – i.e. if it’s track-able, gives positive ROI and is fairly easy to execute – ZMOT has been largely left out of the marketing equation. As it happens, with some lateral thinking
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ZMOT is very track-able and easy to execute. There is also the idea that gamblers won’t generally give good feedback in any event because, statistically, they will lose. In my experience with this, gamblers hope they will win, but accept they will more likely lose. So when they rate an operator, it’s going to be on customer service, site efficiency and being responsible operators.
Affiliates Affiliates are the ‘commission-only salesmen’ of the Internet and in iGaming, operators depend heavily upon them. When it comes to users finding information about online gambling, they will often use search terms such as ‘best free bet’, ‘roulette comparison’ and ‘casino reviews’. As readers of this magazine are all too aware, affiliates are prominent in keywords such as these and will typically promote the top paying operator with the biggest conversion rate. Users don’t know this, so they will misguidedly trust what affiliates promote.
What can an operator do about ZMOT? As mentioned before, marketing money gets assigned to areas where there is good accountability and return on investment. Assuming a user refers to roughly ten
sources of information before moving on to the ‘checkout’, it’s going to be very hard to track all of these sources. However, when you analyse the relative importance of these reference points, it turns out that natural search is just about the most crucial of all because it’s the point from which users ‘jump’. Google and many third-party review sites have made this information usable which is why it’s becoming such a powerful marketing territory. The content that users care about most is review content, which can probably sit on a site owned by you or your own brand site and, therefore, be tracked. The rest of the business planning process is then similar to building an SEO campaign with CRM elements. So to get a project underway, I suggest these steps: ●● Make sure the business recognises this ZMOT stage in the buying process. ●● Give someone responsibility for ZMOT. ●● Pitch ZMOT-spend against a combination of: i. SEO because you are aiming to rank on ‘hot’ phrases. ii. Social media spend since this partially about the ‘social ecosystem’ that actually has a clear ROI. iii. CRM, because you will need to work with them to contact existing users to get their feedback.
Assuming there is someone with the right skills in charge, its time to get to work. Remember, if your brand has failed its customers, then you should fix those issues before trying to influence ZMOT. In saying all of that, these ideas may help you get started: ●● If users seek out information through a search engine, you can promote the good feedback around your brand phrases and, if possible, around ‘generic review phrases’. ●● If users ask their peers and family about iGaming operators i.e., “who should I set up a betting account with?” make sure you are easy to talk about and recommend. This means constantly emphasising your unique selling points with your existing customers and having a proper, easy to use help site. ●● If users visit affiliate comparison/review sites, apart from paying affiliates more money, make it easier for affiliates to express why you are worth joining. Operators rely heavily on banners that users hate and affiliates’ limited copy writing skills. ●● If users go to your site for background information, make it easy for them. Build a help site with real and useful information on it. Remember, they aren’t necessarily interested in a huge sign-up bonus. If they were, then why do about half of all new customers fail to go through normal marketing channels? ●● Go on a big online PR push. Make it easy to be talked about. Affiliates will use this material and, importantly, so will other non-affiliate sites if you encourage them. Make sure this is the fuel for positive reviews and not recycling of news. ●● If users go to an odds comparison site (our industry’s version of a shopping comparison site) you compete there on price, but bear in mind that lots of users are not that price sensitive; if they were, offline bookies would no longer exist. So, if you are good on price and strong on other aspects then you will be competitive here. ●● If users read comments following an online article/opinion piece, bear in mind there are very few places online where you can get useful and genuine user generated content. But you have existing customers who are happy with you – go and get their feedback and use it in a structured way as social proof.
Make sure users can give their feedback and ‘votes’ for your brand and that it’s visible. This is a complex area, but now that Google is taking on Facebook, there is an emergence of the ‘social vote’, both within Facebook to help it become a commercial ‘engine’ and across the Internet as a whole. As with any kind of ‘I like’ vote, if it’s good, it will affect your brand and ZMOT. Most importantly, get a body of positive reviews that acts as clear ‘social proof’ that you are the operator worth joining. Then get this ranked on phrases where users ‘compare’, ‘question’ and ‘cross check’. As an aside, remember we spoke about placing someone to be in charge of ZMOT? Well, now you know what they will do. If I were hiring this person, I would look for an SEO person who understands social media and CRM and has an understanding of ‘online persuasion’.
What affiliates can do around ZMOT As we know, you make your money by being more efficient in your marketing than operators. You have the benefit of little accountability. In other words, you are not bound by the terms of a gaming licence and you don’t need a qualification to offer buying advice, as it is with financial services. Strictly speaking, you should not say ‘operator X’ is better then operator Y, if one operator pays more than another, but who is to stop this? One constraint you have is a lack of sophisticated financial attribution for conversions. This is highlighted if you are not the last one to drop the tracking cookie for a provider; i.e. if user visits review site ‘A’ and then review site ‘B’ and user converts on site ‘B’, then site ‘B’ gets the commission because, typically, operators pay out on the last point of contact before a conversion. Obviously, this doesn’t incentivise you to do anything other than go for the conversion as soon as possible. You can argue you are the one who massively affects ZMOT because you are all over the web when comparisons are made between one operator and another, so: ●● Get more material from the operators to help you give more in-depth information about them. This allows you to answer the ZMOT questions before a user gets to an operator site. ●● Start building up a bank of social proof on your site. Users respond to this, especially when it’s coherent and
trustworthy. It’s a massive asset – Amazon proves that in the extreme. ●● You can do comparison reviews and I suspect you have been doing so for a long time, but remember that users are getting smarter when it comes to filtering useful information, so put a renewed effort into making your content plausible and trustworthy. You will be rewarded in conversions. ●● Beat the operators to it. Rank your site for reviews about them on their brand phrase... we all know brand phrases convert best, so third-party feedback on a brand phrase will do very well.
Conclusion The research cycle users go through before making a purchasing decision is not new, although because it’s difficult to track, it’s been severely underfunded as a marketing ‘specialisation’. Now we have some proof and tangible ideas to work with, we can actively start influencing the ZMOT process. ZMOT is as overlooked as it is underfunded. This is a huge opportunity for the enlightened. On a personal note, understanding ZMOT allows me to tie the power of SEO, online PR and social media together. It answers my questions around what to do with the lack of conversion in social media and the continually growing competitiveness in SEO, and it gives extra urgency to online PR. You can download the full ZMOT research report from: http://google-zmot.appspot.com/ google-zmot.pdf If you would like to view the PowerPoint presentation accompanying this article, or have any specific questions around ZMOT, SEO or online PR, please email me directly on nick.garner@unibet.com or nick@nickgarner.co.uk.
Nick Garner is head of search for Unibet and has worked in online marketing for 12 years. Regarded as one of the most successful SEOs in iGaming, he is now turning his attentions to online PR, which he believes is key to ZMOT and future prominence in search engines. You can visit his blog on www.nickgarner.co.uk
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The Webmaster Android App Guide 2011 Affiliate coach and iGB Affiliate columnist, John Wright, examines some of the best and most useful business-related Android applications for webmasters and affiliates.
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This article attempts to list the
Zinio
best webmaster apps for Android phones and tablets. These apps are ‘must haves’ for anyone in online marketing, the affiliate business or even if you are just a webmaster. In addition, some of these apps are great for general productivity and helping you get the most out of your day.
Zinio helps you to find all of your favourite magazines in one place. Zinio is available for Android and iPhone/iPad. You can select magazines from various categories: Top Sellers, Art, Automotive, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Men, News, Science & Tech, Sports and Travel.
Pulse
WordPress
This application organises all sorts of websites into a viewing system. You can scroll up and down to switch between different website feeds or left to right to view individual articles within a website. With Pulse, you can add your world news sources like BBC and CNN, as well as choosing popular magazines for any topic: cooking, fashion, mobile marketing, tech news, world news, design, entertainment, gaming, music and social media. You can also add-in custom feeds by either copying the feed URL or using the search feature (for example, if you wanted to add ‘gaffg’ just search for gaffg and select the http://gaffg.com/feed. You can do the same for other news sources like http://calvinayre.com/feed). If you are serious about marketing, you can even add other feeds such as SEO blog, SEOMOZ, conversion room, conversion rate improvement and more.
WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) so it only makes sense to give webmasters the ability to blog and add pages with a mobile app.
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tagging, saved searches, recent hashtags, reply history, retweet, local trends, tweet filtering and more.
Adobe Reader As the name implies, this program lets you view PDF files on your Android phone or tablet. Many documents exist as PDFs and if someone emails you a file that you need to get from your phone, it would help to have an application like this to be able to do more with your phone.
Astrid Task
TweetDeck is a dynamic way of using Twitter where you can add multiple Twitter accounts and also add in Facebook, Foursquare and Buzz. This program will also make it easier for you to scan DMs and to notify you when someone has tweeted you or your website.
Astrid Task is a very popular download for Android and iPhone. It is a task management program that helps you with your ‘to do’ lists. Just add a task and you can set the priorities and adjust the dates. You can adjust the deadlines, add tags, enter notes, set notifications, create a calendar event and even add more features to interact with other programs.
twicca
Remember The Milk
twicca is another popular alternative to the regular Twitter app. The regular Twitter app has very basic features and this is why webmasters prefer more dynamic programs and applications. twicca makes it easier and has the following features: post photos/ videos via yfrog, URL shortening, geo
This app and website acts similar to Astrid Task. You only need one of these programs but test them to see which one you like better and which one you like for add-ons with other programs. You can create a new task, assign a date and add notes to your task. You can add it to a list and also assign the priority.
TweetDeck
Evernote
Box
This has become a must-have app as it does many things from organising your notes, recording your ideas and taking pictures to adding notes and creating ‘to do’ lists. This is one of the most downloaded Android Apps on the market.
Formerly known as just box.net, Box works similar to Dropbox in that it offers cloud storage. Box is typically known to be geared more towards businesses while Dropbox is better suited for personal use. Either way, you can use both of these programs to access important files on your mobile phones or tablets.
Kindle Amazon has become one of the top sellers of books and has produced its own Kindle device which is a best selling product that allows users to download books rather than having to buy them and wait for them to be shipped or have to worry if they are in stock. The Kindle app is available on Android, iPhone, iPad and Blackberry so you can take your books with you everywhere you go.
World Newspapers At the time of writing this article, this app has over 100,000 downloads. You can get access to over 6,000 newspapers and magazines from around the world. You can browse by country, most popular, web news, magazines, videos or add an RSS feed. The most popular magazines in the system are Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Daily Times, Financial Times and Newsday.
K-9 Mail is an open source email client offering all sorts of integration for your business emails. K-9 supports POP3, IMAP and Exchange 2003 & 2007. It is listed as having over one million downloads in the android market.
CamScanner
This app allows you to scan important articles and save them as a PDF file. You can even scan receipts, store them in your preferred file format and save to your device or upload with Box, Dropbox or Google Docs.
This app does almost the same thing as Viber and both are equally popular with over ten million downloads. This app works for Android, BlackBerry, iPhone and Nokia phones. It uses your 3G or Wi-Fi to message your friends. This program is best for chatting or sending images and voicemails.
K-9 Mail
Bump Bump has over ten million downloads with over 50,000 reviews. Bump allows you to share contacts, photos, apps and other files. As the name implies, just hold your phones and bump fists. A great app for exchanging contact information at conferences.
How did this app make the list and how could it pertain to webmasters? Well if you have cameras in your house it is a good way to monitor that things are ok. If you are a webmaster with kids then you might be able to find more inventive uses for this program.
This app lets you store and display various PowerPoint slides on your phone. The formats include PPT, PPS, PPTX and ODP for OpenOffice.org. The application can also connect to any Windows device that is also running Scattershow and connects via Wi-Fi.
This app lets you share your pictures and videos to a number of sources all at once, rather than having to do it several times. You can add them to Facebook, Flickr, Shutterfly, PhotoBucket, SmugMug, Gallery and Picasa. This is great for webmasters that use pictures and want to push them to their social media sites.
Dropbox At the moment, you get 2GB of free cloud storage with Dropbox. This program works on most computers and nearly all mobile devices such as Android and iPhone/iPad. This tool is perfect for users with multiple computers or even better, if you are working with multiple clients.
Advanced Task Killer It is nice to be able to run multiple apps at the same time but if you leave them constantly, it will drain your battery and slow down your phone. Use this basic app to zap the apps you don’t need open.
Scatterslides
PicPush IP Cam Viewer
Viber Viber is a great app if you have contacts in different countries around the world. Viber works similar to Skype but is perfect for mobile phones. As long as your friends have Viber on their Android or iPhone, you can send free text messages and make free calls using your local data network. Viber is very popular despite having some questionable terms and conditions about sharing your data. If you are concerned about privacy or having your data sold, maybe you want to try the next app.
Skitch This app was created by the Evernote Corporation and is a basic app that lets you write over images and edit them. You can take personal pictures and add in your own drawings and text. This could also make for a useful business application if you need to explain some features of a picture or diagram.
still have practical purposes especially if you are trying to share business related videos or presentations.
QQPlayer This app lets you play almost any video format that you can think of, so you no longer need to have video files formatted for another source just to be able to view them. Although this app is better suited towards wasting time and watching videos, it can
Google Docs Google Docs has improved over the years and is still a useful cloud storage program that can give you access to important word and excel documents wherever you go. Now, you can have them on your phone and make any necessary changes you want on-the-go.
Google Goggles This is Google’s image recognition technology in an app. Just take a picture or scan using Google Goggles and you will get results based on the image whether you are scanning a product, some famous landmark or tourist destination, art, store signs and other logos. Google can even translate and for conferences, you can use it to scan business cards to pull the data and import into your contacts.
Google Translate This is a very useful app when travelling to conferences. This translator service
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and app has one of the most comprehensive lists of languages and it operates a high level of accuracy compared to other translation services.
expensive ones. However, it is worth it if you are a webmaster or online marketer. You can edit word documents, excel spreadsheets, create PDFs and read and edit PowerPoint presentations.
QR Droid
people who have downloaded this app will probably use it to waste time at the grocery store but it can have many purposes for business owners. This app can also scan Data Matrix and QR Codes that contain URLs and contact information.
This app lets you use your camera to scan a QR code. QR codes can give you information for a business card or connect you to a video if you are browsing a magazine, for example. This app has over five million downloads and it shouldn’t take long to double that.
Barnacle Wifi Tether This app makes it easier for you to turn your 3G phone into a portable Wi-Fi hotspot. Some Android phones already have this feature built into their phone but if you don’t have it or can’t figure out how to set it up, you can always download Barnacle.
Astro File Manager
Pingdom
Layar
Some people are just plain addicted to Facebook while other people, such as online marketers, use this as a tool to make money or for generating more business contacts. This is one of the more popular apps and if you can’t get enough social media, you can try Google+.
If you have a website then you absolutely need to have Pingdom or a similar program that helps to monitor your website and sends you notifications when your server goes down. You can always view the current status of all your websites and get the alerts you need if your site appears offline.
Google+
Trillian
This is the new social media site from Google and is aiming to be the main competitor to Facebook. In a short period of time, Google+ has quickly surpassed 20 million users. It has a cleaner interface and uses ‘social circles’ to organise your friends, family, business contacts or any other circle you want to create.
If you are a user of one or more of the following messaging services: MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk and Facebook chat, you can use Trillian to organise all of your chat programs rather than have applications for each service.
This app uses Augmented Reality (AR) technology and displays information around you based on the field of vision from your Smartphone. You can add layers which act like filters; for example, some of the popular layers are Panoramio, Tweeps Around (3D), and selected other categories such as Accommodation, Architecture and Buildings, Food and Drink, Wi-Fi hotspots and much more.
This program also has over ten million downloads and lets you manage your files (pictures, music, video, etc…) on your phone or tablet. There are many apps that do the same thing but you only need to pick one.
AndroZip File Manager This program also acts as a file manager but its most useful aspect is zipping and unzipping files. With over a million downloads it means this app is certainly well liked and has many uses.
Expense Manager LinkedIn LinkedIn has become an important business tool for professionals to list information about their business or their jobs and past experiences. For webmasters, it can be a great tool for finding other webmasters and people that work in similar fields.
This program has surpassed 500,000 downloads and has a high user rating in the market. This app helps you track expenses and income by the week, month and year and you can also organise these by categories, create multiple accounts, schedule payments and the coolest feature is taking pictures of your receipts.
Skype
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This desktop client provides access to your Windows machine while you are away travelling on business, or at a conference. This app is expensive but is worth it if you frequently need access to an important machine.
TeamViewer
Skype is starting to become the most popular messaging system, making others like Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, MSN Messenger, ICQ all appear obsolete. Skype lets you do many things for free, from texting, international phone calls, setting-up your own business line and even sharing your desktop screen with others if you want to make a live presentation/demo.
ProOnGo Expense Tracker
Documents To Go
Barcode Scanner
This is one of the top selling apps on the market and also one of the more
This app lets you scan barcodes to get prices and reviews. Most of the ten million
iGB Affiliate October/NOVEMBER 2011
Remote Desktop Client
Like Expense Manager, this app lets you scan receipts and turn them into expense reports automatically. You can also sync this program to QuickBooks. At present, this program has over 50,000 downloads so it is not as popular but it is worth trying out a few programs to see which works better for your personal or business needs.
This program is probably better than the one above but at least you should know your options. This app is free and gives you access to Windows, Mac and Linux computers. This app has over 500,000 downloads and is certainly trending.
Read It Later This app has a free and paid version with both receiving many downloads. You can save web pages to read later – a good tool for doing research and compiling information.
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INSIGHT
Russian SEO Tips and Gaming Trends Having examined the Russian market in the previous issue of iGB Affiliate, Affiliate Marketing Consultant, Karolina Filip, further explores the search environment for gaming in the complex Russian market. In following on from the themes explored in the last issue, it seemed prudent to further pursue our understanding of Russia’s search market in relation to gaming by looking at some key tips and pointers for SEO. According to the facts we highlighted previously, when exploring a complex market such as Russia, it is very important to consider its specifics, thoroughly understand the technology development and Internet penetration rates along with an appreciation of the cultural and linguistic aspects that heavily influence the environment within its social media channels. These are just some of the many trends and tendencies one would need to consider when assessing one’s entry into Eastern European’s biggest marketplace. Here, we will talk about the popular search engines and iGaming products which appeal to the Russian audience.
Russian search engines and the specifics of indexing It is not a sensational discovery to learn that Yandex.ru is the most popular search engine amongst Russia’s web users (Figure 1). According to a number of leading sources, its share is around 62 percent with the remainder split between the likes of Search Engines Share in Russia (Fig 1) Rambler, 2% Mail.ru, 1% Google, 35%
Yandex, 62%
Google, Rambler and Mail.ru. Nevertheless, latest statistics indicate that Yandex’s dominance of the market is being challenged by Google, as the search giant continues to claim a higher percentage of the Russian audience. Rambler’s position
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(the search engine has recently resigned itself to its two percent share, being so far adrift of its main competitors) is about to be leapfrogged by the Mail.ru free email service which currently holds the remaining one percent of the top search engines. Indeed, the significantly reduced popularity of Rambler provided the stimulus for its holding company to enter into a recent partnership with Yandex. According to Lenta.ru, Rambler Media Group’s official publication, Yandex search will be used in Rambler.ru as base technology; the latter is planning to enrich with its own services such as news, weather, cinema schedule, website rating, and more. While Yandex is maintaining its leading position, webmasters should adapt their site codes and practices to ensure higher exposure amongst the local competition in the Russian marketplace.
Yandex ranking specifics and link building As with most search engines, Yandex ranking is based on the number of relevant external and internal links to the web resources. Link quality is defined by the ranking of the external linking source which, thematically, should be as close as possible to the linking website. This is a very important factor webmasters should consider when linking to thirdparty resources. Below are some key points worth considering when aiming to increase your Yandex ranking: ●●Share or outsource interesting website content to other high ranking, thematically similar websites. ●●A less effective but common practice is participating in the link exchange networks, particularly suitable for rookies. ●●Link buying using specific link exchange sources is an additional way of helping a website’s Yandex ranking and increased website traffic. It’s generally a pay-for service with monthly repayments made to the third-party source placing one’s website links.
●●An
important thing which separates Yandex from Google is that Yandex doesn’t index forums, free advertising boards, guest books, e-newspapers or social networks, thus, linking from any of the above sources will not positively impact ranking in Yandex. ●●Yandex ignores links on free-hosted and third-level domain websites; linking from websites not indexed by Yandex is also ineffective. ●●The more external links placed on a page along with your link, the less weight this link carries with the indexing search engines. The presence of a single link on a website page significantly increases its weight during indexing. ●●Last but not least, any type of link exchange has to be made with Russian resources as Yandex does not account for links from foreign websites. Conversely, link building with foreign resources may result in increased rankings in global search engines.
Gaming trends and keywords appealing to the Russian audience Each country’s gaming market has its specifics and trends, particularly when it comes to the keywords people use to search for information. A detailed analysis of the user behaviour of Russian gaming consumers will help you to identify the keywords to target. According to Yandex statistics, poker is the most searched for gaming product with over 570,000 monthly searches. Online poker is extremely popular in Russia, having briefly been classified as a sport before the government rescinded the classification. It became popular in 1998, when the first poker website, Planet Poker, was launched. The next year, its first competitor appeared on the market with the opening of Paradise Poker. Poker’s popularity and the relatively low market competition was soon picked up by foreign poker sites, with PokerStars entering the Russian market in 2001 followed by PartyPoker in 2003.
Fast forward to the present day and, needless to say, that targeting the keyword ‘poker’ (Cyrillic spelling: ‘Покер’) is extremely hard given its overwhelming high monthly search volume.
with monthly search volumes nearing the 350,000 mark. This game’s historical popularity across Russia has transferred to the online space, and is now enjoyed by a new generation of gaming enthusiasts.
Gaming Product Search Interest in Russia (Fig 2)
600000 500000 400000 300000 100000 0
Poker Sportsbook Roulette
Casino
As evident from Figure 2, sportsbook (searched as ‘букмекерская контора’) is the second most popular keyword with over 350,000 monthly searches. This product’s popularity is growing day-by-day with more and more Russian users opting for online betting, particularly due to the recent legislation restricting all Russian landbased gaming to four remote zones. Figure 2 also indicates that roulette, currently placed third, is nearly as popular as sportsbook
Bingo
Closing the top four list is casino, with around 200,000 monthly searches. Casino became particularly popular online after the liquidation of the land-based networks of gaming outlets. This is a great opportunity for the online casino product particularly as broadband adoption continues to spread across the country. It’s apparent from Figure 2 that online bingo is not yet commonly practised in Russia. However, the product could see
good growth potential if it is integrated with online casino or skill games offerings.
Summary For the operators exploring Russia’s complex marketplace, it’s very important to learn its specifics, regional culture and to have an in-depth understanding of the environment to ensure any product offering guarantees ROI. Webmasters willing to exploit Eastern Europe’s biggest market must adopt the best practices and key skills to optimise their businesses for Russia’s key search engines, paying particular attention to the search principles, specifics and trends. In return, this will ensure the target audience is reached.
Karolina Filip is an affiliate marketing consultant with over five years experience of the iGaming industry. For more information, contact Karolina on k.filip22@yahoo.com.
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INSIGHT
STACKING THE DECK Tips for increasing online conversions. MARKETERS CAN BE a greedy breed. Eager to convert website visitors into paying players, they often use pushy tactics online that would never be tolerated in a bricks and mortar environment. Does your website require a registration before someone can make a purchase? Do you ask for a lot of personal information that isn’t necessary for the transaction? All of these very common tactics are killing your conversion rate. If you’re having trouble getting your visitors to complete a transaction online, read on. Whether your conversion action is a game download, subscription programme or other transaction, the key to getting your visitors to convert involves making a clear, predictable and easy path for them to transact with you. Here are some techniques to help you optimise your transaction process and forms to minimise anxiety, reduce abandonment and, ultimately, increase conversions.
Don’t force registration If you want to really annoy your visitors, particularly those who are ready to act on
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your offer, one of the surest ways is to force them to register before being able to transact with you. Marketers and website owners commonly implement registration because they view it as a service to their visitors. Registration may streamline future transactions by storing visitor preferences, payment methods and other information in an account so that repeat customers don’t have to re-enter the data, but forcing registration can be a major conversion killer, as many web users find it to be a nuisance (at best) or overly intrusive (at worst). If your site currently requires new customer registration before a visitor can proceed to the transaction, remove it. If you want to offer users the option of registration, move the offer to the end of the checkout process. At that stage, visitors have significantly more invested in the transaction. They are less likely to abandon the process and more likely to supply the requested additional information, particularly if you let them know the benefits of registration.
Resist the urge to up-sell at the last minute Another common tactic during the transaction is to introduce last-minute up-sells, cross-sells or special offers. This is fine if it is handled before the checkout step (for example, by displaying added benefits that come with higher membership levels), however, during the checkout process such tactics should be carefully reconsidered. Usually, there is a trade off between higher value per transaction and lower overall conversion rates. The method by which a secondary offer is presented greatly affects its potential impact. Efforts should be made to minimise disruption and surprise.
Remove the navigation One of the keys to making the user experience easier is to remove choice and simplify the transaction process. An easy way to do this is to change the navigation information available on your form pages. The main menu that is used during the earlier stages of the decision process is no longer applicable during the action stage, and could serve as a distraction that
“ If your site currently requires new customer registration before a visitor can proceed to the transaction, remove it. If you want to offer users the option of registration, move the offer to the end of the checkout process where visitors have significantly more invested in the transaction.” causes visitors to leave your form and move backwards on your conversion path. Likewise, if your landing page is designed for a single conversion action, you should not use the navigation or page structure from your main website. You should remove the navigation completely, or limit it to specific information related to your conversion action. This is particularly true if you are paying for the traffic stream directly (via PPC or banner ad purchases). In such cases, I often recommend removing the navigation altogether. Sometimes, you may still want to have your logo link back to your main site but you should realise that this is a potential traffic leak, and that some people will wander off to your main site, never to return. If you feel that your main site contains content that is necessary for the conversion action, you should copy it onto the landing page (or a supporting page on your standalone micro site). Do not link off to the main site for such supporting information, as you run the risk of your visitors getting lost, distracted, or both.
Ruthlessly edit your forms A long and imposing form will turn many people away. Forms should be ruthlessly edited to remove extraneous fields that aren’t necessary for the transaction. The value of the incremental information gathered in a longer form will rarely outweigh the benefit of having many more people completing the process. The most important part of form creation is minimising the number and complexity of form input fields. Ask yourself: “is this information absolutely necessary to complete the current transaction?” Be sure you are only asking for information that you need at that moment. Resist the temptation to ask for information that may not be needed at all (‘How did you hear about us?’) or that can be collected later in the process (after you have established more trust with the visitor). If your form has fields labelled ‘Required’, take a look at all the remaining fields and consider removing them. Once you have removed all extraneous fields and are certain that you are asking for the bare minimum of information from your visitors, you can further streamline your forms with these techniques:
●●Clarify
the purpose of the form with a headline or description. Be sure it describes the benefit that the visitor will receive by completing the form. ●●Shorten form labels as much as possible. ●●Organise form fields into logical groups, and label each group with a category subhead. ●●Eliminate any strong horizontal separators in longer forms.
Don’t surprise the visitor If you have a visitor who is ready and willing to complete your form, the last thing you want to do is introduce any eleventh hour surprises that might erode trust or cause the visitor to re-think his or her interest in completing the transaction. Some examples of unwelcome surprises include: ●●Not warning people about the supporting information that they will need to have at hand in order to complete the transaction. ●●Not specifying all acceptable payment methods up-front. ●●Introducing pop-ups. ●●Making peripheral or unrelated special offers. ●●Including price increases, or extra terms and conditions. ●●Asking for information in a nonstandard or illogical order. ●●Using nonstandard or unclear text captions on your buttons. In order to ease anxiety and manage the expectations of your visitors, your website should always show the visitor’s progress during the transaction. If there are three steps in the sign-up process, let the visitor know how many steps remain. Better yet, use descriptive labels on a timeline at the top of the page, showing the visitor what action he or she is currently taking, and what actions are coming up. Most transactions have a final point-ofno-return. Usually, this involves clicking a button after filling out form information. It is critical to provide last-minute reassurances on the page where this point occurs. Final reassurances include: ●●A summary of the information that has been provided (services or membership plan ordered, personal information, billing method and price).
●●Terms
and conditions (the fine print). out exactly what will happen when the action is taken. ●●Validation and risk reducers (satisfaction guarantee or privacy and trust symbols). ●●Spelling
Final thoughts Convincing a visitor to take a desired conversion action is a major feat, but only half the battle. It only counts if they actually complete the process. The techniques outlined in this article will help improve the odds of your visitors completing the transaction. But keep in mind that even when your transaction process is optimised, you will still have some people who bail out. Some visitors may decide that they want to continue their search for alternatives. Others may need the approval of another person (such as a co-worker or spouse) or may not have the proper payment method or necessary supporting information to complete the transaction. Still, others may simply want to sleep on the decision before completing the transaction. But for all the rest, following these tips will make sure they stay focused and committed to their decision, all the way through to your confirmation page.
Tim Ash is the author of the bestselling book Landing Page Optimization, and CEO of SiteTuners, a landing page optimisation firm that offers conversion consulting, full-service guaranteedimprovement tests, and software tools to improve conversion rates. SiteTuners has worked with hundreds of clients, large and small, including Google, Facebook, American Express, CBS, Sony Music, Universal Studios, Verizon Wireless, Texas Instruments, and Coach. Tim is a highly-regarded presenter at industry conferences such as Search Engine Strategies, eMetrics, PPC Summit, Affiliate Summit, PubCon, Affiliate Conference, and LeadsCon and many others. He is also the founder and chairperson of Conversion Conference, the first conference focused on improving online conversions. Tim is a contributing columnist for numerous publications and host of the weekly Landing Page Optimization podcast on WebmasterRadio.fm.
iGB Affiliate October/NOVEMBER 2011
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INSIGHT
Social Media that Serves Your Brand And the argument continues… can social media drive converting traffic for online gaming? The answer is ‘yes’, even though the methods are different to conventional ways of driving traffic to online gaming sites. Clearly, no traffic will ever have the same value as organic SEO traffic where potential players have searched for keywords and phrases relating to online gaming – anyone who successfully finds something by specifically searching for it will go on to be the highest depositors with longer player lifetimes. That said, social media has two key elements that both need to be worked accordingly: mass and social interaction. There’s no denying that out of the 750 million people currently registered as Facebook users, one or two are destined to be interested in online gaming. However, Facebook being a comfort zone between people and their relationship to others, anyone marketing on the social platform has to completely understand what makes something go viral in this environment and how people are influenced by those within their personal networks. There are many statistics floating around the ‘webosphere’. All speak about the numbers regarding shared content, how valuable a ‘like’ is to a brand, how many people are beginning to transact within Facebook, the value of a real review and how customer service efforts from ‘fan’ pages are beneficial to brands. But, in short, it’s all about trust and comfort.
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In a recent poll carried out by the Science Museum in London, having access to Facebook came fifth in a list of things that people could not live without. This was ahead of flushing a toilet. I’m not sure if that’s a reflection on the popularity of Facebook or the British population, but it does show just how high people rank Facebook and what an important part of everyday life it has become.
But how to capture the right audience? Targeting via Facebook ads does have flexibility, but it’s very difficult to get into the right target groups with the right offering and a succinct message. Instead of the direct approach, gaming acquisition should be a two or even three pronged effort.
Fan capture The first is to capture fans. This can be achieved with relative ease depending on what you are offering people to become fans of. Sweepstakes and contests have already proved successful as an acquisition tool for brand fan pages. Along these lines, a gaming brand can create a method of engagement that would appeal to their target audience but is not a direct ‘buy now’ offering. It’s a subtler approach.
Social interaction Step two would be to begin social interaction. Put your brand in front of your fans, but don’t just pound them
with endless messages to deposit. Answer questions, introduce yourself and give your fans reasons to introduce themselves in return. In short, be social. Invite your existing customers to become fans and share their experiences. Word-of-mouth is really the crux of marketing on Facebook. Create a method to capture names and emails. Now that Facebook pages use iFrames, creating lead capture within your Facebook page that sends leads directly to your CRM system is not a complicated task (see me for details). Build an ‘off Facebook’ list in parallel to building your brand’s social presence. Have a complete social marketing strategy and understand the differences between traditional and social marketing. Understanding what makes people share some items and discard others will also help you to better understand what to present to the followers and fans of your brand on Facebook.
New era We are living in an era of recommendation and reviews. In a recent article on the Mashable website, the following stats were released in relation to businesses with a brand presence on Facebook: ●●56 percent of consumers said they are more likely to recommend a brand to a friend after becoming a fan on Facebook. ●●51 percent of consumers said they are more likely to buy a product since becoming a fan on Facebook.
●●78
percent of consumers who ‘like’ brands on Facebook said they ‘like’ fewer than ten brands.
The article continued to assert that it’s crucial, when sharing information with brand fans, to make the content compelling, the marketing messages subtle and not to release so many updates that it clogs a user’s newsfeed. Users are quick to ‘unlike’ a brand. The same survey reported that 81 percent of fans unlike the brand when they feel that they are being bombarded with overwhelming marketing messages. Facebook marketing agency, Social Code, has also released data regarding Facebook advertising. Over a ten month period, the agency analysed four million pieces of data collated from 50 million client companies across a spectrum of industries. The data released offers the following insight: ●●Facebook users over the age of 50 are 28.2 percent more likely to click an advertisement than 18 to 29 yearold users. ●●Women aged 50 and older are even more likely to click advertisements, at a rate of
31.2 percent higher than young adults. gap between the rate at which men aged 50 or older click advertisements is much narrower than women, representing only a 16 percent difference from their younger counterparts. ●●Older Facebook users are nine percent less likely to click the ‘like’ button on an advertisement. ●●Overall, men are 2.2 percent more likely to click ‘like’ than women. ●●The ‘like’ rate for men over the age of 50 is 11 percent lower than younger males, and nine percent lower than people from all age groups. ●●The
It’s important to remember that these figures are based on paid advertising and that paid advertising on Facebook is only 50 percent of the way to market a brand properly when utilising social interactions. For a truly successful campaign, offer advice, tips, information, promotions, even jokes that would encourage your brand followers to share, retweet and comment. The first stage in all of this is getting people to ‘like’ your brand. Another way of doing this, even away from the Facebook
environment, is adding social plug-ins to your site. Interact with your existing users directly from your gaming software and website. There are many social plug-ins that can be added directly to your existing offering. People can ‘like’ your brand, comment and interact using a choice of different plug-ins. There are even statistics available to measure these interactions using the Facebook open graph code which is universally available.
MICHAEL KATZ is CEO and founder of Sociarati Media. A full service digital marketing agency specializing in social media strategy and campaign planning across every online vertical. Michael is also consults for Zibaba in a business development capacity. Zibaba is a Facebook preferred development company which has developed and launched a full featured f-Commerce solution for retailers and lead capture professional services. Michael can be contacted at Michael@sociaratimedia.com.
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RESOURCE MANAGEMENT How to manage your operators, merchants and network reports efficiently. IT ALL STARTED just over a year ago with an innocent question to our new client on a Monday morning. It was our first affiliate client as, previously, we had only offered operators/merchants our consultative services. However, when working with operators/merchants we realised that there were tremendous opportunities in the operator/affiliate relationships that were going unrealised. We started the way we always did, with one simple question. That day, the question was: “how were your weekend numbers?” The response was not what we had expected. Our client, a normally loquacious, gregarious and healthy complexioned individual, went silent, a light shade of green and stuttered as he asked us to repeat our question. A hush descended over the room, as the eight or ten employees he had around him in his open plan office, busied themselves with logging on and looking at reams of paper. When his answer started with, “Well you have to realise…” we knew that we had stumbled on a far more important problem than the one we had been hired to solve. To give you some context, this was a very successful gaming affiliate that, over the years, had become a leading provider of traffic to operators. They managed content from multiple sources and drove customer traffic to multiple merchants or operators direct as well as through networks. We had come on board in our usual manner, looking at how we could improve their bottom line by examining how traffic was managed, how customers were acquired and how the business was structured. This all went out of the proverbial window that Monday morning. As the day progressed, we understood why a successful Internet affiliate business like his needed the amount of staff he had. To put it simply, he had multiple merchant accounts and belonged to
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several networks. Like his peers, he was sending traffic to multiple sources from multiple sources. Our mantra has always been to ‘know thy customer’, but for an affiliate, customer knowledge is fleeting: we pass on customers we acquire to our operators and merchants in return for our revenues. Hence, for affiliates, customers are commoditised and lumped into a single term: traffic. However, this was not the primary issue here. What we quickly realised was that as an affiliate business, traffic was flowing thick and fast from the affiliate’s sources (advertising, Google, etc) and briskly through to operators and merchants. At one end, there were analytics based on paid-for or organic media, content to manage, site analytics such as Google analytics to review, tracking links to monitor and optimise. On the other hand, were myriad sales reports sitting on different operators and network platforms, tracking conversion and sales. This could all be managed but not daily, and that was the problem. It was difficult to perform any meaningful analysis of the overall traffic stream, behaviour on the affiliate site and customer revenue as data needed to be pulled in from a multitude of sources. Time was of the essence, if we were to make a difference here. Our affiliate, with his multiple data streams, had a full-time person solely for the purpose of retrieving operator stats from each individual operator. As the process of loggingin to operators’ affiliate systems was cumbersome and manual, most operators were only checked twice weekly. This meant that no detailed breakdown could be sought if the overall numbers were down. You could check campaign-by-campaign and, at best, get a top-line feel for revenues, but there were no optimisation possibilities on a daily basis. For an online business, numbers and managing the flow of traffic
is at the heart of what we do, so this situation had to be reversed. Also, it wasn’t very efficient to employ a human being who, with the best will in the world, could still be prone to errors. The opportunity was to design a platform to automate the collection of data from multiple operators’ reporting systems and aggregate the different strands of information into a report. This report would allow the affiliate to review and monitor KPIs constantly while freeing up the full-time ‘human’ resource to focus on optimising the campaigns that drive the numbers.
Problem solved? The results have been incredible. The affiliate’s resources are much more focused on optimising campaigns, dropping nonprofitable campaigns in real-time and increasing traffic to operators who are converting well. This is affiliate nirvana, but as you sit here, you are probably wondering how this relates to your current business? The affiliate in question is considering licensing this platform to other affiliates at a very low cost, so that everyone can benefit from this technology. A platform like this could cost you a fraction in terms of the time and money you currently spend on amalgamating and analysing multiple network and operator reports on your traffic. Armed with upto-the-minute knowledge and with the freedom to retain your resources for what you do best, how much more effective would you be in managing your operators, networks and merchants?
MICHAEL BRAGA is a director at Motive Marketing Services, a consultancy focused on creating growth in bottom line profits for digital businesses.
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AWARENESS The terms ‘online casino’ and ‘brand’ have often shared column inches in recent years, but more for the comic book/Hollywood-themed games that suppliers have been busy licensing for their customers. But, what about the operators themselves? How important is the power of ‘brand’ for the affiliates that are acquiring business on their behalf? Joshua Krimberg, Affiliate Manager at AffStars.com, explores the difference between promoting well established casino brands versus their newer counterparts. Brands… they are everywhere. Their ‘personality’ gives a product its identity and even leads a consumer into what every marketer dreams of as the ‘brand experience’ – well, a profitable one at least. Affiliates, full of eagerness to become tomorrow’s super affiliates, are often faced with the challenge of deciding whether to promote well established brands or new ones. This is not a decision that can be taken lightly as it will have a direct impact on an affiliate’s ROI, thus, there are a number of considerations for affiliates to take into account when deciding which brands to promote within their portfolio.
Strategic advantage After looking at all of the brand variables, affiliates must first assess the strategic advantages of promoting their future brands before asking themselves which online casinos and/or products to promote. Initial components to look for include the affiliate commission rates and average commission made per sale, who manages the program, if there is a ‘micro-niche’ offer within the program and whether the brand focuses on offline activities in order to better build awareness (that will help you make the sale). Most importantly, you must ensure you research the technical and organisational factors behind the brand (licence, software, games offered, etc).
The establishment Once you have finished your first stage of brand investigation you can then weigh the not-so-obvious advantages and disadvantages of promoting well established casino brands over new ones,
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iGB Affiliate October/NOVEMBER 2011
“ Newer brands can be a great place for affiliates to get their ‘foot in the door’ and grow together with the brand, building a strong and mutually beneficial business partnership.” or vice versa. The second stage is delving deeper into these pros and cons, and how they can impact on your affiliate pocket. One clear advantage with established brands is that they may already have developed a strong brand identity – something that will only help to entice new acquisitions. The perks of this identity are that the brand’s reliability (for affiliates and the end-user) will not usually be in question and, more importantly, they generally aren’t victims of cash flow problems, meaning that you can expect few problems with commission payments. There is a very significant disadvantage of promoting an established brand, which many affiliates do not take into consideration, and that is that hundreds, possibly even thousands of affiliates will be hitting their list, site and promotional venue with the same value, causing the acquisition channel to become saturated, which will have an adverse impact on conversion rates and, ultimately, an affiliate’s profits.
Small change On the other hand, one of the biggest advantages of promoting a smaller brand is the fact that there is no affiliate saturation and the potential player ‘hit list’ is much larger, which translates to a larger potential player target audience and, hopefully, larger profits. Newer brands can also be a great place for affiliates (particularly
newer affiliates) to get their ‘foot in the door’ and grow together with the brand, building a strong and mutually beneficial business partnership. There are disadvantages to promoting new brands that cannot be overlooked, usually being in the form of financial issues such as cash flow, late affiliate payments and overall lack of organisational infrastructure (relative to the level of an established brand). Another problem is that some new brands may be running a non-managed service whereby they run their own customer support. This means that it is a new and inexperienced support network that hasn’t had the benefit of years of fine tuning in squeezing player revenue. Regardless of choice, affiliates really have to research which brands they add into their portfolio as making the right choice can really add that extra bang to their portfolio. This means more than adding brands because of hearsay; it means performing the proper due diligence, speaking to the affiliate managers and affiliates behind the brands, and, most importantly, researching the brand as a consumer in order to understand the user experience (by checking out the download speed, the registration funnel, the customer service and brand offering) while calculating if the brand in question fits in with both the market and vertical demographic that the affiliate is acquiring players from.
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CASINO SUPPLEMENT
We Don’t Need Another Hero… In this age of social networking, motion controlled gaming and wireless everything, are online casinos losing touch with what many players sought in the first place – a more convenient and accessible alternative to visiting a traditional bricks-and-mortar casino? There is no doubt that technology has enabled the casino industry, both offline and online, to provide its clients with an increased variety of game choices, as well as enhanced game play and, theoretically, a better experience. Yet, the rows upon rows of slot machines, the motley crew seated around a blackjack table, and the not-soambient sounds of jackpot alarms and coins pouring out of machines into plastic cups are still what casinos are all about. That’s what the public perceive, and so that’s what they expect. Yes, online casinos offer the same odds as Las Vegas or Macau and your winnings can still be converted into cold, hard cash, but the incessant pursuit of technological advance by online gaming software companies could result in them not seeing the wood for the trees.
Battle of the brands In today’s market, it often appears that online casinos resemble a collection of video games rather than the selection of old favourites you might find in a traditional casino. With their enormous downloads, lengthy video introductions
and complex bonus games, could it be that online casinos are moving away from merely simulating a bricks-and-mortar casino experience to something entirely different? Something possibly irrelevant to anyone over the age of thirty? There is, undoubtedly, a demand for new and different variations of games, but it is the classic casino games that remain the most popular with the consumer, certainly over an extended period of time. Trends and fads are fleeting and, whilst I suppose the trick to extended success is to keep up with these trends and fads and even invent new ones where possible, there is something to be said for singleminded simplicity done very well. Whilst bells and whistles are part of the gambling experience, surely there’s a point where it all gets too much for the man or woman in the street and the simple pleasures of gambling are lost? Stemming from this apparent shift by the majority of the software companies, a set of unique opportunities arise for online casino operations to buck the trend and bring online gaming more in-line with the
“ No superheroes, no ten-minute video clips, no keyboardbashing bonus games… just pure, unadulterated, oldschool casino fun. That’s what players want the most.”
traditional bricks-and-mortar experience. Perhaps some of the exact same slot games that players might know from their last trip to a land-based casino? Or being given the option to select which specific slot machine to wager on? Or being able to view the payout history of specific roulette tables or slot machines before playing? There are online casinos out there offering these features, and they are contributing to a renewed interest in mirroring a real casino experience – which is arguably what players want the most. No superheroes, no ten-minute video clips, no keyboard-bashing bonus games… just pure, unadulterated, old-school casino fun. Now all we need is a cocktail waitress handing us drinks. Lawrence Wilson has been involved in the online gaming industry, in one form or another, since 1999. Having helped to develop, grow and manage casino affiliate programs since their inception, and consequently experienced the ups, downs, trials and tribulations, he is of the firm belief that more is not always better. Lawrence is currently working for Affiliate Boosters, the affiliate program of a casino client utilising gaming software gleaned from the developer’s vast experience in offline casino game development and manufacture.
iGB Affiliate October/November 2011
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CASINO SUPPLEMENT
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Who and What is an Online Casino Gambler? Professor Mark Griffiths of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, reports on his research into the psychology of the online casino gambler, which details a number of interesting observations on the differences between online and offline behaviour including a notable finding in the field of problem gambling. There is still comparatively little empirical research into online gambling and more specifically online casino gambling. Back in 2007, my International Gaming Research Unit carried out a piece of research led by Dr Jonathan Parke for e-Commerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance (eCOGRA) on nearly 11,000 online gamblers from 96 different countries. Some of the results were very surprising. For instance, the survey reported that the ‘typical’ online casino player was more likely to be female (55 percent), aged 46 to 55 years of age (30 percent), gambled at online casinos two to three times a week (37 percent), played one to two hours per session (27 percent) and have been gambling at online casinos for two to three years. Females gambled more frequently and for longer periods of time, but spent lower amounts of money than males. Males gambled for shorter, less frequent periods of time but played at higher stake levels compared to females. The main motivational reasons for gambling at an online casino were for excitement, for relaxation, to win money, to escape, and to socialise. The biggest predictor of financial success for online casino gamblers was avoiding the temptation to chase losses. However, these results may have been a result of the self-selected sampling methods used (for instance, research has shown that, in general, women are more likely than men to fill out surveys). Research such as the eCOGRA study suggests that differentiating online casino gamblers from (say) online poker players is relatively easy and that there are discrete types of online gambler. However, this isn’t necessarily the case. Earlier this year, I (along with Heather Wardle who led the research for the latest British Gambling Prevalence Survey) published an article examining what an online gambler actually is. Now, given that anyone reading this is likely to have more than a passing interest in online gambling, this question may appear somewhat strange and/or selfevident. In fact, many of you reading this may have already reached the conclusion
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iGB Affiliate October/November 2011
that it is obvious what an online casino gambler is (i.e., someone who gambles at (at least) one online casino). However, those of us who carry out research into online gambling have to be very specific and operationally define what we mean by an ‘online casino gambler’ in every piece of research that we carry out. For instance, is it right to call someone who gambles a few times a year at an online casino but also gambles on slot machines every week at an amusement arcade an ‘online casino gambler’? Most of the published research talks about online gamblers as if everyone is totally clear as to what is being referred to when findings are reported. Many of the published research studies in the area (including many of my own) have compared online gamblers and ‘offline gamblers’. For instance, in our secondary analyses of the British Gambling Prevalence Survey (BGPS) 2007 data, online gamblers were simply defined as anyone who had gambled online (e.g., gambled at an online casino, used an online betting exchange, had made a bet online, etc) but excluded those who had bought online lottery tickets. Our research reported that the problem gambling prevalence rate amongst those who had gambled online was five percent compared to 0.5 percent for those who had never gambled online. This led to the conclusion that either gambling in an online medium is more ‘dangerous’ and/or problem inducing for gamblers than land-based gambling, and/or that vulnerable gamblers may be more susceptible to developing problems online because of factors such as 24/7 access and convenience. One of the main problems with this is that, typically, online gamblers also gamble offline. In the 2007 BGPS, of the 9,003 participants, a small minority (476 people) reported gambling online in the past year. Of these, only nine people didn’t take part in any other kind of ‘offline’ gambling activity. In other words, the vast majority of online gamblers (98 percent) also gambled offline. This data suggests that in Britain, online-only gambling is a low
prevalence activity (i.e. five percent of BGPS respondents had gambled online in the last year but only 0.1 percent had only gambled online in the past year). According to the latest BGPS published in February 2011, the number of onlineonly gamblers had slightly increased to two percent but our data suggests there are a number of distinct ways to categorise gamblers based on the medium in which they gamble and what activities they gamble on in those mediums. Later this year, we will be publishing our secondary analysis of the online gambling data from the latest BGPS. The 2011 BGPS report surveyed 7,756 adult gamblers. Approximately one in seven respondents (14 percent) had gambled online in the past year (i.e., had gambled on at least one gambling activity such as at online casinos and/or playing the lottery online). However, for the first time ever, we created four new groups of gamblers for comparison. These were those that: ●●Gambled
offline-only (i.e., had gambled on at least one activity such as buying a lottery ticket in a shop or playing roulette at an offline casino but hadn’t gambled online in the past year) ●●Gambled online-only (i.e., had gambled on at least one activity such as a betting exchange or an online casino but hadn’t gambled offline in the past year) ●●Gambled both online and offline but on different activities (such as gambling on a slot machine in an amusement arcade and playing blackjack in an online casino) ●●Gambled both online and offline but on the same activities (such as gambling at both an online and offline casino) Perhaps unsurprisingly, of all gamblers, the largest group were those who only gambled offline (80.5 percent) and the smallest group were those who only gambled online (2.1 percent). Of far more interest were the rates of problem gambling among these four groups. The highest prevalence rates of problem gambling were amongst mixed mode gamblers who gambled on different activities (4.3 percent), followed by mixed
Table 1: Problem and pathological gambling rates by mode of gambling from the British Gambling Prevalence Survey 2010 Mode of gambling
Proportion of total gamblers (%)
Problem gambling (%)
Pathological gambling (%)
Offline gambling only
80.5%
0.9%
0.4%
Online gambling only
2.1%
0%
0%
Mixed mode gambling (different activities
6.8%
4.3%
3.4%
Mixed mode gambling (same activities)
10.6%
2.4%
0.8%
mode gamblers who gambled on the same activities (2.4 percent), those who only gambled offline (0.9 percent), and those who only gambled online (0 percent) [see Table 1]. The most interesting statistic is arguably the fact that there wasn’t a single case of problem or pathological gambling among those gamblers who only gambled online. However, extreme caution must be given as the player base for online-only gamblers is very small when compared to the other groups. Yet, this certainly opens up an area for future research as to whether those who only gamble online are more
resilient to developing gambling problems than those who engage in mixed modes of gambling. Socio-demographic information from the BGPS studies suggest that those who gamble online are more educated and in better occupations than those who have never gambled online. Maybe, these demographic factors are also protective factors when it comes to the development of gambling problems? The more refined analysis that we have carried out using the latest BGPS data demonstrates that direct comparisons between online and land-based gamblers typically ignores the more complex nature
of how people gamble in and across different media and gambling activities. However, our secondary analysis aimed to demonstrate that these very basic distinctions, using the mode and type of gambling as the primary discriminators, produces a wide range of gambling subtypes for future analysis and demonstrates that the concept of ‘online gambler’ – including the ‘online casino gambler’ – isn’t homogenous. At present, policy decisions surrounding online gambling – particularly in relation to problem gambling – are often made by conceptualising online gambling as a single entity. Our research findings based on just a few basic variables including the medium in which people gamble, the type and number of activities engaged in, and the regularity with which people gamble, produces a complex picture of online gambling and demonstrates its heterogeneity.
Professor Mark Griffiths: International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University mark.griffiths@ntu.ac.uk
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Mobile Marketing Fresh from authoring the forthcoming iGaming Business report, Mobile Gambling: a Comprehensive Strategy and Market Review, gaming consultant, Aideen Shortt, sheds some light on the mobile marketing landscape for affiliates looking to promote their casino partners. The mobile platform is not just the Internet on a small screen – it has unique intricacies, user behaviour and marketing opportunities. The fragmentation of technology and devices requires a more comprehensive and intuitive approach than Internet marketing, yet, given the personal nature and immediacy of results, the potential is endless.
SMS marketing Considered by many as ‘old school’ mobile marketing, SMS activity remains one of the most effective conversion and retention tools, provided it is executed properly. The phone is such a capable response mechanism that it leverages the power of standard direct marketing techniques and makes the message consumable and immediately actionable with one device.
Apps as marketing tools There is a very definite trend towards using generic apps as marketing tools and advertising vehicles for gambling products. Apple and Android do not have rules for secondary apps or hyperlinks within apps (i.e., any restrictions are limited to the primary app). Some gambling operators are already alive to this concept – betting companies have event driven apps, and there are free soft game apps containing links to casinos and gambling games. Demographics, psychographics and even television programme preferences are being used as apps themes, which contain extensive linking to the gambling sites.
SEO Although Google says that “the number of advertisers running mobile specific campaigns has more than doubled since January”, a large percentage are sending people to pages aren’t mobile optimised. So, rather than wait for affiliates and companies to get around to it, Google is providing an ‘incentive’ to create mobile sites and landing pages, by announcing that it will factor mobile presence into its ads quality score for mobile campaigns.
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iGB Affiliate October/November 2011
In addition to mobile sites and landing pages, collective advice identifies five common rules for mobile SEO: i. Target devices separately. Users are different, they will react differently and the products/offers they like will be different. ii. Create separate mobile-only campaigns – do not treat mobile as part of Internet campaigns. Google also reiterated that mobile-only campaigns drive 11.5 percent more click-throughs than campaigns simply imported from PC AdWords. iii. Use the mobile functionality – clickable telephone numbers, deep-linking hyperlinks and mobile calls-to-action (Call now, Click to download, Text to win, etc,). iv. Manage your keyword strategy – ideally no more than three words in each search term. v. Aggressive strategies may be necessary given the importance of a top half position on a small screened device.
ASO (app store optimisation) There’s a new term marketers need to become familiar with: ASO, or app store optimisation. As apps have ushered in a new era of business, ASO will soon take its place alongside SEO as a key component of online success, and just like SEO, ASO takes up-front planning to achieve top rankings in the app stores. The app store positioning is critical – browsing through app stores and specific searches are behind a significant majority of all customer downloads but success is weighted heavily to the top listings. In app store terminology, this tends to mean first page of search results, and first page, for example, is only four-and-a-half apps deep on the iPhone and six apps deep on the iPad.
Pay per click (PPC) According to Google’s research, the average query on mobile search is 15 characters long, but takes approximately 30 key strokes and 40 seconds to enter. Due to screen size and factors such as touch screen typing and
small keys, there are relatively few long-tail searches on mobile, so there are fewer words in which to anticipate and understand what the customer is looking for. In addition, although available on both Internet and mobile, people use the predictive text in the search box much more on mobile than they do online. Good PPC works with predictive text – which is why by the time the letters ‘B’ and ‘E’ are typed into Google search on a mobile device, ads for betting companies are already appearing. In the event that ‘T’ doesn’t follow, of course, the ads change, but it shows the progressive and evolving nature of this medium.
Display advertising Mobile display advertising is in its infancy, but it is growing rapidly. Because of how media is consumed via the mobile, there are tremendous prospects for advertising. The advent of HTML5 permits all sorts of interactivity including feeds with progressive jackpots, unique messages, video and mini-games. The power of HTML5 will be visualised through advertising. In the basic creative, the real challenge is banner size and the rendering of ads according to device. There is no simple solution, and yet the click through rate is entirely predicated on getting the basics right. Third-party cookies were a game changer for display advertising online, but they do not exist on mobile and are not likely to in the short to medium-term – their technology rather than principles, are preventing their use. While mobile advertising doesn’t permit ad deployments such as popups, pop-unders or false closes, and the complications compared to online are significant, the platform does bring with it an entirely new and fresh hunting ground: in-app advertising. Apps are varied and interesting and this throws up all manner of design opportunities. Knowing that the best ads are always the ones which are totally integrated and seamless, the creative prospects for in-app advertising are as complex as they are inspiring and we are sure to see a lot of innovation in this spectre.
LONDON AFFILIATE CONFERENCE & iGB AFFILIATE AWARDS THE BIGGEST AFFILIATE SHOW ON EARTH MEETS THE MOST GLAMOROUS EVENING OF THE YEAR
LAC • 2500+ delegates • The biggest names in iGaming • The largest gathering of affiliates • Free entry for affiliates • Strategic Conference Programs • Networking parties each night
“I wanted to sincerely congratulate you on the LAC show. For me, it was the best Affiliate Conference ever. And I have been to many!” – Ricardo Ace Revenue
AWARDS
Held the night before LAC, the iGB Affiliate Awards celebrate the stars of the gaming industry. Past winners include: Bet365, PokerStrategy.com, IncomeAccess, OddsChecker, AffiliateGuard Dog, PartyGaming, PokerStars...and more of the biggest and best brands in the industry. DO YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR NAME IN LIGHTS? Don’t forget to nominate your company on www.iGBAffiliateAwards.com and join us at this illustrious black tie event. Nominations open on the 29th of August.
Scan the QR code on your phone to get a reminder to nominate!
AWARDS
26th January 2012 The Brewery, London www.iGBAffiliateAwards.com
LAC
26th-29th January Old Billingsgate, London www.LondonAffiliateConference.com
Special report: inside LATIN AMERICA
the Latin American Market This issue, we investigate the opportunities and challenges that await operators and affiliates considering entry into the Latin American market. This report will feature insights into current regulation, the complex payments landscape and search marketing through a series of investigative commentaries. Here, Spanish and Latin American Gambling Consultant, Jaki Becker, and Online Marketing Performance Expert, Soufienne Fahdy, introduce us to a market of huge and largely untapped potential. With a population of 580 million, Latin American (LatAm) is still a vastly unexploited market in the gaming industry. This is unusual considering the continent’s huge potential and that it is a largely untapped market. First of all, there is no licensing in place which means no initial set-up fees – if you decide to target the ‘Peninsula Spanish’1 market you will have to part with circa €7 million and pay 25% tax before testing the water – so for many companies, the LatAm market is a lower risk, more profitable (no tax) and uncomplicated territory. From experience, I know that advertisers targeting a Peninsula Spanish audience will, by default, get Latin American traffic;
the problem has always been converting that traffic into players. For an operator to have customers that want to play, but can’t, is extremely frustrating as it is expensive to acquire players. LatAm countries are emerging markets so they have a much higher growth than in Europe or North America. This means that the value of market share that you obtain today will triple or quadruple during next year. Lastly, because of the low levels of competition in this continent, online advertising in LatAm is still around five times cheaper than in Europe or North America. The cost of acquiring new players is mathematically five times cheaper as well, thus, you can get five times more
users when investing in LatAm than you would in Europe or North America. With Spain regulating this year, many operators who have decided not to buy a license are now looking to invest in LatAm, which remains a lateral step for Spanish operators. For affiliates, this market represents similar opportunities in terms of reach and scope, and particularly if you are active in the Peninsular Spanish market. The remainder of this report will offer insight into the various forces at work in the LatAm region where it concerns payments, regulation and SEO, and should serve as an indication of the opportunities and indeed challenges of this potentially vibrant market.
1 Refers to varieties of Spanish spoken in the Iberian Peninsula (Europe), as opposed to the Americas.
So where would you start in LatAm? Brazil
Mexico • Population: 112 million2 • High demand for online betting/ gambling services • Highest density of ‘pay in cash’ locations
• Population: 194 million2 • Advertising in Portugal will reach thousands users in Brazil – you just need install billing solutions to start converting these users
Peru • Population: 30 million2 • Very low advertising costs
Chile • Population: 17 million2 • Lowest advertising costs in LatAm
Argentina • Population: 40 million2 • Highest LatAm penetration of bank transfers
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iGB Affiliate October/November 2011
Uruguay • Population: 3.5 million2 • Fast growing market
2
All populations are approximate
SPECIAL REPORT: INSIDE LATIN AMERICA
REGULATION AND TECHNOLOGY Andrew Lowe, Director and Owner of Divine Works, has kindly offered iGB Affiliate a snapshot from the company’s recent Latin American Gaming and Gambling 2011 report which provides a concise and detailed analysis of the terrestrial and digital gaming markets throughout the region’s countries. Here, we take a look at the current regulatory and technical environments for online gaming in selected markets. Argentina Launching an online gambling website in Argentina is a complicated matter. This is due to the fact that, currently, there are no federal or provincial laws specifically regulating this activity. There are two Laws that are currently affecting companies that have launched online gambling sites. Law No.25.295 grants Loteria Nacional control over sportsbetting activities throughout Argentina and (in article 15) states that Loteria Nacional can run sportsbetting games using all available media and technology including the Internet. The other law is only applicable in the city of Buenos Aires where online gambling sites that have not been granted a licence in the city are considered to be violating articles 116, 117 and 118 of the Buenos Aires ‘Contravention Code’. These articles forbid the local operation and promotion of gambling activities without a local valid license. In Q1 2010, the Argentinean federal government announced plans to create regulations for online gambling activities throughout the country.
Brazil As there is no federal legislation specific to online gambling, all such activities are considered illegal and fall under the scope of The Criminal Contravention Act. However, there have been no formal attempts by the government to stop Brazilians from placing bets on websites set-up outside of Brazil. In Q3 2007, Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies submitted a bill (number 2429/2007) to prohibit Internet sportsbetting as an illegal
activity. The bill was filed by Deputy Luis Carlos Hauly and it proposes that bets on all types of sports events through any method of data transmission, especially over the Internet, in the national territory including sea and airspace, should be considered illegal. The main claim is that all online betting activities are an infringement of the Criminal Contravention Act; article 50 establishes that anyone found guilty of publicly offering unauthorised wagers on sporting competitions could be sent to prison from anywhere between three and 12 months. Similar to the model adopted in the US under the Bush administration (UIGEA), the bill places the greatest burden on Brazil’s payment providers rather than on the website operators. The bill states that financial bodies would face a criminal offence but would also be subject to a fine 200 times the amount of the betting transactions processed.
Chile Chile has a stateof-the-art telecom infrastructure and regulatory system, and the highest PC and Internet penetration rates in Latin America, reaching 50.4 percent of the population with 8.36 million users in 2009. The country’s broadband market is a fast growing business, with cable modems growing by around 45 percent a year and ADSL access by around 108 percent. Chile also has one of the highest mobile telephony penetration rates in Latin America at 89 percent and it is considered one of the six main markets in the region. Mobile penetration doubled between 2008 and 2009.
Telephones
3.5 million (2008)
Mobiles
16.45 million (2008)
Mobile penetration
89 % (2008)
Internet users
8.36 million (2009)
Internet penetration
50.4% (2009)
Source: World Fact Book 2011, Internet World Stats 2009
Although online casino games are considered illegal in Chile, it has been estimated that they generate circa US$12 million a year in virtual bets. In Q3 2006, the Casino Board issued an official statement clarifying that under the new casino law of 2005 all casino style games including roulette, cards, dice and slots are an illegal activity online. However, the Chilean government has not made any measure to control or restrict online gambling and although there is no iGaming licence system within the country, players are free to play at foreign gambling websites. Within the lottery sector, La Polla Chilena and Lotería de Concepcíon have been granted an online remit under their existing licences. The Internet operations of both companies are estimated to account for circa 1.5 percent of their total revenues. Polla Chilena has been the most successful online pioneer. It has incorporated new and more interactive games targeted at a young-adults segment of the population. The most successful of these games has been Xperto (forecast Sports Games). Today, five percent of its sales are through the Internet. In November 2009, Lotería de Concepcíon signed a seven year contract with leading gaming systems provider Intralot.
iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
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SPECIAL REPORT: INSIDE LATIN AMERICA
Columbia Colombia has the fourth highest amount of Internet users in Latin America (20.7 million) as reported by the Internet World Stats in 2009. This represents 47.6 percent of penetration based on its current population and has experienced a growth of 2.26 percent between 2000 and 2009. Telephones
6.82 million (2009)
Mobiles
42 million (2009)
Mobile penetration
94% (2009)
Internet users
20.7 million (2009)
Internet penetration
47.6% (2009)
Source: World Fact Book 2011 Internet World Stats 2009
Online gambling in Colombia is available to all players. The Colombian government has not taken a stance one way or another regarding gambling over the Internet and do nothing to prevent players from gambling on foreign websites. In fact, every year in Bogota, the online gambling expo, Feria Andina de Juegos de Azar (FADJA) attracts industry executives from the surrounding Latin American countries. Perhaps FADJA is a sign that Internet gambling will be formally legalised in Colombia in the near future. Also, the high popularity and success of this expo may be an indicator that online gambling in Colombia will be a key sector. The main gaming activities taking place online are driven by the lottery sector which is trying to modernise its offering and to make it more accessible for people to play lottery games. Online sales of the Baloto game, operated by ETESA with support from GTECH, have continued to grow despite the decline of traditional and provincial lotteries. ETESA believes the launch of the second online game ‘Mini-Loto’ will boost the national lottery sector further by appealing to a wider demographic.
Costa Rica Although Costa Rica is home to more than 450 online gambling companies, it does not have legislation specifically designed to deal with gambling over the Internet. The Costa Rican government’s stance on Internet gambling is that as the act of wagering does not take place at the location of the operator’s gaming servers then companies residing in the country are able to legally offer Internet
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iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
wagers to customers all over the world as long as they refuse to accept wagers from individuals located in Costa Rica. This means that as long as Internet gambling companies process bets in Costa Rica but none of the money collected enters the country, then they may operate freely. As a result, Costa Rica has become a haven for international iGaming companies. As there is no legislation for Internet gambling, operators based in Costa Rica are not subject to the usual regulations, monitoring, and testing procedures that offshore governments tend to subject their licensees to. Instead, these operators are self-regulated. Also, since there is no official regime to recognise license holders, there are no betting or gaming taxes. Instead, companies operate under a ‘data processing’ licence. The government has been trying to profit from the revenues of this booming industry for a long time, and has been considering implementing new regulations where online casinos and sportsbooks would need to register with the Ministry of Economy and pay a license fee based on the number of employees. Some prominent online gambling businesses have intimated that they would leave Costa Rica if such measures were put in place.
Mexico In 2009, the amount of Internet users in Mexico reached 27.6 million, representing a penetration rate of 24.8 percent. Although the amount is the second largest in Latin America, its penetration rate is lower than average. This has been hindered by the low penetration of personal computers and the poor telecommunications infrastructure, particularly in rural areas. As a result, most Internet users are found in urban areas. The profile of the typical Internet user has been described by VeriSign as “young people who enjoy a good economic situation and are ready to embrace new trends”. They access the Internet predominantly from home (48 percent), Internet cafés (35 percent) with the workplace accounting for 18 percent. Mobile phones, on the other hand, are used by 71.4 percent of the population (80 million people). The key mobile network operators are Telcel with 75 percent of the market, Movistar with 17 percent, Lusacell with 6 percent and Nextel making up the remainder.
Telephones
20.6 million (2008)
Mobiles
83.5 million (2010)
Mobile penetration
71.4% (2009)
Internet users
27.6 million (2010)
Internet penetration
24.8% (2009)
Source: World Fact Book 2011, Internet World Stats 2009 and Regional Report on South America by Verisign in 2008
On January 17, 2011, the Council of Guadalajara approved the Regulation for Online Betting Centers, Draw Halls and Casinos, on top of modifying the Regulation on Restricted Money Orders. Operating betting machines would not require a local authorisation, because these types of authorisations are issued by SEGOB.
Nicaragua A mere 600,000 Internet users in were reported in Nicaragua in 2009, representing 10.2 percent of the population. In a country where more than half of the rural population are without regular electricity, there are surprisingly few regions that do not have access to a high-speed broadband connection. In Nicaragua, an astonishing 93 percent of the country’s municipalities have the infrastructure necessary for a broadband fibre-optic or digital radio link. Credit is largely due to the cell phone network, Enitel, the national telecommunications carrier, which has been aggressively expanding in recent years. The quality of that extensive network could allow for affordable Internet in even the most underdeveloped and remote parts of the country. However, although Nicaragua has a very good network infrastructure, it is not typically used to providing online services. Telephones
250,000 (2009)
Mobiles
3.2 million (2009)
Mobile penetration
53% (2008)
Internet users
600,000 (2009)
Internet penetration
10.2% (2009)
Source: World Fact Book 2011 Internet World Stats 2009
Online gambling in Nicaragua is a good alternative for players who want more than what the limited land-based gambling venues currently offer. An important development in this respect occurred in July 2010, when representatives before the National Assembly gave their approval for the implementation of an Online Lottery in Nicaragua.
Panama Panama has one of the smallest amounts of Internet users in Latin America, at just under a million users. However, this is good considering the size of its population which is only 3.3 million. Its mobile penetration, however, is very impressive with 5.7 million mobile phones in circulation. Telephones
0.52 million (2008)
Mobiles
5.7 million (2010)
Mobile penetration
117% (2008)
Internet users
0.93 million (2009)
Internet penetration
27.8% (2009)
Source: World Fact Book 2011, Internet World Stats 2009
Online gambling is legal in Panama, and the government has been issuing licences to local and foreign companies since April 2002. iGaming law in Panama is extensive and complicated; all Internet gaming companies operated from or hosted in Panama have to be registered under the Online Gaming Act of 2002, which authorises them to offer gambling services over the Internet. Ever since the first officially licensed online sportsbook appeared in Panama in 2003, a host of large international operators have set-up in the market, offering a wide range of sportsbetting opportunities to both locals and to their international audience. Key players include Bet365, Betsson, Bodog, Boylesports, IASbet, Intertops, Ladbrokes, PartyBets, Unibet and VC Bet. Online sportsbetting companies generated revenues of US$26.3 million in 2007, showing a growth of 87 percent when compared to 2006.
Paraguay Online gambling in Paraguay is neither legal nor illegal. The government has recently tried to put online gambling into the same category as offshore banking which, to cut down on money laundering, is illegal. The definitions are not clear, however, and the law is proving hard to enforce. The main issue is that offshore gambling websites are located outside of the Paraguayan government’s jurisdiction. As a result, online casinos in Paraguay are gaining popularity and should provide a lucrative incentive for any future regulation of the industry by the government. With regards to online connectivity and access, Paraguay has the lowest fixed-line
tele-density and also the lowest Internet user penetration in South America. The state-owned incumbent, Copaco, has a monopoly over the fixed-line market, and is known as being inefficient and overstaffed. This has proved a bonanza for the four private operators that compete in the mobile market. Mobile penetration is about average for Latin America – which is an incredible achievement considering that Paraguay’s GDP per capita is roughly 72 percent lower than the regional average. Telephones
390,000 (2008)
Mobiles
5.6 million (2008)
Mobile penetration
89% (2008)
Internet users
900,000 (2008)
Internet penetration
14% (2008)
Source: World Fact Book 2011
Peru According to Internet World Stats, Peru had an Internet penetration of 25.8 percent with 7.64 million Internet users by the end 2009. This places Peru at slightly lower levels of Internet users than those found in Chile and Venezuela. As in most Latin American countries mobile phone penetration is considerably higher than land-line telephones. Therefore, it is not surprising to find that there are already important mobile gaming applications in Peru as it allows for a greater reach of the population.
1.34 million users. Mobile penetration, on the other hand, reaches 100 percent of its population with 3.5 million users reported in 2008. Telephones
959,300 (2009)
Mobiles
3.8 million (2010)
Mobile penetration
100% (2008)
Internet users
1.34 million (2009)
Internet penetration
38.3% (2009)
Source: World Fact Book 2011, Internet World Stats 2009
Despite the high penetration rates for Internet and mobile, there is little online gaming activity reported in Uruguay. However, Uruguay could soon become another popular base for international operators as its government works on a regulatory proposal similar to that in Panama and Costa Rica. The government is hoping that the country’s competitive business tax regime and its advanced communications network will position the country as the hub of South American online gambling.
Venezuela The best opportunities for remote gaming in Venezuela are to be found via the mobile channel, which boasts a 100 percent penetration rate compared to the Internet’s 33 percent. Telephones
6.9 million (2009)
Mobiles
28 million (2009)
Mobile penetration
100% (2008)
Telephones
2.96 million (2009)
Mobiles
24.7 million (2010)
Internet users
8.84 million (2009)
Mobile penetration
70% (2008)
Internet penetration
33% (2009)
Internet users
7.64 million (2009)
Internet penetration
25.8% (2009)
Source: World Fact Book 2011, Internet World Stats 2009
Source: World Fact Book 2011, Internet World Stats 2009
In Q2 2008, the Swedish firm Betsson became the first company to offer online gambling in Peru. According to Betsson’s General Manager, Thomas Kalita, the company had explored several markets in South America but decided on Peru partly due to the growth of Internet penetration and the number of active users. Betsson offers casino and sportsbook online or via mobile.
Uruguay Uruguay has an Internet penetration above the region’s average, reaching 38.3 percent in 2009 representing
ANDREW LOWE is Director and Owner of Latin American gambling and gaming consultancy, Divine Works. The full report, titled Latin American Gaming and Gambling 2011 is available for purchase from Divine Works for £805, with country-specific chapters available for £300. For further information, please contact Andrew directly at alowe@latam-gambling.com, quoting the reference ‘latam’. www.latam-gambling.com
iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
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SPECIAL REPORT: INSIDE LATIN AMERICA
THE PAYMENTS PROCESS R Paul Davis, LL.D., Managing Director at Counting House (IOM) Ltd, assesses the current payments landscape in Latin America and how significant progress has been hard to come by. A YEAR AGO, I reviewed the Latin American payments scene for this magazine’s sister publication, iGaming Business. It would have been pleasurable to report, twelve months on, significant progress. Sadly, this is not the case. The detail is much the same; what have changed are the level of noise and the priorities of operators.
Pace of change It is difficult to over-estimate the impact of the major changes in the Internet poker environment on gaming payments worldwide. The ‘Black Friday’ indictments in the USA have re-focussed the efforts of PokerStars on its most promising markets outside the US, and while there is significant interest in some Latin American markets, they do not feature in the top two priorities. Full Tilt has, at least temporarily, exited from the stage altogether. Subtly, these changes have made an enormous difference to the whole payments landscape as, being at the cutting edge and clearly in the ‘grey zone’ of legality in some jurisdictions, it is clear in retrospect that these two companies were the leading drivers of invention and ingenuity around the world. The pressure and urgency of coming up with new ideas for Latin America has clearly reduced, and with it, the noise and pace of change. Maybe next year will be different. Perhaps the most exciting news is the appointment of a new Emerging Markets Director at Betfair. Historically, Betfair has been careful and given great attention to compliance; however, the company has the muscle and talent to lobby and make a real difference in markets where it has focus.
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iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
We can be confident that Betfair will be giving significant consideration to the larger markets in Latin America as part of its global expansion.
Ground principles It’s useful to review the ground principles involved in a discussion of ‘LatAm’ as a payments market. (1) Viewing the geographical area as a single market or concept is a dangerous trap. We are really discussing a wide range of countries with similar cultures and histories, but extremely local payments practices in various states of development, particularly in traditional banking. (2) Two languages are widely spoken. Brazilians speak Brazilian Portuguese (which itself is markedly different from European Portuguese). Spanish is spoken throughout much of the rest of the region, with local variations in vocabulary and pronunciation. (3) There are several ‘common market’ type arrangements between diverse groups of countries. However, there is little integration of payment systems. (4) Controlled exchange rates and internal restrictions are a feature of Argentina and Brazil, the largest two markets in the region; Mexico, by contrast, is a free market as are Peru and Chile, which occupy positions three to five in the league table of regional potential. (5) There is no commonality whatsoever of regulation. Each country’s legal situation has to be reviewed alone, and with great care.
Argentina Argentina remains a jurisdiction, or rather, a group of provincial jurisdictions, exploding with potential for Internet gaming. There is a high level of public interest in all forms of gaming and gambling. While land-based casinos are prevalent on the ground, Internet gaming remains highly controversial and jurisdictional disputes between federal and state authorities further muddy waters that are already opaque. The national banks in Argentina, however, remain unconvinced that there is any premium for them in engaging with any unregulated operator. Various attempts over the last year to craft workable payment solutions using prepaid cards or vouchers have run into regulatory difficulties. The two largest obstacles are the ‘closed loop’ credit card structure (meaning that the vast majority of cards issued by the banks are local cards and can be authorised only within the national system for payments to domestic businesses), and severe restrictions on money flows both between resident individuals and outside the country. Little wonder that many wealthy Argentineans have offshore accounts in the United States and try to keep as much money as possible outside the country; this, of course, helps little with the gaming business which suffers great proscription in the US as well. Twelve months ago, I wrote: “I am not convinced that any large-scale operator is actually turning a profit in the country, but there clearly is a business case for ‘being there’ in order that competitors don’t gain a foothold in any future liberalisation or licensed regime.” This remains as true today as it was then.
“Viewing the geographical area as a single market or concept is a dangerous trap. We are really discussing a wide range of countries with similar cultures and histories, but extremely local payments practices in various states of development.” Brazil All of the major banks in Brazil remain gamingunfriendly, meaning that any attempt to engage in gaming business using traditional banking methods is still doomed to failure. Over the last year, there have been several developments which initially appeared encouraging. However, a bingo bill failed in December, and in April of this year, Caixa Economica Federal, one of the top five banks in the country, began selling lottery products online itself! From the point of view of offshore operators, this is not a particularly welcome development, as in other countries where banks sell gambling products (e.g. Korea), this has traditionally hardened their resistance to commercial competition. One bright light at the end of the tunnel is that political heads appear to be turning in the direction of Internet gaming as a licensed and taxable activity. There is currently a project before the Brazilian parliament to study poker tournaments; note the emphasis on ‘tournaments’, as it’s a long haul from here to permitting cash games, which are the real prize for this economy. But it’s a start. There is, as yet, no real evidence that the coming of Olympic and World Cup activity to Brazil has focussed any attention on the potential benefits of allowing legalised sportsbetting. There is plenty of gaming and gambling activity in Brazil; much of the payments aspect remains underground. Bingo sites of questionable legality continue to operate; Internet poker participation continues to rise, with much flow of funds taking place through prepaid card systems of questionable legality. The infamous ‘jogo do bicho’, perhaps the largest and best organised illegal lottery in the world, continues to be massively popular and the results are openly published on the
Internet. A nationwide system of corner shop distributors and runners ensures the flow of funds. So far as offshore operators are concerned, the taking of deposits continues to be the major issue in Brazil. Reliance on the national invoicing system, ‘boleto bancario’ or ‘cobranza’ is widespread, with universal concealment of the real nature of transactions. Ditto for prepaid card schemes, which have enjoyed success. Having received funds within Brazil, an additional frustration remains repatriation of profits, which is strictly controlled by the Banco do Brasil, and operators continue to experience losses of between two and eight percent in the repatriation process which, again, cannot avail of mainstream methodologies.
the major banks, BBVA in particular, are open to working with larger operators and appreciative of the opportunities unfolding for them. There have been negative movements in a number of smaller markets. Ecuador stands out with new laws forbidding all casino gambling, but while the operation of land-based facilities is directly impacted, there is little movement to enforce the proscription of Internet gaming through intervention in the payments market. 2011 has also seen rather negative legislative reform in Costa Rica, direct confrontation between operators and the government in Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua, tentative movement towards greater regulation in Peru and Chile, and allegations of government officials being involved in casino-related graft in Mexico. None of these, however, have resulted in any real changes in the payments environment. It is predictable that as proscription takes hold, gaming will simply be driven underground and payment processing will become more inventive for offshore Internet sites.
Mexico Mexico continues to stand out as the major success story in the region, though recent publicity surrounding the killing of many players inside a landbased casino as a result of organised crime involvement casts a pall over the industry. Nevertheless, an open, legal and licensed regime has led to the major banks being prepared to facilitate transactions for online gaming companies, and generally, credit cards are not blocked for 7995-coded transactions. A happy picture indeed. Mexico is also a country of focus for expansion of voucher and prepaid card schemes targeted to the gaming community, and it is anticipated they will have considerable success in a country where there is a growing unbanked but online population.
Other countries Chile and Peru remain the major markets on the ‘B-list’, and have attracted increased attention from Internet-based operators over the last year. All indications are that
Last but not least At the time of going to press, two very encouraging developments had taken place in the USA (of all places), one of which heavily impacts the Latin American market, albeit the Latino market in the USA. Under the relatively new 9754 category for processing high-risk MasterCard™ merchants involved in legal gambling in the USA, a deal is close to consummation for processing credit card transactions for pari-mutuel horseracing and similar transactions for a major offshore wagering operator. And, heartened by this development, we have heard of plans for the first all-Spanish pari-mutuel site dedicated to the LatAm market in North America to be launched later this year. Throughout the payments arena, from the southern tip of Argentina to the northernmost reaches of Alaska, adversity remains the mother of great invention and ingenuity. The trick is to innovate without falling into the trap of doing anything which could be regarded as bank fraud.
iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
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Special report: INSIDE LATIN AMERICA
Arriba Arriba, Andale Andale! Come and get your global Spanish SEO up and running properly. When it comes to talking about SEO in ‘Spanish speaking’ markets, there is one profound statement I feel should be made straight away: multilingual SEO is about search by country… not search by language. For example, if you are looking to run a ‘global Spanish’ SEO campaign and are assuming that your links in Spain will help you in Argentina, and your links in Argentina will help you in Chile, and that searchers from these markets use the same online language and key terms to search, you can think again. The same rules apply for SEO as they do to any market – localise, localise, localise… translation and/or replication doesn’t work and Google will give you very limited benefits for having a link from a site in another country. Let’s look at a real-life example of this. Figure 1 shows Spanish search in Spain for online slot machines and the equivalent Spanish search in Argentina:
Argentina the ‘proper’ term ‘tragamonedas’ is far more searched – all the more reason for showing how multilingual SEO has nothing to do with language, and is all about the local market.
Targeting In terms of SEO generally in Spain and Latin America, companies and SEOs should be aware that Google is by far the most dominant search engine with a 97 percent market share across the region. There are no major local search engines that exist although there are some very powerful local social media platforms such as Orkut in Brazil, which has 21 million users against Facebook’s eight million. What this generally means is that as long as you’re localising keywords, building local links, etc, that the same general rules apply to optimisation as they would in your major central European markets. Quality link building is key and being up to date
Figure 1 Spanish keyword
English Translation
Competition
Local search Volume – Spain
[tragamonedas online]
[online slots machines]
0.12
390
[tragaperras online]
[online slots machines]
0
1000
[maquinas tragamonedas]
[slot machines]
0.23
1000
[maquinas tragaperras]
[slot machines]
0.3
1300
Argentinean keyword
English Translation
Competition
Local monthly search volume
[tragamonedas online]
[online slots machines]
0.02
5400
[tragaperras online]
[online slots machines]
0
260
In Spanish, the term for ‘slot machines’ is ‘tragamonedas’, however, in Spain, the term far more searched is the slang term ‘tragaperras’, which would NOT be the perfect translation. More interesting is if you look at the competition on the terms – you can see how the competition is far greater for the term ‘tragamonedas’ which has much less search volume – this shows that companies have been translating their way into the online gaming market in Spain and missing out on the best opportunity. You would get far more visibility, at a far better price, if you just did your localised research here. Another very apparent lesson here is how ‘global Spanish’ is flawed; for example, in
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iGB Affiliate October/November 2011
with the latest Google developments such as Panda (which rolled out internationally on August 12, 2011) and Google +1 is as important as ever. A key common difference that will occur when targeting certain South American markets is the much smaller online environments that you’re working with. The number of local sites, for example, is vastly different from region to region:
So building your quality links in Chile is going to be much harder to do compared to Mexico and significantly harder than Spain, as the number of ‘.cl’ domains is very small. So, the key techniques to make sure you’re getting as many local links as possible could be: ●●Creating and promote free quality and useful resources for searchers – forget about SEO content for a moment, and pack your site with tons of interesting stats and figures that your users are going to enjoy. Rule of thumb: make it cool! ●●Sponsoring competitions/events – a great way to get powerful links coming to the site for popular local events and competitions in the industry. ●●Blog, provide valuable insights, trends, quality infographics, etc. OkCupid has had enormous success with this: http:// blog.okcupid.com/ ●●Create a blog where top industry personalities write exclusively – personalities have fans; get them on your site and their fans will provide links for you. ●●Always research; find out what your users want/need in each market and, if possible, create and provide. If you are interested in more information about effective International SEO for your business, please feel free to contact us anytime or visit our website on www.obanmultilingual.com.
Jonathan Murphy is a senior account manager at OBAN Multilingual with a strong background in international media and advertising and a particular focus around search marketing.
Country
Keyword difficulty (Casinos)
Registered TLDs
Search Volume
Spain
69%
1,535,620
12800
Argentina
71%
166,714
7900
Mexico
75%
222,417
6300
Chile
69%
25,506
2990
Colombia
69%
56,893
2620
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feature
Golden Wednesday after Black Friday?
The passing of new gaming law in Schleswig-Holstein has asked questions of the remaining 15 Laender about whether they continue on a collision course with the European Court of Justice or follow in Schleswig-Holstein’s lead. Under the existing Interstate Gambling Treaty, online gambling is prohibited. All respective activities, including advertising, are deemed to be unlawful, but despite this rather antiquated law, the German online gaming market has grown substantially during recent years. The prohibitive Interstate Gambling Treaty expires at the end of 2011 and because of this, Germany’s 16 federal states (Laender or Bundeslaender) have been discussing, somewhat controversially, future federal regulations. In the context of these discussions, the news of Germany’s northernmost state, Schleswig-Holstein, passing its new gaming law on Wednesday, September 14, 2011, has acted as a slap in the face of the other Laender. This article will assess gaming law in Germany under consideration of the developments in Schleswig-Holstein and their impact on the activities of gambling operators and their advertising partners in the German market.
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iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
Background Various attempts were made by the legislator to find a valid gambling regulatory system. Whereas previously, different legal bases for the lottery and betting system had existed in the federal states, the State Treaty on Lotteries came into force on July 1, 2004. By this treaty, the Laender created a uniform framework for the organisation of games of chance, excluding casinos and slot machines, which was valid throughout Germany. However, there was controversy from the beginning with regard to European and constitutional law. As a result, in March 2006, the Federal Constitutional Court decided that the Treaty was unconstitutional. Following this judgment came the arrival of the Interstate Gambling Treaty, which took effect on January 1, 2008, despite the concerns expressed in the legislative procedure. Basically, it states that unauthorised games of chance are prohibited and that gambling may
only be offered by the state and/or by state-organised providers, effectively resulting in the creation of a monopoly state. What is more, online gaming is prohibited completely by the Treaty, as is the advertising of public games of chance on TV, the Internet and via ‘telecommunications equipment’. The restrictions were justified by the legislator on the grounds that they were a preventative measure to combat gambling addiction, however, this was not a view shared by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which stated in the autumn of 2010 that the Treaty violated European law. As the current Treaty expires at the end of this year, the conference of the Laenderministers culminated in the drafting of a revised law, the so called “Glücksspielaenderungsstaatsvertrag”, in April 2011. This ‘E-15’ model includes relatively minor changes to the current Interstate Gambling Treaty.
The ‘controversial’ discussions that took place between the Laender mainly concentrated on the following points: ●●The total number of sportsbetting licences is limited, without justification, to seven. ●●An excessive tax rate of 16.67 percent of amounts wagered is imposed on all operators. ●●Certain casino games may be offered online but only by specified operators that are already operating land-based businesses in Germany. On July 18, 2011, the European Commission issued a detailed opinion against the revised law to German authorities. This letter raised serious concerns about Germany’s federal plan for online gambling and confirms that the Commission believes the proposed German State Treaty violates EU law. If the draft is not substantially changed, Germany risks formal infringement proceedings.
The Schleswig-Holstein model On September 14, 2011, the SchleswigHolstein Parliament passed its own gaming legislation that would lead to an extensive liberalisation of its gaming market from 2012. The new law allows operators to offer online betting exchanges and sportsbetting, online poker and online casinos with the exception of roulette, blackjack and baccarat games. The key points of the law, which, unlike the federal Treaty, was approved by the European Commission earlier this year, include: ●●that from 2012 onwards, private operators can apply for a licence which will be valid for five years; ●●the number of licenses is unlimited; ●●licenses issued by the state will be valid from March 1, 2012; ●●operators will have to pay a 20 percent tax on gross profit. However, the receipt of a SchleswigHolstein licence will not permit operators to offer iGaming services into other Laender.
Advertising under the new Schleswig-Holstein law In the past, authorities and state operators have tried to prevent private operators and their partners from offering their services to customers in Germany, often via prohibition orders. However, these orders could only be enforced against entities
(including advertising partners/affiliates) that have a corporate (registered) presence in Germany. In addition, the attitudes of the various administrative authorities differed from one Laender to the next, meaning that advertising gambling has meant running something of an unknown gauntlet. Under the new Schleswig-Holstein regime, advertising is permitted for licensed operators. According to sec. 26, advertising must not contradict the goals of the law as specified in sec. 1. Or, in a nutshell: advertising must not be overly aggressive or misleading and the customer has to be informed about the risks resulting from gambling. The finer details still have to be specified by the legislator. However, the new law only applies to the territory of Schleswig-Holstein. The legislator of the state, which has a population of less than three million (out of about 80 million in Germany), does not have the scope to regulate other Laender. The question is whether the new law may influence Germany-wide advertising strategies and whether it will be legal to advertise in other federal states for services which are licensed and, therefore, legal in Schleswig-Holstein. Similar to the advertising-for-free ‘.net’-sites, it could be argued that the services of licensed operators are lawful in Schleswig-Holstein. They are only offered to citizens who participate from the territory of SchleswigHolstein. This question is of particular relevance for Internet campaigns since the Internet is not confined by SchleswigHolstein’s borders. Nonetheless, it seems too early for this question to be answered since the other 15 Laender are still discussing their revised draft, the consequences resulting from the Commission’s detailed opinion as well as the new law in Schleswig-Holstein. Regardless of any remaining uncertainties, it is probably only a matter of time until respective models are developed.
Glance in the crystal ball In recent years, there have been many debates and disputes in the media as well as before civil, administrative and criminal courts, as to whether the legal provisions are lawful and whether they can be applied. Many judgments have been passed and, at times, courts have taken radically different positions on gambling cases. Until now, the German legislators and authorities have ignored one striking fact: while local gambling laws cannot
cross borders, the Internet is borderless. A substantial percentage of consumers can be directed to licensed Internet sites and despite the fact gamblers face few problems finding relevant websites to play at, a complete Internet ban remains an unrealistic and unwanted (by the consumer) solution. The remaining 15 Laender now have to decide whether they are to continue with an approach that has already been disapproved by the European Commission. Alternatively, they could try to modify their draft in order to address the most urgent concerns of the Commission. In both cases, it is not likely that the industry or consumers will adhere to the new law and that everything will change on January 1, 2012. The 15 Laender, or at least some of them, could also follow Schleswig-Holstein. However, this seems rather unlikely. It is more likely that the current ambiguity will continue in 2012. Germany could end up with different gambling laws in competition with each other, a situation which does not seem to be consistent or coherent under the jurisdiction of the ECJ. For operators and their advertising partners, this is both good and bad news. The German market remains attractive with equal amounts of opportunity and risk with any and all gambling activities needing to be adapted to the most recent legal framework.
Frieder Backu is Partner with SSW Schneider Schiffer Weihermuller, one of the leading German law firms in the field of information technology law. He studied law at the universities of Munich and London. Following Backu’s studies at university he passed as a certified expert for tax law and for information technology law. His focus is online and information technology law. Since 2002, Backu consults and represents international gaming companies with respect to their business activities in Germany. He is co-author and editor of the monthly law journal ITRB (www.itrb.de) and author of numerous publications in the field of IT law and taxes. He is a Member of the German Bar Association, Munich Bar Association and the Information Technology Working Group of the German Bar Association (DAV IT) and general member of IMGL. frieder.backu@ssw.muc.de.
iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
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feature: OPINION
The Future for US-Facing Poker Affiliates Jeremy Enke, founder of Poker Affiliate Listings, explores how poker affiliates are diversifying away from their natural habitat to combat the uncertainty in the US poker market. The poker affiliate industry was forever changed when the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) seized the domains and shut down the leading online poker sites accepting US customers. While many US poker players had their gambling funds frozen, some poker affiliates essentially saw their long-term businesses and income evaporate before their very eyes. The affiliates most significantly impacted by ‘Black Friday’ were those whose main focus was on US traffic or servicing a US player base. The aggressive actions taken by the DOJ have left many poker affiliates fundamentally pondering their future in the industry. For the better half of the last decade, the poker affiliate market in the United States has been one of the most lucrative affiliate markets in the world. After Black Friday, however, this market has become one of the most unstable and volatile niches in all of Internet marketing.
The way we were… To understand the future for US facing poker affiliates, we must first take a look at the past. The first real money online poker
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iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
rooms started emerging around 1999, though it wasn’t until the autumn of 2001 that the first poker affiliate program was launched at PokerRoom.com. About a year later in August 2002, PartyPoker.com joined the fold and opened up its affiliate program. Shortly thereafter, the online poker industry as a whole entered into a growth period unlike any other. The sector was flushed with investment capital, and new online poker sites were opening up each day. Throughout 2003 as the industry continued to expand, more and more Internet marketers and affiliates began learning about the potential earnings they could make as poker affiliates. Unlike many other affiliate industries, where affiliates were making a mere $10$20 cost per action, online poker offered the opportunity to make hundreds of dollars in revenue sharing each month just by referring a single new player. Then, in May 2003, the online poker boom solidified when Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 WSOP Main Event having qualified at an online poker site. By this time, PartyPoker.com had become the number one poker affiliate program in the industry attracting thousands of new poker affiliates each month.
It’s fair to say that at this time many poker affiliates were well on their way to becoming accidental millionaires simply from promoting within the fastest growing online industry in America. Many of these affiliates continued promoting online poker throughout the years and made legitimate careers in the industry. Ah yes, it’s always good to reminisce on the good old days. There were never payment processing issues, affiliates could still utilise pay per click marketing, the US was a wide open market, and the affiliate competition was a fraction of what it is in the current environment. Fast-forward to 2011, however, and the difference between then and now is as stark as night and day. At present, the future of the industry and, with it, poker affiliate marketing generally, is uncertain, with many poker affiliates questioning what their futures may hold.
Raise or fold Successful poker affiliates are a unique breed of marketers. Most are more risk averse and willing to take a chance in business if the potential rewards are there. They are also (generally) extremely savvy
“Given the recent instability in the poker affiliate market, many affiliates are diversifying outside of poker in the US until there is a clearer picture of what lies ahead for the industry.”
when it comes to thinking long-term and having a general vision of where they’d like to take their online businesses. That said, given the recent instability in the poker affiliate market, many affiliates are diversifying outside of poker in the US until there is a clearer picture of what lies ahead for the industry. As mentioned earlier, poker affiliates are accustomed to making exponentially higher commissions than other industries typically pay out. So although many poker affiliates are diversifying into new markets, most are being extremely selective as to which ones they enter. Most poker affiliates I speak with on a daily basis are looking for emerging markets that although are removed from online poker, might still be suitable in converting their existing US traffic. Here, I’ll outline some of the most popular emerging markets that many poker affiliates seem to be gravitating towards.
Sports picks You can never go wrong with sports. Given that sportsbetting is a $300 billion to $400 billion industry each year within the United States alone, promoting brands like DocSports.com makes sense. Thousands of sportsbetting enthusiasts consistently buy picks from handicappers during their favourite sportsbetting season. With no gambling taking place, and only picks being sold, affiliates are immune to the uncertainty seen when promoting online poker or actual sportsbooks to US traffic. Likewise, a great deal of online poker players also bet on sports.
Fantasy sports One recent study concluded that 17 percent of all men in the US and Canada participate in one form of fantasy sports throughout the year. The amount of money being wagered offline in fantasy sports each year is staggering. The good news is that this market is continuing to grow online and companies like FanDuel.com and other non-traditional fantasy sites are seeing massive growth. And although it is wagering, fantasy sports is not frowned upon by the United States government.
Penny auctions The penny auction space is seeing exponential growth. Although penny auctions are promoted to be a unique new way to buy products at over 90 percent discount to retail prices, it is a form of gambling as well. However, there is some skill involved to win high-ticket items. Penny auctions are proving to be an attractive concept for those with disposable incomes and an appetite for risk versus market the concept to. While the affiliate market here is still emerging, there are a handful of sites such as BidRivals.com that offer affiliate programs with nice payouts.
Precious metals While this is still a new emerging market in the affiliate space, it is one to keep an eye on. The popularity of new buyers to physical gold and silver in the United States has never been higher. Each month, the amount of Internet searches in the US for gold and silver terms continues to rise.
While precious metals may not convert as well as sports or penny auctions to poker traffic, it is still an emerging market that should not be overlooked.
Binary options This is an emerging market that unlike forex, is very easy to understand, and would be well suited for poker traffic. With binary trading, the trader can effectively bet (for example) on the price of oil going up or down in a given time period. Or, they could bet on an individual stock going up or down in a given time period. Binary trading presents a unique opportunity to gamble that offers consumers an advantage by researching and leveraging information and opportunities. If effectively presented to poker traffic, it should convert well. In closing, the immediate future for USfacing poker affiliates is one that is riddled with uncertainty. Perhaps the day will come when the US will legalise and regulate online poker within the US borders. When that day gets here, we as poker affiliates can only hope that we’ll get another taste of the parabolic growth that online poker underwent in the beginning. Until then, however, most poker affiliates will continue working in the industry but will also diversify at the same time. One thing is certain; if a poker affiliate has been successful promoting inside one of the most competitive affiliate markets in the world, they should have no problem branching out and diversifying into new markets.
iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
51
INSIGHT
Gaming Affiliates and the Spanish Market Julian Dellipiani, GTECH G2’s Marketing Manager for Spain, considers the current Spanish market for iGaming affiliates. In order to talk about gambling/ gaming affiliates in Spain it is probably useful to outline a few facts about the general online trends of the country itself. The main audiences for online gaming in general are the so called ‘x-generation’; born between the 70s and 80s and typically between 30 and 40 years old. This age group usually represents between 35 and 40 percent of the overall market and is essentially the primary target audience. The ‘y-generation’, typically born after 1982, accounts for roughly 25 percent, even though almost half of this age bracket are restricted from registering due to the fact that they are not yet old enough. The ‘baby boomers’, referred to as those born before 1970, usually account for 30 percent of the overall market with the exception of less developed countries. There are a few factors which make the Spanish gaming market different and these mainly consist of the following: ●●A ‘less developed’ online country in general. i. Users are less trusting of registering personal details online. ii. Lower conversion rates. iii. High impact of branding and on national and celebrity advertising. ●●The
level of users whereby the provider of the family is male and holds most of the bank accounts/credit cards is higher than in mature online markets. i. Due to this key factor, the audience now and for the next two to three years will have a male/female ratio of 70/30. ii. Male players in Spain tend to be less profitable in nature as they target games/bets with less risk. iii. Male players deposit far more than female players (roughly on a 3/1 ratio) although female players are
much more profitable in terms of win ratio. This mix would suggest that, in theory, our target audience are males and females alike, on a roughly 50/50 basis. However, even though females target games with higher risk, the sheer volume of deposits from males currently outweighs any notion that our primary targets should be an equal split. The proposed legislation will bring about a number of different factors which will directly affect the active operators in the industry. A proposed 25% tax induces a high barrier to entry in the market and this, in turn, will affect how affiliates prioritise their efforts going forward. They will no longer have the luxury of promoting just any operator and may have to succumb to the operator’s terms in contrast to the current trends. The new legislation caters for operators who are primarily focused on sportsbetting as a product. Rumour has it that legislation on the various iGaming products will slowly unfold as the year progresses in 2012, however, for the time being, slots, which for non-sportsbetting operators currently account for as much as 85% of overall revenue, are prohibited. Unlike mature online markets such as the UK, gaming affiliates are far scarcer in terms of numbers, and it would be safe to say that the top 50 affiliates in this category represent over 80 percent of the affiliate business in Spain. The number of sportsbetting affiliates in comparison to iGaming affiliates (promoting products like casino, bingo and especially slots) are at an average 3/1 ratio, meaning that for every three sportsbetting affiliates out there, there is only one promoting iGaming. Nevertheless, to date, the small number of iGaming affiliates has thrived in this
niche market and now stand to lose much of what they have worked for. Affiliates with a long-term business view tend to choose revenue share as their preferred commercial model. These affiliates have been referring players for a number of years with the intention of accumulating a healthy group of active players consistently generating revenue each month. These affiliates fear and know only too well that when slots are removed from the equation, revenues will drop by as much as 85 percent. Those that have built a business and hired employees on fixed salaries have some tough decisions to make; do they let go of their staff? Do they operate at loss until slots are regulated (if they will be)? Do they change their business model and concentrate on the products that will be regulated like sportsbetting, poker and casino table games? In general, the preferred commercial models will be sure to change given that revenue share affiliates know that their commission is calculated from Net Revenue (after Gross to Net deductions); Gross Revenue will take a 25 percent hit before converting into Net Revenue. Would this notion encourage affiliates to change to a CPA model which is usually triggered on minimum deposit and minimum wagering (without having to worry about Gross to Net deductions as CPA is not based on revenue)? On the other hand, many believe that the drop in revenue will be compensated by an increase in business as operators will soon be allowed to advertise using PPC and the main channels of communication, such as TV and radio. These factors make it very hard for operators to predict where the industry is going in general and unfortunately, affiliates, are in the same boat; waiting for clarification, and waiting for this market to unfold within the next 15 months.
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insight
Changing Revenue Models How affiliates and operators must work together for the future. As the banking crisis of recent years has shown, not everything that seems outwardly profitable is necessarily sustainable in the long run. Following the demise of a variety of prominent poker operators earlier this year and the subsequent increase in general regulation, the online gaming industry stands at a crossroads. Operators and affiliates must realise that in order to remain profitable, it will be necessary to adapt. In a sense, the mode of operation that both affiliates and operators have grown accustomed to is destined to become a thing of the past, and both entities must work together with the future in mind to succeed. The success and sustainability of the iGaming landscape is based primarily upon the relationship between operator and affiliate. Practically, this relationship is one of mutual dependence. Affiliates help operators earn money by promoting their sites. In turn, operators pay affiliates for successful marketing efforts. This relationship dynamic is what makes affiliate marketing so useful, since both parties are better off through their interaction and help each other earn revenue.
Cooperation The long-term sustainability of the symbiotic relationship between affiliate and operator depends on cooperation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; something that cannot occur with each
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iGB Affiliate October/November 2011
party working in self-interest. Rather, operators and affiliates must realise that they are united as an entity. All possible pursuits should be undertaken so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. If affiliates simply try to increase their gains, they may benefit in the shortterm, but operators will then suffer, and the general relationship will be impossible to maintain. Equally, if operators attempt to decrease their affiliate marketing expenditures, affiliates will lose both revenue and, consequently, any motivation in being affiliates. Without their affiliates, operators will lose the benefit of a strong acquisition and retention channel that can help grow their business as well as increase the value of their brand.
Regulation With increased regulation, and the promise of even more regulation to come, operational costs are climbing and reducing the margins for operators. By offering their affiliates lucrative revenue share packages (which can sometimes be in the range of 50 percent), operators can find themselves living beyond their means, particularly if they are operating in markets where player life time values (LTV) are lower. Lucrative revenue share deals are particularly unsustainable if operators must continually share revenues without a constantly increasing player base. If this becomes the
case, operator revenues will consistently decrease, as will their ability to pay affiliates. Most importantly, this affects the relationship between operator and affiliate, which is the most important characteristic of a strong and successful affiliate program. Regulation includes high tax payments to authorities. In addition to the taxes, operators must also factor other operating costs such as licensing, legal costs to ensure operation within legislative guidelines, payment processing, marketing and advertising, staff, as well as all affiliate related costs. Realistically, this can lead to operators paying out up to $7 to $8 out of every $10 they earn. As such, having a revenue share system that factors key costs, has a continuous injection of new players and transactional volume and has a good ratio of retaining customers to compensate low margin with volume, becomes imperative for survival and success. Developing such a system is easiest via operator and affiliate cooperation, which itself should be based on understanding and desire for mutual success.
Sustainability As mature affiliate programs have a slower rate of acquiring new affiliates, their reliance on a sustainable win-win model is crucial, lest they find themselves in a situation where they are paying out
“ Likewise, it is important for operators and affiliates to work together to craft personalised commission structures towards a mutual goal of profitability for the affiliate and operator as a single entity.” higher revenue share to their existing affiliates for activity from past referrals while not making up the margin with new acquisitions. This, coupled with the costs for retaining players, can put more pressure on an operator’s business if there is an imbalance in the compensation model as well as the acquisition and retention strategies. Furthermore, with tighter margins, there is more competition between operators; this has led to a change in the landscape, with common practices such as lifetime guarantee of revenue share now coming under threat. Similarly, with cost per acquisition (CPA) schemes, their sustainability also lies in the continual referral of new quality customers, since it is a one-time payment. A CPA scheme has its advantages with a key appeal to affiliates being its provision of income each month to cover advertising costs, provided their referred players fulfil the requirements
So, what is the solution?
set out in the CPA structure. This also has advantages to operators in that it allows affiliates to dedicate their efforts and revenue towards further acquisition. Conversely, operators have traditionally shied away from CPA schemes due to their risky nature and paying for traffic that may not meet desired quality. It has also been unpopular with affiliates, who are in the business for the long haul and have invested their resources in building traffic volumes and referrals in return for continued revenue and a long-term business. In addition, affiliates on CPA models do not tend to have the same level of commitment to relationships with operators as those on revenue share models do. This is due to the fact that the affiliate tends to play the role of a traffic supplier and less of a partner that analyses retention and life time player values.
Short-term rev sharing? CPA structures? Fixed fees? Just like affiliates and operators know from advertising experience, there is never a best single approach; it is always more prudent to custom-tailor efforts. Likewise, it is important for operators and affiliates to work together to craft personalised commission structures towards a mutual goal of profitability for the affiliate and operator as a single entity. This approach could involve revenue share, CPA, fixed fee, or hybrids of them both, so long as it fundamentally involves the interest of maintaining long-term profitability for both affiliates and operators.
Nicky Senyard is CEO of Income Access, overseeing their independent iGaming affiliate network, market-leading affiliate software and expert affiliate management services.
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iGB Affiliate October/November 2011
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webmaster world
insight
IT’S NOT WHO YOU KNOW, BUT WHO KNOWS YOU Profile building for affiliate marketing. As an affiliate, building a large profile can be a tremendous asset to your business. The visibility and positive exposure that go hand-in-hand with cultivating a prominent profile are a surefire way to increase the effectiveness of all your marketing efforts without ever actually changing how you market. Essentially, a strong profile means you get better results from the same actions; as an affiliate, building a strong profile will give you the edge over competitors promoting identical promotions and programs. An example of a strong profile is that of Amazon and its ‘Associates’ affiliate program. Chances are that when a person thinks of buying books, Amazon is one of the first names that pops into their head even though there are numerous other places to purchase books. This prominence reinforces Amazon’s strengths in bookselling, amongst other things, without the brand having to do anything other than operate ‘business as usual’. This ubiquity in profile works as a self-perpetuating promotion for Amazon, and only increases the company’s level of success. Like all things in business, having prominent visibility is not a magic bullet that miraculously helps increase your profits; it requires consistency and hard work. A profile is just like a house; it must be built, brick by brick. The more prominent a profile you desire, the more building it is going to take. Acquiring visibility is an initial investment that takes time and effort but when done properly, will generate profits in the long run that far outweigh the initial labour. Building your desired profile is a multi-pronged process, and it is important to cover all possible bases for the best possible results.
Researching target demographics It is a lot easier to increase your visibility when you know who is actually looking for you. By carrying out thorough demographic research, you will be able to direct your
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iGB Affiliate October/November 2011
marketing in the most efficient manner possible. This is helpful for a variety of reasons when it comes to profile building. Firstly by carrying out research, you will have a better idea of what your audience wants and can then adjust your marketing accordingly. In the iGaming industry, this means that you don’t waste your time trying to promote games such as poker and casino to demographics that are uninterested, or even worse, unable to play those games. Additionally, marketing aside, providing the products your customers actually want is the foundation for a strong business. Secondly, research helps avoid sticky situations in terms of customer relations. Promoting on the Internet means there are far fewer geographic restrictions. If you are an affiliate in the UK, someone in India can see your site and promotions just as readily as someone in a neighbouring city. However, cultural boundaries are not similarly dissipated by the expansive reach of the Internet. When promoting to other cultures, which can be very lucrative, target research will help you better understand what is acceptable and what will generate the
response you are seeking. What is charming and witty in the UK might be unattractive in another country. Without localised research, you risk missing entirely the interest of audiences from different cultures. Lastly, research means you will be able to direct information to provide people with new knowledge within their areas of interest. This increases your visibility and profile and when you successfully inform your customer of something new and interesting, you increase the chances of that visitor returning to your site the next time they want something similar.
Social media Social media is a perfect way to engage with your audience on a more personal level. Building a personal connection with potential customers means they will trust your opinion and rely on your expertise to guide their decisions. Of course, this has to be merited by using social media properly to distribute informative content on a regular basis and responding directly to people in a sincere and helpful manner. Simply making a Facebook page or opening a Twitter account does not mean that
one has answered the social media call. When you are actually educating people on pertinent topics with your Twitter postings (even if that means promoting the content of others) and personally helping them resolve any questions they may have, customers will respect what you promote and be more interested in it due to your general presence, or the profile you have built. Additionally, when you market successfully through social media, you can, in a way, convert your audience into personal affiliates. For example, if you post valuable content on Twitter, your followers will possibly retweet you. In turn, their followers will see your posts. From that point, you have a wider audience to convert as referrals, all thanks to the profile you built through the effective use of social media. Social media also adds a level of transparency to your marketing, which means your profile will not only be prominent but also ethical and respectable.
SEO and keyword-rich content The notion of profile is synonymous to visibility. Therefore, being prominent on key search engines – be it through organic search or via sponsored ads
for relevant keywords – is a vital boost to profile strength. You can improve your SEO by implementing clean interlinking and navigation, efficient URL structure, maximised site speed, and, as should already be evident, quality content. Navigation optimised for search engines will result in your site being more prominent amongst topic searches, and gives you a leg-up over those promoting similar operators. Optimising navigation can be as simple as making sure your most important content is at the forefront of your page, and that it links easily and logically to other content. The structure of your URL affects how it is seen by engines like Google. For instance, using hyphens is preferred since Google treats hyphenated words as individual terms. Additionally, shorter URLs will be shared more than longer ones, which will also affect your place in search engine results. Search engines, and people, also place a value on quality content. Google wisely punishes sites that utilise old or duplicate content or proliferate low-quality content. By avoiding these pitfalls, you can rank
higher in search engines. This higher profile adds a level of respectability to your efforts. On the whole, building a profile is the result of showcasing your expertise and illustrating your value to consumers. It takes effort, but it pays off in the longterm. With a strong profile, attracting and converting new (and repeat) customers can lead to consistent revenue growth and sustained success.
Andreea Arion manages various affiliate programs at Income Access and coordinates the Income Access Network, all with a special focus on brand management. She is devoted to the underlying daily tasks of maintaining the longstanding flagship brand of the Income Access Network. Andreea works to maintain relationships with network clients and affiliates while achieving the high quality product and service standard for which the brand is widely recognised.
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iGB Affiliate October/November 2011
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DATA CENTRE
Affiliate Data Centre: European Market Size iGB Affiliate has acquired data from leading iGaming market analysts H2 Gambling Capital, which provides affiliates with information on the current markets sizes for European onshore iGaming in 2011, plus projected figures for the regulated European market for 2014. European Onshore Market 2011 The data set provided for 2011 details the commercial activity for domestically licensed gaming operations in the European market and does not include offshore activity in pre-licensing countries such as Spain and Greece but does incorporate onshore monopoly activity excluding lottery, as highlighted by Sweden’s share of the market.
Market share for 2011 sees the biggest regulated markets, France, Italy and the UK accounting for the majority of voice with the monopoly state in Sweden also making up for a significant portion. Italy enjoys the largest market share with 36 percent of the market, with France accounting for a quarter at 24 percent and the UK totalling just 15 percent (onshore activity only). The gross win per market is calculated using casino, bingo, poker and
H2 Gambling Capital - Commercial Activity Domestically Licensed All Data is Gross Win in €m - Sportsbetting, Casino, Poker, Bingo (No Lottery Products) Europe Only. 2011 Italy France UK Sweden Other Total
707 466 295 225 287 1,979
sportsbetting and does not include lottery products. What we can see from this is that the European onshore market in 2011 is worth close to €2 billion. Italy makes up the majority of this figure with gross win of €707 million, with France €466 million, the UK at €295 million and Sweden not far behind on €225 million. The 14 percent grouped together as ‘other’ account for the remaining €287 million.
Other 14% Sweden 11%
Onshore Activity Only Monopoly Only
Does not include activity offshore with taxation due onshore in pre-licensing Spain and Greece. Does include monopoly onshore activity excluding lottery products.
Italy 36%
UK 15% France 24%
Courtesy of H2 Gambling Capital
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iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
European Onshore Market 2014 The second data set looks at projected figures for 2014, and considers and includes all UK and Ireland player activity on the assumption that a consumer based tax and licensing system will be in place by then. Again, no state lotteries are included in the results. The noticeable change is the increase in the UK’s market share relative to the markets of Italy and France as it claims the majority share of 26 percent over Italy’s 23 percent and France’s 14 percent. Sweden’s market share also plummets down to 3 percent whilst Ireland, Spain (both 6 percent), Denmark (5 percent), Finland (4 percent), the Netherlands (3 percent) and
2014 UK Italy France Spain Ireland Denmark Finland Sweden Netherlands
2,006 1,747 1,055 455 453 391 304 274 228
Greece Other Total
188 621 7,722
Greece (2 percent) all make entries into the market data. European market size by gross win in 2014 is estimated to be €7.7 billion, largely made up by the three major markets from 2011. The UK, including onshore tax and the licensing of offshore servers, accounts for more than the entire 2011 market at €2 billion, with Italy close behind on €1.7 billion and France coming in at just over €1 billion. The regulating market in Spain is next at €455 million gross win just ahead of Ireland (€453 million,) Denmark (€391 million) and the monopolies in Finland (€304 million) and Sweden (€274 million – only a €49 million increase from 2011). The Netherlands and Greece (€228 million
Onshore Tax and Licensing Offshore Servers
Onshore Tax and Licensing Offshore Servers Monopoly Only Monopoly Only
Includes all UK and Ireland player activity as it is anticipated that there will be a Consumer Based Tax and Licensing by the time. Neither year includes state lottery games.
and €188 million respectively) are next with the remaining €621 million being split between smaller markets. The forecast does appear to correlate with the widely held assumption that Spain will be the next biggest iGaming market in Europe although, on these figures, Ireland and Denmark are close behind. The total market is expected to grow by €5.743 billion over the next three years, much of this being accounted for by countries currently in stages of pre-regulation and the maturity of regulated markets. Information and charts courtesy of H2 Gambling Capital.
Greece 2% Netherlands 3% Sweden 3% Finland 4%
UK 26%
Denmark 5% Ireland 6% Spain 6%
France 14%
Italy 23%
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DATA CENTRE
International DEMOGRAPHICS The latest market data from Experian Hitwise gives us a structured breakdown of the target audiences within some of the major international markets. Here, we assess the demographic data sets that can better inform us about the gaming consumers affiliates regularly market to.
USA Gender of visitors to gambling sites
Age of visitors to gambling sites
Male, 50.39%
40%
33.75%
32% 23.23%
24% 16%
18.67%
14.65% 9.7%
8% 0% Female, 49.61% State visitors to gambling sites
18-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55+
Household income of visitors to gambling sites 40% 32%
32.53% 25.9%
25.11%
24% 16%
11.17% 5.29%
8% 0%
<30k
30-60k
60-100k
100-150k
>150k
VantageScore速 of visitors to gambling sites 28.77%
30% 24% <1% 1-5% 5-10% 10-20% 20-50% >50%
18.61%
18% 12%
DMA (Designated Market Area) of visitors to gambling sites.
20.29%
22.67%
9.67%
6% 0%
<1% 1-3% 3-6% 6-9% 9-12% >12%
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iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
A B C D F (901-990) (801-900) (701-800) (601-700) (501-600)
No
WEBSITES
DOMAIN
VISITS SHARE
1
FreeSlots
www.freeslots.com
5.00%
2
NY Lottery
www.nylottery.org
4.30%
3
Florida Lottery
www.flalottery.com
4.14%
4
Lottery Post
www.lotterypost.com
4.02%
5
Pennsylvania Lottery
www.palottery.state.pa.us
3.40%
6
WorldWinner
www.worldwinner.com
3.06%
7
King.com
www.king.com
2.94%
8
Texas Lottery Commission
www.txlottery.org
2.92%
9
California Lottery
www.calottery.com
2.67%
10
Georgia Lottery
www.galottery.com
2.47%
The website and industry demographic reports from Experian Hitwise provide iGaming companies with an analysis of the consumption of industry products by country, sub-regions (counties/ states/provinces/cities) within those countries and a profile of the consumers visiting their sites. The latest report is cast over a four week period ending on August 2, 2011, and details activity for the gaming markets in the US, UK, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. Here, we will concentrate on the UK and US markets.
US According to Experian Hitwise data, the US online gambler is more likely to be male, over the age of 55, earning $30,000 to $60,000 per year and is likely to live in any of California (10-20%), Texas, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania (all 5-10%). Again, as we touched on in the last issue, perhaps the most intriguing information on this page, and possibly the most pertinent for gaming companies, is captured in the VantageScore® index of US visitors to gaming sites. VantageScore® is a system created by the
will be interesting to chart the rate and direction of change in the coming reporting periods.
collaboration of the UK’s three major credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, which provides a scale by which consumer demographics can be measured for credit risk assessment. This system helps companies predict the likelihood of delinquencies (late/nonpayments) for potential customers and for gaming companies, this information is vital in understanding the nature and/ or personality of the customer you are targeting, helping to avoid high risk demographics. The system calculates risk on a scale between 901 to 600 – the lower the number, the higher the risk category. Although it has decreased slightly from the last report, we can see that almost 30% of people who gamble online in the US are in the high risk category with 23% being in the ‘next-worst’ category which means that over half (51.44%, a 0.54% drop since July) of all online players in the US can be considered higher risk customers. As the level of higher risk consumers shows signs of decline, there is good news at the other end of the spectrum too, as the lower risk bracket has increased 0.6% to 9.67%. It
UK Again, both markets share similarities in their demographic sets, but whereas the US gender split has remained the same, the UK has seen an incremental rise in male players. One obvious separation between the markets, as you would imagine, is in the preferred websites that players are visiting. The top ten sites in the US is dominated by state lottery and free-to-play sites whereas the UK shows that sportsbetting is a major driver of search traffic, with the likes of William Hill, Betfair and Ladbrokes taking up prominent places. However, the National Lottery sits significantly atop the list, a whole 20% clear of its nearest rival to market share, William Hill. All in all, the information provided in this report offers a snapshot of the world the industry markets to in a given month, and provides valuable statistics and data to consider when preparing products and campaigns for both new and existing iGaming markets.
UK Age of visitors to gambling sites
Gender of visitors to gambling sites Male, 51.51%
30%
26.97%
24% 18%
16.08%
17.89%
20.55%
18.51%
12% 6% 0%
Female, 48.49% Region of visitors to gambling sites
18-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55+
Postal areas of visitors to gambling sites Postal Areas (5 of 121)
<1% 1-5% 5-10% 10-20% 20-50% >50%
Visits Share
AB – Aberdeen
0.77%
AL – St Albans
0.36%
B – Birmingham
2.67%
BA – Bath
0.58%
BB – Blackburn
0.91%
No
WEBSITES
DOMAIN
VST SHa
1
The National Lottery
www.national-lottery.co.uk
26.91%
2
William Hill
www.williamhill.com
5.63%
3
bet365
www.bet365.com
5.13%
4
Betfair
www.betfair.com
3.89%
5
Ladbrokes Sportsbook
sports.ladbrokes.com
3.68%
6
William Hill Sports Betting
sports.williamhill.com
3.36%
7
Racingpost.com
www.racingpost.com
2.94%
8
Jackpotjoy
www.jackpotjoy.com
2.59%
9
Paddy Power
www.paddypower.com
2.47%
10
Sky Bet
www.skybet.com
2.19%
iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
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DATA CENTRE
WEBMASTER WORLD
DATA FEED: UK SEARCH TRENDS Search Marketing Agency, Greenlight, has released its latest report into search traffic trends within the gaming sector for the month of July. Here, we can see the latest from the UK market in relation to search queries for the traditional iGaming verticals: casino, poker, bingo and sportsbetting. THE MOST RECENT monthly report from search marketing agency, Greenlight, details a continuation of the plateau in search activity as reported in its quarterly report in June. July’s figures have reported another decrease in overall search volumes having fallen to 798,000 searches, which represents the second lowest monthly figure since July 2010, when over 2.5 million searches were accounted for. July’s data set shows that poker(277,120) has replaced bingo as the most searched keyword, or at least, the term with the most cumulative searches with regards to variations (online poker/free poker/poker). Bingo remains a key driver of search traffic in the UK with just over 277,000 searches, with casino and sportsbetting making up the remainder of the combined total. As we have discussed in the past, we can attribute the decrease in search volumes to any number of factors one of the likeliest being the changing search patterns of the UK betting demographic. As consumers become more aware of how they navigate between the sites they use to bet or play at, their reliance on search engines decreases for short-tail terms such as those detailed here, but may increase for more specific, longer-tail keywords for which is it almost impossible to monitor and chart successfully. Many of the searches recorded for these core keywords such as ‘bingo’, ‘casino’ and ‘poker’ are more likely to be the reserve of those new to betting online, or those seeking information rather than ‘action’, hence the constant presence of Wikipedia in the Greenlight results.
The results for sportsbetting are also slightly muddied by the presence of short-tail terms such as ‘bet’ and ‘betting’ which although are grouped into the sports results, don’t necessarily represent accurate sports betting traffic.
Summary of data ● Searches for gaming-related keywords in July 2011 totalled
798,267, down 64,733 on the previous month’s level (863,000). ● In July, poker-related terms (277,120) marginally accounted
●
●
● ●
●
for the majority share of searches made. Bingo-related terms (277,072) came a very close second. Overall, in July, Wikipedia.org, Ladbrokes.com and 888.com were the three most visible websites in natural search achieving 28%, 27% and 24% share of voice, respectively. CheekyBingo maintained its lead as the most visible website for bingo-related search terms and even increased its share of voice from 53% in June to 61% in July. 888.com was the most visible website for all casino-related keywords, achieving a 50% share of voice. For poker-related queries, Wikipedia was the most visible website, attaining a 49% share of voice in July, down 3% on June’s level. Betfair was the most visible website for sportsbetting related terms, maintaining a 56% share of voice.
3,000,000 2,500,000 2,000,000 1,500,000 1,000,000 500,000 0
Series 1
62
Jul 10
Sep 10
Oct 10
Nov 10
Dec 10
Jul 10
Aug 10 Aug 10
Sep 10
Oct 10
Nov 10
Dec 10
Jan 11
Feb 11
Mar 11
Apr 11
May 11
Jun 11
Jul 11
2,535,296
2,533,796
1,289,919
1,624,125
1,612,523
802,519
1,274,899
929,869
925,557
879,599
771,036
863,020
798,267
iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
Jan 11
Feb 11
Mar 11
Apr 11
May 11
Jun 11
Jul 11
The total number of searches made by subsector for gaming related keywords (July 2011)
The most visible websites for all gaming-related keywords in natural search (July 2011) NO.
Casino 105,728 Poker 277,120
Sports betting 138,347
Bingo 277,072
Domain
Monthly Reached Volume
Monthly Missed Volume
Percentage Reached
1
wikipedia.org
220,616
577,651
28%
2
ladbrokes.com
215,109
583,158
27%
3
888.com
192,768
605,499
24%
4
cheekybingo.com
169,847
628,420
21%
5
costabingo.com
145,220
653,047
18%
6
pokerlistings.com
112,150
686,117
14%
7
skypoker.com
106,244
692,023
13%
8
galabingo.co.uk
99,568
698,699
12%
9
sunlight-bingo.co.uk
98,417
699,850
12%
10
foxybingo.com
96,186
702,081
12%
The most visible websites for bingo-related keywords in natural search (July 2011)
The most visible websites for online poker-related keywords in natural search (July 2011)
NO.
Domain
Monthly Reached Volume
Monthly Missed Volume
Percentage Reached
NO.
Domain
Monthly Reached Volume
Monthly Missed Volume
Percentage Reached
1
cheekybingo.com
169,847
107,225
61%
1
wikipedia.org
134,801
142,319
49%
2
costabingo.com
145,220
131,852
52%
2
pokerlistings.com
112,139
164,981
40%
3
galabingo.co.uk
99,568
177,504
36%
3
skypoker.com
105,978
171,142
38%
4
sunlight-bingo.co.uk
98,417
178,655
36%
4
888.com
103,821
173,299
37%
5
foxybingo.com
96,186
180,886
35%
5
freepoker.org
89,431
187,689
32%
6
tombola.co.uk
85,648
191,424
31%
6
pkr.com
80,909
196,211
29%
7
ladbrokes.com
83,308
193,764
30%
7
pokerstars.com
63,621
213,499
23%
8
888ladies.com
78,528
198,544
28%
8
fulltiltpoker.com
62,409
214,711
23%
9
winkbingo.com
75,837
201,235
27%
9
partypoker.com
58,105
219,015
21%
10
jackpotjoy.com
67,929
209,143
25%
10
pacificpoker.com
53,920
223,200
19%
11
bestoffersbingo.co.uk
65,570
211,502
24%
11
pokerstars.net
42,402
234,718
15%
12
bingoport.co.uk
65,429
211,643
24%
12
thepokerpractice.com
41,062
236,058
15%
13
freebingo.co.uk
49,365
227,707
18%
13
games.com
40,480
236,640
15%
14
madaboutbingo.co.uk
48,594
228,478
18%
14
ladbrokes.com
37,029
240,091
13%
15
superfreebingo.com
36,773
240,299
13%
15
pokerstars.co.uk
33,873
243,247
12%
16
freebingo.net
33,323
243,749
12%
16
247freepoker.com
30,337
246,783
11%
17
bingosites.co.uk
32,224
244,848
12%
17
freepoker.com
26,496
250,624
10%
18
888.com
30,392
246,680
11%
18
nwsource.com
24,924
252,196
9%
19
ukfreebingosites.co.uk
29,092
247,980
10%
19
texasholdem-poker.com
21,330
255,790
8%
20
bingoseek.com
28,379
248,693
10%
20
pokernews.com
21,293
255,827
8%
The most visible websites for online casino-related keywords in natural search (July 2011)
The most visible websites for online sports betting-related keywords in natural search (July 2011)
NO.
Domain
Monthly Reached Volume
Monthly Missed Volume
Percentage Reached
NO.
1
888.com
52,972
52,756
50%
2
intercasino.co.uk
49,171
56,557
47%
3
32red.com
43,961
61,767
4
wikipedia.org
43,042
5
ladbrokes.com
6
Domain
Monthly Reached Volume
Monthly Missed Volume
Percentage Reached
1
betfair.com
77,192
61,155
56%
2
paddypower.com
58,795
79,552
42%
42%
3
bet365.com
56,453
81,894
41%
62,686
41%
4
ladbrokes.com
54,599
83,748
39%
40,173
65,555
38%
5
skybet.com
45,498
92,849
33%
spinpalace.co.uk
32,800
72,928
31%
6
oddschecker.com
42,492
95,855
31%
7
imdb.com
24,618
81,110
23%
7
betfred.com
41,847
96,500
30%
8
latestcasinobonuses.com
14,243
91,485
13%
8
wikipedia.org
37,126
101,221
27%
9
freeslots.com
13,574
92,154
13%
9
freebettingonline.co.uk
33,712
104,635
24%
10
paddypowercasino.com
12,384
93,344
12%
10
coral.co.uk
32,126
106,221
23%
11
ukcasinoclub.com
11,784
93,944
11%
11
williamhill.com
29,322
109,025
21%
12
onlinecasinoking.com
10,835
94,893
10%
12
bet.com
27,108
111,239
20%
13
onlinecasino.co.uk
9,480
96,248
9%
13
bet770.com
26,125
112,222
19%
14
galacasino.co.uk
8,391
97,337
8%
14
olbg.com
21,890
116,457
16%
15
slotsofvegas.com
8,261
97,467
8%
15
bettingzone.co.uk
19,846
118,501
14%
16
onlineslotsentertainment.com
7,716
98,012
7%
16
888sport.com
15,457
122,890
11%
17
onlinecasino.org.uk
7,476
98,252
7%
17
bluesq.com
14,779
123,568
11%
18
onlineslots.org.uk
6,560
99,168
6%
18
totesport.com
11,362
126,985
8%
19
casinogamesslots.com
5,216
100,512
5%
19
boylesports.com
10,944
127,403
8%
20
goldentigercasino.com
4,906
100,822
5%
20
easyodds.com
10,316
128,031
7%
Source: Greenlight
iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
63
marketplace
Welcome to the Market Place listings section of iGB Affiliate magazine. All listings are taken from the 2011 version of our iGB Affiliate Directory; a 150 page guide to the affiliate programs and service providers who are currently active within the iGaming sector. To request a free copy of this publication or to have your company listed please contact Richard W on E: Richard@iGamingBusiness.com or T: +44 (0) 207 954 3437
64
advertising & PR
BetOnline
PartnerLogic
Frontroom
www.affiliates.betonline.com
www.partnerlogic.com
www.frontroom.com
Betfair
Rich Club Affiliates
GameOn Marketing
www.betfair.com
www.richclubaffiliates.com
www.gameon-marketing.com
bwin
Slotland
Lyceum PR
www.bwin.org
www.slotlandaffiliates.com
www.lyceummedia.com
centrebet.com
StanJames
Market Handle
www.centrebetaffiliates.com
www.stanjamesaffiliates.com
www.markethandle.com
Chilli Casino
Star Games
McBoom
www.chilicasino.com
www.stargames.com
www.mcboom.com
ComeOn!
Star Partner
Bingo Affiliate Programs
www.comeon.com
www.starpartner.com
Affiliates United
Dragonfish
Wingate Affiliates
www.affutd.com
www.dragonfishaffiliates.com
www.wingateaffiliates.com
bet 365
EuroPartners
youwin.com
www.bet365.com
www.EuroPartmers.com
www.youwin.com
Dragonfish
Fortune Affiliates
Content & Translation
www.dragonfishaffiliates.com
www.fortuneaffiliates.eu
services
Gala Coral
Gala Coral
www.affiliates.galabingo.com
www.affiliates.galabingo.com
StarGames
Genesys Affiliates
www.stargames.com
www.genesysaffiliates.com
Casino Affiliate Programs
Grande Vegas Affiliates
AffiliateClub
www.grandvegasaffiliates.com
www.AffiliateClub.com
Guru gaming
Affiliates United
www.gururevenue.com
www.affutd.com
Intertops Casino
Bet365
www.intertops.com
www.bet365.com
Jackpot Capital www.jackpotcapital.com/affiliates
iGB Affiliate october/november 2011
Market Handle
youwin.com
EuroPartners
www.markethandle.com
www.youwin.com
www.EuroPartmers.com
Moniker & SnapNames
search marketing (organic)
ExtraBet
www.moniker.com
Market Handle
www.extrabet.com
Email Marketing
www.markethandle.com
Gala Coral
Market Handle
McBoom
www.affiliates.galabingo.com
www.markethandle.com
www.mcboom.com
Hollywood Sportsbook
Hosting & Managed services
Moniker & SnapNames
www.hollywoodpowerplayer.com
Moniker & SnapNames
www.moniker.com
Intertops
www.moniker.com
search marketing (paid)
www.intertops.com
poker affiliate programs
Market Handle
ValueChecker Affiliates
AffiliateClub
www.markethandle.com
http://affiliates.valuechecker.co.uk
www.AffiliateClub.com
McBoom
Sportingbet
Affiliates United
www.mcboom.com
www.sportingbet.com
www.affutd.com
Moniker & SnapNames
StanJames
Bet365
www.moniker.com
www.stanjamesaffiliates.com
www.bet365.com
sKIll gaming affiliate
TOTE Sport
Betfair
Programs
www.totesportaffiliates.com
www.betfair.com
Affiliates United
Victor Chandler
bwin
www.affutd.com
www.victorchandler.com
www.bwin.org
bet 365
youwin.com
centrebet.com
www.bet365.com
www.youwin.com
www.centrebetaffiliates.com
bwin
webdesign
Chilli Poker
www.bwin.org
Market Handle
www.chilipoker.com
Gala Coral
www.markethandle.com
ComeOn!
www.affiliates.galabingo.com
Moniker & SnapNames
www.comeon.com
Rummy Royal
www.moniker.com
Dragonfish
www.rummyroyal.com
www.dragonfishaffiliates.com
StanJames
EuroPartners
www.stanjamesaffiliates.com
www.EuroPartmers.com
StarGames
Gala Coral
www.stargames.com
www.affiliates.galabingo.com
sports betting
Intertops Casino
Affiliates United
www.intertops.com
www.affutd.com
PartnerLogic
Bet365
www.partnerlogic.com
www.bet365.com
PKR
BetOnline
www.pkr.com
www.affiliates.betonline.com
Poker Pod
Betfair
www.pokerpodonline.com
www.betfair.com
StanJames
bwin
www.stanjamesaffiliates.com
www.bwin.org
Star Games
centrebet.com
www.stargames.com
www.centrebetaffiliates.com
iGB Affiliate october/november 2011
65
webmaster world
Conference Call
Following another hugely successful autumn affiliate conference in Barcelona, the iGB Affiliate team are already busying themselves for January’s event in London and one thing they thrive on in making each conference and expo better than the last is feedback from delegates. Mitko Atanasov offers iGB Affiliate readers his thoughts on BAC 2011. Having to make a decision to participate in the Barcelona Affiliate Conference was a tough choice. I literally had to be persuaded for over a month and a half, by the good folks at gaffg.com, that it’s something I will greatly benefit from. At the time, I didn’t really see what the big deal was. However, I decided to give it a try, on the condition that if I did not like it, I just wouldn’t go to another one. So, on that premise, I set-up a few meetings and made my arrangements for Barcelona.
Day one I arrived on September 8 and went to pre-register with the Quick Entry Pass the guys from iGB had sent me via email. It literally took three minutes, possibly even less, before I had my name tag and bracelet for the conference and was set for the upcoming two days. On day one of the conference, my goal was to get my three meetings done and perhaps look for a few more. At the entrance we were given a delegate guide which had a map of the whole room so it was quite easy to navigate around – lots of booths and exhibitors, a bit overwhelming and scary for someone who’s there for a first time. After the first two meetings I was able to relax, get rid of the stress and start walking around. That day, I met over 35 affiliate managers and collected as many business
66
iGB Affiliate OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2011
cards, plus I was even able to negotiate some deals. My expectations were vastly surpassed. And despite the mountains of free drinks, food and gifts from the exhibitors, I was far too excited to indulge. In fact, I kept walking in circles looking to meet new people until day one was over. By the end of the night I had met perhaps 80% of the people at the conference, and not just affiliate managers but promoters, new affiliates like myself, old successful affiliates, CEOs… the list goes on. The dinner hosted by Intertops and Affiliate Edge that night was awesome, and the party afterwards was something I won’t forget, largely because I kind of got lost, but thanks to some of the new friends I met at the conference, I was able to get safely back to my hotel (+1 to Rakesh from Mojo Affiliates!)
Overall, I had a great time; I found over 30 new business partners and at least that many new friends. The feeling you are left with after the conference is not easy to describe – it’s a mix of being ‘pumped up’ and excited, but there’s also a willingness to get back home and start working on that website. I would definitely recommend the iGB Affiliate conferences for new affiliates. Just give it a try, one single time, because that’s all it takes to understand how much of an opportunity it is and to be looking forward to the next event, as I am right now. I would like to thank everyone involved in the preparation of the Barcelona Affiliate Conference, as everything was handled very professional and the end result was brilliant. I would also like to thank everyone that helped me get to the conference and prepared me for the meetings. See you in London 2012.
Day two I used day two of the conference more for pleasure than business. I had finished most of my meetings and only had a couple left, plus I now knew lot of people from the previous day and night. Again, I spent close to eight hours socialising but this time, I did have a couple of drinks to cherish what I consider to have been an extremely successful trip.
Mitko Atanasov was born in Bourgas, Bulgaria, in 1984. At the age of 14, he moved to Chicago, United States where he graduated High School and enrolled in the University of Illinois in a Computer Science major. In 2009 he started his own affiliate website and has returned to his native Bourgas.
7068 bet365 affiliates (210x297+3mm). 21/09/2011 11:48 Page 1
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