Affiliate Leaders Issue 4

ISSUE 4 - BARCELONA 2026

DE&I in marketing is ‘worrying’ Clemence Dujardin, MyAffiliates’ CEO, discusses how the gaming sector is clinging on to outdated structures that hold women and minorities back

Embracing retail media The next big marketing channel for casinos and operators

AI giving search ‘superpowers’ Why affiliates need to ride the waves of the evolving SEO landscape

SBC EVENTS 2026

LISBON

FLORIDA

29 September-1 October 2026 Feira Internacional de Lisboa, Lisbon

9-11 June 2026 Broward County Convention Center, Fort Lauderdale

RIO

3-5 March 2026 Riocentro, Rio de Janeiro

MALTA

28-30 April 2026 InterContinental Malta

TORONTO

19-21 May 2026 Metro Toronto Convention Centre

For more information please visit sbcevents.com or scan the QR code

EDITOR’S NOTE

NEW YEAR, NEW OPPORTUNITIES Hello and Happy New Year! For those of you who haven’t seen my name pop up in your inboxes, I am the new editor for Affiliate Leaders. This latest issue of the magazine is packed with all the latest trends, challenges and even forecasts for the year ahead from across the marketing and affiliate sector.

From rapid advances in technology to changes in regulations, last year, was to some degree, a challenging year for marketers, regardless of the vertical they work in. In issue four of Affiliate Leaders, we tackle another issue that has been plaguing the industry.

Our cover story with Clemence Dujardin, CEO of MyAffiliates, brings to light some hard truths about why diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives have failed – particularly within the gaming and marketing space.

We take a look at some of the figures around gender and ethnic pay gaps and Dujardin suggests what steps businesses can take to improve opportunities for women and those from ethnic minority backgrounds.

SEO and search has always been key to the success of affiliate marketing. But with the rise of AI-browsers such as Perplexity’s Comet and OpenAI’s Atlas, coupled with chatbots like Google’s AI Mode and ChatGPT, consumer

behaviour has changed. This has fundamentally shifted how marketers need to think about their search marketing.

We speak to experts from Google, Youtech and 8MS about what this means and how marketers should adapt.

Across the wider marketing industry, retail media as a programmatic advertising channel has exploded.

Industry bodies even forecast global ad revenue in this channel to even surpass TV by the end of 2025.

The gaming industry so far has been reluctant to invest.

But this could all change and one operator is leading by example. In our feature we look at how LiveRamp has worked with operator Mohegan Gaming to establish a casino media network that connects brands and players.

Finally, as it’s the new year, we spoke to industry experts from across Europe, the US and Latin America to get predictions for the year ahead. A key theme from those we spoke to is trust and embracing an omnichannel strategy. Does that align with your strategy for 2026?

Enjoy the read.

Sincerely, Jyoti Rambhai

AffiliateLeaders.com

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CONTENTS

Affiliate Leaders is brought to you by SBC - Sports Betting Community.

Editor Jyoti Rambhai Editorial Team Andrew McCarron, Martyn Elliott, Jessica Welman, Ted Menmuir, Craig Davies, Charlie Horner, Joe Streeter, Ted Orme-Claye, Lucía Gando, Rachael Kennedy, Ricardo Assis, Conor Porter, Viktor Kayed, Callum Williams, Fernando Noodt, Ana Maria Menezes, Elisa Marcante, Justin Byers, Tom Nightingale, Kieran O’Connor, Christian Lee, James Ross Sales Team Rasmus Sojmark, John Cook, Alyona Gromova, Conall McCabe, Jan Kowalczyk, Bob McFarland, Craig Brown, Ed Young, Camilla Scott Creative Lead/Design & Layout Jessica Camilleri

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DE&I became a ‘trend’

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Why casinos should embrace retail media

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Leaning into the new world of SEO

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Navigating the predictions market

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The agentic AI movement

MyAffiliates’ Clemence Dujardin discusses why diversity initiatives have failed in marketing.

Gaming operator Mohegan has become the first to adopt retail media, one of the fastest growing marketing channels.

From OpenAI’s new browser to changing search behaviour, affiliate marketing is moving away from the traditional model.

Third Planet founder Adam Small examines whether the rise of the predictions market in the US within sports betting is worth the venture for affiliates.

With AI shopping assistants like Amazon’s Rufus here, it’s only a matter of time before it comes to gaming.

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World Cup 2026: What it means for sportsbooks With a bigger tournament, hosted by three nations, this world cup is a huge opportunity for advertisers.

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iGaming should bet on programmatic

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Can self-regulation save influencer marketing?

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Is affiliate fatigue real?

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Easy money has left the chat

Despite some advertisers investing in programmatic tools, the igaming sector is still taking a cautious approach.

With no law in Argentina currently to guide influencers, illegal operators are thriving. Can the industry step up?

An abundance of content, over saturation and a high churn rate of affiliate programmes could see the industry diluting its own impact.

Introducing regulation into Brazil’s igaming industry has caused the market to stagnate, which some experts believe is not a bad thing.

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All material is strictly copyrighted and all rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of Sports Betting Community Ltd. Although every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, Sports Betting Community Ltd cannot be held responsible for any errors it may contain. Sports Betting Community Ltd cannot be held responsible for the loss or damage of any material, solicited or unsolicited. The views of the publication are not necessarily the views of Sports Betting Community Ltd or those of the advertisers.

Produced and published by Sports Betting Community Ltd: Registered address: SBC, 2nd floor, 212 New Kings Road, London SW6 4NZ Tel: +44 (0) 161 367 1250. Email: sales@sbcgaming.com. Web: www.sbcgaming.com For all the latest developments in the Affiliate Leaders community, please visit AffiliateLeaders.com

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OP-ED

AI IS RESHAPING MEDIA BUYING FOR DTC BRANDS BUT BLIND TRUST IS DANGEROUS

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OP-ED

Words by - MIKE HAUPTMAN, FOUNDER AND CEO, ADLIB -

F

or years, media buying has been a game of scale. The biggest budgets unlocked the best placements, the smartest analysts, and the most sophisticated tools. That left smaller direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands on the sidelines, boxed into search and social, where targeting was turnkey but competition was brutal.

AI is changing that. For the first time, emerging brands can play in arenas that once required six or seven-figure spends and large in-house teams. Planning, modelling, and optimisation tasks that once took weeks of analyst work can now be executed in minutes. That’s levelling the playing field, but it’s also creating a dangerous new dependency.

AI is making sophisticated media buying accessible Generative and predictive AI tools are radically accelerating how teams plan and activate campaigns. What used to require multiple agencies, data scientists, or DSP power, can now be done with a fraction of the resources. Media planners can feed a brand’s first-party data into AI systems to generate channel mix recommendations, creative variations, and audience segments that previously required months of modelling.

This democratisation has opened up premium channels like connected TV (CTV), programmatic display, and digital out-of-home (DOOH) to brands that traditionally lived inside Meta and Google.

With AI, a two-person team can build cross-channel strategies that rival those of Fortune 500 brands.

But blind trust is a strategic risk The flip side is that many brands are handing over the keys entirely, letting AI systems decide where to spend, what to optimise for, and when to pivot. That’s dangerous.

AI doesn’t understand brand nuance, market dynamics, or strategic diversification. It optimises for the shortest path to a conversion event, which often means doubling down on the same walled garden environments that created today’s over concentration in search and social. Worse, algorithmic decisioning can hide inefficiencies behind performance dashboards that look great on paper, but erode margins over time.

If left unchecked, AI can lead brands into a media monoculture, precisely the opposite of what long-term growth requires.

Diversification is the opportunity DTC brands have spent the last decade chasing performance on Google and Meta. But costs are rising, signal loss from privacy changes is compounding, and competition has never been fiercer.

The brands that win in the next decade will diversify their spend by investing in emerging channels like retail media, CTV, streaming audio, and programmatic OOH. AI can be a powerful enabler of that diversification. It can make these channels more accessible and efficient for lean teams. But it must be directed with intention, not trusted blindly.

The new media buyer’s mandate AI is a tool, not a strategy. The most successful DTC brands will be the ones that pair AI’s speed and efficiency with human judgment, strategic diversification, and clear business objectives.

We’re entering a new era where creativity and strategy, not just budget, determine who wins. AI has levelled the playing field. It’s up to us to make sure it doesn’t flatten it.

AffiliateLeaders.com

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COVER STORY

DE&I BECAME A ‘TREND’ INSTEAD OF A ‘TRANSFORMATION’ Award-winning CEO, Clemence Dujardin, gives the hard truths about why diversity initiatives have so far failed and what the marketing industry can do to turn things around.

Words by - JYOTI RAMBHAI -

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iversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) became a hotly debated topic in 2025. Global businesses scaled back their initiatives amid macroeconomic pressures and US political discourse.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the UK gender pay gap decreased in April 2025. For full-time employees, it fell from 7.1% in 2024 to 6.9%.

For all employees (full-time and part-time), the gap reduced from 13.1% to 12.8%.

However, the story for the wider marketing and advertising industry does not align with the rest of the UK. Over the past 12 months, the gender pay gap in the marketing industry as a whole widened to 12.4% from 10.1%, according to Major Players Census 2025.

This means women in permanent roles are earning, on average, £8,099 less than their male counterparts.

It is a similar trend with the ethnicity pay gap – the IPA’s 2024 Agency Census showed the pay gap stood at 31% in 2024, up from 21.6% in 2023.

This regressive trend in the industry is reflected across Europe, says Clemence Dujardin, managing director at MyAffiliates.

“Across Europe, the gender pay gap has

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barely moved in years, and when you look past the headlines, the picture is even more worrying.

“Take Malta as an example. On paper, Malta has one of the lowest gender pay gaps in the EU – but this is partly because far fewer women are in full-time, high-earning roles,” she explains.

“When you break it down by sector, especially in industries like gaming, finance, and tech, the gap widens considerably. And women are still heavily underrepresented in senior positions, product roles, data, and tech – exactly the areas that dictate longterm earning potential.”

The hard truths Dujardin believes the “real inequality is sitting just beneath the surface”, but there are a few hard truths the industry has to acknowledge and address.

Firstly, is the view DE&I has become a “trend instead of a transformation”. “A lot of companies did the minimum: hired someone with a diversity title, did a workshop, posted about empowerment on LinkedIn, and then assumed the job was done,” Dujardin explains. “When cost pressures hit, these initiatives were the first to be cut.”

COVER STORY

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The industry cannot call itself innovative while clinging to outdated structures that hold women and minorities back

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COVER STORY

Secondly, promotion pathways are still dependent on relationships rather than structure. “In our industry especially, who gets visibility, who gets the large accounts, who travels to conferences, and who gets that ‘stretch’ project often comes from informal networks. Those networks remain very male,” says Dujardin.

This aligns with her view that flexibility is still not designed with women in mind. While hybrid work has helped to some degree, it also “made it easier to overlook people who are not constantly in the room or part of the informal conversations”, she adds.

The final hard truth is that ethnic pay gaps are barely measured in Europe and “what isn’t measured, isn’t fixed” and thus it “widens quietly in the background”, Dujardin notes.

“Regression happens when companies focus on optics, not structure. And that’s exactly what the last couple of years exposed.

“We’ve spent years celebrating diversity on stages and in marketing campaigns, but the numbers show we have not fixed the fundamentals. The industry cannot call itself innovative while clinging to outdated structures that hold women and minorities back.”

‘It’s an ecosystem problem’

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Companies are afraid to be seen as ‘too political’, so they sanitise or scale back their DE&I commitments

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So what’s been holding the industry back? Why have gaming affiliates found it challenging to improve the representation of women and those from ethnic minority backgrounds?

For Dujardin, it’s not just about the numbers.“We are fighting a legacy culture,” she says, and the industry’s reputation has not helped.

“Gaming and affiliates often come across as fast-paced, travel-heavy, and very male. Many women simply don’t see themselves reflected, so they don’t enter the pipeline to begin with,” she explains. As a result, “roles remained gendered” with women clustering into support or account management positions and men dominating tech, commercial leadership or simply “anything tied to revenue or product ownership”.

She adds: “Informal power structures run the industry. Deals are often built in private groups, over dinners, and at conference side events. When the room is 90% male, the opportunities follow the same pattern.

COVER STORY

“Parenthood is still treated as an interruption – but mostly for women. Travel and conference schedules can be brutal. Without proper flexibility and planning, women are pushed out when they should be stepping forward. This is not a talent problem. It’s an ecosystem problem.”

Dujardin claims the current US political climate, which has turned DE&I into a “battleground”, is having a significant impact on global companies and affiliate networks. “This mood filters down into global companies, in three ways: caution replaces ambition; messaging becomes vague; and leadership becomes reactive.

“Companies are afraid to be seen as ‘too political’, so they sanitise or scale back their DE&I commitments,” she adds. As a result, instead of strong, clear policies, there is “softer, safer language that pleases no-one and changes nothing”.

“People worry more about backlash than impact, which leads to watered-down strategies and very little accountability. The result? DE&I efforts stall at exactly the time when the data shows we need to push harder.”

No more ‘boys club’ Dujardin has numerous accolades for the work she has done in this space. She was named European CEO of the Year – Most Innovative iGaming CEO by EU Business News in 2025, and ranked sixth among the top 25 women shaping the future of igaming

by IGaming XP. Not only has she mentored women and helped them move into higher-impact roles, Dujardin has consistently spoken out about pay equity, structural barriers and the cultural problems the industry faces, and not in a “feel good way, but directly”, she tells Affiliate Leaders.

“I’ve challenged event organisers and partners when representation becomes a box-ticking exercise. And I’m still pushing, because until the industry can attract, retain, and promote women at the same rate as men, this work is not finished.”

Therefore DE&I can no longer be seen as a PR exercise. It’s “part of how I run a team and build a company”, she says, adding the awards she has received are a reflection

of this. At MyAffiliates, Dujardin has implemented structured salary reviews with clear role benchmarks so compensation isn’t based on who negotiates the best; and a no-nonsense culture with zero tolerance for intimidation or “ego-driven behaviour”.

And most importantly, she’s ensured “women hold real strategic responsibility – not just soft roles”. C-suite executives have an important role to play in changing the culture, because “culture flows downward”, she emphasises.

“Executives have to set the tone that pay equity, representation, and safety are part of business health – not optional extras.

They must sponsor and promote talent intentionally, especially those who have historically been overlooked.

“They need to question decisions that rely on ‘fit’ or ‘intuition’, which often mask bias.

And they need to make the tough calls – including walking away from revenue when a partner’s culture conflicts with their values. If leadership isn’t serious, nothing else matters.”

Dujardin suggests in order to tackle the diversity problem in the affiliate gaming industry and make it a more attractive area for women to work in, businesses should “treat DE&I like compliance or security – non-negotiable and measurable”. “[We need to] clean up the culture so that women and minorities feel safe, respected, and heard. Offer structured career development – especially in product, data, and strategy roles. [We should] stop relying on the ‘boys’ club’ style of networking and deal-making and give visibility to the women already in the industry – show that the path exists,” she lists.

This should be done in conjunction with building salary bands, transparent progression frameworks and above all, protecting people from harassment, intimidation and discrimination.

“If we can optimise every click, every conversion, and every behavioural pattern, we can also optimise fairness. We know how to build systems. We just need the will to build better ones, for everyone,” Dujardin concludes.

AffiliateLeaders.com

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FEATURE

JOIN THE REVOLUTION! WHY CASINOS SHOULD EMBRACE RETAIL MEDIA Words by - CHARLIE HORNER -

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he igaming sector is facing a crossroads when it comes to marketing and advertising. More stringent regulation, rising costs and public backlashes are all making marketing in the sector a more challenging prospect, and CMOs are being forced to think of more creative strategies to entice users onto their platforms.

But what if there was another way to engage with users, increase player loyalty and drive new revenue streams?

What is retail media?

Retail media may not be so familiar in the igaming sector, but in other industries, it is big business. Big business indeed. Latest figures from WARC suggest the channel was set to reach $174.9 billion in 2025 and is projected to surpass $200 billion by 2027 – that equates to a 13.7% increase year-on-year. It is expected to rise by 12.4% in 2026 to reach $196.7 billion, representing 16% of all adspend.

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For those not familiar, retail media is a form of advertising that takes place within a retailer’s digital and physical ecosystem. These ads are placed at or near the point of purchase, whether on an e-commerce website, within a mobile app, or on in-store digital displays.

“It really started as a way for CPG (consumer packaged goods) companies to understand more about their customers, and from there, develop a product strategy,” says Reece Jones, managing director of strategic verticals: hospitality, gaming and cybersecurity, at LiveRamp. “Maybe one product was really popular with one group of people, and they want to get them in front of those people more.

“Retailers have lots of data. They know a lot about their customers, whether they’re buying a certain soda every week for example, or certain chips.

They know it and they’re aware of it, especially if they are a loyal customer. If you look at the travel and hospitality space, they have lots of data and they understand their customers.”

FEATURE

iGaming’s next opportunity?

So retail media benefits those companies with their own physical and digital platforms, with access to lots of customer data points. Does that sound familiar to you?

It is something that marketing experts are certain that igaming brands could have considerable success within the next few years.

“I think it’s an absolutely massive opportunity for operators; it can be a huge profit centre,” adds James Taylor, CEO of Particular Audience.

“You think about the context that the users have when they interact with

these platforms. It’s typically around a team or an event or a location. They really pique engagement with that sport or team so I think that there is this huge opportunity to build massive advertising businesses.”

Taylor uses the theoretical example of an igaming operator that has a frontof-shirt sponsorship with a football club. He theorised that an effective use of retail media in igaming could be that operator partnering with the club’s other partners such as an official trainingwear partner or official catering partner.

By synergising those brands, Taylor suggests, the operator can drive

further engagement with the club’s fans, the advertisers can access highly engaged audiences, and fans are rewarded for their loyalty.

He explains: “Operators will send out emails to entice fans to place a bet and they can monetise banner space to brands who want to access highly engaged fans of the team they sponsor. The average sort of CPM is probably about £25 and if you can reach 100,000 people, that’s £2.5k per email. If operators can do that at scale to every team in the Premier League, they start to have quite a material ad business for zero marginal costs.”

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The home of global iGaming industry news. Leading coverage on Europe, Asia, Africa and beyond.

JOIN THE EXPERTS

James Taylor

FEATURE

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I think it’s an absolutely massive opportunity for operators; it can be a huge profit centre

Mohegan leads the pack Jones and LiveRamp have experience working with a gaming operator to establish a casino media network through its work with Mohegan Gaming. Touted as an industryfirst deal, LiveRamp works with the operator to allow brands access to Mohegan’s first-party data to reach guests and players as well as measure campaigns across the casino’s digital channels and onpremise experiences.

Jones says: “The big thing is getting the data to be one common view of a customer and enable it for whether it’s off-site to various ad platforms or you’re just directly partnering, and that’s where LiveRamp comes in. We can jump in and support that, and we

have the expertise for that. It’s been a fun part of my remit in taking what worked really well in retail CPG, and bringing it into the casino gaming space.”

Breaking down LiveRamp and Mohegan’s deal reflects the vast swathe of real estate that operators have allowed them to connect brands and players. There is digital space within the app, with banners also available via email. But Mohegan also leverages its brick-and-mortar casinos too, offering media space on its digital boards and even on slot machines.

“Most slot machines today have a media window that’s largely reserved for in-house advertising, whether it’s for a loyalty programme, or an inhouse restaurant.

“One of the things that casinos notice is when you insert your player card – which means you’re in the loyalty programme – you still would get loyalty ads on that media screen. Why would you still give them loyalty ads? They then switch that over to other advertising.”

Despite dropping the number of in-house ads, casinos are still reporting revenue increases, largely down to the efficacy of these retail media operations.

First-mover advantage?

Yet, the gaming sector on a whole is yet to embrace this in full.

While LiveRamp has a roster of gaming clients, only one of which is public, Taylor and Particular Audience are reporting a level of hesitancy from operators to take up these opportunities.

“Some don’t have a person responsible for owned property advertising, KPIs for brand partnership or partnership income,” Taylor notes. “But I think there is a huge mindshift opportunity and the early adopters will pioneer the market, make a ton of margin, and they’ll get a massive advantage.”

Operators have access to so much data now, and there are plenty of new ways they can leverage that data with technology. Gamification and personalisation prove that operators have the power to use retail media if they want to, providing they work with the right suppliers.

AffiliateLeaders.com

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FORECAST

GAMING ADVERTISING ON THE RISE Global advertising revenue continues to grow, with social media maintaining a significant share of the market, while AI reshapes the traditional search model.

Words by - JYOTI RAMBHAI -

Source: WPP Media, This Year Next Year 2026

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FORECAST

G

aming is the fastest growing content advertising channel in 2025, while revenue from search and social media is set to plateau, according to WPP Media’s This Year Next Year (TYNY) report.

A boom in AI investment, coupled with diminished impacts from the tariffs introduced by the US administration in April across nearly all global markets, have had a positive impact on advertising growth with new ad sellers and buyers entering the ecosystem.

WPP revised its ad revenue growth rate forecast to 8.8% for 2025 reaching $1.14 trillion – the midyear report estimated the rate to be 6% and revenue to hit $1.08 trillion. The growth rate for 2026 is now predicted to be 7.1%, reaching $1.22 trillion (excluding political advertising) and is projected to grow to $1.55 trillion by 2030.

Part of the growth has been attributed to the rapid legalisation and normalisation of sports betting, crypto and the predictions market – particularly in the US – which is “amplified by sophisticated digital platforms and targeted advertising”, the report stated.

This has created a new category of consumer financial exposure, which in the short-term, is generating advertising revenue. However, the rise of crypto, betting and buy now pay later (BNPL) schemes also “represents a downside risk for advertising growth if the financial health of consumers deteriorates”, warned Kate Scott-Dawkins, global president, business intelligence at WPP Media and author of the TYNY report.

The fastest growing channel for content advertising in 2025 is gaming, reaching $8.5 billion in revenue (up 29.5%) and is expected to grow a further 25.6% in 2026 to $10.7 billion.

The sector, which includes ingaming across publishers such as Tencent, TakeTwo, Roblox, EA, Bandai Namco, Sony and EA, varies significantly by market. In Thailand, it is estimated to grow rapidly by 2030, with thousands of active advertisers. While Japan reports mobile gaming to be the biggest driver of user acquisition spend with a rise in in-gaming ads through rewarded video ads, playable ads and brand sponsorships.

In comparison, adspend going into gaming platforms in Mexico is still relatively nascent. Similarly in France, advertisers are still mostly endemic to the sector with many still in experimental phases.

The report noted: “The 20% growth rates reflect an extremely low base rather than mainstream channel adoption, leaving gaming’s trajectory uncertain.”

Search still a ‘robust’ channel AI-powered answer engines like ChatGPT and Claude are reshaping search behaviour, which prompted WPP Media to reclassify this advertising activity under a new category – intelligence – in the mid-year report.

Advertising revenue for traditional search (excluding sponsored listings on Amazon or TikTok) is set to reach $244.9 billion in 2025 – up 10.2% over 2024 and representing 21.4% of total ad revenue. Growth is forecast to remain at 10.3% in 2026, before decelerating through to 2030.

Search is expected to grow 7% on a compound annual basis between 2027 and 2030, which for a “mature channel [...] is still seen as robust”, said Scott-Dawkins.

Analysis of expanded search across sites such as Yelp, Reddit, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok and Amazon, shows advertising revenue is set to hit almost $400 billion in 2026,

with pureplay search accounting for 58.1% of that figure and AI Overviews and other genAI engines, 2.1%.

Commerce search would account for 34% of ad revenue and social search 4%, according to WPP Media’s TYNY report. The rest of the digital ecosystem, such as real estate, job listings and others, would make up 2% of expanded search ad revenue.

The report stated: “The evolution of search exemplifies creative destruction at work. What began as a discrete activity confined to dedicated search engines has diffused across the digital landscape. [...] This fragmentation simultaneously destroys the attribution models that defined search advertising’s first decades and creates new value through contextually relevant, intent-rich interactions.”

For social media, ad revenue is projected to reach $413 billion in 2025, growing 12.8%. However, growth rate is expected to slow down due to increasing use of AI chatbots and age bans coming into effect in countries such as Australia. WPP Media estimates a growth of 7.8% in 2026, with revenue hitting $445.4 billion.

Social media will still account for just over a third of total ad revenue, going from 34.8% in 2024 to 36.1% in 2025 and 36.4% in 2026.

Finally, the AI boom is benefiting big tech, with “new AI companies using Google search to capture interest”. “[...] The scale of this growth is pretty astounding when you’re looking at sustained 20 digit or 20 plus percent growth,” said ScottDawkins adding that Meta, Google and Amazon have seen growth accelerate this year. “We really are seeing this strength getting among that group, and it’s furthering the shift to digital overall.”

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SEARCH

Michael Norris

LEANING INTO THE NEW WORLD OF SEO 18

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SEARCH

From OpenAI’s new AI-powered browser to the rise in social media platforms for discovery, affiliate marketing is moving away from the traditional PPC model.

Words by - JYOTI RAMBHAI -

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he search landscape has been evolving rapidly. Changing consumer behaviour, technological advances and regulatory pressures have created a perfect storm that is rippling through the industry.

relevant as their benchmark. But Atlas goes one step further in that “you get Google search results” when you do a search using the browser, explains Michael Norris, chief marketing officer at Youtech – a digital marketing shop.

In the past year, Google’s dominance in this arena has been challenged by AI-powered engines including Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Perplexity’s Comet as well as social platforms like Reddit and TikTok.

Norris describes Atlas’ interface as being very similar to Chrome, including some of the buttons being in the same place. The big change is there is the option to also ask ChatGPT anything and it just looks at your screen.

Since 2015 Google has had above 90% of the global market share in search, according to Statista. In Q4 2024, it dipped for the first time to 89.7% and hovered around this for the majority of 2025 — before recovering to 90% in October 2025.

“Chrome has something similar with Gemini, but I found the ChatGPT version a lot better,” he believes. “The ChatGPT [Atlas] browser also has agentic capabilities – I can start doing something then just ask it to take over, and it will. Google Chrome does not have that yet.

But with Adobe acquiring SEO and analytics platform Semrush; OpenAI launching Atlas – both towards the end of 2025; and Meta rumoured to also be building an AI-powered browser, the search space is only set to become more competitive in 2026.

So what does all this mean for affiliates who have relied on traditional SEO and PPC strategies?

These new AI-powered browsers are not only “changing the way people search, but also retrieving information”, says Jesper Harbers, data and strategy director at digital marketing agency 8MS. He notes it is important for marketers to understand that AI search is not necessarily the same as Atlas or agentic browsing, which “actually does a lot of the ‘thinking’ for you”.

“The traditional SEO principles like trust, reputation and relevance still matter, but users will interact differently with more conversational queries,” adds Harbers.

That is partly because many of the new browsers use what Google has defined as credible and

“But the thing that really gets me is when you search in Atlas – you’ll get the ChatGPT answers to your questions, similar to Google’s AI Overviews – then you get Google search results, which actually simplifies SEO.” ‘AI is giving search superpowers’ Ahead of the release of ChatGPT-5 in August 2025, there was speculation that OpenAI moved away from using training data and synced up with Google. The launch of Atlas confirms this, claims Norris.

If Atlas is simply scraping Google search results, it begs the question of whether OpenAI’s new browser is redundant.

Currently, the allure of Atlas is the ability to use ChatGPT at the same time. Perplexity’s Comet works slightly differently – it is more of a personal assistant that you can link up with emails, calendars and optimise meeting notes.

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SEARCH

The thing that really gets me is when you search in Atlas – you’ll get the ChatGPT answers to your questions, similar to Google’s AI Overviews – then you get Google search results

For marketers, following Google’s recently updated SEO guidance, which gives publishers insights into the type of content that performs best when users are asking longer and more specific questions with its AI tools, could be one way to navigate the evolving search landscape.

The tech giant confirmed to Affiliate Leaders that it is incorporating the latest AI features, including built-in Gemini and agentic browsing capabilities, into Chrome. Its goal is to provide the fastest, safest and most helpful browser in the world.

Google acknowledges that “AI is giving search superpowers”, therefore it is focused on building a search experience that highlights the web – not just links or answers. AI Overviews and AI Mode uses the firm’s core search ranking systems and the links included in these search results are dynamic, changing based on information that is most relevant, helpful and timely.

So, the million dollar question: can any of these new players truly disrupt the Alphabet-owned company’s dominance?

“Nobody can really predict what the future in search may hold,” Harbers says, “especially since there are now rumours that OpenAI is going public at a $1 trillion valuation. But there is now more diversity than there has been and that is something we follow closely. We look at the stats on a monthly basis to see if there are any shifts in user behaviour – especially the younger generation as they are quicker to adopt new technology.”

Norris agrees, adding that he’d be “very surprised” if Chrome was unseated as the top browser. “Its market share is still extremely high and I think the

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best any of these other browsers can hope for is to just chip away at that little bit and over time slowly start to gain some traction,” he says.

The click-through era is dying Then there is the ads side of the business. OpenAI is supposedly planning to introduce ads in ChatGPT, with reports claiming there is code showing testing on different types of ads has already begun.

However, CEO Sam Altman declared a ‘code red’ in December, telling employees to improve ChatGPT first, which could delay the rollout of initiatives in the pipeline such as ads.

Perplexity has also been experimenting with ads in its AI services and has already got some brand and agency partners on board, including, Whole Foods Market, Universal, McCann and PMG. The company wrote on its website: “Ads will appear in the US to start and will be formatted as sponsored follow-up questions and paid media positioned to the side of an answer.”

Both these could be a serious competitor to Google and take a share of its search ad model.

However, Google’s Q3 earnings report showed its search ad business grew by 15%. AI Overviews and AI Mode contributed to drive more search queries, with AI-related queries doubling from Q2 2025 and usage accelerating throughout Q3 to more than 75 million daily global users. And paid clicks and CPCs were both up 7% year-on-year in search.

At the time of writing, the tech giant is reported to be releasing Gemini 3 in late 2025 or early 2026.

And with dominant large language models (LLM) like ChatGPT ultimately using Google, it provides a “sense of security” for SEO marketers to focus primarily on “optimising for Google updates”, says Norris.

SEARCH

However, with the emergence of AI-powered conversational engines, the era of clickthroughs is dying. The traditional affiliate marketing model has been built on the click-through principle, which may be why it is important for marketers to have an omnichannel approach and “integrate on platforms like YouTube and Instagram as well as AI search”, notes Harbers.

“Its become a lot more important for those teams to work together and have a cohesive strategy as they no longer work in isolation,” says Harbers. “And within that, measurement, because if you’re looking at whether something is a search engine result page or AI search, then you get to know where these touchpoints are.”

Norris echoes a similar sentiment warning that while there’s not going to be a “catastrophic massive change in user

behaviour overnight, affiliates should expect to see less site traffic year-on-year”.

Therefore affiliates “need to start looking at these things through a different lens”.

As the research is now done outside a brand or operator’s website, it is becoming much harder to track. So for where affiliates can no longer use a urchin tracking module (UTM) because users are not clicking though, Norris suggests using an offer code, as that would “allow you to continue having the same measurement capabilities”.

“Measurement will be paramount,” he explains, “you have to find a solution that’s going to be measurable. But for the industry [adland] as a whole, we have to get used to working with less data than we have been.”

The game is changing and affiliates need to ride the storm if they want to remain relevant.

AffiliateLeaders.com

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INTERVIEW

NAVIGATING THE LANDMINES OF THE PREDICTIONS MARKET

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INTERVIEW

With the predictions market rapidly growing in the US, Adam Small examines whether the risk is really worth the rewards.

Words by - JESSICA WELMAN -

T

hese days, certain corners of the internet seem downright obsessed with the burgeoning field of sports contracts offered by firms like Kalshi and Crypto.com.

The vertical is rapidly growing, with hundreds of millions changing hands each week as participants swap contracts on the outcome of sporting events, ranging from the game winner to individual props.

Kalshi even managed to build a mechanism that allows users to effectively parlay multiple outcomes for a bigger payday.

The legal battles Kalshi is waging with the industry feel huge, but it is actually a niche industry, with most people in the US generally unaware it is a commodity. A report from BlockBeats suggested there are only 100,000 daily active users on the platform. By comparison, FanDuel has 12 million registered users.

With such a small base and such a big financial opportunity, this seems like a prime place for affiliates to build awareness and replicate the success they felt in the post-PASPA era of sportsbook expansion.

Third Planet founder and president Adam Small has experienced just about every gaming-related affiliate wave of the 21st century, including sports betting, daily fantasy

sport (DFS) and online poker.

He isn’t opposed to venturing into prediction markets, but the situation has to be worthwhile.

“It’ll come down to whether or not affiliates are able to convert customers and make a decent amount of money per click in this vertical. If Kalshi, Polymarket and the rest pay half the CPA’s an affiliate can get from PrizePicks, Underdog and Sleeper, affiliates will mostly be sticking with the latter,” he notes.

Even though regulated gaming growth in the US has slowed, daily fantasy sports (DFS) and sweepstakes gaming remain important partners for affiliates. Someone like Kalshi could be an important partner as well, but Small believes the financial firms expanding into this space might need affiliates as much as gaming affiliates need new markets.

“Unless Kalshi’s about to strike a deal with Apple where their app is installed in every new iPhone, they’re probably going to need some third parties to help educate the masses about their product.”

Small notes these prediction markets do have some affiliated opportunities, but the CPAs are low and the infrastructure for mass numbers of conversions isn’t in place yet. However, he expects expansion of these programmes in 2026.

AffiliateLeaders.com

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News and insight every single day.

YOUR DAILY HABIT. Listen every day on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Youtube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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It’ll come down to whether or not affiliates are able to convert customers and make a decent amount of money per click in this vertical

Given the influx of capital into both Kalshi and Polymarket, there is certainly cash to spend around acquisition. Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) recently agreed to invest $2 billion into Polymarket, which returned to the states late last year, while Kalshi’s latest round of funding upped its valuation to $5 billion.

The group has cut ties with individuals and reversed course on some marketing efforts that drew backlash, but Kalshi continues to push the envelope with its marketing and that appears to be a feature and not a bug.

The fact the company advertises its product as “legal sports betting in all 50 states” has already been brought up as problematic in multiple lawsuits.

As DraftKings and FanDuel taught sportsbooks, the acquisition turf war is not cheap. Right now, prediction markets are trying to leverage relatively low-cost relationships with influencers, but some of those partnerships have resulted in negative press and increased scrutiny around an industry, which opponents say already possess an alarming lack of safeguards and consumer protection.

“Compared to the brand management and legal/regulatory compliance that goes on at more established betting companies, there appear to be very few controls at Kalshi and its peers,” Small notes.

The company has severed ties with some Kalshi-branded affiliates on X whose rhetoric on the platform ranged from anti-immigrant to proNazi sentiments.

Small poses a question many in the regulated gaming space have pondered: “On some level, I wonder how much Kalshi even cares?”

“My guess is as they grow, their controls will tighten and behaviour will converge toward what other large sportsbooks can and do say out loud in public. But in the meantime, there have to be significant concerns in a number of areas that would fall under compliance at other firms.”

Affiliates in the US need to worry about compliance, given that many states require them to obtain licences to work with gaming partners.

Moreover, many regulators are drawing a line in the sand about operators brokering deals with these

firms. FanDuel and DraftKings are moving forward with partnerships, while MGM Resorts and Caesars are only planning to join the fray once there is legal clarity on the vertical.

In 2025, several lawmakers targeted affiliates working with sweepstakes companies. The California antisweepstakes bill specifically criminalises affiliates promoting sweepstakes sites in the state in addition to criminalising the operation of sweepstakes gaming sites. Could a similar move be on the horizon for prediction markets?

“This is something we, as an affiliate, are always keeping an eye on,” Small explains. “So far, it doesn’t seem like affiliates are being targeted in the same way. That said, it wouldn’t totally surprise me if a state like Arizona, which has already told sportsbooks they might risk their licence by operating prediction markets, sent out a similar notice to licensed affiliates.”

Prediction markets continue to be an industry full of landmines, so affiliates may not run headfirst into them in 2026, but Small and others are certainly willing to take some risks, but only if the return is worth it.

AffiliateLeaders.com

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TECH

THE AGENTIC AI MOVEMENT

HOW AFFILIATES CAN BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN SHOPPING AND GAMING Words by - CHRISTIAN LEE -

I

magine a world where everyone has a personal shopper at their fingertips, ready to not only facilitate processing, but also offer suggestions and price comparisons.

With the power of AI agents continuing to escalate, this now appears to be closer to reality as tech giants such as OpenAI and Amazon unveil their own AI-led shopping experiences in the form of Rufus and Instant Checkout.

While this streamlining may sound like heaven for those who can often be overwhelmed by the myriad of choices on offer for something as simple as a pair of blue jeans, what does it mean for affiliates?

As a sector that traditionally relies on clicks and rankings, removing steps from the retail experience presents a significant challenge.

“It’s the biggest risk and opportunity I think in the space,” Dom Coleridge, commercial director at Scale Digital, tells Affiliate Leaders.

“Nobody knows the true answer yet as to how we can manipulate [these engines] in some way to work with us.”

Although it appears to many to be a whole new world, Coleridge emphasises that in some ways, the challenge remains the same.

Louis Venter, CEO of MediaVision, is in agreement that a major shift is now taking place in marketing.

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“Visibility isn’t just about ranking on Google, but about being understood and surfaced by intelligent systems,” he says.

“Marketing strategies must evolve from linear funnels to dynamic ecosystems where content, real-time demand data, and highfidelity authority signals work together to feed AI models the right information.”

It’s ‘just a matter of time’ for gaming The challenge now for affiliates and marketers is working with the shift in user experience and user interface brought about by agentic shopping and the wider integration of AI. As Cristian Barbosa, the COO and co-founder of InsightPlay.ai, notes, consumers are now coming to expect that anything on the internet is viewed through a “personalised assistant” type of conversational UI/UX. “If big companies like Amazon are making this type of effort in implementing this transformational UX shift with an AI agent to interact with their customers, I would be doing the same thing if I were an operator, a media company or an affiliate,” he elaborates.

“Regardless of the fact that if these tools are super ready to use right now or not, I don’t believe that’s the question. With the rate of iteration of AI solutions in general, it’s just a matter of time before it’s actually very usable for end consumers.”

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TECH

We’re competing for people’s leisure time, so you have to make it sexy enough for them to still engage with your brands

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TECH

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The future belongs to those who can react first and activate seamlessly, across SEO, content, and PR

However, the gaming industry also has another layer to consider.

Although any bet is a transaction, the act of gambling is also a form of entertainment, meaning the sector faces the challenges posed by innovation in retail, but also the infinite forms of entertainment competing for the attention of consumers’.

“It’s not just replicating the same formula as e-commerce or fintech,” reiterates Barbosa.

“We’re competing for people’s leisure time, so you have to make it sexy enough for them to still engage with your brands.”

So what does the future hold? What will retail and gaming look like for the next generation of consumers?

Venter says: “Retail will become increasingly predictive, personalised, and passive. Consumers will expect AI to anticipate their needs and make intelligent recommendations based on context – what they like, when they buy, even their mood.”

For Barbosa, it will be all about using AI agents to reduce clicks. He paints a world akin to the early days of bookmaking where a punter would call and place a bet over the phone.

“Your personal assistant will have a name, remember your name, remember your betting preferences and have day-to-day engagement with you.

“

“It’s a matter of not only having those agents interact with you within the sportsbook or within the casino, but also outreach and call you in the middle of the game or interact with you either through telegram or WhatsApp to tell you how your bet is going, if you want to get out of your bet early or double down,” he explains.

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TECH

Reducing clicks may be a ‘scary prospect’

AI assistants offers opportunities

Martyn Hannah, founder of Comparasino, is in agreement that AI could be used to assist players and navigate this sometimes complex industry.

Comfort is often the enemy of innovation, and Coleridge also suggests that some of the biggest opportunities may be on offer for niche companies that may have been overlooked while affiliates previously stuck to tried and tested strategies.

“From our point of view as an online casino comparison site, AI could be used to help players find brands that offer exactly what they’re looking for in an online casino or bonus.

“In the UK market alone, there are hundreds of sites for them to play at, each offering something different when it comes to bonuses, payments, games, payout speeds and rewards. Finding an online casino that matches with your preferences is easier said than done,” he says.

While reducing the need for clicks may well be a scary prospect, it doesn’t need to be, Barbosa continues. An affiliates’ core audience remains, so it is now about how to tap into what they need.

“There is a lot of value and a lot of modes for affiliates in terms of how they can get their current native audiences and transform that into personalised experiences,” he explains.

“It’s about knowing your audience, building those agents for your specific audience so that every user that gets to your website gets the value that they’re actually looking for.”

The sentiment of everything changes, but at the same time remains the same, suggests Coleridge.

Although he contends that simple purchases such as a pair of socks may be facilitated by one or two prompts, more considered purchases, such as flights, will still require greater human interaction.

He adds that people may start to become more conscious of making their own choices if AI agents begin to only offer one option.

“If you’re just giving someone one option because it’s the only thing that’s allowed, I think people would naturally go, ‘I don’t like that’. They would go back to Google, or use Instagram, TikTok or other platforms,” says Coleridge.

“There’s a lot of partners that offer good stuff that never gets tested because the brand just says I haven’t got a budget for it. But if they did try it once they’d probably have a longer term partnership with it,” he explains.

What is increasingly clear is the brands that move first to address this new normal will be best placed to take advantage of the AI agent boom as consumers embrace a new kind of shopping experience.

“Success is no longer about getting a user to click a link; it’s about being the trusted, definitive product recommended by the AI agent that is orchestrating the purchase.

The future belongs to those who can react first and activate seamlessly, across SEO, content, and PR,” says Venter.

“Brands that start preparing now – optimising product copy at scale, building out collections to target query fan out, structuring their data, refining content signals, and understanding how AI systems interpret authority – will be far better placed when this becomes mainstream.”

Although there must be caution, warns Hannah, especially in an industry like gaming which is bound by a somewhat unique level of regulation in many aspects, the opportunity to integrate AI assistants offers opportunities for affiliates and operators to foster stronger links.

He concludes: “Allowing players to use their AI assistant to more easily discover online casinos and bonuses that hit the mark feeds into how we could use it as a comparison site.

“For operators, this would lead to more quality referrals from their comparison site partners, as the player would arrive at their brand knowing it was a good match and not ultimately being disappointed because they can’t deposit with Google Pay despite thinking they could.”

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INTERVIEW

SEO IS ABOUT IF YOUR BUSINESS ‘DESERVES’ TO EXIST 2025 has seen the biggest disruption in the search landscape since the internet.

Tried and tested methods that affiliates are used to are no longer enough to succeed or is it? Affiliate Leaders sat down with Peter Macinkovic, SEO lead for Easygo Gaming – the operator of Stake – to find out more.

Words by - CONOR PORTER -

H

ow is the changing landscape impacting marketers?

The old playbook doesn’t work anymore. Marketers can’t just optimise content, build links and expect some stable rankings.

Information has now become a commodity because of AI. Anyone can build a website in five minutes with WordPress and AI content. The barrier of entry now is lower than it’s ever been [and] Google just isn’t evaluating quality anymore; it’s evaluating whether you deserve to exist.

It looks for signals that you are a real, legitimate business. Do you have an infrastructure or any external validation that you’re a real entity? Do you have reasons to exist before just ranking in Google? You need to communicate those signals to a robot in the growing noise of AI slop and stand out.

Gaming relies heavily on traditional SEO practices. How

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does Stake navigate such a volatile climate?

you explain what that means and why it’s important?

We focus heavily on entity building because that’s our massive advantage, like external authority.

There’s a lot of talk about the EEAT team in the SEO world – expertise, experience, authority and trust.

Whether you call it GEO or AIO or large language models (LLM) augmentation, these terms are overblown. The goal is to optimise, surface up, for LLM chatbots.

Fundamentally, all the signals that actually matter are 99% external. The fact that we have a Wikipedia article matters more than almost any other work we do. [Or] that people genuinely search for our brand and we have numerous sponsorships – all that marketing is a solid foundation that supplies us with a way to do that.

That is the foundation of our SEO. We’re a custom product, so we have to have the operations to support that. Stake has to deserve to rank, so we publish 600,000 words a month, we have strong internal practices, including a team of 10 SEOs with trusted vendors to scale that out.

The phrase being thrown about in adland is GEO as the new SEO. Can

You’re still optimising for discovery, understanding and trust, that’s fundamental, but it is very immature.

This is like pre-1996 SEO maturity.

The measurement of prompts and visibility of how often certain terms show up, or where you show up, is all just transposing existing SEO metrics onto LLM, assuming it’s the same, which it’s not and we don’t have the public data available for it.

There are very specific differences for it. At the moment, people who are getting success in optimising for AI chatbots are doing it with external signals. They find out what sources a particular one likes… you find a subset of sources that are trusted and usually you influence them. You also have to make sure your content is surfaceable.

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INTERVIEW

The fact that we have a Wikipedia article matters more than almost any other work we do

Google has been very forgiving since 2018, where they can render stuff like JavaScript. The LLMs are not, so if you have a complicated website, it is very hard for the LLMs to pass and understand.

It’s very weak traffic attributions and there’s no equivalent of impressions. [...] The nature of a chatbot isn’t necessarily to leave it, it’s to engage with it back and forth. It’s a very different consumer behaviour.

The way people are having success at manipulating consumer products isn’t like manipulating the training model itself. It’s actually doing things like finding what is sourced in a prompt on ‘what is the best place to play blackjack’. You’ll find out what websites the chatbot team might love and then influence those websites to either change the listicle they have.

The fundamental principles are the same; it’s just the particular needle movers are different. I think in about one or two years, it’ll be more mature because there’s no agency or operator having wild success with it.

So if you have an affiliate partnership you might have to renegotiate, or you would do what’s called the skyscraper technique, where you take an article and just make a better version of it. That is historically what it’s been in SEO. The tricky things with AI and LLM are that it’s probably one or two years away from being useful at the c-suite to see measurable results.

What trends are we likely to see in 2026 within the search space?

Whatever Google decides is what SEOs will hop on and that will become a trend. That’s always been the case, so I guess at the moment, it’s AI Mode.

When Google launched AI Overviews, it took a long time to rollout. It was rolled out in the US, where it received some backlash. It was then rolled out in other markets, as opposed to AI Mode, which launched in the US and very quickly across other markets.

That is still not the default experience, but the second Google switches it to be that, it will probably get pushback. That completely changes SEO, or how it is performed.

What I would like to see as a trend is more user-generated content (UGC) incorporated with a product and surfacing that up in search.

The way X (formerly Twitter) has integration directly, I would love for that to be available.

From what we see in igaming, the actual UGC and consumer behaviour where they communicate with each other as a community is very important. That has always been lacking in Google.

People don’t optimise for community or for UGC. I get to do it because I get to work on another UGC platform, but that’s quite rare, especially in igaming.

Igaming is behind the wall and hidden, whereas at Stake, we have our own forum website, we have a live chat, and we’re quite focused on UGC content. That’s missing in Google.

AffiliateLeaders.com

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FEATURE

Vancouver 7 matches Toronto Boston

6 matches

Seattle

7 matches

Quarter-final

6 matches

Kansas City NY/NJ

6 matches

San Francisco

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8 matches

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World Cup final

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8 matches

6 matches

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Semi-final

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Houston 7 matches

Miami 7 matches

Monterrery

Guadalajara

4 matches

4 matches

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Mexico City 5 matches

Opening game

Quarter-final Third place play-off

FEATURE

WILL A WORLD CUP IN THE AMERICAS OPEN DOORS FOR SPORTSBOOKS?

With a bigger tournament hosted by three different nations, with different rules and regulations, how can marketers tap into what could be the biggest revenue driver for their brands.

Words by - JYOTI RAMBHAI -

T

he FIFA World Cup is often dubbed the golden stage for brands, and the 2026 tournament promises to be like no other. The expanded format will see 48 nations participating, meaning more matches and an unprecedented global audience. Add to that, the event will be hosted by three countries for the first time in history.

The sheer scale of the event is creating a powerful platform for brands, sponsors, and even sportsbooks.

Magna projects global ad sales to rise by 6.3% in 2026, partly spurred by major sporting events including the World Cup and the Winter Olympics.

FIFA is anticipating revenue to hit $8.91 billion in 2026 alone, with the total amount over the four year cycle nearly doubling to between $11-13 billion.

Revenue from sponsorships are expected to come in at $1.79 billion in 2026 and $2.69 billion in the four years since 2023.

“The 2026 World Cup will be the most streamed and the most interactive tournament in history,” says Tony Marlow, chief marketing officer at LG Ad Solutions.

“Fans will move between broadcasters, streaming apps, home screen tiles, and real-time stats for every match. That creates more moments of engagement than ever before.”

Brands and sportsbooks are already moving to capitalise on the commercial opportunities the 2026 World Cup will bring, adds Thomas Ives, director and cofounder of RAAS Labs – an agentic adtech platform.

“Anytime America gets its hands on an event, it’s just this extra level of spectacular. We’re getting a lot of briefs from brands looking to niche and specific sponsorship as well as amplifying their sponsorships,” he adds.

It’s no longer “just enough to sponsor a player”.

Agencies and networks want “even more eyeballs on their advertising, they want to shout they have a partnership in place”, Ives explains, because “players now have become so influential” in purchasing decisions.

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Creating a cultural heartbeat But while the 2026 World Cup offers more revenue opportunities than ever before, it also brings significant challenges.

Hosting the tournament across three countries introduces differing languages, cultural nuances and regulatory frameworks, which adds another layer of complexity alongside the usual logistical demands.

“When you have one nation hosting the World Cup, it creates a cultural heartbeat for that country – and not just during the tournament, but in the two or three years building up to it, if not more,” says Steve Martin, founder of sports marketing shop, MSQ Sports and Entertainment.

“It’s easier for brands to market, to communicate and connect with one audience. But Mexico is incredibly different to the US; and the US is incredibly different to Canada. You could get it spectacularly wrong if you think it will be a one-sizefits-all approach.

“Brands will need to do their homework on the audience, where the venues are and the fan bases around that… where are they watching, seeing, learning and sharing. Strategically, brands will need to invest upfront, you can’t just turn up and do things very tactically,” he explains.

But it’s not just about the host nations, brands in local markets have a huge opportunity to engage with the forthcoming tournament. “The cost of sponsorship packages have been going up and up,” Ives tells Affiliate Leaders. “The way we’re seeing football confederations in different countries monetise the game, making packages specific to the market is insane.

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“It’s actually something Manchester United pioneered a few years ago,” he says as an aside. “But with all the digital technologies that now exist, such as pitch-side replacement where you can change what the audience sees on the boards at the side of the pitch, means there’s an opportunity to charge even more.”

Sportsbooks gain a platform on world stage Pitch-side replacement was used for the first time in Qatar for the 2022 World Cup. FIFA allowed sports betting company Betano – its first ever gambling sponsor – to become a regional sponsor in Europe, which sparked controversy.

The last-minute deal placed the sportsbook’s branding on interview backdrops for European teams and on pitchside LED boards. It also reignited the debate over the ethics of gambling sponsorship in football, with critics warning such visibility risks normalising an industry linked to addiction, fraud, matchfixing and other criminal activity.

Despite the controversy, Betano went on to become the official betting partner in Latin America for the FIFA Club World Cup 2025.

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The 2026 World Cup will be the most streamed and the most interactive tournament in history

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FEATURE

Meanwhile in Europe, “the whole tone of sponsorship is going in reverse”, says Martin, describing it as a “juxtaposition”, when looking at the Premier League, for example, which has been taking betting brands off the shirts.

It’s no surprise when it comes to betting and gambling, governing bodies “tiptoe around it”, Martin claims, especially because of the different regulations around advertising. “But since they announced the World Cup across these countries, it’s been opening up a lot.”

Marlow sums up just how regulation varies across the regions: “The UK will focus on data protection and audience safeguards. The US will layer in a complex map of state-bystate rules around gambling and real-time betting prompts. Australia will continue to have stricter limits on inducements, youth exposure, and timing.

In the US, different states have been opening up to betting; in Canada, Ontario has relaxed some of its restrictions; while in Mexico, opposition deputies have been attempting to repeal the country’s archaic gambling laws.

“Understanding these differences is essential, but so is understanding each region’s cultural energy. The passion for the sport differs. The appetite for betting differs. Even the second screen habits differ,” he explains.

FEATURE

Thomas Ives

Tapping into the viewing experience While sports betting is expected to be more embedded in the viewing experience at this World Cup than in previous editions, Ives notes that international tournaments tend to be less valuable for acquiring long-term customers, as they attract a higher proportion of “casual fans”.

“But it’s a great time for brand recognition,” he believes. “Paddy Power is a great example in the UK with the work they’ve done with Peter Crouch to stand out at World Cup time. They bring themselves into the natural sports conversation so it creates a longer lasting impact.”

Marketers should treat “every country as its own campaign”, he says, suggesting running ads in different

Tony Marlow

languages other than the native in host markets, as well as catering for tourists using retail media at airports or activations in local areas. “[...] And it’s looking at which of the channels can your brand stand out in; which of the channels will provide me with an opportunity to do something different to my competitor?”

For sportsbooks, Marlow adds looking at the device players are using will also be key. “Fans will check odds before kick-off, track live lines during key moments, and shift between streams to follow bets in play. Many of those bets will still be placed on mobile, which remains the fastest companion device for in-play wagering.

“The TV home screen is the new front door for sports discovery,”

he adds. “It is the one place that reaches every fan, regardless of which broadcaster or streamer has the rights in each market. Once the match begins, advanced viewing features like multi-view, real-time stats, watch party modes, and betting-related overlays create new moments of intent that marketers should be ready to meet.”

This World Cup hopes to be a revenue driver for both brands and sportsbooks. For marketers, it’s about getting the “right CTV [connected TV] and cross-screen strategy” to reach fans at highimpact moments across various marketing channels. For Marlow, the tournament winners “will be the ones who match their creatives to these new viewing behaviours and deliver value at the exact moments fans lean in”.

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INTERVIEW

THE RISE OF CONSCIOUS AFFILIATE MARKETING IN BRAZIL

Elisa Marcante speaks to NYCE International’s Claudio Faccio on why emotion and purpose are key to any performance marketing strategy.

M

arketing goes far beyond just advertising. It is a set of strategies and processes designed to create, communicate, and deliver value to customers – meeting their needs and desires while driving profitability.

It involves understanding the market, developing products, setting prices, defining distribution channels, and, above all, building lasting relationships between brands and consumers through meaningful experiences.

Claudio Faccio, chief marketing officer at NYCE International, highlights how modern marketing has evolved beyond traditional approaches. “We live today in the era of hyperattention and hyperstimulation.

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INTERVIEW

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Brandformance will become the new language of survival. Those who continue treating players as mere leads will lose relevance. Those who approach them as emotional systems will build an empire

“The modern human has become what I like to call ‘homo dopaminicus’ – a species addicted to instant stimuli, driven by quick rewards, and unable to tolerate the gap between one pleasure and the next,” he says. This shift has given rise to performance marketing, which Faccio dubs as “response and dopamine marketing”, that is focused on measurable results.

Reflecting on Brazil’s market evolution, Faccio observes that the industry is professionalising rapidly.

“For a long period, Brazil relied heavily on creativity and instinct, but lacked awareness. It was urgent marketing: ‘do it now, and we’ll figure it out later.’ Regulation now acts as a moral mirror, driving growth and maturity in the market.”

He notes that this transition separates operators who sell “emotion without substance” from those building a lasting legacy.

In the sports betting and gambling industry, desire, risk, and pleasure intersect in seconds, and marketing

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does not observe this dynamic – it shapes player behaviour.

authentic brands from those that simply push products.

Faccio argues that performance marketing should treat humans not as data points, but as emotional systems in motion. He identifies five pillars for effective performance marketing: • Bio-behavioural understanding; • Context; • Symbolic coherence; • Data ethics and emotional transparency; and • Purpose.

“Personalisation will evolve into the humanisation of algorithms: systems that learn the player’s emotional rhythm and adjust stimuli with respect. It is performance with conscience.”

Each click carries an emotional signature, reflecting motivations and mental states. Context matters not just for timing, but for recognising when users are emotionally receptive. Symbolic coherence ensures that every touchpoint – from landing pages to push notifications – consistently embodies the brand’s values.

Ethics and transparency, he says, are critical: “Players want to feel recognised, not monitored.”

And purpose, he adds, separates

From brand exposure to brandformance Artificial intelligence (AI) is automating marketing while reshaping communication. In igaming, AI can detect not only what players do, but how they feel while doing it. “The player embodies impulse, hope, anxiety, euphoria, and regret – all within minutes. And AI is learning to recognise these subtle shifts, decoding patterns even the user doesn’t perceive,” Faccio explains.

Far from replacing human insight, AI offers a chance to practice “conscious marketing”, understanding and responding to emotional rhythms in real time.

INTERVIEW

Faccio emphasises that brand exposure is not about constant visibility; it is presence with purpose. “The audience perceives coherence between what they see, hear, and experience, and trust is born. In marketing, trust is the most unbreakable form of return on investment (ROI).”

He also introduces the concept of brandformance – not only a mix of brand and performance, but the convergence of emotion, purpose, and results. “Brands cannot survive on performance alone, and those that rely solely on image die from irrelevance.

The balance between the two is not a trick; it is a state of coherence.”

In practice, brandformance bridges the gap between impulse and integrity.

For igaming operators and affiliates, it requires treating players as minds, emotions, and energy – not as leads.

Faccio is clear: “Brandformance will become the new language of survival. Those who continue treating players as mere leads will lose

relevance. Those who approach them as emotional systems will build an empire. And this is not idealism – it’s pure market strategy.”

experiences that align with the emotional journey of players while maintaining ethical, transparent, and purposeful engagement.

Brazil’s affiliate market, historically focused on volume and reach, is entering a new era. Modern players are savvy, intuitive, and able to distinguish authenticity from pretense. Affiliates and operators who want to thrive must combine content creation, data analysis, and behavioural insight. Success no longer comes from clicks alone – it comes from understanding the consciousness behind them.

The future: Meaning over metrics

Faccio explains: “The future of affiliation will blend the roles of content creator, data analyst, and social psychologist. Operators and affiliates need to understand audience behaviour in terms of emotion and intention, not just performance metrics. Trust becomes the currency of survival.”

In this sense, brandformance for affiliates means crafting

Faccio concludes by reframing the role of marketing entirely: “I’ve never seen marketing as a battle for attention. It is a mirror of consciousness – a reflection of how willing we are to understand others, feel with them, and serve them. For decades, the market has mistaken data for wisdom and metrics for truth.

What drives the future is not numbers – it’s meaning.”

In Brazil and beyond, the igaming industry is learning that sustainable growth comes from aligning performance with purpose, emotion with strategy, and brand exposure with authentic engagement.

Brandformance is not just a methodology – it is the future of marketing in an era of hyperstimulation and conscious play.

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WHY iGAMING NEEDS TO BET ON PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING Despite agencies, adtechs and sportsbooks investing resources into programmatic, igaming is still taking a cautious approach to this marketing discipline, which could see the industry being left behind.

Josh Linforth

Words by - TED MENMUIR -

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t the halfway point of gambling’s most disruptive decade, leadership teams have underpinned cost-control and efficiency as the desired values of 2025 and beyond. This reality hits hardest in igaming, where every campaign is built within the narrow remit of a cost-first era and an unrelenting demand for measurable returns.

Many insiders argue this efficiency mindset has placed a straightjacket on igaming creativity. Campaigns are increasingly formulaic, with marketers forced to prove outcomes before they can take risks. Yet, as the industry tightens its belt, one area stands out as a potential lever for long-term gains: programmatic advertising.

“Programmatic buying should be the holy grail for data-driven operators,” says Jake Chapman, user acquisition director, EMEA, a tech-led marketing agency focused on sustainable ROI. “In theory it allows you to reach the right player, with the right message, at the right time, and to know exactly how much that moment costs. Yet for igaming, it’s a battlefield of regulation, ad network inconsistency and data opacity.”

Chapman captures the paradox at the heart of gambling’s media challenge. For all the sector’s sophistication in analytics, few operators have successfully cracked the logic of programmatic advertising. iGaming’s programmatic conundrum The technology promises unmatched efficiency and measurable reach, yet it remains the most unpredictable and misunderstood discipline of digital marketing. However, done right, Chapman argues, programmatic is capable of attracting players who engage longer, spend sustainably, and cost less to retain over time.

“But the margin for error is razor-thin, and the fallout from mistakes can be very severe,” he says.

Algorithms bid for ad inventory in real-time, learning which audiences engage and convert best for the campaign to match its desired ROI outcome. In industries such as retail and

travel, this has led to precision marketing and impressive cost efficiencies for mass market brands. Yet for online gambling, the dream of efficiency has proved much more complicated.

The 2020s has seen igaming branded a highrisk sector across multiple jurisdictions, placing campaigns under intense regulatory scrutiny, with authorities in France and Poland requiring sign-off. Europe also changed legal boundaries overnight, therefore no campaign can be designed with the same conditions.

“Each market has its own framework,” Chapman explains. “What’s acceptable in a European market might be prohibited in Africa or Latin America – and the rules of the advertising networks often don’t match the rules of the market.”

The result is a discipline that must be coded for compliance as well as for conversion.

Such pre-emptive caution is costly. Every creative variant such as different age disclaimers, geographic tags, responsiblegambling messages must be programmed and tested before launch. The slightest oversight risks censure from regulators or media platforms that decide, unilaterally, to block entire categories of gambling content.

Fear of fallouts The balance between automation and control is precarious. Chapman’s verdict is blunt: “It’s risky to rely entirely on programmatic automation in an industry where compliance and fallout costs are high.”

For example, operators using automated campaigns in the Netherlands and France were hit with multi-million euro penalties after gambling ads were shown to underaged viewers during the UEFA Euro 2024 Championships.

Programmatic campaigns still require human oversight from data engineers, compliance officers and creative strategists to stay within legal boundaries. The main problem stems from the decreasing ability to target specific audiences because of privacy regulations.

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“Automation is a powerful tool,” Chapman concedes, “but it only works when paired with strong data infrastructure. Targeting isn’t what it used to be. Ad networks no longer have full visibility into user-level data; they depend on aggregated signals and modelled outcomes.

That makes first-party data and server-toserver integrations absolutely critical.”

The AI blend Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to revive the appeal of programmatic advertising with tools that can build predictive audience models, automate bid strategies, and generate dynamic creative content.

“AI models can optimise multiple creative variants during campaigns based on performance KPIs. But human oversight ensures brand consistency and compliance.

Done correctly, automation enables creative flexibility rather than replacing the human touch,” says Linforth.

The price of perfection

“AI has made media buying easier,” Chapman states, “but we need to be extra careful with the automations we allow. AI can generate ad copy that fails to consider regulatory requirements. In this industry, fallout costs include not just fines, but licence risk and reputational damage.”

This new era of complexity costs time, investment and resources. Programmatic campaigns require long periods of calibration: data must be accumulated, creative refined, and algorithms trained before they deliver consistent results – conditions not attuned to igaming campaigns.

At Incline, AI systems operate under direct human supervision and “serve a dual purpose – driving acquisition while detecting bonus abuse, fraud, and early markers of harm”, he notes. “Efficiency is only sustainable when AI operates within ethical and regulatory guardrails.”

“Operators, whether in-house or agency-based, need time to optimise programming,” Chapman explains. “The cost of planning and execution is high, but it’s an investment that pays off.”

Developing compliance-safe automation requires extensive human oversight, continuous training data, and market-specific calibration.

“You cannot delegate creative or compliance decisions to algorithms trained on generic data,” Chapman warns. “This isn’t retail or travel – you can’t A/B-test your way out of a regulatory fine.”

Josh Linforth, chief revenue officer (CRO) at Genius Sports, views AI as an accelerator rather than a threat: “Automation and AI are powerful when they’re channelled through omnichannel strategies that use real-time sports data.

“We see the highest click-through rates when operators use dynamic creative showing the latest fixtures, odds, jackpots, and trending markets across all channels. This connected approach keeps content relevant, prevents ad fatigue, and maximises performance.”

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Genius Sports has bet on that future undertaking a multi-million-dollar investment in its FanHub omnichannel and programmatic technology, designed to connect sports and igaming audiences across connected TV (CTV), display, digital out-of-home (DOOH) and social media.

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Linforth echoes the sentiment adding that “timing is crucial for branding and acquisition campaigns”. Data shows new user conversions and betting turnover spike in the 48 hours before major events like the World Cup final or Super Bowl. But optimal timing varies by channel – CTV performs best in the week leading up to events, while programmatic display and social retargeting deliver the strongest results closer to kick-off.

“Done correctly,” Linforth argues, “programmatic can attract the best customers – those who stay, not just those who click.

It’s more sustainable than relying entirely on affiliates or television. A true omnichannel mix delivers stronger brand awareness, lower CPAs, and better return on adspend. It’s about combining the precision of automation with the scale of storytelling.”

The irony is that the very obsession with ROI that drives igaming operators often prevents them from achieving it.

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Programmatic can attract the best customers – those who stay, not just those who click

iGaming left out of digital economy Beyond gambling, programmatic advertising continues to dominate the digital economy.

Global programmatic adspend hit $595 billion in 2024, and is expected to reach $800 billion by 2028, with the US leading the way, according to Statista.

Despite market maturity and regulatory reform, few operators have developed the infrastructure necessary for true programmatic sophistication: data clean rooms, compliance APIs, and cross-channel attribution pipelines.

“It’s not that the technology isn’t there,” Chapman notes. “It’s that the appetite to invest hasn’t caught up.”

Linforth adds: “Other industries have already embraced automation and AI-based omnichannel platforms. The opportunity is there for igaming operators who adopt automated cross-channel advertising and attribution systems. Those who act now will define the next phase of growth.”

Fear of failure remains a powerful deterrent.

A single misserved ad in a restricted market can erase a year’s profit. But the lesson from broader media trends is clear – progress rewards those who experiment responsibly.

“Programmatic remains the highest-growth area of adtech investment globally for all sports centric industries, there is no escaping this reality,” Linforth concludes. “If gambling brands want to remain competitive and capture new audiences, they can’t afford to be left behind.”

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CAN SELFREGULATION SAVE INFLUENCER MARKETING IN ARGENTINA?

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With no law currently in place to guide influencers, it’s creating the perfect ground for promoting illegal operators to thrive. Do authorities need to step in or can the igaming industry find a solution?

Words by - FERNANDO NOODT -

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he saturation of the European market set Latin America as an ideal scene for the proliferation of igaming in recent years. In this context, the regulation of the sector in Argentina positioned it as one of the most attractive countries for the industry.

However, the igaming segment has recently been at the centre of public debate due to its presence in both traditional and digital advertising. The rise of influencers has played a fundamental role in fostering a negative image, due to their promotion of illegal platforms.

This scenario raises a series of questions regarding the challenges and opportunities of conducting influencer marketing campaigns: are they viable? What parameters should be considered? Does Argentina need specific regulations to prevent malpractice?

In an interview with Affiliate Leaders, lawyer Tomás García Botta, partner at MF Abogados, analyses the reality of the country, which, due to the federal nature of its regulation, presents a fundamental problem for the development of the activity: interjurisdictional issues. In Argentina, each of the 23 provinces and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires has the power to regulate gambling within its territory.

This lays a series of challenges for legal operators, but also sets a perfect storm for the illegal segment to thrive and promote its operations. With provincial authorities struggling to work together, the table is set for unlawful actors to feast.

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Even worse, as the gaming law expert details, there is no legislation that rules over influencers, let alone them advertising an illegal activity. But, does this mean Argentina is watching how some of them just promote illegal gambling to minors? Certainly not.

The Association of State Lotteries of Argentina (ALEA) has been working together with the authorities to identify the sites that have a licence from those who don’t. In the past, it would start a judiciary process that could take up to two years, but now it is acting much faster against illegal campaigns.

Halfway through 2025, the Specialised Prosecutor’s Office for Gambling launched an investigation on over one hundred influencers, and sanctioned 16 internet celebrities who were advertising unlicenced websites. Since they were promoting these operations with their own personalised links, they were accused of being co-authors of offering illegal gambling, which is a crime defined in article 301bis of the Argentinian Penal Code.

“The only way to send a clear message against promoting illegal gaming operations is going after those that advertise them,” says García Botta.

Do only illegal companies use influencers for their marketing campaigns? Definitely not.

One of the country’s main operators tells Affiliate Leaders that working with influencers is part of their marketing strategy, but always with a focus on responsible gambling. For this reason, they include a disclaimer in all their messages, remaining in line with best practices.

That is actually something that García Botta highlights about igaming regulation in the city of Buenos Aires: according to article 31 of the local law 6330, it is forbidden to include athletes, celebrities, public figures, fictional characters, or any allusion to them, except when they are the central figures in the responsible gambling message.

Law 6330 also bars advertising in shows, channels or other media targeting an underaged audience.

Is there a need for a regulatory update?

From the operator’s point of view, the real concern in Argentina – and where efforts should be focused on – are illegal operators. By pushing new bills to restrict igaming advertising it will only impact legal companies that already have a commitment with responsible gambling.

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In that sense, they note that many influencers are promoting illegal brands, which are the ones targeting underage players.

“Some of those unlicenced brands have even sponsored major events, organised by streamers, even though they are not authorised anywhere in Argentina,” says the operator’s spokesperson.

And while new legislation may not be necessary at this point, there has been a push for self-regulation coming from ALEA. Back in 2024, the association published its Code of Good Practices for Responsible Advertising of iGaming in Argentina.

While the tool is voluntary, it is described as “a primary guide to strengthen the prevention of problem gambling and the promotion of responsible gambling, both by these bodies and by private online gambling operators, thus ensuring the sustainable development of the activity”.

In order to develop these guidelines, ALEA took inspiration from the Code of Conduct on Responsible Advertising for Online Gambling by the European Gambling and Betting Association (EGBA), and the European Union’s Commission recommendation of 14 July 2014 on principles for the protection of consumers and players of online gambling services, and for the prevention of minors from gambling online.

The code includes restrictions to protect the underaged, such as a prohibiting display of fictional characters from comic books, animated series, celebrities featured in media aimed at children, or adults pretending to be underaged. It also bans igaming ads from any shows or digital content, printed publications or even promotional merchandising (such as clothing or other products) aimed at minors.

“Banning advertising would only affect football clubs and the media. It would only impact regulated operators, and illegal gambling would continue as if nothing had happened,” García Botta forecasts.

Still, there have been pushes to ban all gaming advertising, and the Chamber of Deputies even passed a bill to do so in November 2024.

Article 8 of the bill states the prohibition of any type of advertising on social media, the internet (in general), advertising on public roads and existing or future media. That would end any possibilities of using influencers for marketing campaigns, but, at the time of writing this, there has been nearly no movement in the Senate to pass it.

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The only way to send a clear message against promoting illegal gaming operations is going after those that advertise them The right approach might still be beneficial for the industry, García Botta says: “Regulation would work if it’s to complement existing measures, like ALEA’s code, improving co-ordination within the industry.

“There is a historic opportunity to create a co-ordinated framework for responsible gambling and, for example, establish a national self-exclusion registry, which could be managed by the Ministry of Health and ALEA. If you are truly committed to responsible gambling, you need the mechanisms to make it truly effective, always working through co-ordination, not imposition. The regulations exist; what needs to be done is to enforce them.”

These companies will also develop their own guidelines for affiliates to go by when bringing the influencers themselves, as they delegate control over the campaigns. In this case, ALEA’s code of good practices can be a good place to start.

Education is also a priority, both for audiences and influencers themselves, in order to keep them working with legitimate operators.

How to approach influencer marketing in Argentina

“Delivering the right message is key,” García Botta adds. “Igaming is adult entertainment.

It is a recreational activity, with an economic factor that only adds another level to it.

Operators often use influencers to help them build online communities and brand awareness. However, picking the wrong people to promote their business can ultimately hurt their reputation.

“Currently, everything on the internet is considered truth. Having followers or a significant online presence carries a great responsibility when it comes to delivering the right message,” he says.

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IS AFFILIATE FATIGUE REAL?

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A combination of content overload and identical templates with over saturation and a high churn rate of affiliate programmes could be leading to the industry ‘diluting its own impact’.

Words by - JYOTI RAMBHAI -

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ince its inception, affiliate marketing has worked on the principles of performance and measurement with affiliates earning commission through sharing unique, trackable links.

It is a cost-effective strategy that enables brands to measure their return on investment (ROI), which is partly why affiliate marketing exploded in the igaming and betting industries.

The global affiliate marketing market size reached $13.58 billion in 2025, and it is projected to hit $27.86 billion by 2033, according to Proficient Market Insights. This equates to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.4% over the next eight years.

North America contributed to nearly 46% of affiliate traffic in 2024, while Asia-Pacific had the highest growth in new sign-ups at 19% year-on-year (YoY).

One of the most lucrative industries for affiliates is igaming. The global online gambling market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 10.57% over the next five years to reach $161.32 billion by 2030, according to Cellxpert.

“Marketers are seeing flat CPMs, falling CTRs, and creative that’s been recycled too many times to count. It’s not that affiliate doesn’t work, there is just too much of it running on rinse and repeat.”

So what’s driving the fatigue? Volume over value; broad, unfocused programmes; message fatigue; identical offers with templated assets; shorttermism; and misaligned metrics are some of the reasons Reid lists.

He says last-click rewards are often the “easiest tactics, not the smartest ones”, which paired with things like templated assets, can leave audiences feeling “numb”.

The ‘constant churn’ of affiliate programmes Elaine Gardiner, managing director at Tag Media describes the state of affiliate marketing as a “very disposable industry”. She says: “There are around 50 affiliate programmes launching each month and around 30 closing. There’s this constant churn.

But the market is perhaps over saturated with affiliates, all looking to get a slice of the pie. The sheer number of affiliate programmes, coupled with the lack of standardisation and the constant need to click-through, could be giving rise to what is being dubbed as affiliate fatigue.

“If you take a step back and think about what that also means… it means there are like 50 casinos or operators opening up and 30 are closing down. I always like to say that I think someone once started a rumour that launching a casino is a quick rich scheme, which is why there is a constant flood of the market and 80% of it is just constantly getting recycled.”

“When every brand starts using the same shortcut, it stops being one. With over 80% of brands now running affiliate programmes, the space has started to dilute its own impact,” says Alistair Reid, partnerships and marketing director at social media agency, Cubaka.

Opening a casino is no easy feat, Gardiner explains, you’d need to have experience across many disciplines including CRM, payments and affiliation.

But what could be adding to the fatigue is the fact that “everybody’s launching with the same minimum viable product”.

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“There’s definitely an overdose in the industry and the affiliates themselves are getting tired of it.

They spend all this time doing the reviews, listing up, sending them [operators] traffic and then they just close up. This is partly why affiliates started adding in listing fees, to ensure operators give them some payment for the work done,” she adds.

Affiliate fatigue is a dual-axis problem. On the demand side, content overload and similar messaging is creating consumer apathy. On the supply side, high churn rate and over saturation is leading to a “dilution of everything”, adds Gardiner.

But it’s not all doom and gloom.

“Saturation is often a sign of success,” beams Dominc Coleridge, co-founder and commercial director of Scale Digital. “The next step is to focus on quality differentiation.

Affiliates that lead with expertise, original insight and compliance excellence can rise above the noise.”

Coleridge believes that consumers are now “more selective about what captures their attention”, which is not necessarily fatigue.

He says: “People want reliable, high-quality content that helps them make confident decisions.

The affiliate model, when done well, delivers exactly that by connecting users to verified offers and transparent information.”

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search. The traditional affiliate model built on measure and performance accountability, that “clarity is eroding”, explains Coleridge.

“We are entering an environment where discovery often happens before a user ever clicks. AI-driven platforms are summarising and mediating how people find and interact with brands,” he says. “For affiliates, that means the value chain is shifting and the click is no longer the defining moment.”

That doesn’t mean clicks are dying, Coleride argues, if the content remains relevant, is consistent across multiple touchpoints and users trust the source, they will still click through.

“The key difference is that the path to that click is now more complex and contextual,” he adds.

Reid, Gardiner and Coleridge all agree that multiple touchpoints is the way forward. Combining affiliate marketing with other performance-driven channels – such as e-commerce (like Amazon), in-app, connected TV (CTV), social commerce, voice commerce – which capture attention at different moments of the customer journey, could help strengthen a brand or operator’s engagement.

AI making click path more complex

Reid also suggests treating “affiliates like genuine partners” and not just media space and building quality incentives around engagement.

But the challenge for marketers currently is ensuring their affiliate activity continues to evolve, not only alongside consumer expectations, but also technological advancements. Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way consumers

For Gardiner, AI is exasperating another challenge for affiliates – the lack of standardised measurement.

“There’s no standardised way for measuring success or transparency in the data, and affiliates now are looking at data more and more.

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And standardisation of measurement and attribution can “help the industry mature”. “Shared frameworks

“By building partnerships based on transparency and performance rather than volume alone, brands can strengthen trust and ensure that affiliate [marketing] remains a sustainable and scalable growth channel.”

So is affiliate fatigue a real concept? In today’s world, those still relying on traditional practices, may be experiencing fatigue. While those embracing how AI is reshaping the industry and evolving with it, may be not so much. As Reid put in: “Affiliate isn’t a dead channel, it’s just an overtired one. The volume is there, but the value needs to catch up.”

Elaine Gardiner

Coleridge agrees, adding that affiliates still relying on “legacy traffic sources” such as Google rankings or paid search visibility are “most exposed to algorithmic changes”. He says: “The landscape is far more fragmented, and brands need partners who can reach audiences across video, social and in-app environments.”

for tracking and reporting allow marketers to identify and reward true value, which encourages investment and innovation,” explains Coleridge.

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I think someone once started a rumour that launching a casino is a quick rich scheme

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“Things are changing rapidly and affiliates need to react quicker… if they are buying media programmatically, they need to optimise their spend almost in real-time. But (and I don’t want to generalise) affiliate programmes are so far behind trying to accommodate these systems,” she notes.

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INDUSTRY PREDICTIONS:

FUTURE-PROOFING BRANDS FOR THE AI WORLD The buzzword of 2025 was agentic AI. It was also the year the marketing industry found itself evolving at an unprecedented rate as agencies, adtechs and networks began implementing AI into their workflows. But the change is not stopping there.

Affiliate Leaders spoke to industry experts from across Europe, the US and Latin America to find out some of the trends to expect in 2026.

SAM COLEMAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR EMEA AT NEWGEN

BRUNA LIMA, AFFILIATE ANALYST AT F12BET

“Social is no longer a ‘one-for-all’ space. For years, the gaming industry has understood something that social platforms are only now catching up to: real influence is built in communities, not broad audiences.

“Affiliate marketing doesn’t operate in isolation.

It directly depends on branding to achieve consistent results. When a brand has a clear positioning, defined purpose, and solid communication, the affiliate gains a foundation to work with credibility.

[...] “We’re entering an era where social is no longer a ‘posting-for-everyone’ game. Instead of chasing reach for the sake of it, brands are shifting towards intimacy, dialogue and connection. Closed communities, private channels, and opt-in spaces will shape the next wave of social strategy. Audiences want to engage where they feel seen. In 2026, brands that prioritise meaning over mass will be the ones to watch.”

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“In 2026, this integration between brand and performance will be the central focus of the market. It’s not enough to generate clicks; trust must be built. Companies that recognise the affiliate is an extension of the brand, not just an acquisition channel, will stand out.”

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MARTIN CARLEVARO, AFFILIATE MANAGER AT GROWE PARTNERS “By 2026, [key trends in] affiliate marketing in Latin America point to greater integration of AI and data analytics to optimise affiliate selection, segment audiences, and personalise offers. [...] The large number of offers available, both for affiliates and the general public, means that brands must increasingly focus on retaining and enhancing the value of their affiliates, rather than viewing them solely as a conversion and acquisition channel.

“Regarding social media, Kick is showing growth over Twitch, following the trend seen at the end of last year in streaming platforms. On the other hand, video platforms are showing an increase in YouTube shorts and TikTok – networks where more robust igaming promotion in Latin America still needs to be developed.

“Local regulations will continue to have an impact, with a focus on compliance and responsible gaming. In short, affiliate marketing in 2026 will be more strategic, technologically advanced, and geared towards trust and specialisation.”

MANUEL STAN, CEO AT CATENA MEDIA “In 2026, [...] as search engines increasingly integrate AI-powered, conversational summary results that answer user queries directly, traditional click-through channels are shrinking.

For affiliates, this means… more emphasis on brand-driven, trust-based engagement models.

“Affiliates who build strong brands, engage loyal audiences, and create unique value will win the customer. By investing in brand-building that fosters user engagement and loyalty, affiliates mitigate risk from algorithmic change and differentiate themselves in crowded markets.

“Practically, this means shifting away from chasing traffic spikes and instead focusing on long-term audience assets: communities, interactive content, personalised offers, and partnerships that deepen trust. The goal is for the customers to become loyal brand advocates rather than one-time converters. By owning the brand relationship, affiliates stay relevant, visible, and valuable – not just to users, but to operators who will also have to make the adjustment to reward quality over quantity.”

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CHRISTIAN KIRK RASMUSSEN, CO-FOUNDER AND CO-CEO AT BETTER COLLECTIVE

LAURA GAGO, COO AT BETANDEAL (SPAIN AND LATIN AMERICA)

“Affiliate marketing in sports betting and igaming [...] is becoming a broader, fan-centric ecosystem.

With the rise of AI, the real opportunity now lies in engaging fans across their entire journey, from discovery and education to loyalty and retention.

“With markets such as Brazil and Mexico entering a phase of maturity, brands will look for partners capable of generating lasting relationships with players, not just acquisition peaks. In this context, the role of the content creator will be more decisive than ever. The key trend will be the consolidation of creator ecosystems: cohesive, professionalised groups aligned in narrative, values ​​and metrics.

“Fans don’t separate between media, betting, and entertainment – they simply want great experiences. That’s why we’ve built a global house of brands with more than 450 million monthly visits that inform, connect, excite and inspire fans worldwide. And that’s why we have built Playbook – our AI-powered betting solution that uses advanced image recognition to redefine how fans interact with and place their bets.

“Data and technology play a key role, but so does trust. When fans feel informed and valued, sustainable growth follows naturally. The future of affiliate marketing won’t be defined only by clicks, but by connection. Those who succeed in 2026 and beyond will be the ones who truly put fans first.”

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“The community not only attracts the player: it accompanies them, educates them and builds their loyalty. Audiences will increasingly demand authenticity, transparency and hybrid experiences between digital content and real interaction. Events, activations and collaborative projects will be essential to strengthen the relationship between creators and players. In 2026, those companies that manage to turn the community into a strategic, scalable and measurable asset at a regional level will lead.”

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NIKI CHANA, PROGRAMMATIC STRATEGY DIRECTOR AT SBS

DOM COLERIDGE, CO-FOUNDER AND COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR AT SCALE DIGITAL

“By 2026, everyone will feel just how quickly the landscape continues to shift under the influence of AI. There will be excitement, of course, but also fatigue. Teams will still be under pressure to do more with less, to adapt almost overnight, and to stay optimistic while questioning what their roles will look like in the near future. The real test will be how well the industry balances efficiency with empathy, and data with instinct.

“AI [...] will only gain momentum as we head into 2026. It’s redefining how brands are discovered online, and affiliate strategies must evolve to keep pace.

“Brands will grow more sophisticated in how they use data and AI to drive performance, but human insight will still be needed to give those outcomes meaning. The focus should be on creating new roles, supporting teams, and using AI to strengthen strategy rather than simply reduce headcount.”

“Across the industry, the FLIP (freshness, local Intent, in-depth context, and personalisation) framework, is increasingly being recognised as a way to capture the key signals guiding intelligent discovery. As AI continues to shape the future of search and discovery, content that is current, locally relevant, authoritative and closely aligned with user intent will rise to the top. “[...] Looking ahead, as audiences shift toward richer formats like YouTube, connected TV (CTV), and in-app environments, brands that combine intelligent tools with strategic media partnerships will be best positioned to drive measurable outcomes and future-proof their digital presence.”

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EA H SY TH AS M E L ON CH EF E AT T Y

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t o n s ’ t and i back g n i m o c

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Introducing regulation into Brazil’s gaming industry has caused the market to stagnate, but that may not be a bad thing.

Words by - ANA MARIA MENEZES -

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fter almost a year in the Brazilian regulated market, what can the industry say about affiliates? Are they still relevant as they were before, or are companies switching to a more ‘indoor’ approach?

In 2024, the Institute of Social, Political, and Economic Research (Ipespe) conducted a survey with 2,000 Brazilians on their overall perception of online betting. More than half of the respondents (57%) rated betting websites negatively, describing them as “bad or terrible”, while only 17% considered them “good or excellent”.

Most bettors play with fear and distrust, as 85% of participants said

they have little or no confidence in online betting companies.

Part of this stems from the negative image of the affiliate and digital influencer market – especially during the pre-regulatory period. Promises of easy profit, aggressive marketing, and an overwhelming flood of ads across different platforms all contributed to consumer fatigue.

Since January 2025, Brazil’s online betting affiliate ecosystem has hit the brakes due to regulatory pressures combined with changing user behaviour, which made the original model unsustainable. To understand this moment, we need to look at three core forces: the new posture of big

tech – especially Google; the national regulatory environment; and the strategies of operators now opting for less volume and more quality.

Google and its digital impact Throughout 2024, Google overhauled its advertising policy for gaming and real-money betting, introduced stricter accountability standards in digital environments, and changed how it evaluates search results through AI – a shift that put organic traffic at risk.

Google has also blocked or removed millions of gambling-related ads. In 2024, the company revealed it had removed over 5.1 billion fraudulent ads and 9.1 billion ads were restricted.

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This stagnation stems from cost pressures and a necessary restructuring process Of those 9.1 billion, 108.9 million were related to gaming and betting.

For affiliates, there are three practical consequences: less freedom for aggressive acquisition (already under regulatory scrutiny); higher visibility costs; and an urgent need to invest in brand strength and authority. Together, these factors help explain why the sector’s growth has slowed.

Regulation, compliance, and the quality filter In Brazil, regulation brought legal and operational security, but also new challenges for those used to the “affiliate fast, scale fast, profit fast” model. Eric Gaigher, performance marketing director at Betnacional, part of Flutter Brazil, explains: “Regulation [has allowed] serious companies to invest more sustainably. In the affiliate segment, the movement was one of re-organisation, focused on transparency, audience quality, and alignment with the new regulatory requirements.

“Public behaviour has evolved too – people are more discerning – and communication now needs to go beyond simply encouraging

FEATURE

betting. It must focus on entertainment, responsible gaming, and brand value.”

He brushed off the impact of this stagnation in the company, saying the brand “prioritises qualified performance, not necessarily volume”.

At SBC Summit 2025, Marcos Sabiá, CEO of Galera Bet, shared a similar perspective: “We can no longer talk about ‘adventurous affiliates’ chasing short-term gains. Affiliates now need to build long-term relationships with players – the real asset they bring to operators. This stagnation stems from cost pressures and a necessary restructuring process.”

This transition explains the drop in new affiliates: many low-compliance models have been shut down or simply couldn’t survive. The promise of “easy money” has given way to “qualified earnings”. For affiliates who saw betting as a quick cash opportunity without long-term vision, the cost no longer justifies the return.

Affiliates, in-house marketing, and a new co-existence A second structural shift lies in how operators relate to affiliates. “There’s room for co-existence,” says Gaigher.

“These are different strategies, but they can walk together.”

He argues that affiliates will remain relevant – especially in content generation and niche audience connection – while in-house marketing strengthens brand identity and recognition. What changes is the degree of professionalisation and the need for all partners to align with best practices.

Ivan Dutra, CEO of Luck.bet, takes an even firmer stance: affiliates no longer carry the same weight, leading the company to favour proprietary marketing tools over “wild cards” that could jeopardise its reputation.

“Luck.bet grew very little through affiliates. Of course, we have a base of affiliates, but with regulation and the legal reality that whatever an affiliate does can affect the company, we only keep what makes sense for us, especially in terms of brand connection. Today affiliates don’t represent what they used to; they’ve lost relevance within the law.”

He adds: “Our affiliate sector will evolve into a network of influencers genuinely connected with the brand. We’re still trying to find the right model for the regulated market.”

Why stagnation might be healthy Calling this moment stagnation may sound negative – but perhaps it’s exactly what the market needed: a pause to rethink, reorganise, and professionalise. As Gaigher puts it: “This filter is positive for the market’s future – it rewards partnerships grounded in ethics and consistent results.”

Ultimately, Brazil’s affiliate landscape still has room to grow, just for a different kind of player.

For affiliates and companies depending on this channel, the message is clear: cheap-traffic, loopholes and indiscriminate volume no longer work. Visibility has fallen, costs have risen, and regulatory and reputational risks have intensified. Google, for instance, is reducing organic click shares and privileging AIgenerated direct answers, shrinking referral traffic to affiliate sites and demanding stronger branding, authority, and quality content.

Those promoting betting now must align with brand identity, responsible-gaming rules, transparency and accepting that it’s no longer about “winning the customer at any cost”.

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Eugene Ravdin

INTERVIEW

SHOULD AFFILIATES DIVERT ADSPEND AWAY FROM META? 60

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The Facebook-owner introduced its own pay or consent to ads model in late 2025, but what impact could this have on operators using the platforms as a key marketing channels.

Words by - VIKTOR KAYED -

W

hat do you need for a successful business? Some might say a good product, something that efficiently serves a target market with a high customer satisfaction. That’s of course mandatory, but it’s only half the job done.

You need to first attract your customers, and this is where marketing comes in. But what if your ability to advertise gets blocked by the very same platform you chose to do business with?

Well, this is what UK-based marketers using Meta as an advertising channel have to deal with after the tech giant introduced its ad-free subscription model for users on Facebook and Instagram – similar to the pay and consent to cookies model that News UK and the Daily Mail Group rolled out across some publications Meta said the move comes “in response to recent UK regulatory guidance” following a consultation period with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The update has seen two new subscriptions: a £2.99 per month for web browsers and a separate one for iOS and Android devices at £3.99 per month, which would give UK subscribers the choice to stop seeing ads on two of the biggest social media platforms in the world.

Of course the experience for those who do not pay will remain the same as before, meaning they can use the platform for free with ads.

The tech giant wrote in a post on its website: “We continue to believe in an ad-supported internet, which ensures free access to personalised products and services for all.

“Personalised ads help people discover relevant, new products and services while allowing British businesses to reach the customers most likely to be interested in what they offer.”

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INTERVIEW

But with a combined total of 71.7 million UK users across both Facebook and Meta the question remains: just how many will be tempted to opt in and subscribe? And what does this mean for marketers in gaming?

Affiliate Leaders’ sat down with Eugene Ravdin, head of PR at SEOBROTHERS to unpack this.

How popular are these platforms among operators for advertising?

There’s two parts to this. On the one hand, igaming ads are pretty popular, but on the other hand, the legislation is pretty strict in most geographies, especially if we’re talking about the UK. You have to comply with a lot of requirements to be eligible to run, to advertise yourself. You have to have a proper licence, sometimes you have to be physically present in the jurisdiction you’re advertising in.

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Instagram, you have to know what to show. When we come to the affiliate presence on Facebook or Instagram, what I see more is that affiliates try to approach the users not through the ads, but via organic content like self-owned channels, groups and communities.

This is where they create engaging content to nurture the communities, to attract the users, but they have to hold a delicate balance here.

There are over 70 million combined Facebook and Instagram users in the UK. How many do you think will opt-in to receive fewer ads?

Well, we can only speculate, but what we can also do is have a look at another example with YouTube. They introduced the same sort of subscription in 2018 for an ad-free experience.

What we know is that the percentage of YouTube users in the UK that switched to that paid subscription service did not exceed 5%.

And while it is a natural place for local igaming brands to advertise on there [social media], I can say that you would encounter much more igaming ads on such platforms in the form of mobile games, in-app ads, etc.

This makes me believe that the percentage for Facebook and Instagram will be around 10%, given that the price is lower. I would be surprised to see it go any higher. Also, a lot of people use ad block apps already. So yeah, I would say 10 % is the top limit.

So while operators have a clear vision of how to advertise themselves on Facebook and

What would happen to the operators and affiliates that buy media on these platforms

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INTERVIEW

Brands will have to think twice about which vertical to advertise on. They’ll have to budget more effectively and really understand and analyse their customers better

when there’s less people to advertise to?

Will they migrate somewhere else?

I don’t think they would move to other platforms and abandon Facebook and Instagram because even without those 10%, or even if it’s 20%, this is still a huge market.

As a brand, as a company, and as an advertiser, you don’t want to lose that audience.

Maybe you would have to reconsider your ad budgets. You should definitely reconsider diversifying your advertising strategy… explore other platforms. However it should not be instead of, but in addition to.

more follow-up ads. If a user clicks on a mobile app, but doesn’t convert, they are later shown a more detailed version of the same ad but on desktop. And vice versa.

This is essentially cross-platform advertising.

There will be a need for an even bigger distinction between formats and messaging in mobile and desktop ads. Advertisers will need a bigger understanding of user intent across mobile on desktop.

Meta has already rolled out the same feature across other European jurisdictions. What are your observations there?

So yeah, even with a lower reach and lower view count, igaming companies will still want to hang on to all the possibilities that the Meta universe is able to offer them in terms of advertising.

What I can share is that while ad prices have not gone up drastically, there’s less traffic coming in from our ads on Meta. There’s also a lower conversion rate.

There will be a separation between subscriptions on mobile and desktop. Will that lead to any marketing innovations?

This has obviously taken away some of our core potential clients, and for us as a brand, this is of course a negative thing to experience.

Brands will have to think twice about which vertical to advertise on. They’ll have to budget more effectively and really understand and analyse their customers better.

So even if we’re paying the same money, even if we’re getting the same views and the same reach, the quality of traffic has diminished and the conversion rate has decreased. For that reason, affiliates will have to be super creative about their ads and campaigns.

As for marketing innovations – the concept that currently exists – I think we’ll start producing

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OP-ED

THE TRUST FACTOR IN iGAMING 64

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WHY THE TONE OF YOUR CONTENT IS THE MOST VALUABLE Bojana Djordjevic, head of editorial content at Gentoo Media, examines how affiliates can navigate a changing marketing landscape in which content is key.

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n the world of thousands of affiliate websites, you need a brand that can stand out – to the players, as well as to the casinos. One of the best ways to do it is to make sure your brand has a consistent voice, and the tone of that voice matches the situation you’re speaking in.

Start with honesty. Although it is a cliché, the saying ‘honesty is the best policy’ is something every affiliate should lead with.

We’ve seen it with AskGamblers and Casinomeister – two sites with vastly different personalities, but one important similarity – honesty.

Players keep coming back to both of these sites because they do believe in their integrity.

However, the information is presented very differently on these sites, so let’s look at what you can learn from how they approach it.

Be authoritative, but not arrogant. If you take a closer look at the pages on these sites, you’ll see that it’s not all about the sales and top lists. Both brands go through great lengths to research the topics at hand and to teach their players everything they need to know.

AskGamblers takes an honest, but more reserved approach, while Casinomeister is brutally honest.

But, at the end of the day, both of them are explaining things in a

way that it’s easy to understand, both for gambling novices and professionals. The way they explain different concepts is simple, but they’re not pretending to be something they’re not and looking down on their readership.

To achieve this same thing you need to: • Keep it simple; • Be direct; • Don’t pretend you know everything; and • Don’t be condescending.

Not all content sounds the same Not every type of content you put out can be the same. Educational pages and blogs require more research, and they serve to teach your audience something.

On the other hand, in industry news articles, there’s no space for emotions (unless you’re giving commentary). You’re there to provide the information about an event, a partnership, a change in the law, or whatever the topic is.

On the other hand, if you’re doing a holiday promotion, you can be completely laid back. You get to crack a joke, make a pun, and play into the emotional aspect. It’s the same with newsletters and social media – there’s no need to be uptight in the language. Just make sure you’re following the local guidelines.

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When you start talking directly to your audience, a whole new universe opens up

When you start talking directly to your audience, a whole new universe opens up. In our case, that happens on the forum, in the complaints, or through the live chat feature. This is an opportunity for you to show that there are humans behind your brand. You get to be friendly and understanding, using conversational language and tone.

This type of communication helps you connect with the audience on a more personal level, and when you build relationships, people tend to come back to your site.

As mentioned earlier, AskGamblers and Casinomeister are essentially doing the same thing, but they present it in different ways.

Both aim to educate their audiences and provide accurate information about casinos, bonuses, licensing jurisdictions, and more. Both maintain

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forums and complaint services, giving them extensive direct contact with their readers. As a result, both have built loyal fan bases that return regularly for new offers, tournaments, and fresh casino listings.

The differences appear mainly in tone, especially in the reviews. AskGamblers tends to provide all relevant information, pointing out areas for improvement, while maintaining a neutral tone. Casinomeister, on the other hand, is bluntly honest – it doesn’t shy away from strong language, critiques casinos directly, and includes commentary on each one.

Don’t forget about consistency You can’t just show up one day and start cussing in your reviews. You need to have authority in the industry in order to do something like that. Building your tone will take time, and it should.

You need to pay attention to how your audience reacts to what you’re saying.

You also need to make sure that the tone is consistent. Each writer on your team will have their own take on the tone, but the general feeling of the brand should always be present.

If the resources allow it, I’d always recommend going with an internal team of writers. It will be easier to train them and to keep that consistency. Create a tone of voice document that will outline how your brand should sound in each situation, and editorial guidelines that can show your readership what you’re all about.

In the end, here’s a tip. If you’re unsure where to start, look at your favourite brands – regardless of industry. Browse their websites, social media, and newsletters to identify patterns in their communication and spark your own inspiration.

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