FEATURE
What are the key issues you have to deal with in terms of acquisition from the region? We have been an affiliate for 14 years now, and in the early days most operators were focused on now saturated key markets like the UK, Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe. Acquisition in Africa was therefore very difficult with mainstream European-facing operators, and still is due to a lack of interest in and understanding of African markets and the potential they offer. Regulation has also restricted most operators in pursuing business in Africa For operators willing to target and accept African players, payment methods are one of the key enablers. If you are looking to acquire Kenyan traffic then you must offer the M-Pesa payment method. Until recently most European facing operators had probably never heard of M-Pesa.
Mainstream European-facing operators also struggle to convert African players because they are bound by strict regulation in areas such as KYC, for example. Until recently many mainstream operators even blocked customers from countries like Nigeria because they saw the market as too high risk in terms of fraud.
Acquisition with locally based African operators has proven relatively easier, and in recent years we have worked with brands in key African markets such as Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and more recently Uganda, Ghana and Zambia. These operators have a number of advantages over mainstream brands competing for African traffic in that they understand local markets, provide betting in local currencies, and already have established brand awareness in those countries through land-based activities.
Local operators also have the payment methods in place to facilitate player conversion, and more importantly mobile payment methods in place. Mobile growth has been exponential in Africa in recent years, so the ability to convert mobile traffic is key to the success of any Africanfacing operator. In the past two years, our mobile traffic has risen from 50 % to 80 % in Nigeria. In Kenya this exceeds 90 %, and for all of Africa our websites average 82 % mobile traffic. Many online operators have therefore almost bypassed developing for desktop in favour of efficient products that work on mobile, on limited bandwidth, and on limited feature mobile phones and browsers.
There are however a number of acquisition challenges and obstacles when it comes to African traffic, whether converting through African operators or through more mainstream brands. Payment methods like M-Pesa work very well in countries like Kenya, and although there are some synonymous but less popular methods in other African countries, no other current payment method really performs anywhere close to M-Pesa when it comes to acquisition.
“ Outside of Kenya, where we generally expect conversion rates from registration to depositor of greater than 50 %, this regularly falls to 10 % or even lower”
Outside of Kenya, where we generally expect conversion rates from registration to depositor of greater than 50 %, the general level of conversion is regularly 10 % or even lower. There may be many reasons for this – customer trust in betting online and depositing money, customer understanding of how to deposit and bet online, the lack of free payment options in many countries( many payment methods charge per transaction), and perhaps the general acceptance and norm that betting is still a land-based activity.
Despite poor conversion in many African countries, if you can acquire the volume of registrations to provide a significant active player base, then Africa is a lucrative market. It is however frustrating as an affiliate to see 90 % of registrations in some countries not convert at the moment. However as an affiliate you can really only do your part in sending the registrations to operators. From there on it is largely up to the operator to complete the acquisition process.
From our experience it almost feels like mobile usage and the appetite for online betting in Africa has grown so fast that the operators have not been able to keep up. They have not been able to get products and payment methods in place that will efficiently convert the ever increasing number of mobile customers. Operators have also been slow to enter the affiliate market, although a number of African affiliate programs have been launched in recent months.
Customer conversion from registration to depositor has been a challenge in most African countries we have worked in.