FEATURE
DON’T DO IT!
WHY SKY BET’S AFFILIATE
PROGRAMME CLOSURE
IS A BIG MISTAKE
By closing its affiliate programme ostensibly due to the compliance risks posed by a small minority of its
affiliates, Sky Bet is losing out on an enormous opportunity, according to Oshi’s Nick Garner
I WANT TO FOLLOW UP a post
I wrote just after the Sky Bet affiliate
closure announcement was made. In it,
I talked about how affiliate marketing is
essentially organic search by proxy, ie an
operator can have only so much reach on
organic search and beyond that point they
need representatives who can rank where
operators can’t.
I also touched on the whole subject of
social proof and how web users are far
more influenced by affiliates than operators
might think.
Today, I’m going to dig into:
● ● more of the background of Sky Bet’s
affiliate programme closure
● ● the research and arguments for why
Google is more influential than any
other information source
● ● some of the data showing the
consequences of all their actions
● ● some conclusions, which I hope
you agree with
The Sky Bet affiliate
programme closure
If you were a Sky Bet affiliate, you’ve
probably done your research and you’ll
know the following, but for the others…
While researching this article, I came
across a piece from 12 September by
legal regulatory specialist Gemma Boore
in which she talks about the growing
regulatory pressures now beginning to
affect affiliates (see tinyurl.com/g-boore).
She talks about the EU’s General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR) and how
it introduces new obligations that allow
individuals to have their data erased from
any website they choose. In other words,
somebody could go on to your affiliate
website and if there’s any personally
identifiable information retained by it, such
as their email address, that person has the
right to ask you to erase that information.
Penalties for non-compliance can be as
much as €20 million or 4% of turnover.
The catch with the affiliate ecosystem
is that there is very little corporate
accountability. In other words, many
affiliates are individuals working away
quietly and it would be very hard to make
them accountable to GDPR.
And then you have the UK Gambling
Commission’s £300,000 fine issued
against BGO because of nine misleading
advertisements on its website and on
14 different affiliate websites between
February and October 2016.
If you want to get into the details visit
tinyurl.com/bgo-fine, where you will find
a very good post describing the specific
social responsibility codes that the GC
referenced when fining BGO.
Upshot: if you have mailing lists or
other personally identifiable data where
a theoretical third party can specifically
identify an individual, in theory and in
practice you have to be able to delete that
information on request.
Moreover, operators are effectively liable
for affiliate compliance.
If you’re using misleading content, for
example a fake news page about ‘Mary,
who won a fortune playing slots on [name
of gambling site]’, it would fall under the
social responsibility guidelines that the GC
issued and both you and the operator could
get into trouble.
Reality check: it’s the operator, not you,
who will end up facing the wrath of the GC.
Misinformation taken further
Taking this idea a little further, as an
affiliate if you review an operator and you
give them a 9.9 out of 10 rating, because
they have given you money to be on top of
your list, isn’t that as misleading as a fake
news page? After all, the review is fake and
misleading, because you’re only saying
[operator X] is good because they’ve paid
you a placement fee…
Now you see why Sky Bet and many other
operators are very nervous about affiliates.
Reality check
If an affiliate writes up a review of an
operator and it’s plausible, how would a
regulator know whether you’re telling the
truth or not?
The only way you’re going to get caught
out is if the affiliate programme gets audited
and there are records of placement fees with
affiliates and a very high correlation with
extremely positive reviews…
iGB Affiliate Issue 65 OCT/NOV 2017
35