FEATURE
So, they click on the link, fund their account, and as an affiliate you’ re getting 25 %-50 % of the revenue the user generates.
Going back to this idea of being a controller of data, think about what happens when a user lands on your affiliate website. You don’ t know what key phrase they came in on, but you do know their IP address and some browser configuration information. You know what link they clicked on and that’ s about it. Obviously you have to track users with cookies, so you have a privacy policy and acceptance button on your site.
Ultimately, with search traffic you don’ t have any of the GDPR risk that handling email lists can bring.
WHAT ABOUT SEO? If SEO avoids all the aggravation that GDPR brings, then of course operators will spend more on it. However, when you look at any medium or large operator they will want to work at scale. And with the demands of scale comes the importance of accountability.
Accountability in marketing simply means‘ I did this, we made that’. If you ever talk to large operators about their paid media spend relative to their organic search, it’ s typically at least 10 times more on paid media than SEO.
Businesses are comfortable with large paid media spend simply because it doesn’ t require that much engagement on their part. Furthermore, there is accountability because everything is tracked; hence you can have a definitive return on investment.
What about television, you ask? Well, from a business point of view TV is simple. You pay your money, you do your advertising and you get an uplift. If the TV works, just spend more money. It’ s all about scalability. SEO on the other hand is complex, hard to scale and unreliable.
On top of the complexity of SEO, we also have the fact that Google can hide the key phrase used to access your site. This means SEO can never compete against AdWords because you never really know what key phrase got you that conversion.
In order to embrace SEO, then, a business has to fundamentally accept the lack of accountability the process offers. Of course, affiliates are happy to accept SEO for what it is and that’ s why they build whole businesses around ranking.
COMPARISON SITES Overall I would say the igaming new acquisition search landscape is mainly geared to comparison sites, ie affiliates. Carry out a bit of keyword analysis around igaming and you’ ll see the vast majority of‘ money’ key phrases are comparison ones, such as‘ free bets’,‘ online casinos’ and‘ casino bonus’.
“ I think GDPR is only a part of a huge decade-long trend away from‘ blanket broadcasting’ to brand awareness, targeted communications and‘ opt-in’ interaction”
It’ s arguable that an operator cannot safely run a comparison website. In the past I came across a number of operators who ran their own networks of sites and they seemed to be relatively successful.
These networks served a few purposes. They acted as a funnel for traffic into their own brand; they earned the business revenue from driving some traffic to other brands; and they provided cross-linking of domains, which helped with link equity. Now, there may be operators who still run these site networks, but from what I can see the model doesn’ t make sense any longer. You see, in light of GDPR there’ s this whole bias towards clear disclosure on the intent behind your marketing activity. If an operator deceives users by presenting their network website as an unbiased affiliate, they are creeping into some very dangerous territory with regulators.
Cross-linking of domains for SEO purposes is a nice idea, but Google is extremely smart on discounting links of no value. A link was always supposed to be an editorial vote and when the spammers got in, that‘ vote’ was aggressively manipulated until Google’ s Penguin algorithm came into force. To be blunt, if I were an operator I wouldn’ t go near networks of sites.
“ The vast majority of email databases belonging to operators will now be obsolete because users won’ t have visited the site and will not have‘ re-opted in’ to email communications”
Another thing to think about, an operator is the ultimate destination for a user and as a result the operator can never deliver legitimate satisfying comparison content because they are never going to promote a competitor!
Another reason why operators are happy to let affiliates handle the SEO is risk. The vast majority of revenue to an affiliate is based on revenue share and as we all know revenue share is a retrospective cost. You get your rankings, you drive traffic through to an operator, the traffic converts and revenues are shared. As an affiliate you have taken on the risk and from an accountability point of view operators are happy with revenue share because it’ s a clearly understood and scalable cost.
BACK TO GDPR With GDPR, an operator has to have an explicit acceptance from their users to receive marketing communications.
This acceptance can come in two forms. Firstly, through a user visiting the operator website and accepting the privacy terms and conditions, which means there is a traceable audit trail for anyone inspecting the operator. Secondly, by a user accepting continued email marketing from the operator.
In igaming the proportion of active versus inactive customers is huge. From my experience an operator will have maybe less than 5 % of all registered customers as active players. Thus the vast majority of email databases belonging to operators will now be obsolete because users won’ t have visited the site and will not have‘ re-opted in’ to email communications.
The upshot? Operators have vast dead databases of historic players and they can’ t safely use rented email lists. On top of all of their email woes, their business model does not allow them to embrace SEO which is the ultimate opt-in channel.
Where does this leave you as an SEO-savvy affiliate? In a good place. Operators will need you more than ever. They can’ t hammer their old email databases and they can’ t compete with you on SEO.
Operators might try and give you a tough time about affiliate compliance, and they might play a hard ball game like Sky Bet have done, but I would argue the tide is turning in your favour. As long as you can deliver customers via SEO you help fill a vacuum created by GDPR.
Maybe it’ s time to renegotiate that revenue share.
30 iGB Affiliate Issue 69 JUN / JUL 2018