FEATURE and so, aside from paying a few legal bills to make sure we had everything spot on, the challenge hasn’ t been huge. Moreover, we’ ve always been keen for standards across our industry to improve and we want to play our part in helping affiliates to keep raising the bar.
iGBA: How much of your traffic is now coming from mobile, compared with desktop? RM: Mobile traffic is continuing to grow, although with our big app presence we may be seeing this more than SEO-only affiliates. We hope to hit one million installs of our sports-betting tips app within the next year, which is significant because much of the younger demographic is betting almost entirely within apps.
Our development team is looking to make sure our content is as effective as it can be on a smaller screen. Initially, perhaps as older users switched from desktop to mobile, conversion was a challenge but we are seeing improvements all the time. We’ ve just completed a split test for a new design on one of our key mobile pages, which saw an uplift of 15 % in conversion.
iGBA: The busy World Cup period has just ended. Were bookmakers better this time at getting their new punters to reload and continue to bet, having burnt through their acquisition bonus? RM: I think UK punters especially enjoyed betting on this tournament but it’ s too early to tell if bookmakers improved in that area. One benefit of the next World Cup being played in the winter is that there won’ t be such a gap between its climax and the next round of Premier League matches. I expect that plenty of bettors had success because there were lots of goals and many of the goalscorers were popular players. The games were very entertaining and I expect many people from the UK who enjoyed betting on the World Cup will enjoy betting on the Premier League once it’ s back in full flow. It will be no surprise to see lots of bets placed on Harry Kane to score.
iGBA: Our recent survey of affiliates and operators showed a drop in confidence regarding the outlook for the affiliate space. Does that tally with your outlook?
RM: There are more than 80 sportsbooks licensed in the UK for remote gambling, with new ones starting up almost weekly. Many of them are well funded but they won’ t get far without the support of affiliates. We have seen how some have tried to grow market share through predominantly above-the-line marketing, without success.
“ A benefit of the next World Cup being played in the winter is that there won’ t be such a gap between its climax and the next round of Premier League matches”
The reason we haven’ t seen programmes closing completely is that a well-managed affiliate programme is still the most costeffective way for operators to grow their business. For sure, it won’ t be like it has been in the past, with almost anyone being accepted onto a programme and operators trying to manage thousands of affiliates with one full-time manager.
But 20 or 30 good-sized, quality affiliates may well be enough to assist a UK sportsbook with its growth, especially if the value of affiliates is truly recognised. The billions of brand impressions, millions of bet completions and thousands of untracked accounts all add up to a huge amount of value that isn’ t directly attributed to the affiliate. For example, as many as four out of every five accounts that an affiliate helps to generate aren’ t tracked to the affiliate because there is rarely a need for the customer to click on the specific link.
I can see a number of constraints in other areas where operators currently spend their UK marketing budgets. The waiving of the watershed for TV advertising around live sports, for example, will continue to come under scrutiny. Imagine the millions of pounds spent there which may well have to be invested elsewhere. Having run TV campaigns in the past ourselves, we know it won’ t all fit after 9pm.
We can also see pressure on high-street betting shops and the continued move from bricks and mortar to online.
So the affiliate industry is suffering from some negativity, brought on by some bad journalism, some small rogue affiliates and some very badly run affiliate programmes. But I’ m confident that operators need affiliates more than ever in an industry that’ s not losing any of its competitiveness. iGB Affiliate Issue 70 AUG / SEP 2018
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