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Affiliate Monitor Company-by-company Q1 results analysis
GOOGLE ALGORITHM IMPACT
Multiple Google core updates( Nov-Dec 2024) caused high search-ranking volatility. The endof-quarter ranking score stood at 5.35, the highest, or worst, score since tracking began. Recovery efforts are now underway, with management emphasising that Google’ s impact was initially negative but manageable.
“ While Google’ s core updates negatively impacted some of our products, we are generally able to identify solutions and recover rankings,” said Stan.
SWEEPSTAKES
Catena Media is seeing strong growth with sweepstakes gaming and sees the business as being of strategic importance“ Sweeps continues to grow,” said Stan.“ It
“ Sweeps is an immediate strategy but also a future-term bullet-proof for the casino segment”
MANUEL STAN, CATENA MEDIA
remains one of our fastest-growing verticals within the fourth quarter.”
Catena Media sees sweepstakes as both a current growth driver and a strategic hedge against the slow pace of icasino regulation across the US. Added Stan:“ Sweeps is an immediate strategy but also a future-term bullet-proof for the casino segment, trying to build our brand and our database for states that are yet to regulate.”
Only 16 % of the US population currently resides in states where online casino is legal. By building a presence now, especially in large states, Catena is preparing to capitalise when those markets eventually regulate.
“ New York is one of the states where we see the highest amount of traffic and revenues coming from sweeps,” Stan said.
“ We continue to see some pressure from some of the states but we haven’ t seen anything significant to put us in a position that we need to be concerned about the immediate future of sweepstakes.”
While regulatory pressure is acknowledged, at the time of the call management wasn’ t worried about significant impacts from larger states. That, however, is subject to change given events since the quarterly update. iGB Affiliate Monitor