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Affiliate Monitor Calling a halt
Calling a halt
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The recent moves by Google to effectively demote media partnership content in its SERP came as something of a hammer blow to the betting and gaming affiliate sector which had previously laid great store in the results from its myriad of deals both in Europe and North America .
With the changes only occurring in early May , it has left the sector with very little time to digest what this might mean for the long-term picture . But while the effect will very much be dependent on the deals struck with each individual partner , it is fair to say that the high-water mark for partnership deals with legacy newspaper groups has passed .
Yet , as our lead feature suggests , that doesn ’ t mean partnerships with other media have come to an end . Time then , to look at podcasts , YouTube and influencers .
In the company-by-company analysis section on p10 , meanwhile , questions around Better Collective ’ s NDC total are arising at the same time as the media partnerships are running into trouble . To be clear , they are still market leading by some distance and
“ The highwater mark for partnership deals with legacy newspapers has passed ” hit the 450,000 mark in Q1 , but the direction of travel in terms of yearon-year growth has been negative for the past two quarters .
Below Better Collective , two companies are now vying for the number-two status within the listed space . Gambling . com Group passed the $ 100m / year revenue mark in 2023 and despite paring back its forecasts for this year , CEO Charles Gillespie was insistent that the next logical target for the company was to hit $ 100m in adjusted EBITDA .
Chasing GDC ’ s tail is GiG Media , which by the end of the year will finally be a standalone entity . As is clear from the latest quarterly earnings , where revenues rose once again off the back of recent acquisitions , the company ’ s progress continues to impress and will be all the more in focus once it achieves its independence .
The future is not so clear for the once market leader Catena Media . As the recent quarter suggests , there is just the hint that the company might have turned the corner after a procession of revenue and profit declines . But starting again from a ( very ) low base , will it turn out to be just a dead cat bounce ? iGB Affiliate Monitor