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Affiliate Monitor Partnering up – media takes a bite
Partnering up – media takes a bite
● From small acorns ● Who are you ? ● View from the other side
● Long-tail travails
PART ONE
FROM SMALL ACORNS
After a relatively slow start , media partnerships have turned into one of the most significant trends in the gaming affiliate space .
It ’ s not hard to see what the appeal of media partnerships might be on both sides . In talking up its deals during its capital markets day presentation late last year , Jesper Søgaard , CEO at Better Collective , said that these had enabled it to globally “ double our audience ”.
Meanwhile , from the other side of the fence , Michael Reed , chairman and CEO of Gannett , which publishes USA Today , said his company ’ s new partnership with Gambling . com Group announced in February would be “ immediately accretive ” to its EBITDA and free cash flow by monetising its sports traffic .
“ The deal is progressively more valuable as regulated online gambling is launched in more states ,” he added .
It is then a win / win – or as BestOdds CEO Will Armitage said , if you add in the benefits to the operators from such an enhanced audience , a win / win / win .
WHO ARE YOU ?
As one affiliate industry source suggested for this feature , at their core all the bigger listed affiliates are SEO businesses . “ They exist on pretty fat margins ,” the source added . “ But media partnerships obviously give some of that margin away , and in exchange , you get enhanced Google rankings .
“ Because of the sheer authority of a brand such as the New York Post , it improves your search rankings .”
Ben Robinson , principal and co-founder at RB Capital , says the deals make a lot of sense for the bigger affiliates .
“ It ’ s effectively piggybacking onto these broadsheet websites that have incredibly good Google authority and leveraging that authority to get on page one , position one ,” he says . But he notes there are differences in the deals that have been announced , at least when it comes to that voice of authority .
“ If you are dealing with The Sun or the Bristol Post , they are two different beasts .”
On the recent second-quarter earnings call with analysts , Michael Daly , Catena Media ’ s CEO , iGB Affiliate Monitor