Since European countries started to ring-fence their respective gambling industries the dot.country model has spread like a bad case of the small pox. Now we have a situation where the European Union is desperate to create some kind of gambling harmonization and it will certainly be a test with the all the countries now out on their own.
For those not familiar with the dot.country model it concerns countries, almost exclusively in Europe, restricting the way sites operate and forcing them to abandon a dot.com in favor of a domain hosted in a certain country such as Spain (.es), France (.fr) or Italy (.it). This being the case, it not only presents challenges for the operators themselves. Affiliates will have to adapt to almost the same extent to the changes in order to avoid facing heavy fines from the countries involved.
One of the most recent converts to the dot.country model has been Spain. Last year the government decided to regulate the gambling industry and we’ve now got to the point where companies have their licences and are operating under a regulated regime. Where does this leave the affiliates though?
As we mentioned earlier, working with any companies on a dot.com means risking fines that could run into millions of Euros. There are some that genuinely believe that a dot.es is anything but the death of the Spanish-based affiliate.
Gonzalo Rojas from EmpireMoney.com is convinced the new model not only works but is a better option than the dot.com alternative.
“Despite most of the affiliates are looking for a .com or a .net, Google has shown that a regional TLD is strong when competition starts off.” he told CalvinAyre.com. “I have many affiliates with .es domains and this works perfectly when trying to get results in this country, sometimes you will get local keywords that will be more profitable than global ones: work on your (local) market first and then go global.”
Even with this being the case, local searches will still return a lot fewer results. This can also be an opportunity though as the lower number of search results mean there is a diminished amount of competitors to work against.
Another affiliate that has worked extensively in the Spanish market past, and present, is Judd Muir, of Yabadoo.es. He is a trifle more cautious and stresses the need for affiliates to get the “attention” of operators by “educating” them on how affiliate marketing can be of benefit to them. The role of affiliates has “diminished” thanks to the new rules allowing online gambling firms to advertise in traditional types offline media. How to solve those pitfalls is something that not even Muir knows…yet.
“It’s too early to say,” Muir told CalvinAyre.com. “What they can do is to review the operators carefully, make good contacts and figure out where each operator stands with relation to affiliate marketing.”
That would suggest by following a less gung-ho approach to avoid any fines but you will at the same time miss out by not being bold from the outset. It’s obvious from that, that a lot of key decisions are awaiting affiliates even after the market has already opened its doors.
Sentiments seem to point to a future that will be tough as far as traffic is concerned and to have something genuinely different and appealing is more important than ever.
“It’s going to be tougher to find the traffic and conversions to sustain the business,” Muir said. “As has been the case in many other verticals for some time now, affiliates need to find a genuine value-add for players. We’ll need to put ourselves in their shoes, and think – as a player, what would be really useful for me? Communities and forums could be an answer.”
Rojas from EmpireMoney.com was in agreement and stated: “Everyone needs to be very careful on what to do in order to keep your business reliable and profitable.”
What’s clear is that most of the dot.country markets in Europe will present quite the challenge for affiliates. Those that are careful and meticulous whilst at the same time innovating will see the fruits of their labour for some time. How long that bubble will last is anyone’s guess though.
