In this interview with CalvinAyre.com’s Becky Liggero, Tiago Almeida of eGaming Services explains why operators need to take a look at the Latin American market.
For many operators and affiliates for new opportunities, Latin America sure looks like an unexplored goldmine. The region is teeming with young, tech-savvy consumers who spend most of their time on social media websites, such as Facebook and Instagram.
A research conducted by Fung Global & Retail Technology shows that 73 percent of users in Latin America claim to read comments about brands on social media while 62 percent of the respondents say those comments influence their subsequent purchase decisions. Thirty-three percent of unique visitors of Facebook came from Latin America.
With this in mind, Tiago Almeida of eGaming Services pointed out that social media presents an opportunity as the main source of traffic for affiliates and operators in Latin America.
“People easily interact with content there, people easily interact with video. They like to comment, they like to leave their opinion. They are highly engageable with this source of content. So, conversion is very good here,” Almeida told CalvinAyre.com. “Also, in terms of SEO, in terms of Google and what we can get, in terms of traffic, it is still very good because competition is still very low. Because language is difficult, most European experts are not targeting the region very intensively as what they’re already doing in markets like UK, Spain, and Portugal.”
There are lots of reasons why affiliates need to take a closer look at the Latin American market, according to Almeida. He noted that the region looks appealing since operators and affiliate need not to pay high taxes in Latin America compared to the European and North American region.
Second, Almeida said affiliates and operators in Latin America may still be able to negotiate revenue shares, CPA, and minimum guarantees that are higher since regulations still has to come in the region.
Lastly, he pointed out that the demographics of the Latin American region are fairly young.
“This means, that operators don’t pay taxes as high as those that are in Europe. Of course, in terms of communication, it is fairly unregulated,” Almeida said. “For operators, the market is also very interesting because regulation is still to come. The tax model is still to come. They can have an active voice on this and the monetization of traffic is really high because population is there, there’s a lot of people.”
Smaller affiliates may also be able to sell other different products that are not gambling-related, according to Almeida, citing the case of Brazil where traditional sources of affiliation remains.
Almeida added that competition for affiliates in Latin America isn’t as intense compared to other jurisdictions.
“Gaming is very recent over there, there’s still lot of educating to do,” Almeida said. “So, if European affiliates get into Brazil, they are patient enough to invest in content, they are patient enough to do the SEO, they are patient enough to leverage their social media pages and to do video, and get some brand influencers that can push the message. Conversions will come, deposits will come, and GGR will be nice.”
