How to stand out in the iGaming affiliate program crowd is today’s holy grail and the upcoming London Affiliate Conference (LAC) is the perfect location to observe affiliate programs strutting their stuff. A juicy promo at LAC is always a wonderful attention-grabber, but affiliate programs must also have something substantial to talk about once those affiliates stop by their booth.
Gary Myers, an iGaming Affiliate Manager veteran with nearly 20 years of experience in the field, now serves as the Head of Affiliates for Betsson Group, one of the biggest brands in our business. Recently celebrating their 55th birthday, its clear the Betsson Group is here to stay, with a dedication to regulated markets and obtaining local licenses where they can.
In order to entertain their loyal affiliates and draw potential affiliates to their display at LAC, Myers revealed his plans to bring a special footballer personality to the event on Thursday, February 7th (and urged fans to bring items for signing!)
“We’ve got a very special guest joining us, John Arne Riise,” he said.
“John has been an ambassador for Betsson for the last six years and we’re bringing him along really to help us engage with our affiliates. We’re pretty good with this already, but anything that can help draw affiliates to our stand for the biggest event of the year is going to be absolutely fantastic for us,” Myers added.
Aside from wowing the crowd with a big name, especially big in Betsson’s target markets, the Betsson team strategically chose Riise to attend LAC because of his warm and welcoming personality.
“You have to remember that John is a person that transcends club loyalties and also regions. He’s hugely, hugely popular in the UK, but also in the Nordic region – Sweden and Norway of course, he’s Norwegian – which is our main area of focus. What I think affiliates will find with John is that he is super approachable and really, really friendly. I think they’re going to enjoy meeting him,” shared Myers.
A hot topic of discussion, especially amongst Nordic-facing operators, is the newly regulated Swedish market with the legislation taking effect as of January 1, 2019. Having been granted a Swedish license for three brands under the Betsson Group umbrella, Betsson, BetSafe and Nordic Bet, Myers elaborated on why this is such an exciting period for his organization.
“What we think will happen is that the number of operators will decrease in the long term. The fact that you have the big tax now and there’s more compliance requirements, will probably scare off or limit the ability for some of the smaller operators to stay in the market. And we think that only the most stable and known operators will survive, such as ourselves,” Myers said.
“We think that online casino will grow as a category, the state-owned Svenska Spel have launched an online casino now. And what’s really exciting for us, not just in the affiliate space, but overall marketing, is that there are new opportunities opening up for us, such as Facebook, such as TV4 and other sponsorship opportunities that weren’t previously available to us,” he said.
“In all honesty, we’d rather be in a regulated market where everybody has the same rules with a license and we’re really, really excited about it,” he added.
While 2019 has kicked off to a great start in the world of Betsson Group Affiliates, the need for differentiation amongst the competition remains top of mind for Myers. Luckily for his program, the brand name is broad, well-respected and trusted, so Betsson Group comes equipped with a huge advantage.
“Affiliates want to work with us. We already have superb brand recognition and equity and we just celebrated the company’s 55th birthday, so the company has been around for a very, very long time and certainly in our core markets we are very, very well known,” Myers shared.
“We have an excellent operations supporting all activities, from CRM to marketing to VIP, everything that works in the background is so, so important to us. And you have to remember that we also have a very big competitive advantage, in as much as we’re multi-brand, we’re multi-product and we’re multi-market, so we can appeal to all affiliates across the board, pretty much,” he said.
In terms of Myers’ team in particular, the focus is on being professional with affiliates, providing them with the exact tools they need to be successful and ensuring localized speaking affiliate managers.
“The proof of our success is that not only did we win the EGR Italy Best Affiliate Program Award, but we’ve been nominated for a whole bunch of awards since then as well and this is something that we are keen to continue,” Myers added.
