Today iGB Affiliate London opened its doors at the ExCeL, the largest event of the year dedicated to the iGaming affiliate industry, an event also known for its fun-loving nature.
Over the next two days, iGB Affiliate London expects to welcome over 5000 attendees, 3000 of which who are affiliates, 90 exhibitors and numerous networking events, all while having one hell of a good time
iGB Affiliate London is notorious for legendary brand ambassador appearances, usually in the form of former football stars. This year we were treated to Peter “The Great Dane” Schmeichel at the STS booth, a star known for his outstanding goalkeeping skills within the premier league.
STS, Poland’s biggest betting operator, identified Schmeichel as a good fit, especially considering his Polish roots. Here at iGB Affiliate London, Schmeichel was happy to chat with delegates, take photos and sign autographs.
“I am the brand ambassador for STS, we are very new in our relationship, at this point we’ve shot some commercials and this is our first live event”, Schmeichel told CalvinAyre.com in an exclusive interview.
“Me, I’m very, very careful, I don’t just jump into something for the money, there’s got to be some meaning to it and of course when STS came around, and with my Polish roots, it was a really good opportunity for me to connect with my roots”, he said.
The Brazilian market promises an enormous opportunity for the iGaming industry – including affiliates – but education is needed on every level, including regulators, operators, affiliates and the customers themselves. Land based casinos have been forbidden in Brazil since the ‘40s, so Brazilians are not familiar with gambling and those outside of Brazil are not familiar with the Brazilian culture.
When it comes to affiliates, LeoVegas’s strategy is to focus on both local affiliates who know little about gaming and iGaming affiliate specialists who know little about Brazil.
“As it stands, the Brazilian affiliate community is not very strong when it comes to iGaming and gambling for that matter, because we just don’t have the culture”, explained Thomas Carvalhaes, LeoVegas Group Country Manager, Brazil & LatAm.
“Having said that though, the strategy is to get both. Both the digital marketing affiliates community to understand, to see the potential and the opportunities that this sector brings over to them and also get the international iGaming, the specialists, affiliates that we already work with, to include Brazil as one of their geos”, he added.
In our world of sophisticated and evolving digital marketing, the finest analytics tools are an absolute must. Intelitics is a platform based on real time technology, helping iGaming operators better understand their marketing campaigns. Intelitics CEO Allan Stone explained how he identified a need for such technology in the iGaming industry.
“We’ve been running Casino Affiliate Programs, which is very well known in the industry, for the last four years. We’ve been running an affiliate network there, brokering deals between publishers and operators and just through the volume of traffic that we were delivering, the players we were delivering, we saw a need from our perspective just to be able to optimize campaigns efficiently”, Stone shared.
“As we started going deeper and deeper down that funnel, we realized that the operators themselves actually had the same challenges that we were having as a network and so we thought it would be a good idea to bring to market”, he said.
The iGaming affiliate industry is based on solid relationships and this is why so many of us, including myself, have been around for years. Working together as opposed to working against each other is at our core and the recent launch of “Safe Affiliate Programs” underscores this mentality.
“It’s a collaboration of several brands that come together to help each other and affiliates in a unification that supposed to be a safe environment for the affiliates”, explained Ellen Learmonth of Golden Euro Affiliates, one of the alliance’s eight partners.
“So what we are trying to do by a safe environment is that we all have one common idea about the integrity of the business, the honesty and clarity and we want to portray that”, she said.
In addition to Golden Euro Affiliates, Deck Media, Intertops Affiliate, SlotsVendor, Drake Affiliates, Legend Affiliates, Juicy Stakes and Springbok Casino are all part of the program, with hopefully more to come in the future.
Check back with us for our coverage of the second day of iGB Affiliate London and final day of London Conference Week 2020. As always, if you have something to add, pitch it to us!
