Lee-Ann Johnstone

As we face another challenging year it’s also important to note that it may be quite an interesting one as we’ll definitely be seeing how brands and marketers will diversify their marketing budgets to engage players more efficiently online. Here are 5 key trends that will impact the iGaming industry this year and either create innovation or change the way customers are experiencing online gaming and personal entertainment online. 1) SEO Sites Will Continue to Dominate the Performance Space and Promotion of Top BrandsSEO is always a critical component of a marketing strategy, and it will continue to be the dominant force for the promotion of brands and affiliates, and how they gain traffic.With almost everyone having an Alexa in their home or a voice-activated smartphone - voice search will be a major consideration. More FAQ type pages and knowledge hubs where questions are actually answered will be much more commonplace to get that coveted position zero result.It’s also widely known that people use social media outlets as search engines. As TikTok is the fastest growing search platform, there’s no doubt short-form videos that can be uploaded there to get brands more easily found will become part of the marketing mix.Influencer channels will still be a strong place to build community and create links back to sites. 2) Video Content Will Be More Popular and NecessaryVideo has become increasingly important when it comes to how we consume content online and 3-11 minutes is the average time TikTok says is most effective. Already some of the stats that have been delivered in terms of 2023 trends online - which show that 93% of people on TikTok take action after seeing a video.You only have to look at the popularity of the social media platform TikTok to get evidence of that and look at how many popular streaming channels already exist. However, it’s not just social media where video will become increasingly prominent, video will be popping up much more frequently in search engines on website pages too.  There will also be much more connectivity between TV and mobile.  90% of people have a mobile phone in their hand whilst watching TV - brands will look to leverage this by implementing ad campaigns to attract players. We are already seeing much more creative ads that are now showing off the personality of a brand rather than just pushing an offer and expecting the audience to bite.3) Attribution and Cookie Deprecation - Customer Retention Will Become More Important As this will change in 2024, brands and affiliates need to ensure they are focusing on building 1st party data and become GDPR compliant.  The sooner they prepare for the transition the better. This will also be incredibly important for affiliates who are predominantly in the business of re-selling making a push towards brand marketing to build their traffic.  Content curators will  also start to invest in lead generation and data monetisation metrics on performance models4) Recession Market Impacts - Change in Labour Market and Brand Budgeting Remember we are in the midst of a recession, so there will be changes in how money is spent.  Brands will be much more careful in how and where they are spending their budgets. There will be a laser focus on even the smallest amounts, the pennies take care of the pounds after all.Analysing a return on investment for marketing campaigns is going to be important. Which is why performance marketing techniques will take centre spotlight - affiliates who can prove value will have safe harbour during this period. As we've seen in previous recessions, brands who continue to spend remain front of mind with customers and see between a 50-75% increase according to previous Market Sense surveys held in 2009, the last recession period. 5) A Move Away from Price Lead Promotions to Value Lead Marketing There will be a much larger focus on building an affinity with players rather than just dishing out bonuses/rewards. Players will be able to enjoy much more effort going into the innovation of games, and a higher level of customer service than previously offered.We are now in a world where people expect instant responses.Much more creativity will go into VIP and loyalty schemes to improve retention rates, as well as much more effort in relation to money can’t buy experiences.  The point is - there is no need to panic. These trends are merely a continuation of the previous year’s growth and whilst everyone will be budget wise in the coming months, if you focus on value added promotions customers need and enjoy, your marketing will remain effective in the year ahead. 

As we're drawing close to the end of 2022, one cannot help but take a look back at what's been done in the previous period and try to understand what's coming.We sat down with our contributing writer and affiliate marketing guru, Lee-Ann Johnstone, for a Q&A session and tried to answer some of the most obvious questions concerning the industry.AskGamblers: 2022 is almost over; how will it be remembered in the affiliate marketing industry?Lee-Ann Johnstone: I think this year was a year of significant growth and development in the affiliate marketing industry. Especially as we came back to work post-COVID and had a very different view of how to market and engage with our customers online.Overall there are three main things I will remember from this year.I think brands took a closer look at what customers need and want and trimmed the fat off the insane marketing promotions that didn't deliver actual value. I saw a slowdown in free spin offers or deposit bonuses that made customers jump through a million steps to get the reward, and I think brands returned their focus to a stronger product and service delivery in the promotions that were delivered by their marketing support.Affiliates have become more intuitive with their players, building brands around their businesses. That has led to several more significant acquisitions that have consolidated traffic sources in our industry to a group of top titan owners. I think smaller affiliates are seeing this and building better businesses on the back that one day they might want to exit; however, brands need to think about how that might look further down the line. For me, 2022 was a re-set year - where everyone looked at what they were doing but also really started looking at WHY they were doing it. This meant a pivotal change in how our industry operates and how players deliver value.The changes in cookie deprecation and first-party tracking rules on mobile app usage impacted how affiliate business infrastructures will need to change to continue driving value. Additionally, the changes to social media channels Twitch, YouTube, and Tik Tok which affiliates were early adopters to drive traffic via huge communities through their engagement activities, were pertinent too. As new channels become popular, there has to be a stronger focus now for these platforms to build proper regulatory controls to enable the content of this nature to be shared responsibly.AG: In terms of innovation, what expectations do you have from 2023? What should be on the affiliates' radar?LAJ: First and foremost, most affiliates will need to consider how they engage and build their customer data and niche audience segments. With the onset of cookies changing, we will need to consider how to track first-party data and remarket. Affiliates will not be able to send traffic and hope for big returns to exit as they used to.Affiliates need to consider how they engage and build customer data and niche audience segments, says Lee-Ann Johnstone.They will need to look at how they capture data, become GDPR compliant and build their business to drive value to operators over and above players registering and depositing but also further down the funnel in terms of conversion and retention.AG: Who wins in 2023 in affiliate marketing: quantity (sell, sell, sell!) vs quality (helping customers through service)?LAJ: My preference has always been to build quality. I've built hundreds of affiliate programs in my career in this industry, and the ones that deliver profit and additional customer value are the ones that keep on growing. Brands and affiliate managers need to realise that this channel keeps evolving; it keeps expanding beyond web-based sites to a significantly large amount of channels and traffic sources - all of which need to be explored.Affiliate is no longer a separate channel working in silo to paid, SEO and other digital marketing formats. It's a model that sits across all of them in some way, shape and form. I'd like to see more strategic initiatives from affiliate teams to build partnerships and expand the economy that affiliate programs bring when appropriately managed.My preference has always been to build quality - Lee-Ann Johnstone.Affiliate marketing is a long game. When planned and managed efficiently, it can deliver significant results to your businesses and bring in an army of engaged players. When managed poorly, it can cost you money and make a loss, so it's essential to have and set clear objectives for these partnerships and keep an eye on delivery to KPIs which need to be met on both sides.AG: What are the five main points of a fool-proof affiliate marketing strategy in iGaming in 2023?LAJ: Five key things I think operators need to get right in 2023 are:Forget your competition - focus on what YOUR customers want. Too often, we see brands trying to compete and end up in senseless price wars, disrupting the market and eroding value. Get clear on who your customer is and what you want your affiliates to be doing for you. Focus on the niches and set targets accordingly.Invest in training your affiliate team - as I've already said, this channel is becoming more complex, and affiliate managers are at your business and brand's front line. Therefore, ensuring they know how to represent you properly, build professional relationships, and give partners a great first-touch experience is crucial.Review your program at least twice a year - are you working with the right affiliates? Do they deliver what your marketing strategy requires from your business, and have you created a proper marketing plan to meet this strategy within your affiliate team? We often get so focused on getting in new partners that we forget to look at the value our old relationships can bring. Keep sight of long-tail opportunities within your affiliate program database.Get yourself out to more affiliate events - Virtual or in-person; it doesn't matter. The point is to get out to them to NETWORK and LEARN. The most successful affiliate programs are ones that network at all the events. So make sure you're keeping an eye out on new events and speakers to tune into and learn from, as most of the learnings you get in this industry are from others more experienced than you sharing content at events.Invest in your program brand affinity with affiliates - what does this mean? Build a proper marketing plan and promote your affiliate program to keep your offer front of mind. We're going into a highly challenging year ahead, and pushing good content about your program is vital to stay at the forefront of partner interest. Tell affiliates why they should work with you and build a great onboarding experience so that from the moment they sign up to work with you, they become members of your extended marketing team. Build affiliate loyalty. Invest in your program for the long term.AG: What affiliate newcomers' concerns would you brush off, and what would you advise newbies to pay attention to in 2023?LAJ: As a newcomer to this industry, you'll need to know who you're serving and why. This is a highly competitive space, so getting clarity on goals and deliverables with the brands you're working with is the first step to securing your success. Understanding the brand's customer avatar and driving traffic to meet that objective is your only concern when you start out. Focus on quality, not quantity and build solid relationships with brands you trust and can convert well.Get out to events and meet people - this industry is built on personal relationships, so don't hang around too long to build yours! Know your niche and the value you provide, and lead your conversations with brand affiliate managers to tell them this upfront so there are no misunderstandings about the value you can bring them after you sign up.

A lot of skill is required to launch and grow a successful affiliate program. For one of the biggest emerging industries of this century, you would expect that to be the case, but the truth is many don't fully understand how partnerships and marketing go hand in hand together.This week highlights some common industry bugbears and how to overcome them with and for your partnerships to flourish.Affiliates keep ignoring your emailsUnfortunately, this mostly comes down to the fact that most affiliates are utterly sick and tired of being sold AT and approached with cold call emails. They've trained their index fingers to simply hit delete with all the transactional sales emails they have received.The chances of you getting your sales pitch acknowledged or answered these days are slim. The best way to avoid your affiliate partners ignoring your emails is to cultivate a personal relationship with them—just as you would with your customers.You need to nurture your relationships with your affiliates and referral partners to maintain a healthy partnership that works both ways. Keep your partners updated on any changes that might affect them, feature success stories of affiliates in your marketing, and offer perks that matter.But most of all, you want to make sure your affiliate is heard and treated like a human, not a number - just as you strive to do with your casino customers by giving them better experiences with your team, program and brands daily.Partnerships are built on trust; yours want to feel like they can come to you with a problem and not lose a brand deal. Ensure them that you are open to compromise and will do what you can to help them. Offer guidance where you can and ask if they want any pointers.If you're past that point and you're finding that you're not getting a response to emails, don't panic yet. No response doesn't mean you're being ignored. They could be taking on what you're saying and implementing it, so if that change to their shoutout script is being implemented, they're not ignoring you; they're just not responding.If you have questions or a problem and they're not answering you, you might have to catch their attention, even with the idea of renegotiating your deal, since you can't get their say on any issues.It's hard to headhunt new partnersSo, you've got a brand to publicize; now, you need to onboard new affiliates. Where do you find them? There are plenty out there, so the question isn't a matter of "how do you find them - but more of how do you find the right ones?"Take another look at your brand's demographic. You can decide where you aim your radar for recruitment from there. There are a lot of affiliate blogs out there, for example, but they typically fall into genres of reading material, like "lifestyle", "parenting", "business", etc. From there, you can contact affiliate blog owners and creators to collaborate.The same rules apply to socials as well. If you are on Reddit, Facebook, or TikTok, you can infiltrate a niche forum/group/community and market your brand to a cultivated group of users. Contact some of the names in the group with the most extensive following, and you've got a micro-influencer affiliate partner. They have a smaller following but a more dedicated follower base because they're considered more relatable.There is also the Instagram Affiliate Marketplace feature, where you can quickly sift through the platform's influencers putting themselves forward for collaborations. Filter through numbers of followers, likes or engagement, or genre of content to find the right partner.Affiliates are no longer SEO or PPC partners, so look outside the box and headhunt from various niches if you want to grow your program faster.Affiliates keep turning down your offersThere are two likely scenarios for why your affiliates refuse your brand deal: either it's not worth it for them, or it's not worth it for their audience.The best affiliates will look at what you're trying to offer, consider factors like your brand awareness, quality/price ratio, unique selling propositions, and more, and determine that this is worth their money. If you're getting feedback that affiliates don't want to promote your brand or product, ask them why.Many influencers pride themselves on not promoting something they don't believe in, so they will have a reason. If nothing else, it's product feedback that you can forward, and if it's something small, you can sweeten the deal with an offer to put forward to their audience.On the other hand, they could be turning down the brand deal because it isn't worth it to them. Monetization is squeezing influencers for all they're worth, and they will be looking at your competitors to see if they have a better deal to offer. Make sure you stand out when it comes to commissions, cookie life, conversion, average order value, locking period and samples to review.ConclusionUltimately, affiliate program management is more about the management aspect than the affiliate part. Sure, you need some know-how on making a successful affiliate marketing campaign and the latest SEO and social media trends. Still, you also need to know how to manage multiple people who are used to being their own boss.People skills are, therefore, a must.

As we approach the end of the year, it's time to reflect on our businesses and the marketplace around us. This week I look back at what tactics have been working well in the affiliate and digital marketing space and see how these trends may move forward to impact our industry and the casino marketing space.Being More Transparent Affiliate marketing is a symbiotic partnership between two companies to assist customers in gaining insight and information during their purchasing journey. For this relationship to work there must be a common goal and measured outcomes.Increasingly, brands are being more transparent with partners to help improve customer experiences and enhance their user journeys and entertainment and game play on site.In 2022, there has been a sharper focus on creating healthier partnerships in the industry and stamping out rogue practices that negatively impact the majority of players and brands when regulation and advertising guidelines are not adhered to. We are seeing a greater focus on advertising in the press supporting responsible gambling; even radio ads are now limited in terms of what their scripts can say.To start on the right foot, it’s critical that both sides of the fence are 100% transparent. From the data and campaigns and messaging being used to stimulate a conversion to the GDPR and compliance security measures in place. Being transparent about what can be delivered is imperative for a healthy partnership. When everything is in black and white, it makes the deliverables more likely to come to fruition. Clarity has been at the forefront of affiliate and brand relationships, with agreements laid out before campaigns go live, eliminating unnecessary conflict.  Adding Brand Ambassadors/Influencers to the MixInfluencer marketing has taken prevalence this year with many programs testing out content curators across multiple social platforms from YouTube and Twitch to Tik-Tok - gone are the days where paid ads were the way to win a customers attention. Now we want authentic content and first mover advantages to promote brand affinity and bring customers to our door. Affiliate programs are trying to keep up with this and elicit influencers, brand-to-brand partnerships and even on-the-ground agents representing brand ambassadors in far reaching countries.Considering alternative traffic and content creation mechanics to drive customer acquisition and brand reach, it allows you to make use of social credibility and new media platforms that previously remain untested. Also, you can learn very quickly how your customers are taking up your offer.While most programs are still thinking about who with and how they can work on a performance model, others are already leading the way. It’s important to have strategic KPIs in place to understand what value metrics your partners should achieve - we call these marketing outcomes that for all intents and purposes need to be clearly defined before stepping into new channels.Research is also being conducted to get the most exposure for these kinds of program partnerships. That’s why often there are specific hashtags required or placements. Often specific placements will have a heftier fee attached. My prediction is that we will begin to see a lot more successful content collaborations in 2023 driving innovation forward in this space.Better Testing and Tracking on CampaignsMonitoring the success of both digital and affiliate marketing campaigns has taken precedent in 2022. But, there is always room for improvement! Although A/B testing in itself isn’t a new or revolutionary concept - the effectiveness of our data and tracking platforms in use for running successful affiliate programs has advanced significantly this past year. I see a lot of innovation in tech in this industry due to increased demand for better analytics to target and test spends. There is nowhere to hide, and leading your program forward using data via your shared partnerships is the best course of action for a successful 2023.Affiliates are a goldmine of information - affiliate managers need to remember this and ask more questions to gain perspective of what is working and what’s not in the wider marketplace. Ensuring there are different tracking links for each part of the affiliate exposure, or unique parameter ID’s for campaigns to monitor every element of the marketing efforts and to improve performance. The links can also be customized to country or geographical location, so you can get a better idea as to how successful campaigns are in the desired demographics, or if the messaging is hitting the nail on the head in one place but not another to be optimized, in real time, and with the flick of a switch to comply to customer demand.Social Media Listening and Brand Sentiment StoriesThe evolution of social media listening tools has helped affiliates and brands in all spaces gain a better understanding of what people think of them as a business and how they engage with their brand offering too. Brand affinity is becoming increasingly important to the player when considering their promotion options to play online.These social media listening tools can establish your brand positioning, how much your PR and marketing efforts are attributing to an increase in conversation surrounding your offer, and perhaps most importantly the emotion behind that conversation, whether it’s positive, negative or neutral.  This allows affiliates and marketers to act on this sentiment and move forward creating better results and platform offerings. These tools can be expensive but have proven to be a good investment for companies placing a large focus on PR and keen to understand their performance.  Both digital marketing and affiliate marketing have evolved to detail and deliver invaluable insights on how consumers behave. As such, we all need to keep our finger on the pulse when it comes to employing the right acquisition marketing tactics to build brand reach and engage new customers in a variety of different ways online.