VIP Strategy in iGaming with Gali Hartuv

this is a conversation I've been having for a couple of months with a few individuals around the concept of a concierge and we seeing this happen more and more in uh the industry uh with companies like VIP stake and uh be hero I think it was that's launched their own VIP Services uh cono services and I think this is going to be the next generation of affiliation in the VIP space now the risk factor is that people just try to commercialize it and it defeats the

whole point of con which again goes down to personalization and getting to know your audience um I don't believe Affiliates know Their audience enough and that leads to a breakdown in trying to refer or direct that traffic to the right source and that is something I believe over the next 2 3 years we're going to see change quite a bit big you know with the impacts of things like Google and SEO and things we're going to need to innovate we're going to need to change how

we're presenting ourself um and these kind of con or recommendation or VIP reviews are going to become pivotal to diversifying the offering that exists right now I'm John Wright and you're listening to affiliate bi the business intelligence and affiliate marketing podcast brought to you by sta welcome to the Philip bi podcast today we're chatting with G hardto who is the CEO of warrior lab and he's also got a popular Niche newsletter in igaming called G's guide which covers the world of VIP and I think everyone

should listen or read it uh GLE welcome to the show thank you John for having me great to be here so I want to get started by talking about your story in launching gle's guide which is I think it's been a year ago that when you started it and when I saw it I was like this is cool because it's VIP content and as a former affiliate manager and VIP manager I'm like there there's no guides for this stuff out there and I know you shared

with me uh a couple stories about some people weren't happy where it's like don't talk about Fight Club so I just want to know how all of the story the story the story happened so you know we we turned one last month which is crazy to think about I mean now these guid started off as quite literally a project that was just to pass time and write down thoughts and having discussions with clients or people within the industry you know there would be some really constructive

and interesting conversations that would happen and you know in the buildup to the launch in August 23 um there were hundreds if got thousands of conversations that transpired over the years leading to that point and cly there was this re iterated uh question why don't you write about this why don't you public like publicize content why don't you you know put your knowledge out there let other people actually see you know why you do what you do and I never really read into it until one

day I was sitting down with some people and they said let's let's try and convince you to do this there's no content out there people like us that have known a long time have the opportunity of obviously learning from you and asking questions directly but what about all the people who don't know who you are or don't know where to look for information and they they did convince me and I had a lot of support in going into it so I started off and over the

last year we've really developed the content to make it more professional more specific more actionable we've dived into some really challenging conversations you know we we've gone beyond just articles we've bed into question and answer formats with other thought leaders to showcas them uh we did it our first VIP industry analysis um where we showcased our findings across the world of VIP um and it's really been it's been amazing and yes we we we had obstacles and we had a few people disgruntled people message us

and message me directly going what the hell are you doing and I get it I mean disrupt the status quo and go against the grain because the rule of VIP and I came from that mindset as well when I was in Ault management and I was working for operators you are told you do not talk about how we do things don't share our secrets don't share the strategies and the reality of it is that working for myself and being in Consulting now for the last three

years I don't fall within those rules to be honest I can write box whatever I want and I'm accountable to myself um of course at the end of the day there are certain areas of VIP that I don't Venture into discussing not in a written format at least um and that's because there's a lot that happens in the VIP space and it's funny to look back now at those people that did message what the hell are you doing and why are you talking about this and

you know this isn't how we act in VIP today majority of those haters have come around now supporters and subscribers to our newsletter and some of them even DM me with questions and topics to discuss so I suppose the biggest takeaway from having this having this having this resistant uh start from a few select individuals is if you present some actionable value not just content for the sake of creating content but actually producing content that converts or has ACT takeaways people will inevitably come around and

that's exactly what we found and I suppose it just goes to show you patient enough and you're consistent and you endure through the resistance um it really can contribute and those people were initially against you actually start supporting you and that's exactly the situation that we're in today yeah that's amazing to hear I mean I know that when we wanted to do this podcast it was the same story it was like I just felt there was amazing conversation happening about affiliate marketing that were not being

written down at all and I said I want to get this recorded like maybe at least a newsletter and now I'm kind of doing both so if you see me kind of copying a a couple pointers uh from your newsletter it's uh I'm guilty but it's a it's an awesome story and um funny enough uh I've been actually talking to other people that do this type of thought leadership in the SEO space and I believe if you copy these Concepts and apply them to to an

site you would actually end up with something amazing it's kind of like how do you come up with something different or go down a niche or Rabbit Hole where no one's covering the topic but you know you can just kind of dig and dig and start sharing start sharing insights yeah 100% I mean this year I think more so than many other years we've seen a lot of people come out and start sharing knowledge and sharing content and I I really believe that people people people

now are finding that voice and and finding that I would say confidence to go out there and really present themsel as a thought leader as an expert in particular Fields more Consultants are coming out as well and those Independents that don't fall under organizations or under corporate guides that tell you what you can and can't publish um and I think it resulted in a huge amount of new content especially on LinkedIn being released independent podcasts and blogs and newsletters released off LinkedIn as well and it's

it's good to see this trend has started become a bit more popular um those that are starting out I believe that should have the platform to at least ask questions or come to those that are a bit more established and have gone through the ringers and and gone through the pain points to to educate so that we keep the content consistent um there have been a lot of people that are now just AI generating content as well which I think diminishes the effort that some of

us are making um and I think that's where people also need with caution is that if you're just going to chat GPT something especially on an outdated model uh where the information hasn't caught up or it's it's no longer relevant I mean you're going to diminish your own personal brand and I think a big portion coming from Affiliates or marketing or even VIP that brand and that Persona is something massive and you can spend years building that image of who you are and that reputation be

gone in a couple minutes if you decide to try and take a short okay now I've got my first rabbit hole question because it's like as you talk it's like I come up with more ideas so so in the AI space I mean there's a lot of automation there's automation of content and there's now automation of Outreach and I'm assuming that in the VIP space you don't want to do that like I think for me personally when someone uh pitches me a LinkedIn DM or an

email and I know it's automated I'm like you didn't take the time to look at me I think this must also Drive vip's nuts if they're being fed automated messages so would you say that Automation and Ai and VIP they they can go together but they mostly don't if they're used in the wrong way correct I mean when it comes to VIP it's all about personalization and the thing is I'm going to get some Mass ma or you know widespread marketing email templated C responses or

worst of all actually in the VIP space go a poorly trained checkbox you know you're going to create friction and that's friction that could be avoided so the reality is when it comes to VIP I understand VIP teams are not always the cheapest to have within an organization but the cost of trying to automate engagement and relationship building you're going to lose a lot more than just having someone on the ground that could manage that that human touch factor is something that AI is lacking it

may sound human in how well you prompt it but the reality of it is that never going to have an AI be able to reach the same level of empathy emotion compassion um as an account manager and that human touch is something that I don't see getting replaced by AI agreed so the first uh question I've got is what what are most online gaming companies doing wrong when it comes to their VIP program so I'll go back to the AI theme in that sense we're looking

templated one siiz fits all approaches becoming more and more common in the VIP space um part of it is due to the Simplicity and ease of launching your own brand through TurnKey Solutions or white label Solutions where if you have enough money anyone can have a casino or a sports book but the problem with that is you still following a very templated outof the-box solution where three or four different varied ver versions of these templates um tiered programs or whatever type of gamified loyalty programs that

you're creating they're all the same they just look slightly different aesthetically so that generic templated one- siiz fits-all approach is something that is becoming a paino it's no longer a unique point no matter how you dress it up um and by extension with that there's very little Innovation these days around relationship building there there are some things that we have done right as a VIP part of the industry um but I think we've become complacent we're very comfortable where we are as an industry and while

igaming has always been at the Forefront of innovation and change and developing something new VIP not as forthcoming when it comes to experimenting or trying something new and I understand the mentality behind it why would you experiment with ultimately your most valuable assets but at the end of the day you don't have to go widespread experimentation you can do it in incremental deps you can do it in test groups versus control groups there are different ways to go about it but I think where VIP and

companies are are going wrong when it comes to managing the VIP programs is often you find VIP Opera in a very siloed approach VIP Works within this bubble it's isolated and by extension that isolation and shields viip from that collaborative effort that could actually support them with growth and Innovation so where companies could turn that around is take a more collaborative approach get people understanding what VIP means to that business what is VIP if you go into most operation and you ask them what do the

VIP Department do they're just going to go there manage people with a lot of money and there's so much more to VIP programs than just people with money there's strategy there's concept there's marketing there's even acquisitional support um retention and so on the list just it's never ending so I think if companies can just get out of that complacent position and start taking a bit of risk start experimenting start looking from a more Innovative mindset um we're going to see a lot of change and I

think a lot of positive change to what we have today which right now everything is starting to look very similar yeah it's interesting because I mean it sounds like retention is one of the keywords that I don't think we talk enough about even in affiliate marketing and in igaming I just feel like it's a you know it it's an industry that I believe today is more focused on the acquisition like everything's about FTD it's not about player value and I think the companies that do take

the time to understand retention and personalization I mean these are the ones that they're they're bigger you know they're the ones that you know it's the 10% having the 80% of the business and and as well um would you say that everyone when they're doing VIP wrong they're kind of put putting them into a single bucket and saying this is all of our VIPs but they're not really doing cohort analysis or analyzing the data to be like wait a minute these people are all different so

we have to treat them treat them treat them differently oh definitely I mean when you look at how some operators segment their player base it's VIP or non-vip but are sub segments to segments and there's a whole other element that has been popularized or is becoming more popularized from Land base which is development and Player Development is now at least in the last two years digitally become a far bigger Focus um before you had VIP previp non-vip now I can tell you several new VIP segments

that all within that um and so yeah I definitely see that they have been shfs but again we're talking two three years the grand schem of how long we've been around that's not a a lot of time yeah and do you study the VIP space and the land base gaming markets and what do you think I gaming can learn from what's been established for basically I mean maybe a 100 years the last 50 years Etc I mean I I follow some some very very crucial landbase

figures people like Nick Alito for example who's unbelievable at Player Development in Vegas and around the world doing what he does uh exclusively for 30 plus years um when you look at landbased gaming I mean I keep a finger on the pulse uh and that's because there are similarities that you're finding have migrated into the digital space Player Development being one of them that we've seen in the last two three years but when you start looking VIP profiling there's no real difference other than um trying

to create a profile for your environment if you look at landbase and you go to C or MGM or any of those I mean the con at the hotel knows exactly what pillar you like they know what thread count your sheet needs to be what water should be waiting in the fridge I mean that information is recorded on their system it's not just coincidental that as a VIP you show up your room is ready and everything you like is waiting for you um they they even

may have recorded what temperature to put the thermostat on and these are all different indicators we see in online what likeslikes preferences gaming habits gaming habits gaming habits frequencies we recall as much as we can I think when it comes to ey gaming compared to landbase we have more data um and we're able to to get on those touch points but landbase has pioneered for a big extent you know gifting Hospitality to a level that I gaming can't quite compete with we don't have the brick

and mortar that we can take the screen divide away from that human fact and that face Toof face is something that I gaming will never be able to suppose to to landbase but when we do do Hospitality there are ways in which to build relationships that I think can go beyond landbase landbase is confined generally to very specific Focus areas or to properties um where you don't venture too far um unless you're events like for instance Formula 1 in Vegas example um but with I gaming

I think both Industries land Bas and I gaming can learn from each other I think the biggest challenge there is that we don't talk to each other that much um you do have landbase of course Adventure into online we've seen uh in the North American Market as well as established regions like the UK where the brick and mortar shops are your digital companies that we all know um but I think we could do more to interact with each other and brainstorm and try and come together

to support each Focus area and then of course I I want to always bring in the affiliate discussion so do you think Affiliates could be a part of this VIP ecosystem uh first in the re acquisition side where it's like is there certain content they could create that would attract more VIP and then the secondary part which is not all affiliate sites are focused on retention but I think the ones that come to mind are forums and communi so do you think both of these are

still kind of relevant to to say like look affiliate and VIP they they do go hand inand it's just a matter of maybe educating Affiliates of how they can help yeah absolutely I think if we're looking in the digital sense of VIP affiliation and VIP the only real VIP affiliate I'll probably get in trouble for saying this but the only real VIP affiliate is a junket someone with a black book knows their players that has gone out MET these people exactly what you would find in

vas or maau um or Philippines and all those areas I mean Singapore and so on they're renowned for junkets but when you look at your digital affiliation in the sense that I gaming knows I I would say digital digital digital Affiliates it's become I would say quite static over the years we have our review websites and we have our forums and so on but there hasn't been much pioneering towards towards VIP forums are great but VIPs aren't on forums and having review websites available is great

but VIPs aren't looking for those type of reviews and looking for something more specific looking for actionable representation of VIP programs and I think this is where the line gets a little bit blurry in that as an affiliate we obviously look at it from a commercial exercise the person that promotes the hardest or want to rank the highest will the most but the reality is if we're not going to fairly rank based on on on capability rather than who pay the most then it comes down

to risking your reputation as a reputable Affiliates because you're no longer presenting value we need to present that value with actionable insights into thep benefits unique selling points and we need to State sax it's it's not a sales pitch um and it's the easiest way to destroy your VIP Network or credibility is by Leading these V VIP players that do come across your affiliate site into a VIP program that is subpar because we've promoted it as amazing and excellent and that's because they rank the highest

Etc um now this VIP goes and spend tens if not hundreds of thousands only to leave this brand disappointed now someone's got to be held accountable for that and the VIP standpoint is going to hold someone accountable and the blame will extend inevitably beyond the operator who directed me to this VIP PR and that's where the blame will shift onto that affiliate and that's that's you losing that VIP traffic Source forever and I think this is where Affiliates really need to be more careful we need

to understand what we're promoting not just promote for the segment and ties to our first point don't create content for the sake of creating content and I think once we get that point right Affiliates will start seeing far greater buyer to a higher value lead because content that is being promoted or the information that is being shared is presenting that value propos GPS are looking for yeah that makes sense I mean I've got like more notes and ideas that um one thing I think some Affiliates

do well is that they some of them will basically say hey when you're going to this new casino or this any like one that's been around for 10 years this is what to expect this is the deposit methods this is they actually share screenshots of going through that experience and maybe that's something that more Affiliates could do to say hey this program doesn't just have a VIP program this is what makes them different um do you think that's something that's like at least something that Affiliates

could do a bit more of definitely don't think enough transparent review of the processes that players are going to go through the VIPs want simple they want efficient they want to know that there is as little disrupt disruption to their game play transactions Etc and if we could showcase that without VIPs having to go through the process of registering an account and finding out for themselves I I think we would see a far higher conversion those type of of promoting of VIP programs or just brands

in general and would you say that VIP players when they are on affiliate sites basically using them as a Discovery Channel to find these casinos do you think they care about who the owners of those websites are who are the authors like some affiliate sites they don't have a lot of personal brand and I'm just wondering if uh VIP players actually care about this a bit more like like when they actually end up to the casino they take it a step further like well who even

owns this casino I don't think too many VIPs go that granula I mean there are some VIPs that en joining more VIP cented brands do get to meet the owners and do get to rub shoulders with the executive team Etc and and that's because those dips warrant that um often what you find is the differentiating factor between those companies who understand VIP and those who don't and just present as VIP is that ownership understands that if I can make myself available the VIP understands that the

entire organization is invested in them not just a designated department or a point of contact and it's easier not many owners want to get involved and not many owners do give out their business cards or contact information and that's because VIPs can be a lot of work to manage but I don't believe VIPs go Artic well I'm not going to join this brand unless I know who the owner is uh it's a nice to have and it's a very powerful extra if you do it right

but I don't think it's make or break attractive VIP and do you think that Affiliates could do a bit more when it comes to first- party data to say okay rather than click out and then you go to the casino it could be like look what are you looking for in a casino it's like maybe there's a form or more than a newsletter a newsletter is like at least you've got their email but maybe there's a for that you know Affiliates could say well hey how

how do I get to know my own players better th this is a conversation I've been having for a couple of months with a few individuals around the concept of a conci and we seeing this happen more and more in uh the industry uh with companies like VIP stake and uh hero I think it was that's launched their own VIP Services uh cono services and I think this is going to be the next generation of affiliation in the VIP space now the risk factor here is

that people just try to commercialize it and it defeats the whole point of con which again goes down to personalization and getting to know your audience um I don't believe Affiliates know Their audience enough um that leads to a breakdown in trying to refer or direct that traffic to the right source and that is something I believe over the next two three years we're going to see change quite a bit because you know with the impacts of things like Google and SEO and things we're going

to need to innovate we're going to need to change how we're presenting ourselves um and these kind of con or recommendation or VIP reviews are going to become pivot to diversifying the offering that exists right now yeah that almost leads right to my next question which is I've notice some sites that I've heard that they can command like higher CPAs and we're talking about top ranking websites but it's not like they just rank for any keyword they're very specific at what they do and I just

think that because they put so much intent on the product which is the design the user experience the content I'm just wondering if this is kind of like an extension of VIP where it's like look the it's almost like they're talking to every player but the more quality of a site you have I think this kind of is just going to lead to more value and I think Google's actually forcing Affiliates to up their game when it comes to Quality so I'm just wondering if you

think the the concept of having a better product as an affiliate site will just naturally lead to like better player values uh I think it's a direct extension I mean if you presenting as this elevated website cly shows time money and consideration put into building this website that youve considered all the questions without having to go through the process the player submitting something through a forum or trying to go and navigate FAQ or whatever it is if you go through the process of giving rather in

this case not so much more but more accurate and more targeted and presented in a way that not only looks professional but is relevant that's going to attract that higher value VIPs want to know like in their operator relationship time and investment needs to be worthwhile for me um and if they go into an affiliate website where this affiliate providing them with more data more insights more support to make the most informed and accurate decision When selecting an operator or specifically a VIP program that's going

to earn the Loyalty of that VIP to keep coming back to that affiliate and go well you know what I had a bad user experience with that operator I don't like them I'm removing my business I'm going to go back to the source because I had a good time up until it wasn't and now I'm looking for a change now the days of VIPs having one account almost non-existent almost non-existent most VIPs today are playing two three sometimes four accounts um and the goal there is

you you need to get into the top three now how do you secure a VIP coming back you know that even if they've converted in one brand they can still convert in a second or a third all you need to do is prove your referral to whatever brand it is worked once and it was correct and that VIP will come back and take your second choice and your third and fourth and fifth and so on until they need to or until they're comfortable and they don't

need to make any further changes and that that will all attribute to that affiliate eventually and this is something for philis to consider as well eventually VIP start to centralize their business they may start with four or five different brands but eventually they're going to consolidate that into their top three or top two so the objective from the affiliate side not just the operator but from the affiliate side you would want to have referred those top two Brands to that same player you're not losing 50%

of your rev share whatever the agreement you make is um and that can come through having a professional website that actually presents as VIP or at least more elevated and would you say that with all of the thousands of online casinos that exist today and we're noticing like we're adding 50 new game I gaming affiliate programs per month which represents probably about 75 Brands per month I don't even know what it is but do you think that there's just too much accessibility for VIPs to land

on a not just any white label but a white label that doesn't have a VIP program like do you think our whole industry is missing out on a lot of Revenue that Affiliates themselves might be sending more traffic to these brands that maybe they just don't have that VIP program like should a Affiliates go out of their way and say I need to know what your program is I need to know that if I'm going to send you even by accident like a whale like that

you're going to do the best job of not just converting it but retaining it I think that's where the biggest Gap right now between operators and Affiliates is is that there is no collaborative effort when it comes to explaining and educating from an acquisition standpoint what are we going to do after that conversion what are we going to do once you do bring us the value you know or how are you even going to convince affiliate to root higher value TR to you in the first

place um and this is something I think needs to be worked on overall the questions from the affiliate side are not being asked where aren't prying prying prying into what can you offer great you have a VIP program what does that mean oh cool I can see that you are on some white label or some tkey that has the same template as several hundred other brands Al what are you doing that's different besides your gamification that I can find at several different brands what is your

service approach what is your account management approach how are you paying your players how quickly are you paying your players those type of questions need to be asked and it's not just writing a review where you ask the operator please give us information and our content team will edit it to our style and we'll put it on our website it's a case of let us review you with an understanding of what we're reviewing and let us write an honest I would say representation of what you

actually offer and I've seen the even with the conci attempts that are out there I've seen programs not only do I know person but I've also consulted with that have struggled a lot in the past being showcased as a top five VIP program in the world and top 10 in Europe and I'm like well that's all fair and well but that's a false representation and the only thing that's going to happen there it's going to end in a misled VIP that is going to blame the

operator for underperformance and they're going to blame the affiliate for misleading them um there needs to be better communication and there needs to be a better understanding from both the affiliate side and a willingness from the operator side to side to share and I think once right that's that's when we'll we'll see an improvement yeah I mean we've had some chats where I I've kind of wondered what are the tools that help operators either make more money or stop them from losing money and when when

I think about this I'm like wait a minute this is actually important for Affiliates because if we're we've closed a thousand iig gaming affiliate programs in the last three years which probably represents I don't know 1,500 Brands we can all find those Brands it's too many Brands closing which hurts Affiliates and I think Affiliates need to care more about well what's behind your operation Beyond you know xplatform or a white label like do you have these tools so I want to ask you what are some

of the tools you think that operators should have uh that either helps them make more money whether it's VIP or anything and on the opposite side of like what would also stop them from losing money so I'm going to draw reference actually to your article that you released last month uh the too much sales article regarding Affiliates um I I agree with the companies that you highlighted in there with the addition of one so I'll go through all those companies um you highlighted in your article

Greco which focuses on bonus abuse and I think what they're doing is unbel unbel unbel because where are the revenue leaks coming from it's from not understanding bonusing and loyalty so bonus abuse is a massive component and we see it from Warrior lab's side in VIP all the time this lack of understanding about bonus budgeting and how to actually reward loyalty without buying loyalty um you know there's a whole psychological side that we could into on another day but for the most part bonus abuse is

a massive Revenue uh leak another one from the marketing and affiliate side would be ftdx you know with misdirected traffic and missed opportunity where it's just money on the table you have this amazing website or you're doing something right but you're attracting the wrong audience and then you're doing nothing with it so that's another company Revenue leak not from a player perspective from within but more from missed opportunity then uh I would put my own business out there with Warrior lab looking from a consultancy standpoint

b2c b2c optimization and trying to help businesses understand how to retain and grow what you have how to collaborate better and communicate better not just with your players but inter departmentally so that you can support each other with different perspectives we're working on an unbel believable project at the moment with acquisition where doing this very inth analysis on every acquisition Channel and tying it into the VIP segment where we're actually reverse engineering the behavioral traits patterns of an established VIP segment and how they originated and

this is something that is very new I've never seen a report or an exercise like this done but this is something that even the business business business team of couple dozen bi experts didn't even even even consider um and then on top of that one company which wasn't on the list which I'll add to the list is Blas and the way that Blas has entered the market now providing marketing insights it's the perfect balance to not just Affiliates but operators and acquisition acquisition acquisition teams understand

the date and the positioning of who their target audiences are as well as their competitors and it's where I see it really empowering the affiliate space is now you'll have more of an understanding on who you're working with the value potential of your traffic going in One Direction versus another but at the same time you can start forecasting conversions and you can also start to preempt how much more effort you need to put in and who you are targeting and that's the start of what we

mentioned earlier about Affiliates knowing your audience and knowing your targets um and how to get more information to the right people or the right operators so that your conversion rates go up your value goes up um and from an operator side it's going to support in a very similar fashion as well yeah what's crazy is I've I've had a few people mention this concept and it's it it's it shouldn't happen but it's almost like the Affiliates could actually afford to almost hire you guys to work

on behalf of the operators because I mean look if you're talking about a big affiliate that makes 25 million per month I mean they could afford to say hey if we're going to send you this traffic which is going to be worth a lot of money I mean there your your retainer is like right in there it's almost like it's it's actually worth their time to do it which they shouldn't have to but I know even in the affiliate software space this is a reality there's

some software and I won't name which ones but sometimes the operator has to pay more to get like a a couple extra features that features give more data to the affiliate and the affiliate is frustrated going only half of the soft um The Operators on these platforms offer this richer data and when I have richer data I can do more with it but I think that goes beyond just tools and and product as well I mean we've worked with the Affiliates in the past and we

worked with operators to support Affiliates in the past where we're try and find systemic issues that go beyond the affiliate the affiliate can only do so much to bring a lead and once that lead's converted it's over to the operator and it's up to the operator what happens next the problem that you find and we've spoken about this in the past but the problem that you find in these scenarios is if you don't have a robust retention model or you don't have a collaborative acquisition strategy

and you don't have an internal operation retention CRM approach ultimately what you find you can convert as many players as you want but your retention is going to go down the same applies with bonus misappropriation and trying to allocate and buy loyalty where a lot of company celebrate these sudden spikes and ggr or ngr going up and we we celebrate this but the reality of it is is if it's not sustainable it's not consistent or standard Behavior you get this delayed blowback you're not going to

see it in the moment and the affiliate might Rejoice because they have this amazing revion coming in and this sudden lift of whatever 50% 100% and two three months later there's a sudden dive and when you start trying to analyze what happened why are these players dropping off you you can't see it in the moment because the problem doesn't come from that moment it comes from a historical moment um and having those strategies to combat these volatile spikes and drops that's something that's really lacking right

now in the industry there are some unbelievable acquisition teams out there that we've worked with the problem is in many of these companies you have acquisition one unit retention one unit custom custom operations one unit affiliation as part of acquisition as a subunit within the unit and everyone is compartmentalized into their own category yeah that's the problem here that's exactly true I mean it's almost like the whole thing like even with sales and marketing not working together it's the same thing they're all in their own

silos correct okay I think I think in that sense if we it's not to say that we have to be this massive collaborative everyone does everyone does everything you know industry everyone has their skill set everyone has their own Direction but we can learn a lot by asking each other for a challenge or uh a difference in opinion and if we know that our action will indirectly impact someone else's Focus get them into that conversation that that's the best thing that someone can do and we're

often at the table when those discussions are taking place trying to facilitate as an impartial party how do we have this conversation without it being seen as someone else trying to do your job and the same applies with Affiliates and operators the affiliate is not yet to tell the operator how to do their job Affiliates is simply providing insights on how to best manage retain and convert value from the traffic that I'm sending and I think that that's the same mindset that operators understand it's not

a threat and it's not someone trying to tell you that you're doing something wrong it's not an accusation either I think once we get into this more positive way of looking at things and we look at it from commercial but also from human touch um personalization and and value I think we're going to see a big shift in how the industry is performing overall not just on Brand level but even from a segment level as well yeah and that might even changed to this situation where

casinos are opening and closing all the time like 50 we're adding 50 iig gaming philate programs per month and we're closing 30 this is just like clockwork which is kind of good on paper that we're adding this this many more but I mean I think there's just going to be a matter of time when the Market's even more flooded than what it is I think um I think Affiliates always did care about quality but they're kind of like what do I have and funny enough on

the filing side there's not too many filing sharing a ton of De data the only data that's actually being shared is you can go on ask Gamers and go who are they promoting and why but that doesn't tell you everything that just tells you that well they're making good money with them but is that the best traffic like a program could easily compensate that with a flat fee and if you're a smaller affiliate you're not really commanding these flat Feast you're kind of like look where

do I send traffic to this is actually it's a problem that people just don't have enough insights enough insights on I agree completely and then so I'm going to change one of my questions to say if if a smaller affiliate was fortunate enough to have like six hours of your time um how would you be able to help help them that's a great question I think if I were to dedicate time to trying to help a smaller affiliate it would be about trying to break down

the understanding of what they're working with and at the same time they're working with for me it's it's very much about painting picture and I had this conversation the other day where someone asked me uh I went into a company and I started asking a lot of questions I had an established program and the question was why do you need to know all this information and my metaphor that I used is well when you go to see a new doctor the doctor's going to ask you

for your history ask information and they're going to need to paint the picture because I can't help you if I don't know what I'm trying to help and this is where trying to help an affiliate what are the pain points that are being experienced what are the unknown unknowns can I help you discover what you don't know at the same time it's also about reviewing what is known and challenging the status quoe potentially find ways to optimize to simplify to find more efficient uh channels and

at the same time possibly even look at diversification what are we presenting and then and then I would apply more broader brand Focus how are you communicating your brand is it going and presenting the way that you hope it is to the audience that you're going after because you can't go after everyone you don't want to be the the Jack of all trades and then master of none you're going to need to be at least proficient somewhere and trying to determine what that somewhere is I

think that that is a really strong point start because everything can be built around that primary that primary objective um but in many cases a lot of people don't know what the primary objective is they have multiple objectives so I think if I were to dedicate the time that would be the summary of how I would go about it that makes sense and I guess maybe a question of like okay how would you be able to help let's say the larger established companies like you know

the K Medias the game lounges the r techs the better Collective um I'm assuming that if they if they were to you know have you for six hours I think they'd probably get a lot of value out of kind of going what could we do to get a better understanding of our own business as well as what can we do from a Content perspective I mean content is is definitely key i' I'd start probably with the websites what what are they actually presenting where are they

presenting to who are they presenting a lot of the names that you've mentioned are some of the Affiliates that have come up in some of our acquisition Audits and the reality is yes they're an amazing name brand and they have a good reputation behind them but when you look at the type of traffic that's coming through it's very temporary for a lot of well you wouldn't expect it to be temporary let's put it like that um but a lot of the traffic that is coming is

you know the three months get as much out of as you can and then you're going rinse and repeat I would want to find a way to to prolong that and that that comes down to figuring out the collaborative aspect that we discuss between those larger more established affiliat and operator what is your operator management strategy what is your operator collaborative strategy what is your understanding of what your operators actually doing and are you communicating that and crosschecking that to what you're actually communicating are you

harming your brand by by by misrepresentation or not and if you aren't how can we improve optimize or even expand to make you that content Powerhouse and Target the Right audience but what they're looking for and I think that's where marketing and brand and relationship building with operators goes hand in hand yeah it's we didn't really touch upon it too much but it's almost like the brand building for the operator for the affiliate it's um it sounds like when you actually spend time focusing on that

it it actually leads to good things it leads to better data it's um I think uh some companies do it well but I think there's more on the operators and Affiliates that could probably uh find ways of just improving their their their branding 100% but I think this also extends to your affiliate managers as well affiliate managers are not not just glorified account managers specializing on affiliation they also need to have a pulse on what's Happening behind the scenes they also need to be able to

direct uh the Affiliates in in the right direction so if you were to comp affiliate managers VIP account managers the roles are almost identical the subject matter is the only thing that's changed so if you want to change Behavior or you want to shift behavior in a particular way you need to be trained to understand how to do that you also need to have an understanding of what you're trying to achieve yeah that's interesting it's almost like you you wouldn't want to hire the sales focused

VIP man manager to manage your VIPs that doesn't have a lot of experience yet in affiliate marketing we're seeing a lot of um new affiliate managers coming to the space and who knows what reason there is for it like maybe it's because there's no affiliate marketing school like there's no VIP management school either at least at least not that I know of maybe there's a few ACM that actually offer these courses but um yeah it's funny it's um the affiliate manager sometimes on my side as

not even a real affiliate like we're a B2B affiliate but we see the experience of what we get in dealing with affiliate managers on all of these programs like hundreds if not over a thousand and it's just it's a really bad experience it it makes you actually don't even care about the brand and that's ironic because if you're an affiliate and you don't care about the brand just on the initial discussion you're like well what's what else is behind this program it's funny that you say

that it's um I think a lot of uh affiliate programs need to hear this and kind of know hey um your affiliate managers are an extension of VIP because if you piss me as the affiliate off uh you're losing out on that next player 100% 100% irony and I'm going to finish this off with uh what do you see of the future of affiliate marketing as it intersects with business intelligence I I I think going through everything that we've already highlighted you know the saturation of

the markets how many brands are popping up and then closing down at an alarming rate I think we're going to see far more of not so much a dependency but desire to get companies like Blas and Market insights into your affiliate modeling affiliate modeling try to get a much more datadriven insight into your estimated ftds forcasting estimated forcasting estimated ggr um and looking at this impartial data not coming from the operator side but from these third parties to provide a more broader perspective I think from

the VIP side more Community Driven um approaches are going to pop up and we've seen this actually very actively in the crypto space with Shuffle and St and all these different communities that are built around either a cryptocurrency or uh a brand very very strong Brands um but where those will intersect and VIP will be datadriven datadriven consur where your traffic will sign up um to your affiliate program or to your ad Cass or however you want to present it um and Affiliates will need to

start getting more involved VI is not going to suddenly grow exponentially it's always going to be that small segment um and if Affiliates want to capitalize on that very very big contribution that is coming from a very small segment they're going to need to make the effort to get more involved and I think over the next 3 to 5 years years that is what is to determine what Affiliates do succeed what Affiliates absorbed consolidation um and what Affiliates close very insightful I think we're definitely going

to have to have a follow-up conversation and I hope uh people especially in our I gaming space and the affiliate space appreciate uh some of these ideas so I just want to pass it back to you to say how can people get a hold of you and we'll include those links in the show notes I think the best way to reach me would be via LinkedIn so anyone can reach out via DM and I'll get back to whoever wants to reach out for a conversation so

we'll include that as well as Warrior lab and then uh definitely a link to the the newsletter G's guide definitely got to check it out G thanks so much for doing this this was a pleasure awesome thank you so much for having me thank you for tuning in to the bi podcast I'd like to take this time to ask for a small favor to leave a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcast that helps us expand our reach to rank higher in podcast directories

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