Affiliates are the key to unlocking operator success in Africa

Julian Pitts, Partnerships and Sales Manager at RavenTrack, talks about the affiliate tracking platform’s partnership with Gaming Operations Academy and why it’s bullish on the affiliate opportunity in Africa.

You recently announced a partnership with Gaming Operations Academy. Tell us more about it.

We’ve joined forces with Gaming Operations Academy, the boutique training and consultancy agency, to run a free workshop for operators targeting the African market. It will cover a range of topics that will ultimately help operators make more money through effective performance marketing and by unlocking the full potential of their affiliate partners. As the workshop’s knowledge partner, we will be providing data and insights to support speaker Adam Roebuck, who is President of Academic Affairs at Gaming Operations Academy. This is a strong partnership for RavenTrack with Africa being a key market of ours and where we are already supporting operators by powering their affiliate programs with our cutting-edge affiliate tracking platform.

What will the workshop cover and what can operators expect to learn?

African operators are constantly being told they need to use affiliates within their marketing mix to attract quality players at scale, but for many, they don’t really know how to go about finding the right affiliate partners, let alone having the right infrastructure and technologies in place to maximise the value they bring. The workshop, African Insights: Unlocking growth through the power of affiliate marketing, will cover three key challenges – How do you find the right affiliates, once you have found the right affiliates, how do you manage them and how do you optimise them and continue to grow – and provide insight and answers backed up by our data for each. The content has been positioned towards a range of roles, not just Affiliate Managers, including Head of Marketing and Head of CRM, as well as CFOs, CMOs, CROs, CEOs to ensure it provides value for all that attend.

What makes affiliates so effective for operators targeting markets across Africa?

This is still a relatively new market with plenty of potential for online sportsbooks and casino brands to enter and build large and loyal player bases. To do this, they need to connect directly with players, make them aware of what they have to offer and build trust, which can be a lengthy process. Affiliates are a great way of speeding this up – they allow brands to engage with their players instantly and transfer the trust held with the affiliate over to the brands they recommend and promote. As affiliates are a type of performance-based marketing, it allows operators to generate a much better ROI on their marketing spend compared to branding activity such as paid media and above the line campaigns. The responsibility is on the affiliate to build its audience and then push players to the online sportsbook and casino brands they are partnered with, so they do much of the heavy lifting – they obviously want rewarding for this, but only earn based on the players they send, so it’s cost-effective for operators.

How does RavenTrack support operators in unlocking the full potential of affiliates?

RavenTrack is a powerful affiliate tracking solution that allows operators to track, optimise and grow through their affiliate programs. Our proprietary solution offers an advanced affiliate tracking platform built by iGaming experts – this ensures it meets the unique demands of the industry, including the need to withstand the pace and complexity of affiliate marketing in the online sports betting and casino space. RavenTrack has also been designed to be flexible and customisable so that it can be adapted to individual client requirements. This combination of qualities has seen us become the go-to affiliate software tracking provider for more than 150 brands across the world, brands that are winning at performance marketing with the support of RavenTrack.

What can we expect from RavenTrack in the months ahead?

We hit the market in 2018 and haven’t looked back. Today, we work with 150 brands, processing more than one billion clicks per month and £2billion in deposits to date. The operators using RavenTrack to run their affiliate programs have generated more than £500 million in revenue and counting. Our numbers speak for themselves and no matter the size of brand or affiliate program, our solution is the key to unlocking the true potential of affiliate marketing. As for the months ahead, expect more platform updates, new tools and some big-name partnership announcements. We will also be ramping up our presence in Africa, a market we believe has plenty of potential for operators and affiliates, so long as they collaborate through a tracking platform such as ours.