iGB Affiliate 27 Jun/Jul 2011

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INFORMATION, INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS FOR THE BUSINESS OF INTERACTIVE GAMING

The Working Fundamentals

BLACK FRIDAY’S IMPACT ON AFFILIATES

POKER SCOUT PLAYER DATA

ZYNGA POKER

AFFILIATE WEBSITE CRITIQUES

The Art of SEO

33iGB Affi liate JUNE/JULY 2011

I hope you are picking up this edition of iGaming Business Affi liate at the iGaming Super Show in Dublin. If you are, then you are really getting the full experience we have to offer. Not only are you reading about affi liate marketing from the best in the business, you’re in Dublin attending lectures from the very guys who have mastered the art of affi liate business.

If you are in Dublin, your experience shouldn’t stop at the conference room. Visit the trade show and meet the best affi liate programs in the industry. In fact, your homework is to 1) go and cement your relationships with the companies you work with and 2) go and meet at least one affi liate program that you have yet to do business with. If you do it right, you will foster great returns, and it’s been my experience that I do more business at a show than I could in six months of emailing opportunities to potential partners.

I hope you are all psyched up about SEO this month, because we went SEO-heavy and brought you everything from ancient Chinese advice on SEO to critical analysis of some of your peers’ sites.

May the wind be at your back and the road rise to meet your feet – see you in Dublin!

Michael Caselli, Editor in ChiefFREE SUBSCRIPTION email: [email protected]

Printed in the UK by: Pensord Press, www.pensord.co.uk

Published by: iGaming Business,

33-41 Dallington Street, London EC1V 0BB

T: +44 (0)20 7954 3515 F: +44 (0)20 7954 3511

www.igamingbusiness.com

© iGaming Business 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this

publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or

by any means, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature

without prior written permission, except for permitted fair dealing

under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. Application

for permission for use of copyright material including permission

to reproduce extracts in other published works shall be made to

the publishers. Full acknowledgement of author, publisher and

source must be given. iGaming Business Affi liate Magazine is

published by iGaming Business Limited of 33-41Dallington Street,

London EC1V 0BB, UK. The views expressed by contributors and

correspondents are their own. Editorial opinions expressed in this

magazine are not necessarily those of the Publisher.

The Publisher does not accept responsibility for advertising

content. Cover image: istockphoto.com ISSN: 2041-6954

Editor in Chief: Michael [email protected]

Editor: James [email protected]

Publisher: Alex [email protected]

Designer: Magdalena Wielopolska/Lorraine GourlayProduction Manager: Craig [email protected]

Production Assistant: Laura [email protected]

Sales Manager: Richard [email protected]

CONTENTS04 Events Calendar

06 Webmaster News

10 The Art of War (iGaming SEO Edition)

14 Affi liate Website Critique

18 Implementing SEO in your Website Creation Process

21 Top SEO Tips Post-Panda

24 Global SEO Strategies

27 Keyword Research Revisited

29 Sportsbetting Supplement

42 Black Friday: Where Does it Leave Affi liates?

44 Black Friday: Affi liate Feedback

46 Black Friday: Legal Opinion

48 Black Friday: Commentary and Reaction

51 Black Friday: PokerScout.com Analysis

54 Interview: Rhonda Garvey, Director of eBusiness, BCLC

56 Interview: Zynga Poker and the US Market

58 Ireland: the Regulatory Landscape

61 Maximising Return on Investment

62 Excerpt from Global Business of Affi liate Marketing Report

64 Optimising for Mobile App Stores

66 Diversifying your Affi liate Offering

68 The Future is Now: Breaking with Tradition

69 Endangered Species? The Google Panda Effect

70 Cost Considerations for Affi liates

73 The Social Gamer Conundrum

74 A/B Testing for Higher Conversions

76 Getting Huge Payoffs with Landing Page Optimisation

78 Considering Mobile in your PPC Strategy

80 Market Place

82 Black Friday Opinion: The Future for Poker Affi liates

http://tinyurl.com/igbaffi liate

@igbaffi liate

4

affiliate events calendar

iGB Affiliate june/july 2011

Due to their popularity and wealth of information, analysis and discussion, conferences have become an integral part of the affiliate industry and a key communications bridge between affiliates and affiliate managers. Whether used for networking, education or just an excuse to meet up with friends, the affiliate conferences listed below provide all the tools you need to improve your business.

Barcelona affiliate conference Barcelona, Spain SeptemBer 8 – 11, 2011

After two years in Budapest, we are moving our autumn conference back to Barcelona, the original home for this leading European affiliate event for the online gambling industry. In addition to the location move, we have also rolled the dates back to September 8 – 11 which means perfect weather for outdoor networking, plus with a huge majority of our database voting for Barcelona, expect this event to be our biggest and best event to date with over 1,600 delegates in attendance.

www.igbaffiliate.com

iGaminG Super Show rDS, DuBlin, irelanD may 24 – 27, 2011

The second annual instalment of the iGaming Super Show brings the affiliate and B2B industries together in Dublin for what is touted to be the must-attend event in the online gaming calendar. This year’s show combines both affiliate and B2B expos in one space with many of the sector’s leading operators and programs already booked into Dublin’s RDS venue. The two-day conference schedule will provide delegates with a unique insight into the inner workings of the affiliate marketing and B2B space, with two dedicated rooms exploring both themes individually.

www.igamingsupershow.com

a4u expo munich, Germany June 7 – 8, 2011

a4uexpo is Europe’s largest Performance Marketing Conference with over 1,000 delegates, 36 conference sessions an all inclusive middle evening party, a pre and post-event networking bash and an expo hall all being shared with the leading entrepreneurs and players within the dynamic £10 billion Affiliate and Performance Marketing industries.

www.a4uexpo.com

webmaster news

6 iGB Affiliate june/july 2011

The laTesT in the fallout from ‘Black

Friday’ has seen Absolute Poker follow in

the wake of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker

in reaching an agreement with the United

States Attorney’s office for the Southern

District of New York (SDNY), although the

agreement will not facilitate the return of

any domain names.

An official statement from Absolute

Poker said that it had “reached an agreement

with the United States Attorney’s office

for the Southern District of New York.

Under the agreement, the US Attorney’s

Office has agreed to provide all necessary

assurances that third-parties may work

with Absolute Poker to facilitate the return

of funds to players located in the US.

This provision is an important first step

to returning US player funds.”

The news follows an announcement

from Blanca Games, operator of Absolute

Poker and Ultimate Bet, that confirmed the

cessation of all US-facing operations as the

company undergoes a restructuring process

that will see the liquidation of its workforce,

and the rehiring of around a fifth of staff in

key positions.

The company stated that it had notified

the SDNY of the closure of its US businesses

and, as such, had “not requested the return

of its worldwide domain names, www.

AbsolutePoker.com, www.UltimateBet.com

and www.UB.com, and today’s agreement

does not provide for their return.”

Accompanying the statement declaring

the closure of US operations, a company

spokesperson said: “We regret that we

have been compelled to take these actions.

We have worked tirelessly to create a

truly amazing company that is filled with

extraordinary people. We have always been

and still remain fully committed to our

employees and players. At the same time,

we are confident that this restructuring will

strengthen the company and its future.”

However, because the company still

faces several legal issues unsealed in the

indictments, player funds will not actually

become available for immediate withdrawal,

the company asserting that the agreement

with the DoJ had allowed them to “move as

expeditiously as possible to establish proper

mechanisms for the return of funds to our

US players.”

absoluTe Poker reaches agreemenT wiTh us DoJ

blanca resPonDs To cosTa rica raiDs

away from The agreement with the

DoJ and the announcement of the cessation

of its US-facing operations, Blanca Games

was also busy in early May, dealing with

and responding to raids on its offices by

Costa Rica’s version of the FBI. However,

the company moved quickly to clarify the

situation to ward off rumours that senior

Absolute Poker figures were the target

of the raids.

The company stated: “Blanca can confirm

that Costa Rican officials visited the office of

Innovative Data Solutions (IDS), the former

customer service centre of Absolute Poker

and UB in Costa Rica. The Organismo de

Investigaciones Judiciales (OIJ) took action

yesterday to further their investigation of

Olman Rimola, the owner of IDS, Scott

Tom, who was also recently named in the

indictment list issued by the Department of

Justice on April 15, and a third lesser known

party, Oldemar Vargas. The reported OIJ

‘raids’ of IDS and various associated private

residential addresses were in relation to their

search for Rimola, Tom and Vargas, and

do not involve Blanca or the operations of

Absolute Poker or UB.”

The company also moved to distance the

raids from the Black Friday indictments as

well as declaring that it had terminated its

supplier contract with IDS “after discovering

that Rimola has misappropriated millions in

IDS severance payments.”

The company has also announced the

termination of all 11 of its pro poker player

contracts as part of its downsizing operation.

Team UB consisted of Joe Sebok, Prahlad

Friedman, Eric ‘Basebaldy’ Baldwin, Maria

Ho, Brandon Cantu, Tiffany Michelle,

Scott Ian, ‘Hollywood’ Dave Stann, Adam

‘Roothlus’ Levy, Bryan Devonshire and

Trishelle Cannatella.

7iGB Affiliate june/july 2011

ira rubin has joined Bradley Franzen,

John Campos and Chad Elie in being

arrested under the indictments issued

in connection with online poker sites

PokerStars.com, AbsolutePoker.com and

FullTiltPoker.com.

According to the Bloomberg news

service, Rubin was detained in Guatemala

on April 25 before being extradited to

Miami, Florida, and appearing before US

Magistrate Judge Andrea Simonton.

Preet Bharara, United States Attorney

for the Southern District of New York,

and Janice Fedarcyk, Assistant Director

in Charge for the New York Field Office

of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

claim that Rubin assisted the online poker

firms in disguising payments from US-

based players as transactions with “phony

Internet merchants”. He is charged on

nine counts including conspiracy to violate

UIGEA and three counts of violating

UIGEA in connection with PokerStars.com,

FullTiltPoker.com and AbsolutePoker.com

in addition to three counts of operating

an illegal gambling business, conspiracy

to commit bank and wire fraud and

conspiracy to commit money laundering.

germany’s norThern state of

Schleswig-Holstein has had its draft gambling

law declared compliant with EU law by the

European Commission, opening the way for

the state to pass a bill later this year.

The bill will now sit with the Schleswig-

Holstein parliament for final vote, which if

voted on before lawmakers head for their

summer recess at the end of June, could see

a licensing regime in place by the autumn.

If no action is taken, the bill will have to wait

until lawmakers return in September.

The state’s law would see operators

pay a 20 percent gross profits tax with no

limitations on products, which is in stark

contrast to Germany’s proposed licensing

regime, which would see a 16.6 percent

turnover tax on in-play betting only with

licences for casino and poker only available

to land-based casinos – which, according

to Numis Securities, “appears inconsistent

with ECJ rulings”.

Numis’ company update for bwin.party

following the German proposals in April

also suggested that “it seems unlikely that

Germany will end up with a system where

online gaming is regulated in one state

and operated nationally”, referring to bwin.

party’s intention to apply for a license in

Schleswig-Holstein.

Virgingames.com has released the

findings of a survey that it conducted

investigating how online bingo has affected

the social lives and friendships of its players.

The study found that 44 percent of the

647 players questioned had made ‘genuine

friendships’ through its site with 18 percent

having met up in person. In addition, 22

percent of the respondents stated that they

had shared ‘personal problems and family

issues’ with friends made through playing

online bingo while 34 percent believed that

participating in online bingo had improved

their social life.

Interestingly, 69 percent of those

questioned declared that playing bingo

online had ‘replaced going to land-based

bingo halls’ while four players have started

romantic relationships with someone they

met via VirginGames.com.

“When we put out this survey we really

had no idea what to expect,” said Alan

Thomas from VirginGames.com.

“We are genuinely thrilled that our

customers get more than a bit of fun out of

playing online bingo at VirginGames.com. It

seems a number of them have truly enriched

their social lives through new friendships

and in one case a wedding.

“There is a lot of focus on the negative

impacts of online gaming but I think this

demonstrates that, for a lot of people, it

provides a point of common interest and can

bring something to people’s lives.”

fourTh black friDay DefenDanT arresTeD

ec PaVes way for german sTaTe gaming law

online bingo in communiTy serVice

bwin.ParTy releases firsT financial resulTsThe world’s largest listed online gambling operator, bwin.party Digital Entertainment, has released its first financial results as a unified entity showing that its net revenues for the first quarter of 2011 rose two percent year-on-year to hit €217.8 million.

“We are pleased to announce our first results following the merger with our announcement today showing what we would have achieved had the merger between PartyGaming and Bwin occurred on January 1, 2010,” read a statement from Jim Ryan and Norbert Teufelberger, Co-Chief Executive Officer’s for bwin.party.

“Overall pro forma revenue in the first quarter was two percent ahead versus the prior year despite the closure of our casino business in France. In respect of current trading, average daily gross revenues are down seven percent versus the average for the first quarter reflecting the normal seasonal pattern seen in previous years.”

With regards to the fallout from Black Friday and the closure of the US-facing operations of PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker, the joint CEOs pointed to encouraging short-term feedback and a positive, yet realistic future outlook.

“Following steps taken by the US government to enforce its laws, we have seen uplift in new player sign-ups on our poker sites despite the impact of seasonality. For the period from April 15 to 30, we have experienced a 33 percent increase in average daily new player sign-ups for poker when compared with the previous two-week period. While this represents only a short trading period, it is nonetheless encouraging.

“[The recent action in the US] may signal an appetite to regulate and there are bills currently being contemplated at both state and Federal levels. We are hopeful that the momentum we have seen in recent weeks may result in further positive developments both in Europe and the US. While it is difficult to predict the short-term impact of any of these regulatory changes, we remain on-track to deliver our merger synergies as previously communicated and remain confident about the group’s prospects.”

webmaster news

8 iGB Affiliate june/july 2011

inTernaTional game Technology (igT) has launched a cash

offer to purchase all of the outstanding A

and B shares in online gaming software

developer Entraction Holding AB.

The firm revealed that its proposal, if

subsequently accepted by Entraction’s

shareholders, would see it acquire 90

percent of the Stockholm-based firm for

$115 million (SEK700 million), which

equates to $11.11 per share.

“This transaction represents a fantastic

opportunity for our employees, customers

and shareholders alike,” said Peter

Astrom, President and Chief Executive

Officer for Entraction. “Entraction will

be able to utilise IGT’s global scale and

distribution to advance our short and

long-term objectives in exciting and new

ways and we look forward to joining the

IGT team.”

In a separate announcement,

Entraction’s board of directors unanimously

recommended that its shareholders accept

the offer from IGT. The shareholders now

have until June 7 to accept.

william hill has signed a binding

agreement to acquire Brandywine

Bookmaking LLC, a land-based

sportsbetting firm that operates in the

American states of Nevada and Delaware,

for $14.25 million.

The UK bookmaker has approximately

2,350 shops domestically and this

Brandywine acquisition follows the

company’s recent agreements to purchase

land-based sportsbook operators American

Wagering Incorporated and the Club

Cal Neva Satellite Race and Sportsbook

Division in America for approximately

$39 million.

Nevada, which alongside Delaware,

Montana and Oregon allows legalised

sportsbetting, was the largest market last

year with estimated turnover of $2.7 billion

and gross win of $151 million generated

from approximately 190 locations.

Brandywine, which employs around 90

people, operates 16 sportsbooks in Nevada

under the Lucky’s brand, alongside one on

the Caribbean island of St Kitts. In addition, it

is the exclusive odds-maker for the Delaware

State Sports Lottery, which it operates in

partnership with Scientific Games.

“We are excited by the opportunity

to bring together three highly respected

leaders in sportsbetting in Nevada and

Delaware,” said Ralph Topping, Chief

Executive Officer for William Hill.

“Brandywine is a good strategic fit for

American Wagering Incorporated’s and

Club Cal Neva’s sportsbook operations and

will give William Hill a leading position in

the US land-based sportsbetting market.”

igT biDs for enTracTion

william hill acquires us bookmaker

sPorTingbeT To acquire cenTrebeTIt has been revealed that Sportingbet is in advanced talks with Australian sportsbook, Centrebet International Ltd, for a A$175 million ($189.6 million) acquisition of the company.

The cash purchase would expand Sportingbet’s presence in Australia as the company looks to further its foothold in markets away from its European business. Sportingbet CEO, Andrew McIver, said in a statement that, “An acquisition would accelerate Sportingbet’s strategy of increasing its exposure to regulated markets and of geographic diversification.”

The company expected the acquisition to add to its earnings in the first full year, post-integration. Sportingbet shares rose 3.3 percent to 47.5 pence, while Centrebet shares closed up 12.6 percent at A$1.79 on the Australian Stock Exchange.

laDbrokes anD 888 Deal scraPPeDTakeover talks between Ladbrokes and 888 have been terminated, it has been revealed. After months of negotiations it appears that the two sides couldn’t agree on a price with both parties releasing statements confirming that discussions have ended.

Ladbrokes’ chief executive Richard Glynn said he “simply decided it was not in the interests of shareholders”.

Ladbrokes also released a trading update following the news, revealing that net revenues (excluding high roller customers) were up 2.3 percent in the first quarter despite a poor Cheltenham Festival that saw revenues down £10.7m after a run of winning favourites.

Ladbrokes also announced that Greene King finance director, Ian Bull, will be its new chief financial officer, starting from July.

american loTTery firm Scientific

Games Corporation has entered into

a definitive agreement to acquire the

Barcrest Group Limited subsidiary from

International Game Technology (IGT) for

approximately £33 million.

Barcrest is a leading supplier of

gaming content and machines in Europe

with Scientific Games stating that the

deal is subject to “certain post-closing

adjustments” and includes up to £2 million

in deferred consideration, the payment of

which is dependent upon “the satisfaction

of certain conditions relating to a

third-party contract”.

The purchase is anticipated to have been

completed over the course of the third quarter

when Barcrest will be integrated into Scientific

Games’ Global Draw and Games Media

gaming divisions and is conditional upon

obtaining UK competition approvals and

“certain third-party consents”.

“This transaction represents a major step

forward in strengthening and expanding

our server-based gaming content,” said Ian

Timmis, Chief Executive Officer for Global

Draw and Games Media.

“In addition, it will provide the opportunity

for us to bring the advanced capabilities

of our state-of-the-art gaming systems and

operational expertise to new wide area gaming

venues such as UK-based gaming centres and

bingo halls along with venues in Italy and

the Czech Republic.”

scienTific games To Purchase barcresT

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iGB Affiliate June/July 2011

traffic

10

These ancienT military teachings not only form the basis of all modern warfare but Sun Tzu’s principals are often applied in business and marketing and have led to this ancient book becoming a global bestseller and compulsory reading for many Japanese corporate executives.

For almost all online businesses, victory or defeat often rests on the success or failure of SEO. I can think of no business where these principals apply more closely than in a space where battles are fought more fiercely than in any other field of business. A single position short of your target may cost tens of thousands and may, ultimately, cost you not only your job, but also the jobs of your entire team.

This article explores the fundamental principles laid out in the first three chapters of the Art of War, these are: Laying Plans, Waging War and Attack by Stratagem. (A free downloadable version of all 13 chapters of the Art of War (iGaming SEO editions) will be made available at: http://artofwar.biz.)

These ancient military methods make up the basis of my own personal approach to SEO and I advise taking time to understand

and apply Sun Tzu’s principals in the context of your business.

I have purposefully remained as close to the original text as possible; in many instances, the original translation required no alteration as the principals conveyed are universal.

chapter 1: Laying PlansSun Tzu said: “The Art of War is of vital importance to the state. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence, it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.”

The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be applied to one’s deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions in the field. These are: ●● The Moral Law●● Heaven●● Earth●● The Commander●● Method and Discipline

The Moral Law or business culture driven from the top down is a state of mind and appears intangible, but this drives the rest of the business to be in complete alignment

with the CEO and his vision, so that they will follow him without question.

Heaven signifies the changing environmental conditions, originally referring to weather and seasons, day and night. In the context of doing battle in SEO, they refer to quality signals, ranking factors, filters, algorithms, infrastructure updates such as ‘caffeine’ and, for instance, how this will impact the size of the search engine’s index or average crawl rates. While at any single point in time any one of these factors remains constant and inescapable, they are also subject to change without notice or prior warning.

Earth originally referred to distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and death. However, in the context of ‘Laying SEO Plans’ they may be considered as follows: your current rankings (in SERPs) in relation to your objectives, the norms and tolerances within your target query and SERP, even the quality of the traffic driven by your chosen keyword. Since this impacts the battlefield, lucrative keywords often cause the ground to become heavy and difficult

This article contains excerpts from the forthcoming book: The Art of War (iGaming SEO Edition) which is currently being co-authoring by myself and some of the finest practitioners of SEO in the iGaming space. This interpretation is based closely on the original texts written in the 6th Century BC by Chinese military commander, Sun Tzu.

(iGaminG SEO EditiOn)

iGB Affiliate June/July 2011 11

to either cross or fight upon without depleting budget or resource.

The Commander: your Head of SEO/SEO Manager, whether in-house or external, their skill, experience, courage and strictness.

Methods of Discipline originally referenced the marshalling of the army in its proper divisions. This refers to your business processes, budgetary control, team structure and potential for internal career progression as well as external relationships with link brokers and webmasters or, indeed, anyone who assists in the supply of battle ordinance in whatever form that may be.

These five factors should be familiar to every SEO: if you know them, you’ll win; if you don’t, then you’ll lose.

Therefore, when you are deliberating the competitive landscape, use these questions as the basis of comparison:●● Which of the competing CEOs would have their entire team follow fearlessly, if only just to experience the outcome?●● Between two competing businesses, which of the SEO Heads has the most ability?●● With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth?●● On which side is discipline most rigorously enforced?●● Which team is stronger?●● On which side are managers and executives more highly trained?●● In which team is there greater constancy both in reward and punishment?

It is from these seven considerations that you will be able to accurately forecast victory or defeat in your SEO efforts.

The SEO who takes this on-board and acts on it will win; you should hire such an SEO. The SEO who does not act upon it will be defeated; you should fire such an SEO.

Additionally, you should be mindful and take advantage of any helpful circumstances which present themselves and modify your plans where appropriate. These include the renegotiation of commercial deals where changes in circumstances occur.

All SEO is based on deception. Hence, when you practice black hat, let it be known you are a practitioner of the purest white hat; when you are buying sponsored posts, make it appear that you are guest blogging; when you buy premium placed links, make it appear that you earned the links; when you have a big budget, make it appear that your budget is small; if you are a fat old guy approaching webmasters for links via email or chat, make them believe you are a hot young blonde.

De-optimise your on-page SEO and create the illusion that you are no longer

a threat; once the link agreement with the competitor is formalised, re-optimise and crush him. ●● If your competitor’s link equity, budget or domain network is superior to yours, don’t compete directly.●● If your opponent is easy irritated, wind him right up!●● Pretend to be weak, so that he grows arrogant and prone to mistakes. Mistakes lead to penalties.●● If your opponent is resting, don’t let him. Instead, invite him out for tequila shots.●● If his team is united, separate it.●● Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

If you are going to win using these methods, ensure that all your plans are held in the strictest confidence, starting with yourself and your team and finishing with all your suppliers and associates. Non-disclosure agreements (where possible) are crucial.

Now, the SEO who wins the battle makes many calculations before the battle is fought; competitor intelligence, required link volumes, cost per link, cost of deploying a link, margin of error, estimated traffic, average lifetime value, estimated payback period of a player, annual link cost, inflation of link costs, cumulative cost of renewals, team salaries and annual pay review expectations and anticipated performance bonus pay outs. The SEO who loses a battle doesn’t do their calculations beforehand. Doing your calculations leads to victory and not doing them leads to defeat. Attention to detail at these planning stages gives the best indication of whether or not you will succeed.

chapter 2: Waging WarSun Tzu said: “In the operations of war, there are in the field a thousand swift chariots, as many heavy chariots and a hundred thousand mail-clad soldiers.”

The business expenditure including staff salaries, agency fees, office space, computers, content, tracking software, accounting and payroll, competitor intelligence as well as link budgets, placement and administrative costs will reach as much as tens of thousands of pounds per month. Such is the cost of delivering above-the-fold rankings for a sought after primary iGaming keyword.

When you engage in actual link building, if page one rankings are long in coming, then your budgets will be depleted and your team’s enthusiasm will be dampened. Whether you are laying siege to page one or position one, you will exhaust your strength. Again, if the campaign

is protracted, your budget will not be sufficient to equal the strain.

Now, when your link tenancies require renewal, your passion and enthusiasm dampened and your link budget depleted, other affiliates and operators will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. No SEO, however skilled, will be able to avoid the disaster which must ensue.

Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in SEO, cleverness has never been associated with long delays. There is no instance of a business having benefited from an overly prolonged campaign. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of SEO that can thoroughly understand the profitable way to conduct it.

The skilful SEO does not request more budget from the CFO, neither is the frequency of his sponsored posts increased more than twice.

Find your own links and identify the powerful ones which make up the link profile of your competitors to ensure your team has enough link equity for its needs. If your marketing budget is stretched, leverage the existing relationships of an experienced link builder with abundant contacts in your market and territory.

Poverty in your accounts causes your campaign to be maintained by contributions from a distance. Contributing to the maintenance of your campaign at a distance causes the team to be exhausted and dismayed. You have two choices when running an international campaign: you either invest in local natives with existing webmaster and link broker relationships, or you do it the hard way i.e. you assign the work to your existing team, who will struggle and make no progress to the cost of your budget and their enthusiasm.

Note: I’ve heard it said that SEO isn’t a job; it’s a well-paid competitive sport, and this is so true. For this reason, state of mind is crucial. One enthusiastic team member is worth ten emotionally broken team members.

The local presence of major brands competing in a developing market causes link prices to escalate; and high prices cause your budget to be depleted. This will generally impact the affiliates before it impacts the operators – relationships, negotiation skills and buying power will offset this inflation, offering an advantage to those who hire SEO heads who are well-connected, skilled negotiators with large databases of link sellers and international local resource.

A wise SEO makes a point of foraging the competitor’s links, resource and suppliers; just one of your competitors’ link brokers could be worth a thousand links.

iGB Affi liate June/July 2011

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12

Now, in order to destroy the competitor, your team must be roused with anger, however, in order to make his defeat compelling to your team, they must be rewarded. Therefore, when targets are met in SEO, those who hit them should be rewarded. Our own positions in the SERPs should displace those of the competition and the competing site’s link profi le should be mingled with ours. Poached suppliers and staff should be looked after and well treated.

This is called “using the conquered foe to augment one’s own strength”. In SEO, let your objective be victory, not lengthy campaigns. Thus, it may be known that the leader of an SEO team is the arbiter of the people’s fate, the man on whom it depends whether the business shall be in peace or in peril.

chapter 3: attack by stratagemSun Tzu said: “In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy is not so good.”

So too, is it better to acquire a domain or brand than displace it; to poach your opposition’s key staff, than to allow them to drift off into another industry or company. To some degree (where possible), this also applies to the acquisition of any asset, including Twitter accounts, fan pages, etc. Too often are company assets such as these technically the property of individual staff members rather than the company, since they emerged at a time when no-one really understood the importance of these platforms.

Hence, to fi ght and conquer in all your SEO battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists of breaking the competitor’s resistance without placing a single link, potentially through acquisition of intact real estate or through acquisition and link equity purely for redirection.

As such, the highest form of SEO strategy is to repeatedly counter-attack based on the moves and stratagem of the competitor. The next is to isolate your competitor from his allies; the next is to attack when your competitor is at full strength. In particular, if you are trying to overcome a publicly traded company at the beginning of their fi nancial year for a major casino term; this is likely to lead to a Pyrrhic victory.

When taking position number one from your competitor, the commercial impact to

your competitor is greatest; you should be prepared for retaliation proportional to their loss in revenue.

The worst policy of all is to besiege a heavily fortifi ed number one position. The rule is to not besiege these ‘walled cities’ if it can possibly be avoided. The preparation of links can take up to three months to prepare and the acquisition of sites for link equity redirection may take three months more.

The SEO unable to control his irritation will deploy his links and/or redirects before suffi cient link equity has been accrued. Many of them will have no impact and the position remains untaken, such is the disastrous effect of such a siege.

Therefore, the most skilful SEO subdues his opponent without buying links; he carefully displaces his competitor’s rankings, without laying siege to his prized and heavily defended number one ranking – he overthrows their market dominance without a lengthy campaign.

With his team and suppliers enthused and intact, without losing a single site to a penalty, he will dominate the market, covering a wealth of page one positions for a multitude of short-tail prized keywords. This is the method of attacking by stratagem.

It is the rule of SEO war that if your budget is ten times that of the competitor, surround him. Acquire the key web properties from which he derives most domain authority. Approach his link suppliers and assign head hunters to his staff (be sure to recruit the right people when acquiring personnel). Identify their link suppliers and brokers and commercially lock your competitor out of their own supply chain.

“If fi ve to one, attack him”. Pull together all your resources and deploy a timed campaign to generate the maximum possible link velocity. Spend one or even two months preparing links, redirects, PR (where applicable), all your legacy link bait, and deploy it all using suffi cient anchor text and target URL diversity in a condensed period of time.

If you are twice as well resourced as your competitor, divide the resource into two. Use one half working towards positively impacting your position, and the other team to focus on negatively impacting your competitor’s position. This approach aims to double your relative velocity, bringing victory in half the time.

“If equally matched, we can offer battle”,

but only the most experienced SEO should consider this. He will have to use the sum total of his experience, skill and cunning if he is to win under these conditions.

“If slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy”. In the original text, the translation of this statement is ambiguous. Asian military scholars have suggested that it is better translated as ‘watch the enemy’ since guerrilla tactics would be the natural course of action.

“If quite unequal in every way, we can fl ee from him”. I often say, ‘picking a keyword is picking a fi ght; don’t pick a fi ght unless you know you can win’. In this instance, you should never attempt to engage in optimising for a keyword for which you are in no position to seriously compete. You would be better investing in other marketing activities, which would yield some return, however small.

To reiterate...Always seek professional advice before hiring an SEO agency or hiring an in-house practitioner. ●● Picking a keyword is picking a fi ght.●● Don’t pick a fi ght unless you’re sure you can win.

if you have any specifi c questions email me directly at [email protected] or follow me on http://twitter.com/paulreilly or stalk me on http://foursquare.com/user/paulreillyto download your free copy of the art of War (iGaming SEO edition) go to: http://artOfWar.biz.

Having worked in Search marketing for over 12 years and having earned multiple awards and honours, today, Paul Reilly is regarded by as one of the UK’s most infl uential SEOs, and is the fi rst port of call for almost all iGaming brands. Paul is widely known in the iGaming and SEO industries for his previous work in building the world’s most effective and technologically advanced SEO department. He is the founder of mediaskunkworks.com, a new generation service provider which has built its reputation on innovation and optimised methodologies which dissect the traditional agency model.

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AFFILIATE WEBSITE CRITIQUES

GPwa useR, nico84, asked to have three of their sites reviewed. I usually review one site only but, in this case, the other sites were helpful in fi nding some common problems that are probably hurting search engine results.

This affi liate is targeting Spanish markets worldwide which, in theory, have far less competition for online casinos and reviews than what you will see in English. One of their other sites is onlinecasinos.pl and I used this website to see if I could fi nd common problems.

improving page titles ● Current homepage format

CasinoXonline.com – ¡Los mejores casinos para jugar online!– CasinoXonline.com ● Suggested homepage format

Los mejores casinos para jugar online

Having the domain in the page title isn’t exactly important and having it twice only makes it worse, in my opinion. If you are using an SEO plug-in for Joomla you can either keep the domain out of the page names or if you prefer to use it, I personally recommend having it at the end rather than at the start. Remember; if someone is searching for “casino titan reseña” then this is what the user should expect to see in the search engines where your page titles show up as the link in the results pages.

h1, h2, h3 tagsOn the homepage, I viewed the page source to fi nd out what is used in the code and here is what I found:

http://casinoxonline.com/PageRank: ......................................................................................................................................................0Content Management System (CMS): ..................................................JoomlaOnline since: ...................................................................................................December 2010Number of links: ................................................................................................................................73

CasinOXOnline Website RevieW

<h1>¡Bienvenido!</h1>The h1 tag was also the dice/dado.jpg image. The h2 tag was not used<h3>Oferta del Mes</h3>

The homepage h1 tag should include what is in the page title as ranking for Bienvenido is not really what this page is about nor is it an appropriate search term. The tags are used almost perfectly on the other pages including review pages. One issue is that the h3 tag is the same on all pages for Oferta del Mes. This shouldn’t be h1, h2 or h3.

design and conversion issuesI will keep this short. Although the Joomla template used isn’t bad, the top part of the website has too much redundant space. Either a banner could be listed in this space, other links or, simply, the size could be reduced. Since this header area and logo takes up so much space it means the user always has to look below to fi nd what they want.

duplicate content issues ● First duplicate content issue: url canonicalization problem

The problem is http://casinoxonline.com has the same content as www.casinoxonline.com. Most webmasters are not aware that this is a problem but, technically, this represents two domains both having the same content. The best solution is to choose one url structure you want and use a 301 redirect. For a quick read on this issue visit Matt Cutt’s blog post here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/.

● Second duplicate content issue: recycling contentI checked the other domain, onlinecasinos.pl, and found that this affi liate is using identical content across multiple websites. The casino review sections all use the same review text and some of the blogs/posts are also identical. Search engines in general will tend to devalue content that is copied and reproduced. The best solution to this problem is to take all three websites and ensure that for one casino review, like Titan Casino, that you have three different reviews written up. Although it will take more time to have two more reviews written per casino, this will ensure your websites are constructed with quality; something Google wants to see more of and will reward accordingly.

On the onlinecasinos.pl review page for Titan Casino, this is not only an opportunity for improving your rankings but also your conversion process. Put a Chilean fl ag somewhere in the content that says ‘Chilean players accepted’ and put all the banking methods available for that specifi c country. Either way, if this issue isn’t fi xed it could result in having your sites removed entirely from Google

Quick fi x solutionAssuming that casinoxonline.com is your number one authority site, update the onlinecasinos.pl review pages and add text stating

This article is all about affi liate reviews and critiquing your website. If you are having problems with your website, either in terms of generating traffi c or converting it, I might be able to help. The following seven affi liates submitted their websites to have them reviewed. Some issues overlap so I didn’t give all sites the same amount of attention for a critique while a few of those submitted have less issues to deal with and represent model websites. At the end of this article, I’ll share a few basic tools that you can use to see what your competitors are doing that, perhaps, you should be doing too. By John wright, Affi liate Coach at GamingAffi liatesGuide.com.

iGB Affi liate June/July 2011 15

that those casinos accept Chilean players. Add in a good paragraph and link back to the ‘original’ review page on your authority site.

best solutionRe-write the review pages completely on the other domains so that each domain has its own unique and original review. If time and resources are an issue, then do the quick fi x solution immediately

You can read Google’s say on the issue of duplicate content with suggestions on how to fi x these problems at:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66359.

Last but not least, the blog posts should be a little more consistent and if you don’t update anything on your website for over a month, then your rankings might get pushed down further and, equally important, your users might notice and abandon you for another portal. Also, the site needs more links; most of the links are currently signature links from GPWA. Work to get more links and look for quality.

http://e-sportbets.orgPageRank: ..................................................................................................................................2Content Management System (CMS): ...................WordPressOnline since: ................................................................................................................ 2009Number of links: .........................................................................................................850

e-sPORtbets Website RevieW

Pokernewsboy.comPageRank: ................................................................................................................................3Content Management System (CMS): .................WordPressOnline since: .......................................................... 2009Number of links: ...................................................................................................2340

POKeRneWsbOy Website RevieW

THis siTe is VeRY difficuLT to critique and, if anything, is a model affi liate site. The design of the site is well organised and everything is fairly easy to scan and navigate. The most important thing is that this site is called Poker News Boy and the fi rst thing I notice on the website is poker news posts. This may sound obvious but you would be surprised at how many affi liate sites have a keyword based domain name where the website content and features have nothing to do with that keyword.

I like the mascot used in the footer; I would recommend having him at the top to give the site an even better impression for the fi rst time visitors.

duplicate content with excerptsEither your CMS is automatically generating these excerpts and copying them from the original blog posts or you are copying them in yourself. This might only be three to fi ve sentences of duplicate content but I recommend you take all future excerpts and write them to keep them customised. This will mean your homepage and blog posts won’t ever share much duplicate content.

THis is an affiLiaTe to whom I am currently offering

direct coaching advice. In short, one of the things we worked

on changing was to remove sources of duplicate content on

the website by shortening the excerpts on the blog posts.

In addition, the excerpts are now customised to ensure the

content on the homepage and on the individual blog pages

remains unique and not duplicated.

We also worked on changing the h2 tags used by the

WordPress widgets. H2 title tags should be used for your content

but designers and coders commonly misuse these. For the blog

posts, we suggested to add more calls-to-action especially in the

middle of the articles to try to improve conversions. The text

also makes use of h2 and h3 title tags, plus use of ‘bolding’ to

highlight keywords and better interlinking.

pokerutility.comPageRank: ...................................................................................................................................0Online since: ................................................................................................................. 2009Number of links: .........................................................................................................100

POKeRutility Website RevieW

some of the previous suggestions about h1, h2 and h3 title tags might apply on this site. For example, if you have a page called ‘Free Tools’ and the page title is ‘Free Poker Tools’ then it would help to have the page title inside the text with the same or similar text. I searched this page just for ‘free tools’ and it was only found once on the link. The same goes for data-mining. Try to include the text of the keywords in your pages if you want to rank for them.


traffic

16

Http://online.casinocity.comPageRank: ......................................................................5Online since: ............................................................1995Number of links: .................................................109,000

Online CasinO City Website RevieW

THis websiTe is almost a case of ‘if it isn’t broken then don’t fix it’. The one thing I could suggest, which is more of a user interface improvement, is to keep a similar design, perhaps touch up some of the buttons, menu backgrounds, etc. What I think could be fixed is some of the layout and CSS code. For users that have large screens, the layout of the website looks disorganised as some of the modules like ‘Most popular online casinos’ and ‘Weekly Newsletter’ start to stretch out leaving large areas of white space. Aside from that, this website doesn’t need much changed at all.

tournamentterminator.comPageRank: .................................................................................................................................... 2CMS:............................................................................WordPress (ArrasTheme)Online since: ...................................................................................................................2009Number of links: ............................................................................................................407

tOuRnament teRminatOR Website RevieW

i can’T find Too mucH to change as the site is fairly well put together and organises content well. Some suggestions for improvements would be to remove comments in your posts since most of the time you’ll be flooded with spam. Some good pages to produce would be reviews of the poker rooms you list as this becomes additional content you can rank for and it can help conversions. Also, try adding some 468x60 or 728x90 banners in your post. You can try testing a banner in the bottom footer to see if it improves conversions.

I had a quick look at the link portfolio and without looking at the quality of links alone, I would suggest working on building more links. I also didn’t see any social media links or couldn’t find a twitter account for Tournament Terminator. A few accounts can easily be created to give you a bit of extra traffic that is not only free but easy to auto-generate with some popular WordPress plug-ins like Twitter Tools. This also gives you a free link in the process.

theslotscafe.comPageRank: ...................................................................................................................................0Online since: ................................................................................................................. 2010Number of links: ..........................................................................................................100

the slOts Cafe Website RevieW

i noTice in the text that I cannot click on anything or highlight it. Maybe this is a plug-in you are using to prevent copied content but, personally, I don’t think this is a good plug-in to use. If people really want to copy your content, they will, and it will most likely happen with robots. Overall, I just think you’ll annoy your users more than you’ll prevent someone from copying your content. On top of that, I cannot tell if your links are actually clickable by real users in the content. I see orange text, red text, blue text and even bright yellow which I can’t read. I see that orange is the only link but not blue and I don’t think this is intuitive for the user. Try to stick to some standards that most users are used to like blue links and use of bold, underline, italics and red.

On the homepage, you have a stapled blog post to welcome the visitors but this content also appears on that individual blog page which is resulting in duplicate content.

I would keep a very close eye on your comments and I noticed they are available on pages and blog posts. For pages, I personally don’t recommend having these available and I also recommend removing most links associated with comments. I see some comments on review pages that I am confident were generated by robots.

organise your linksI see you are using direct affiliate links when you promote a casino. I would recommend you organise all your links into one folder. You might have noticed on some sites that they will have domain.com/go/allslots-casino for their link. If BrightShare told you tomorrow that you need to update all your links then it is best to update a small number of links at a time instead of changing hundreds all over your website. So open up a text editor and you can add this file into a go folder:

<?php//Header( “HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently” ); Header( “Location: http://youraffiliateprogramlink.com/pageid=1234889” ); ?>

conclusions and recommended toolsThe two big things to take away from these

examples is to know when you might have

duplicate content and work on getting more

links for your site. Just remember that you

can always use Yahoo Site Explorer as a tool

to find out what your competition has done

for their link campaigns.

Yahoo site explorerhttps://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

Use this tool to find out the link portfolios

and number of pages a website has.

seo Quake Toolbarhttp://www.seoquake.com/

Something all webmasters should use, this

tool allows you to get an SEO diagnosis on

your competitors.

semRushhttp://www.semrush.com/

Find out what you or your

competitors are ranking for.

JOhn WRight is an affiliate Coach. he can be reached at [email protected].

[email protected] www.aspireaffiliates.com

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traffic

18

SEO iS undEniably bEnEficial after a website has been built, but the implementation of SEO in a website’s creation process is far more effective. As we would like to make a good first impression in real life, so our websites should make a positive impact when the search engine crawlers visit them for the first time. Indeed, all that is done wrong at the beginning has to be corrected later, which will cost more money, resources and time.

The beginningTypically, new websites are created to generate income. Make sure that you are unique and that you do something better than your competition – be special. When you have your idea, the next step should be to plan your website structure, and here is where we start to talk about implementing SEO strategies.

Keyword strategiesLet’s say you have targeted a niche gambling market such as ‘Live Blackjack Casinos’ and you are asking yourself, ‘what will the user type in the search engines to find me?’ You will likely get to the conclusion that there are many possibilities. Let’s consider that you are not alone in this market and there are older websites ranking at number one for the ‘best’ generic keywords. One strategy might be to target your homepage with these keywords, but on more of a long-term basis and with a focus on longer keywords where it should be easier to achieve relatively good rankings quickly. By working out your keyword

strategy, you have defined your roadmap for the future structure of your website, as well as your future goals and direction. Always bear in mind that your website will develop to a greater extent when it grows naturally.

domain nameThere are a variety of opinions about choosing the right domain name. You have plenty of choices; for example, getting a keyword domain (live-blackjack-casinos.com); getting an expired domain; getting a domain that has already been ‘live’ (to use its existing history to hit the ground running); or registering a new domain and branding it (lbjack.com).

One special recommendation; I would get a holding page online as soon as possible, one that has text describing what you intend to develop on your site. Having this means that you can start building links earlier and earn your website some history.

Website structureHaving carried out your keyword research, you now know where you want to start, what content your page should have from the beginning and what sections might be added in the future. Try to think in categories to structure your content:●● Cars●● Sports cars●● Ferrari●● Mercedes●● Lexus ●● Bentley●● BMW●● Helicopters

There is never just one way of categorising a topic; in the previous example, we could also have taken the brands as top category instead of vehicle type. When you have written down your structure, analyse its ability to adapt for future developments.

The next step is to implement the internal linking structure into your overview. Usually, if you have done a good job, you should have included all of your keywords into a hierarchy, which should make it very easy to implement logical links, for users and search engines, which contain your targeted keywords as anchor text.

You might include additional elements like tags (blue cars, two doors, big trunk) to find even more ways to interlink between related web pages on your website.

SEO design templateBringing your ideas and structures into a format which is optimised for both crawlers and your target audience is the next challenge. Often, designers, programmers and SEOs (and, indeed, CEOs) have very different opinions about what elements should take priority.

I can only recommend that you follow the basic guidelines of a clear template structure:

●● Navigation machine readable (DHTML and CSS)●● JavaScript only for non-search relevant parts of the websites ●● Good implementation of site elements (navigation, content, sitebar, advertisements)

How to implement SEO in your website’s creation process.

iGB Affiliate June/July 2011 19

●● Headings (h1, h2, h3)●● Title tags containing the keywords you want to rank for●● Good use of meta-tags (especially canonical and description)●● Implementation of images using correct file names and alt-tags●● Avoid duplicate content issues

Of course, there are many more elements that could be mentioned, like the robots.txt, sitemaps, the robots-meta tag, among others. There are a number of guides on the Internet that can help you in this regard; even Google’s Webmaster Central Blog is a handy resource.

link buildingThis is, perhaps, the most difficult and enduring part of your SEO strategy. There are countless ways to get links pointing to your websites, some of which are not exactly popular in the eyes of Google – like

excessive link exchanges and link buying – but, nevertheless, can be part of your link acquiring strategy because one thing is for sure: without links, it is very unlikely that you will achieve top rankings.

Making bad decisions with your link building strategy can lead to severe punishment and even de-rankings from Google. If you are not sure what to do, I always recommend consulting an expert.

As a basic guideline, you should never forget that the process of building links should be as natural as possible. If you think, ‘hey, this link or website looks very suspicious to me’, than it probably does to Google as well, and you do not want to be connected (via links) to this type of website.

If you need help with any of these steps do not hesitate to consult an SEO specialist. I have seen more than one website which has been doomed from the very start, all because SEO has been neglected in the site’s development.

Kay Schaefer is founder of KSOM.es. Kay studied business administration and marketing before he settled on Internet marketing and SeO in 2004. his main specialty is improving a company’s search engine visibility using creative and unique link building strategies. his client portfolio includes companies in online gaming and other industries outside of gaming. In 2007, he started building his own SeO company and currently resides in Barcelona, Spain. http://en.ksom.es

“Link building is, perhaps, the most difficult and enduring part of your SEO strategy.”


traffic

21

AFTER A MAJOR update, I would normally get together with a bunch of other SEO freaks and do some testing to get real data to back my conclusions. This time, however, the research was already done. The same things work now that worked four or fi ve years ago, just in a different proportion.

Most of my 2011 SEO top tips directly relate to the Panda Update in some way because the basis behind this update is, in my mind, saturating the amount of information utilised to establish the most relevant pages in Google. The search giant is doing this with Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), social media and information from third-party bookmarking companies like Furl, Facebook and Reddit. This makes it much harder for SEOs to manipulate the results, and easier for Google to identify sites attempting to engineer the results in their favour; companies like Furl, Facebook and Reddit.

Latent Semantic IndexingI’ve spoken many times in the past on LSI. It’s used by all three search engines, started years ago for various reasons, and now it is being injected into Google’s algorithm

more than ever before in the newest release of the ‘Panda’ or ‘Farmer’ update. Unlike the ‘Jagger’ or the ‘Caffeine’ updates, this directly targets sites by using LSI along with other triggers.

For those of you that don’t live and breathe all things SEO, LSI is best defi ned thus: “Latent semantic indexing allows a search engine to determine what a page is about outside of specifi cally matching search query text. By placing additional weight on related words in content, LSI has a net effect of lowering the value of pages which only match the specifi c term and do not back it up with related terms.” That was SEO Guru Aaron Wall’s description and probably the best one when put into ‘layman’s terms’.

Over the last four years, LSI has been in nearly half of the conferences at which I have had the opportunity to speak but, unfortunately, only by me it seemed. I started talking about it back when the ‘Minus 950’ penalty hit in one month and Universal Search was released the next.

At that time, I told of Google buying a US-based company named Applied Semantics in April of 2003 to further its research on algorithms. Google even

talked about the residual integration of LSI publicly. So did MSN and Yahoo!. Yahoo! even applied for a patent on its own version. The odd thing was, although these conferences were considered advanced (gaming, affi liate and SEO), no-one else was talking about it.

Google has been testing LSI in speech recognition software, cross-language document retrieval and search engine integration, as well as many others, for a long time. It’s a bit scary when you think about it. The military used this stuff to identify terrorist chat amidst billions of spoken words in a short timeframe. When you apply this powerful tool to search, you reduce the potential of engineered results from guys like me – SEOs. Because it looks at relative terms, it makes it a thousand times harder to ‘game’ the algorithm because of the number of terms that could be considered relative. Apply this to environments like social networks, add in sloppy linguistics, slang, native language and a little local salt and you can get a lot of variables. That’s the data Google has at its disposal to analyse. Even scarier when you consider that Google gets its information from everything you do. Ever think about

There are many basic-to-advanced SEO tactics that you can read in earlier versions of Top 12 SEO Tips for 2006-2007 that are still spot-on in terms of the current state of SEO. This year, though, I timed it right with the Panda Update being released in February.

Top SEO Tips for 2011

– Post Panda


traffic

22

the fact that Google Gmail serves up AdSense ads that have some relevance to the actual content in your email?

Techniques like buying links with relative anchor text takes on a whole mew meaning when you add LSI into the mix.

I personally think that with all the data Google has now collected, it can finally utilise the findings of Applied Semantics and build its own sort of ‘Semantic Synonym’ dictionary and use it as an algorithmic plug-in at will.

Source: Smart Insights Digital Marketing

It makes sense that Google would use this ability and possibly even have a knob to turn it up or down. The easiest way to reduce the ability of SEOs to manipulate the results is to spread the area (or add the information) into the playing field and water down their ability. At the same time, it may truly have started its way toward delivering a top-notch set of results.

Universal Search was meant to do this back in 2007 and although it helped to jumble the type of results, there were too many blogs, articles and, undoubtedly, spammy sites too. They have been tweaking it ever since, and average one update per day. So the significance of LSI or Long-tail keyword targeting is now a huge part of life and although it seems daunting, successful SEO can still be broken down into manageable terms. It may require

that you outsource much of the grinding work (like content writing) but much of the tasks I paid tens of thousands to get accomplished over the past ten years have been automated. There are a few new elements like Social Media, Web 2.0 and Social Bookmarking but even these can be managed.

There’s one other thing that really needs to be pointed out. Before April 12, the playing field was dominated and even though it still is to a point, the long-tail variable in Google has opened the gates for people that have struggled in the past.

Here are the facts: 25 percent of all searches are first time searches. That is a stunning statistic.

When you combine that fact, and, if you are measured on conversions and conversion rates in whatever you do, then this next statistic will really open your eyes. 60 percent of all conversions come from this 25 percent. That’s a conversion rate of 15 percent. When you consider the average conversion rate across all sectors is between three to five percent and in gaming it’s 1.5 to 2 percent, 15 percent sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Well, you would think.

When I get ambitious SMEs (small and medium enterprises) or Top FTSE/Fortune 500 companies questioning whether or not an investment in a SEO, PPC and social media mix for 12 months is worth the risk, it “twists me melon” (I live in Yorkshire, England and have been trying to fit that in somewhere – but coming from an American, it just doesn’t sound right). From what other investment can you be out of the red in six to 12 months? What business school did these people go to?

Whether it’s gaming, forex, binary options, memory foam mattresses or pet supplies, you can make money very quickly when SEO, PPC, social media and conversion optimisation are implemented correctly. It has always been a ‘sure bet’ scenario, but now, the Farmer Update has

increased these odds.If you are an Affiliate, this is huge

because we have always targeted long-tail, or had to target long-tail because of big investment and/or brand protection in PPC. So where some feel this will hurt them, look at it this way: affiliates have always delivered 40 percent of the income of any given company regardless of sector since time (Internet time that is) began, and this will not change. Plenty of the top super affiliate websites have had good content and are neck-deep in social media and everything I have suggested to this point for some time now. Have a look at BingoPort; they are both Top Notch SEOs and social media strategists.

To finish on this thought; if you haven’t financially prepared yourself for a 12 month building process then you shouldn’t be investing in what you see as such a high-risk endeavour. Some will get top ten very quickly depending on the niche, and most will start to offset the expenses almost immediately using PPC but its now going to take a bit longer and take more effort.

This article is an excerpt from Gary Beal’s Top

12 SEO Tips for 2011. Stay tuned to the new

iGB Affiliate website for the full version.

“Google gets its information from everything you do. Ever think about the fact that Google Gmail serves up AdSense ads that have some relevance to the actual content in your email?”

Gary R Beal is the Head of Search for Blueclaw Media and has been in the Search Engine Optimisation field for 15 years. He attended Ohio State University in the US and holds a Masters Degree in Biometrics and Mathematical Statistics. He specialises in SEO for very competitive markets; primarily in gaming, dating, travel, insurance and financial industries.

iGB Affi liate JUNE/JULY 2011

TRAFFIC

24

ENSURING YOUR WEBSITE gets noticed in a foreign market can be tough work. Local competition, linguistic barriers and cultural differences can all contribute to the success or failure of your website’s international reach.

Here are three top tips to ensure online success in the competitive global marketplace:

1. Localisation First and foremost, all search engines – from Google through to Baidu in China and Yandex in Russia – prefer localisation. In order to perform well in competitive markets you need to analyse both your local and global competition in each target market. For example, some search engines prefer that sites are hosted locally, with country-specifi c domain names.

2. Don’t just translate your keywords – think like your target audienceDon’t base keyword research solely on translations from English to a particular language, neither for PPC nor SEO. Oban recently found that there was a ‘perfect’ German translation of a particular technology term but it registered only 140 monthly searches. Our German team identifi ed an alternative term, which had over 40,000 searches a month.

3. Socialise effi ciently – it’s not all Facebook and TwitterSocial Media can be a great marketing tool, however, it is used very differently across

the globe. The below SNS Chart shows that global Social Networking platforms are as varied as the people using them. For example, in China, QQ.com is by far the most popular social networking site, whereas, our good old friends Facebook and Twitter are banned. To maximise the effects of social media marketing, make sure that your social media strategy is specifi cally tailored to the region and market you are targeting.

When it comes to taking your website to a foreign market, the one key fact to

remember is that localisation is the most important part of international search engine optimisation and marketing. Every country uses the Internet and searches differently, and the differences can be huge. By researching the culture, the language, and the political and religious views of a region, as well as the Internet trends, businesses will be able to develop an effective and successful online marketing strategy for the market they are aiming for. Global success doesn’t have to be a fairy tale.

…who in the land has the strongest global SEO strategy of them all?

JONATHAN MURPHY is a senior account manager at OBAN Multilingual with a strong background in international media and advertising and a particular focus in search marketing. At OBAN, Jonathan is responsible for consulting on global search campaigns and strategising across various forms of marketing such as PPC, SEO, social media and cultural multivariate testing.

You can meet the OBAN Multilingual team at the iGaming Super Show from May 24 to 26. Besides solutions for International SEO strategies, Oban Multilingual will be presenting their unique cultural conversion testing tool Global Maxer. One lucky visitor will get the opportunity to win a FULLY MANAGED three month trial campaign FOR FREE (value at least £15,000). Look out for the face of global search.

If you are interested in more information about effective International SEO for your business, please feel free to contact us anytime or visit our website on www.obanmultilingual.com.

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traffic

27

When it comes to the topic of keyword research, there is plenty of advice and written guidance, tools, tactics and resources available. In my opinion, much of this information is flawed, not insofar as questioning the accuracy of the data, but more from the perspective of motive and methodology. It is my opinion (and regular finding) that with poorly conducted keyword research there is exclusive reliance on the quantitative method, with little-to-no understanding of the science of information retrieval. In essence, too much emphasis is placed on finding keywords in isolation (chosen because they may be relevant, drive suitable volume and are competitive to a level we’re willing to engage in) without any thought as to the qualitative interplay between keyword ‘query types’, and how such interplay drives revenue.

What are query types?Information retrieval (IR) is the division of computer sciences that focuses on the retrieval of information from large bodies of content, including the web. In particular, when it comes to the retrieval of information from the web, search engine data and computer scientists studying such data – it refers to four query types into which keywords (or search queries) could be classified.

Informational: queries that are broad in nature and corresponding results-sets. We cannot infer a great deal about user intent; for example, ‘poker’ may be a query I would use if I wanted to learn how to play poker.

Navigational: queries that set a defined target (‘Amazon’ or ‘Sky News’). Again, we cannot always infer too much about user intent here, however, we do know where they intend to achieve their objective.

Transactional: queries that reflect an action-driven user-intent, for example, ‘rent holiday home’, or ‘no deposit bingo sign-up’.

Connective: queries that seek to identify specific information about the nature of indexed data. However, ‘link:[sitename]’ ‘site:[sitename]’ are not commonly used by most search engine users.

Query types and the purchase funnelThe concept of a ‘purchase funnel’ is a commonly used marketing model which is not web-specific, but looks at the stages of a consumer purchase decision.

Whilst variations and expanded models exist, a commonly used purchase funnel would encompass the following stages:

Figure 1: Purchase Funnel

Common sense alone tells us that different query types are analogous to different stages of the purchase funnel as shown in Figure 1. Informational query types such as ‘bingo’ or ‘bingo offers’ may be considered relevant for the awareness-to-refinement stages; navigational queries ‘[merchant name] bingo’, ‘[merchant name] bingo sign-up offer’ may fit in any of the refinement-to-purchase stages, and our transactional term types ‘play [merchant name] bingo’, ‘join online bingo website’, fit primarily at the end of the decision stage and firmly in the purchase phase.

In addition to common sense, click/conversion-attribution studies support this; as does our own attribution modelling and advanced data analysis at theMediaFlow.

Which is all why probability distribution and the oft-mentioned SEO wisdom of targeting a range of short and long-tail keywords, lacks efficacy as a keyword strategy.

Why probability distribution (volume and competition) is a flawed basis for keyword research

Our use of the terms ‘long-tail’ and ‘short-tail’ keywords derives from probability distribution which, if envisaged, may be imagined as a comet shape. Short-tail keywords are (probabilistically) fewer in number, though volume (and competition) is high, whereas long-tail keywords stretch to an indeterminate length, with almost infinite variations on query length and make-up (though volume and competition decrease). Choosing to research and identify keyword targets that sit across the short to long-tail spectrum, purely because of volume and competition considerations is fundamentally flawed in two ways:1. Understanding data in this way has

volume and competition as its objective. I’m not sure about you, but my primary objective when practising SEO is revenue.

Sure, volume and competition levels have a contributory impact to revenue but my choice should not be led by volume and competition considerations.2. Understanding data in this way has a

‘single visit’ mentality.Targeting short-tail terms because they are high volume, plus long-tail terms because they are low volume (yet less competitive) does not take into account the relationship between the term types. Long-tail queries of a transactional nature do not tend to magically materialise in the mind of a customer. I need to research ‘online bingo’ and ‘online bingo site offers’ before I am aware of the existence of ‘[merchant name] bingo double deposit special offer’.

tips for affiliates seeking to apply query-type keyword research to drive increased revenue1. Analyse, classify and understand the

interplay between keyword types currently driving search visits to your site.

2. In looking at your own site, ‘navigational’ query types will be those terms that include your brand name (and misspellings).

3. Implement conversion attribution tracking so you can see the effect of different query types on ultimate conversion activity.

4. Use Google Analytics advanced segments to monitor visitor behaviour, by query type.

5. Analyse your site content. Does it ‘speak to’ the different purchase decision stages and where do the query types fit in those stages?

6. Track and monitor the position and volume of visits on informational query types. See how increased volume and visits on information query terms leads to increased revenue/conversions on navigational query terms.

7. Use the data collected above and this understanding of the interplay between query types to re-work your keyword strategy.

Of course, do not lose sight of keyword volume and relevancy considerations, which can be sanity-checked well enough using Google AdWords tool (exact match) data, cross referenced against terms of a similar nature that already drive traffic to your site, using existing Google Webmaster Tools data.

Understanding information retrieval for greater revenue potential.

nichola stott is director and founder of theMediaFlow, a UK SEO and social media agency, and co-founder and director of SEO PR Training.


traffic

28

casestudy

Nowadays, as European gaming markets open up to regulation, there is a pressing need to take advantage of the new business opportunities on offer. New businesses must find innovative ways to provide an entertaining gaming experience that is attractive to the player, attends to their local preferences and keeps up with the competition in its local market.

SEO professionals face the challenge of effectively adapting their SEO campaigns to those developments and new advances whilst managing concerns as to whether such progress will affect their page rankings. So, in late 2010, we came up with an innovative idea…

The ‘experiment’ We announced an SEO contest for our affiliates for the site, www.karamba.com. To qualify for the contest, our affiliates had to rank for a certain keyword phrase on Google, ‘Win Real Money Playing Online Slots at Karamba.com’. The biggest challenge our participants faced was avoiding over-optimisation, keeping a certain balance while monitoring their search engine rankings. Hundreds of affiliates participated in the competition and, because of this, we managed to reach over one million search results on Google within just two months. Trevor Weir, who won the contest, commented that his strategy “was not try to ‘game’ Google. Google wants to see a certain thing; you must give unto Cesar what Rome demands.”

Although Karamba.com was not optimised for the keyword phrase ‘Win Real Money Playing Online Slots at Karamba.com’, the site reached the top three on Google as a result of the SEO contest.

Remarkably, we realised that large sections of the SEO community had finally acknowledged and agreed on two very important and undeniable pieces of evidence on the Google algorithm:1. Nofollow’ affiliate links do pass link

juice. The trust and reliance of the Karamba.com domain was tremendously increased by the extensive amount (thousands) of backlinks.

2. That even sites/pages without extensive backlinks can be included in high rankings as long as the content is well optimised.

The explanation So, how did these sites, without many backlinks, rank well for the competition phrase without external links?

After defining the title and h1 tag clearly, the strongest on-page SEO to be done to impress Google is to add the keyword phrase multiple times within the anchor text of the exact page that you want that specific phrase to be found on. This has always been true and at least two examples in this competition prove that easily.

Anyone who knows the basics of search engine optimisation will be aware that linking your site to others is crucial in effective SEO. Most search engines rank sites according to the amount of links created. Google, on the other hand, emphasises on relevancy and quality rather than quantity.

The experience gathered during the contest illustrates that if, for example, 20,000 backlinks were required to achieve a ranking among the top five, then all 20,000 of those backlinks with the exact text that the contest was looking for had to be used. Otherwise, one would have run the risk of over-optimising on the one keyword with unpredictable results on Google’s part. This is, Weir quoted, “what a lot of the competitors in the contest did and they reached the top five for a certain period of time before suddenly sinking to positions 40-100.”

His winning site, win365bingo.com, counted more than 30,000 backlinks prior to the contest. Many of them were not being recognised by Google and Yahoo!, but

thanks to his well organised database, he could easily track the real location of those links and by sorting and grouping them, he could quickly see how many links had what kind of anchor text. Using this analysis, he was then able to create a well implemented back-linking strategy relatively simply.

The contest awarded prizes of over €4,600 to the winners and, in addition, allowed the company to achieve an outstanding amount of low cost backlinks, amazing exposure in the online media arena and, most importantly, new affiliates. We managed to increase our site’s traffic, maximise revenues and optimise new player acquisitions.

Innovation is one of the core values of this industry, and is certainly at the heart of our own philosophy. What the first SEO contest has shown is that innovation needn’t stop with product development; it can go far beyond to online marketing strategies where companies can, as we have demonstrated, build mutually beneficial campaigns with our affiliate partners.

AspireAffiliates will be rolling out a similar

SEO contest for the Dutch market.

The constant changes and developments on the Internet introduce new trends, obligating everyone who does business online to keep up with the competition. In order to stay ahead of the race, operators are aware of the need to invest in product development, to deliver advanced technology and to manage effective marketing strategies.

Mickey wiNiTsky is the Affiliate Director of AspireAffiliates, formerly known as NeoGames Partners. Throughout his six years in the iGaming industry, he has held a variety of senior positions and has high level, widespread experience with PPC, SEO, social and contextual media and lead generation for products like skill games, poker, casino, scratch cards and financial products. Mickey’s extensive industry experience rooted from some of the industry’s biggest operators; PartyGaming and Yalicoo.com. Most recently, Mickey has become a frequent speaker at industry seminars and conferences.

Sportsbetting Supplement


sportsbetting supplement

30

The rise of in-play markets and live

streaming has seen some bookmakers

increase sportsbook revenues by up to 100

percent in some cases, as the phenomenon

has boomed over the last couple of years.

Some operators made bold moves

to dominate the in-play arena and have

highly developed product propositions

to take advantage of burgeoning

customer demand.

However, times change and technology

and consumer interest moves on. Just as

the high street bookmakers have had to face

challenges from online businesses setting

the pace in betting innovation, the advent

of mobile technology will keep even the

savviest of online operators on their toes.

We know from our own customer

research that in-play is what our online

customers want and the mobile channel

has the potential to become the ultimate

home of in-play. It gives the customer

what they want, when they want, wherever

they are: in the pub, on the bus, at the

football match.

And 2011 already looks like the

year the mobile channel really starts

having the impact many have predicted

as the technology catches up with

operators’ ambitions.

smartphonesThe increase in sophistication and

sheer volume of mobile units owned

means Smartphones are becoming that

more prevalent and important in the

sportsbetting industry.

More people now access Facebook via

their mobile than their PC and this trend

is transferring to all areas of people’s lives.

More people are becoming comfortable

with mobile devices and the Smartphone

evolution means people are becoming

increasingly engaged with, and dependant

on, these multi-purpose, utility devices. You

can do your shopping via a mobile app so

if you’re a sports bettor, you’re sure as hell

going to have a flutter on your mobile given

the opportunity.

According to comScore, almost one third

of all handsets in the UK are Smartphones

and that figure has probably grown at

least five percent since those figures

were published in January 2011. In fact,

predictions of Smartphone penetration

of 54 percent by 2012, might even seem

a little conservative.

Sports bettors are becoming increasingly

more comfortable with mobile gambling as

the products they are being presented with

become more advanced and the operating

systems that support them allow for fast,

reliable service.

At least seven out of ten bets I place

myself are now via operators’ mobile

offerings. I also know friends, who

were only occasional sports bettors,

are becoming more familiar and are

betting with mobile apps which can

even populate a multiple bet randomly

if you tell it how much you want to

stake and win.

Operators have to adapt to Smartphone

technology and act quickly. However,

adapting and reacting to the public’s

fascination with this new technology isn’t

easy. Choosing where and how to invest

is a serious choice. There’s the mobile

web, native apps and tablet devices to

consider. The iPhone and Android split

mean operators must make sure they

support all operating systems to widen

their reach and keep consumers engaged

with their brand. The iPhone user has been

identified as a high spender but Android

devices are predicted to exceed the iPhone

with a market share of almost 20 percent

by next year.

The mobile space is only going to

become more intelligent and a more

romantic proposition to sports gamblers

as we see the development of betting

intelligence services. The ability to now bet

and watch horse racing via a mobile device

is the latest development to excite sports

bettors on the move.

This year, a record number of bets were

placed via mobile gaming apps at the

Cheltenham Festival, according to various

mobile-gaming tech providers.

Some operators are already quoting

figures of around ten percent of total

sportsbook turnover coming from mobile.

The expectation from some is that it will

rise further to around 30 percent by the

end of the year.

Changing landscape Affiliates have to be mindful of this

changing landscape and carefully consider

the bookmakers they promote based on

the increase in mobile browsing. It’s key

for affiliates to consider partnering with

operators who offer quality, diverse mobile

sites and the ability to track referrals

should a user go via a mobile device.

It’s also important that affiliates have

the right technology in place themselves

and don’t over indulge in Flash-heavy and

media-rich content.

Those operators with strong mobile

products can only improve the loyalty and

retention of their customer base which

benefits the affiliate in terms of revenue

share. Even if affiliates don’t have mobile

optimised sites they can benefit from

the retention of the customers they have

referred via the web.

Affiliate partners also need to consider

mobile growth and take advantage of the

low CPCs associated with mobile PPC, as

do operators. This will unavoidably change

as costs are pushed up as the traffic via

mobile continues to rise.

What’s clear is that operators and

affiliates need to be prepared and

responsive to customers’ demands and

needs. If the predictions surrounding

Smartphone growth are accurate, the next

12 months could see some interesting

results in terms of market share and

operator position.

“Operators have to adapt to Smartphone technology and act quickly. However, adapting and reacting to the public’s fascination with this new technology isn’t easy.”

What follows in-play technology as the next driver for growth for sportsbetting? By Tim James, Coral Affiliate Manager.

PLAY M



32

I fIrmly belIeve the dynamics between

sportsbook affiliates and their affiliate

managers are very different from those in

other products. This is primarily in respect

of how the products work and, then, the

diversity of the events in the product calendar.

On a basic level, all the relationships are the

same across all verticals; the affiliate manager

is there to support the activities of the affiliate

base. As we know, it’s the effectiveness

of the operator in providing these basic

services that allows the dynamics of the

relationship to grow.

These basic tasks shouldn’t be hard to

achieve with the necessary resources in

place. I won’t go in to them in too much

detail, but the one key service an affiliate

manager should be providing is an open

communication channel. This sector of

the industry is unique as, usually, you will

have to deal with a network or an agency/

network combination, unless you are a

‘super affiliate’, of course (tongue in cheek).

The communication is, therefore, only

as good as the service level and quality of

that provider. However, this sector allows

affiliates to talk to the operator directly,

something I believe is key, and if for any

reason this isn’t happening then you need

to ask yourself why.

Direct communication to your affiliate

manager, and vice versa to your affiliate

base, is crucial to the success of any affiliate

program. The affiliate manager should

have an open dialogue with all their affiliate

partners and both sides should be using

this to mutual benefit.

Uniqueness There are certainly manyunique differences

between the relationship between

sportsbook affiliates and their affiliate

manager compared to other verticals. I

think the role of the affiliate manager

changes slightly; still providing the same

basic services, but the sportsbook affiliate

campaign calendar enables the dialogue

to be a lot more defined and focused. The

event calendar for a sportsbook affiliate

is set in stone usually months, if not

sometimes years, in advance. Sporting

events like the FA Cup Final, World

Cup Finals and the Grand National are

always going to happen. This enables

the affiliate and the affiliate manager

to have long lead times to the next big

event. This is somewhat different from

other products.

Sportsbook affiliates are, therefore,

capable of building bespoke niche event

sites with large amounts of content in place

to capture key traffic determined on certain

keywords they have mined. The affiliate can

then, well ahead of time, be talking to the

operators about bespoke deals, placements

and providing relevant content for the site.

It’s having the time to build these event-

based niche sites, writing content for them

and working closely with the sportsbook

affiliate manager on this standalone

project that is the key uniqueness, in

my experience. As a sportsbook affiliate

manager, meeting affiliates, brainstorming

ideas, brokering deals, providing unique

content and, ultimately, enjoying the

wins and learning from the losses is

where the differences from the other

verticals originate.

Organic ranking A key element for the success of niche sites

will be giving the site the best possible

chance of ranking in the search engines’

organic results, unless you have money to

burn in paid placements, of course. Let’s

assume you have your strong URL, list of

keywords you will be optimising the site

around and a back-linking strategy in place.

You still need to remember that without

relevant content, the site won’t rank. As

we’ve seen recently with the movements

of one rather large search engine, maybe

the only search engine you should be

optimising for, content is still very much

king, but it must be relevant, up-to-date

and not farmed.

Overall, the more interesting and

useful the content a website has, the more

successful it will be. This is because more

people will want to visit it again and again,

and this is especially true if a website is

constantly adding more and more content

on a regular basis – be it articles, tutorials,

news and opinion, etc. Keep it fresh and

keep it relevant. The big ‘G’ will score you

more favourably and, ultimately, it will

help you in climbing the rankings. This is

very much where the operator comes in.

They should be pushing this content to

you anyway. If you’re building a site way in

advance of the event, they should be able

to help and they will probably have more

insight to key events on the whole.

It’s good to talkAs I’ve discussed, it’s important that

operators work closely with their affiliates

and remain proactive in providing the

basic services that will build a successful

program for all parties. As we’ve seen

with ‘Black Friday’, the industry changes

fast and open communication channels

between the operator and the affiliate is

vital. The subtle differences between the

verticals can then be explored, ultimately

driving the sportsbook market forward.

“The event calendar for a sportsbook affiliate is set in stone usually months, if not sometimes years, in advance. This enables the affiliate and the affiliate manager to have long lead times to the next big event.”

Just how are the dynamics between sportsbetting affiliates and their affiliate mangers different or unique in comparison to other gaming verticals? Jonathan Chapman, Sportsbook Affiliate Manager at Ladbrokes, explores.

Your relationship with Your affiliate Manager

bet365affiliates.com

www.gambleaware.co.uk

After our success at the eGaming Review Awards 2010, we’re pleased toannounce further wins with Best Affiliate Programme and Best AffiliateManager at the recent iGB Affiliate Awards 2011.

SPORTSAFFILIATESKNOWTHESCORE

FOOTBALL LIVE STREAMING TENNISHORSE RACING IN-PLAYCRICKET

6373.1 bet365 affiliates 25.03 (210x297+3mm). 28/03/2011 12:13 Page 2



34

Is now a good time to be a sportsbetting

affiliate?

In my opinion, sportsbetting as a vertical

has really exploded in the past few years as

increased competition at an operator level

leads to exponential growth in markets; both

sports-specific and geographical. The more

competitive we are as an industry, the more

markets we naturally create which, in turn,

offers huge opportunities to affiliates in

terms of broadening their product offering

to attract new players. Great news also for

the price-sensitive player, as this has led to

competitive odds and innovative promotions.

From an affiliate manager’s perspective,

how vibrant is the sportsbetting market

comparable to other gaming verticals?

The sportsbetting market is becoming

increasingly vibrant. As technology rapidly

advances, we have seen areas such as in-play

betting develop and advance in terms of

acquisition, conversion and retention which

is, of course, great news for affiliates as they

are seeing increased revenues as a direct

result of this technology actively satisfying

their demands. Casino and poker verticals

have their own unique challenges and

opportunities although creating real product

differentiation is becoming increasingly

difficult with a handful of networks servicing

an entire industry. Sportsbetting moves

away from this standardised format through

aggressive odds strategies, which we as

an industry can use to leverage our own

individual positions and offerings.

In terms of geography, what regions are

seeing the most stability and growth at

present, and where would you advise

affiliates to target their activities?

Stability and growth don’t often go hand-

in-hand and I believe we should look at

the difference between CPA and LTV in

both existing and current markets. It is this

percentage margin which dictates good

business and potential. That said, Eastern

Europe and Latin America are becoming

increasingly fruitful, whilst Western

Europe remains relatively stable, yet,

still as competitive as ever.

What about affiliate revenue levels?

For those affiliates not yet looking at

sportsbetting, how do affiliate sports

revenues differ from the likes of casino,

poker and bingo?

Affiliate revenues for sports are consistently

strong. Obviously, they are not as instant

or immediate as casino, although they

are certainly more fluid than poker and

more lucrative than bingo. Sportsbetting

is its own animal with mass market appeal

which is far broader globally than casino. In

short, such a mass appeal when combined

with aggressive revenue streams represents

a solid opportunity for affiliates considering

entering this vertical.

What would you say is the best cross

marketing vertical for sportsbetting

affiliates (forex/financial trading,

for example)?

It is no surprise that a number of sports

operators offer financial platforms and

vice versa; the most obvious example being

Betfair and Tradefair. If we were to drill

this relationship further, the very essence of

spread betting mirrors that of sportsbetting

entirely, so whether we’re spread betting

on a share price or taking a fixed odd, the

players’ skills sets are interchangeable.

In-play has been a huge driver of growth

for both revenue and player traffic for the

sector… where can affiliates derive the best

opportunities here?

For affiliates to leverage the in-play service

offered by bookmakers the best acquisition

tool is either live odds direct to an affiliate’s

portal or in-play banners. These allow

affiliates to directly promote a real-time price

and offer to a prospective player during the

actual sporting event. The call-to-action of

such an ad format has huge potential with

100 percent relevance to players which has a

direct impact on conversion rates.

How can affiliates maximise their social

media presence?

Social media and gaming don’t always

marry easily and, historically, social media

platforms have been primarily used as

retention/communication mechanisms,

with varying degrees of success. Social

media can be a ‘red herring’ and the

challenge for affiliates is to use it as more

than just a retention and news service. I’m

talking about looking at companies such

as Sony and the MMORPG industry and

how they are using social platforms such as

Facebook to drive acquisition and retention.

They are bringing a challenge element to

the Facebook page, creating a true seamless

and interactive experience harnessing the

friendly (and not so friendly) competition

that exists between an individual and their

numerous friends. There will be winners

and losers with this strategy although I am

certain that the impact and traffic generated

far outweighs the benefit of having a

handful of Facebook ‘likes’.

Finally, what would be your advice

for a) rookie sportsbetting affiliates

b) intermediate affiliates and c)

already successful affiliates?

For affiliates starting out in the

sportsbetting industry, they can find

invaluable information at online

communities such as CAP, GPWA and

AGD. This will also allow them to evaluate

the various programs available and to

directly contact their representatives.

The key to success is to offer an engaging

experience to players with regular and

relevant content that keeps visitors

returning to your site. New affiliates should

also have infinite patience; gone are the

days when overnight riches appeared

with minimal effort. This also applies to

intermediate affiliates, as you know you’ll

have good weeks and bad, although you’ll

be starting (hopefully) to see the fruits of

your labour.

You’ll be generating new players and

revenue and your affiliate manager will

help you achieve more through bespoke

offers and promotions. By now, you’ll know

what your traffic likes so make sure you ask

your affiliate manager for what you’ll need.

Super affiliates, or those that are a success

in this vertical will know that the industry

has changed rapidly over the years. You

will, no doubt, have seen a change in your

monthly revenues as a direct result of both

the economy and the effects of regulation.

Emerging markets will be as important to

affiliates as they are to operators over the

coming months/years, as even the affiliate

market is saturated nowadays. My advice is

to test and try new operators as they’ll have a

less heavily populated player base than some

of your preferred programs, which may help

compensate for any dip in revenues.

iGB Affiliate talks shop with YouWin.com Affiliate Manager, Elaine Gardiner, to gain an insight into the state of the current sportsbetting environment.

AffiliAte MAnAger interview

Not everyone can qualify to become a Bodog Affiliate Partner. But the ones that do get to take advantage of the great reasons and rewards that make being a member so attractive.

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36

GettinG your Seo strategy right

doesn’t have to be a daunting task. The

easiest way to get ahead of the competition

is to get your copywriting up to scratch

and to do this, you might need to go back

to basics.

you need to find a niche: choose your keywords carefullyIf you rely on search engine traffic as your

main source of website visitors, you need

to differentiate your website from those of

your rivals. If you have a football website,

for example, you are one of thousands.

How can you find that niche, that gap in

the market, and work it to your advantage?

The best way is to load your website with

individual keywords that are commonly

searched but not catered for by many

websites. Use the Google Keyword Tool

to help you with this; it is a fantastic aid

which is free to use and could prove to be

of immense value to you.

In effect, it tells you how popular

keywords are and how much competition

there is within Google from other websites

for that keyword, as well as making other

suggestions along a similar theme.

Take the search term ‘premier league

betting’, for example. According to the

Google Keyword Tool, during the last

twelve months, an average of 2,400

searches per month were made for this

specific term in the UK, and there is a high

level of competition for that keyword. But

dig deeper and you’ll find that ‘premier

league games’ is searched for 8,100

times per month and has a low level of

competition. That’s over three times as

many searches, and not as many websites

to cater for them.

In short, you can potentially do yourself

a massive favour by trying to be more

specific with the keywords you use to

optimise your website. It only takes a little

bit of research – and don’t forget, it won’t

cost you a penny.

Construct relevant long-tail articlesNext, you need to put the keywords on your

website, but you’re no good implementing

them in your website copy willy-nilly. Make

sure you write good long-tail articles that

are loaded with your chosen keywords.

Long-tail articles can be likened to the

foundations of a house. Strong foundations

give you a sturdy building. Likewise, well-

written long-tail articles packed with good

keywords will result in a better and more

relevant website (at least in the eyes of

Google, Bing and Yahoo!).

A good long-tail article is written with

the long-term in mind. Ideally, it is the

sort of page that can be revisited time and

time again by your visitors. Your long-

tail article might take the form of a ‘fact’

page, or it could be an article about a past

event. Whichever form your article takes,

you don’t want it ever to be amended in

the future. This is because longevity is a

factor that search engines take into account

when they come to rank websites. If your

website has pages that can be considered an

authority on whatever their subject matter

might be, then you will, ultimately, feel the

benefit in increased website traffic.

Once you have your long-tail articles

written and published, make sure you

write regular copy which features your

selected keywords. You might need to

show a bit of patience in the short-term

but, over a period of time, you will make

your website a search engine authority on

your chosen keywords.

Write good copy!The most underestimated aspect of SEO

copywriting is the quality of the copy itself.

Tricks and gimmicks will only take you so

far. There comes a point where the copy

needs to stand up on its own merits. The

main basic reason for this is obvious. Not

only do you want people to return to your

website, you also want people to think your

website is so good that they will link their

website to yours. This is known as back-

linking. Possessing numerous backlinks,

especially from reputable websites, will

have the knock-on effect of boosting the

credibility of your website.

Search engines are constantly changing

their search algorithms as they all try to

work towards providing more accurate

search results for their users. Google

changed its search algorithm in February,

for example, in an attempt to upgrade

websites that are popular and downgrade

websites that were, almost, ‘overly

optimised’ (in Google’s eyes, at least).

Good copy is hard to come by, of course,

but you will help yourself if you endeavour

to become an all-knowledgeable expert

in whatever area your website specialises

in. Spending an extra ten minutes on

producing first-rate copy – by checking any

facts you have used are correct, for example

– will likely pay long-term dividends.

Garry McGibbon is the communications Manager for StanJames.com. Garry has over a decade’s experience in the sports writing and gaming industries, having started out with the renowned horse racing publishers, Timeform, before switching to the betting and gaming industry.

It’s widely considered difficult, an exercise in guesswork, and often shrouded in mystery. But whether we like it or not, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is an integral part of the day-to-day life of a website, and getting it right is vital to your website’s success. SEO for sportsbetting websites is no different.

SportSbetting Seo: back to baSicS

“Long-tail articles can be likened to the foundations of a house. Strong foundations give you a sturdy building. Likewise, well-written long-tail articles packed with good keywords will result in a better and more relevant website.”

Sports • in:play • Poker • Casino • Games

24/7 betting

8,000+ in:play markets

over 25 countries

22 local languages

Join the Sportingbet Affiliate Program and start benefiting from our global brand.

www.sbaffiliates.com



38

It could perhaps be argued that

psychologists and those in the marketing

business differ only in what they do with

the information they collect about people’s

behaviour. ‘Marketeers’ segment their

target populations as a way of creating

bespoke marketing strategies based on the

needs and experiences of their potential

customers in an attempt to increase

revenue. Psychologists segment their

target populations as a way of trying to

predict what individuals might do in any

number of given situations. One of the

more interesting research avenues in the

psychology of gambling is whether there

might be a unique ‘gambling personality’;

that is, a cluster of specific traits that marks

out an individual as a gambler or a specific

type of gambler (such as a sports bettor).

One of the problems with this whole

area of research is that ‘personality’ is

a hypothetical construct that isn’t easy

to define. However, most psychologists

would probably agree that a person’s

personality centres on the distinctive and

characteristic patterns of thought, emotion

and behaviour that define their personal

style, and influence their interactions

with the environment (including, for

instance, the capacity or desire to have

a punt on who will win next year’s

English Premier League). The use of

psychometric tests in research on gamblers

has not been particularly promising.

Most research has been carried out on

three particular personality dimensions

: ‘sensation-seeking’, ‘extroversion’ and

‘locus of control’.

The American psychologist, Dr Marvin

Zuckerman, defined ‘sensation-seeking’

as the “need for varied, novel and complex

sensations and experiences, and the

willingness to take physical and social risks

for the sake of such experience.” Such

a definition should mean that gamblers

are more likely than non-gamblers to be

sensation-seekers. However, studies in this

area have provided contrasting results, with

some supporting the theory, some showing

no difference between gamblers and non-

gamblers, and others showing gamblers to

be lower on sensation-seeking than non-

gamblers! In studies on extraversion, the

findings have again proved contradictory.

Since extraverts are highly sociable, crave

excitement, and enjoy noisy and active

environments, the theory is that gamblers

are more likely to be extraverted. Although

some studies have indeed found gamblers

to be more extraverted than control groups,

other studies have found gamblers to have

lower extraversion scores, or have found

no difference.

One personality trait that has received

more consistent findings is that of ‘locus of

control’ (LoC). This personality trait refers

to a person’s perception of how their own

efforts affect events. For instance, ‘internal’

LoC individuals attribute their experiences

to their own actions whereas ‘external’ LoC

individuals attribute their experiences to

chance. Research has shown that ‘internal’

individuals gamble more persistently when

chasing losses because they believe all that

is required is an increase in concentration

and an overall improved effort in order to

win. However, one of the problems with

LoC research is that we do not know the

direction of causality; that is, whether their

particular LoC preceded the gambling, or

whether the gambling preceded their LoC.

so why are there so few consistent results surrounding personality and gambling? One of the most obvious answers is

that gambling is multi-faceted and not a

unitary phenomenon. Treating all forms

of gambling as equivalent in terms of

underlying psychology, personality and/

or motivation may cloud the issue rather

than clarify it. For instance, can we really

say that a regular sports bettor has similar

underlying psychology to a regular slot

machine player? Is an online poker player

similar to a roulette gambler? Of course

not! And that is one of the reasons for

inconsistent findings. Psychologists have

tended to clump gamblers together as if

they were a unified and homogenous group

of people. Maybe the affiliate marketing

industry can learn from the mistakes made

by psychologists in trying to segment

people’s behaviour. Invariably, one size

does not fit all.

In addition, demographic differences

– such as age, gender, and culture – may

produce very different findings in people’s

motivation to gamble. This is one area

where affiliates may have the edge on

psychologists. For instance, an adult

horserace bettor cannot easily be compared

to an adolescent slot machine player; a

male sports gambler cannot easily be

compared to a female bingo player; and

slot machine players in the UK cannot

necessarily be compared to slot machine

players in the US. Affiliates seem to be

well aware of this, but researchers in the

gambling studies field seem to make

the same methodological mistakes over

and over again.

All forms of gambling lie on a luck/

skill dimension. Games of pure chance

are not attractive to sports bettors. While

games of skill provide a significant edge

for the gambler, sports bettors need more

than an edge – they need an opponent

who they think can be exploited. This is

one of the reasons why sportsbetting –

and particularly horserace betting – is so

popular for gamblers. The edge available

in horserace gambling can be sufficient to

fully support professional gamblers as they

bring their wide range of knowledge to the

activity. There is the complex interplay of

factors that contributes to the final outcome

of the race. There is the form of the horse,

the length of the race, the reputation of the

jockey, trainer and stable, breeding, weight,

the conditions of the racetrack and much

else. From this mix of information, the

punter will, broadly speaking, do one of two

things: either they try to select a winner, or

they try to select a horse that offers the best

odds in terms of its true chances.

Assessing these odds (i.e., handicapping)

is done by developing ratings based on

the available information. Precisely how

all these factors can be combined to select

a horse is a matter about which most

gamblers disagree, but it is reasonable to

assume that many punters believe that

their knowledge of these factors gives

them an edge over the punters they are

competing against.

higher intelligence? Gamblers clearly differ in how they use

complex information to select horses. There

has been some interesting research on the

Is there a ‘GamblInG PersonalIty’?

“Treating all forms of gambling as equivalent in terms of underlying psychology, personality and/or motivation may cloud the issue rather than clarify it.”

iGB Affiliate june/july 2011 39

Dr Mark Griffiths is Professor of Gambling studies at the international Gaming research Unit at Nottingham trent University.

psychology of handicapping, particularly

in whether good handicappers are more

intelligent. An American psychologist, Dr

Steve Ceci, studied a group of experienced

horserace gamblers, all of whom had been

serious gamblers for over eight years and

who attended racetracks most days. He split

the gamblers into experts and non-experts

on the basis of predicting the favourite

and the rank order according to the odds

of the three most favoured horses. Expert

gamblers were those who correctly picked

the favourite in at least nine out of ten races

and correctly picked the top three horses in

rank order in at least five out of ten races.

In contrast, the best of the non-experts

correctly identified the favourite in only five

out of ten races, and selected the top three

in only two of the ten races. The two groups

were then given a number of intelligence

quotient (IQ) tests.

Ceci predicted that the experts would

have higher IQs on the basis of their

handicapping ability, but was very surprised

to find no difference at all between the

two groups’ intelligence levels. One of the

things Ceci concluded was that there is

probably more than one type of intelligence

and that the IQ test that was used may not

have measured the types of skill needed in

the handicapping of horses. At least Ceci’s

findings give some hope to us all!

Market research It would appear from this brief overview

that the usefulness and the value of

psychometric-based personality studies

remain doubtful. This is something for

affiliates to bear in mind when carrying

out their own market research. The

notion that gamblers possess a unique

set of variables or traits is a naive over-

simplification and appears to be a fruitless

direction for research. We all need to

remember that gambling is complex and

multidimensional, and personality factors

are too ‘global’ to serve as the single

cause. Research into gambling is still at a

relatively early stage, and it is clear that a

person’s gambling behaviour results from

an interaction between many different

variables including environmental, social,

psychological and biological.



40

The agency’s laTesT sector report

sheds some light on month-by-month

search volumes for keywords in the

iGaming space, covering bingo, casino,

poker and sportsbetting. As we can see

from both of the charts on this page

(Figures 1 and 2), the combined search

volumes for all gaming-related keywords

has suffered a significant drop since August

2010, falling from 2.5 million searches to

it’s lowest level in December 2010 of just

802,000. And although the data shows that

volumes do start to pick up as we break into

2011, March’s level again dips to around

850,000 searches.

Over period of the report, we can see that

the keyword ‘bet’ (Figure 2) has fallen in-

line with the rest of the report, decreasing

from 110,000 in April 2010 to a mere

33,100 in March 2011. Not shown in this

particular data, the term ‘sportsbetting’

has towed a similar path, retreating

from 18,000 to around 4,400 over the

same period.

so what is this data telling us? It’s hard to accurately predict the patterns

we’re seeing in the data supplied by

Greenlight, but although it appears

negative, it isn’t necessarily bad news.

Greenlight’s report is utilising a selection

of short-tail keywords entered into Google’s

search engine on a month-by-month

basis, with many of the higher volume

ones being relatively standard terms.

What this uniform decline in volume

could suggest is not that consumers are

losing interest in the space, but rather

that they are far more aware of what they

are looking for, either using longer-tail

terms to narrow their search, or bypassing

Google altogether.

The next report should give us more

insight as it covers one of the seasonally

busy periods for sportsbetting in the UK,

a period that includes the Grand National,

the Boat Race and the Masters Golf

tournament at Augusta, and which attracts

the type of seasonal bettor who would be

using Google to influence data sets such as

this. Yet, these results aren’t showing any

spike in search volumes despite the events

being only a month away; even deep down

in the bowels of the data, I can see that the

term ‘Grand National Odds’ are constant

from November to March having been,

allegedly, at zero from the previous April

(when the race is run) to August.

So a possible question mark over that

set of data, but generally, an interesting

insight into the general search patterns

of UK consumers.

For more information on Greenlight’s gaming

reports, please contact Krishna Rao at Krishna.

[email protected].

Search marketing agency, greenlight, produces reports that monitor the search patterns of UK consumers for keywords related to iGaming products and services. Here, we analyse sportsbetting statistics from Greenlight’s latest sector report charting total search volumes from April 2010 to March 2011.

The GooGle SporTSbeTTinG STakeS:

3,000,000

2,500,000

2,000,000

1,500,000

1,000,000

500,000

Apr-10 May-10 Jun-10 Jul-10 Aug-10 Sep-10 Oct-10 Nov-10 Dec-10 Jan-11 Feb-11 Mar-110

apr-10 2,767,512

May-10 2,688,629

Jun-10 2,386,433

Jul-10 2,532,296

aug-10 2,533,796

sep-10 1,289,919

Oct-10 1,624,125

nov-10 1,612,523

Dec-10 802,519

Jan-11 1,274,899

Feb-11 929,869

Mar-11 853,644

Total search volumes in the past 12 months

Source: Greenlight/Google Adwords

0

50,000

100,000

150,000

200,000

250,000

Apr-10 May-10 Jun-10 Jul-10 Aug-10 Sep-10 Oct-10 Nov-10 Dec-10 Jan-11 Feb-11 Mar-11

Bingo Casino

Poker Online bingo

Free bingo Online casino

Bet Free poker

Bingo sites Online poker

Source: Greenlight/Google Adwords

Top ten keywords (2010)

In September 2010, there was a significant development regarding Google AdWords. In that month, Google rolled out its new AdWords keyword tool, which calculates searches purely on Google.co.uk searches alone. Previously, Google released UK search volumes accounting for searches on its .co.uk search engine and its search partner engines. As Google presented data across a number of search engines, search volumes for many keywords were greater than they appeared in September and thereafter.

Figure 1

Figure 2


black friday feature

42

So far, no affiliates have been arrested. That is what passes for good news, these days, in the world of Internet gambling.

The problem for affiliaTes,

operators, payment processors and

even players is that the world has

become unpredictable, because the U.S.

Department of Justice (DoJ) has decided to

wage a war of intimidation against Internet

gambling. The reasons for the war are

clear. The DoJ is missing the two essentials

to any prosecution: a statute that clearly

makes the activity illegal and a defendant

physically present in the US. So, the feds

have announced showy legal actions

against easy targets about every other year.

Online poker would normally not be an

easy target, since a Court of Appeals ruled

the main federal anti-gambling statute, the

Wire Act, is limited to bets on sports events

and races. And the US does not allow trials

in absentia: a defendant must be physically

present in court. The US cannot extradite

someone unless he falls under the terms

of an extradition treaty. Very few treaties

include ‘gambling’ on their list of crimes.

Even then, the activity must be illegal in

both countries. No nation would extradite

someone it has licensed, to be tried for the

very activity for which it is licensed.

So, instead, the DoJ has decided to

scare everyone into abandoning the

American market. And it has been

strikingly successful – and yet, also, a

horrible failure. The problem for everyone

associated with the industry, as well

as for the DoJ itself, is that prohibition

is not regulation.

Every action by the federal government

makes it more difficult for it to go after

the next operator. The UIGEA, rammed

through by the failed politician, Bill

Frist (R.-TN), scared all of the publicly

traded gaming companies out of the US

market. This vacuum was quickly filled by

companies whose owners were difficult to

find. Then, prosecutors went after payment

processors, making it more difficult for

players to find legitimate ways to send their

money to betting sites. Now, unknown

operators, with no connection to the US,

are handling millions of Americans’

dollars, with no way for the federal

government to trace the funds.

On Black Friday, the feds seized .com

domain names. Gaming sites immediately

switched to .eu and .uk, and cut off all

physical contact with the US. Even the

present American operators can’t be

extradited, so what hope is there for the

DoJ to bring future foreign operators

here to stand trial?

Scaring away well-known poker names

means that newcomers, some of whom

will undoubtedly be sleazy, will take their

places. If the multi-billion-dollar US online

poker market becomes too hot for licensed

companies, operators without any licenses,

who won’t even reveal what country they

are in, will be glad to run the games.

When people want something, businesses

arise to fill the demand. How much more so

when the activity, online poker, is not even

clearly illegal? If the commercial goods or

services are not legal, then by definition, the

organisations will be criminal. Prohibition

created modern organised crime, by

outlawing alcoholic beverages.

so, what are affiliates supposed to do?Since the DoJ is acting like this is

Prohibition, the answer is to think like

someone who wanted to be involved in

the liquor business, but did not want to be

arrested as a moonshiner or bootlegger.

If the gaming site is not violating any law,

there is little danger in being associated

with it. There are some archaic state

laws that can be read as prohibiting the

advertising of even legal gambling. But

there are not very many of these, and they

are of questionable constitutionality.

But if the gambling is illegal, anyone

associated with it risks being charged

with a crime. There are three main legal

theories for finding criminal liability for

someone who is not actually taking bets:

1) Aiding and abetting, also known as

accomplice liability, is a legal doctrine

that makes a person liable for crimes

committed by another. Referring residents

of the US to a site where they can make

real money bets could lead to a charge of

running an illegal gambling operation,

even though the affiliate never takes a

wager itself. If the gaming site is breaking

the law, so is the affiliate, especially if it is

paid for referrals by receiving a share of the

money wagered or lost.

2) Conspiracy, unlike aiding and abetting,

is a separate crime. There is greater risk to

society when two or more people agree to

commit a crime than when one person is

acting alone. Conspiracy is often called the

prosecutor’s friend, since it takes so little to

get a conviction. The crime that is the goal

of the conspiracy need not be completed,

or even attempted. All that is required is

an agreement and an act in furtherance of

the conspiracy. Of course, agreeing to help

with online poker can only be a conspiracy

if online poker is illegal.

3) Special gambling crimes. US federal law

is limited to people who are in the business

“The problem for everyone associated with the industry, as well as for the DoJ itself, is that prohibition is not regulation.”


of gambling. This means that mere players

cannot be charged. But it also means that

anyone who is involved in the business

can be, completely apart from theories

of aiding and abetting or conspiracy. The

indictments of Black Friday included

charges under the federal Illegal Gambling

Business Act. This makes it a federal

felony if five or more people do more

than $2,000 in business a day in violation

of state gambling laws. The only state

law cited is New York’s misdemeanour

anti-gambling laws. There is an obvious

problem with using a state misdemeanour

to charge federal felonies against foreign

corporations licensed by and operated in

foreign countries. But the point here is that

courts have held that a person who helps

an illegal gambling business and shares in

the revenue is in that business.

In my books, INTERNET GAMING

LAW, both first and second editions,

I discuss how affiliates and others can

decrease their risks of being named in

an indictment. It is not necessary to

avoid linking with gaming operators. But

even the most legitimate sites should be

careful about how they structure their

arrangement so that there is no possibility

of being found to be aiding and abetting,

conspiring, or in the business of gambling.

The more a non-gambling website shares

in the profits, the more likely it will be

found to be a partner of the gambling

business. Charging the gambling website

a flat fee for referrals, not contingent on

whether the patron wins, loses, or even

places a bet, allows the non-gambling web

operator to argue that it was just acting like

the phone company.

Unless the DoJ is making one of its

showy attacks on major operators, it is

only interested in easy cases, organised

crime and consumer scams. Easy cases

mean sportsbetting, with defendants who

can be found in the US. Even in the recent

poker indictment, the DoJ immediately

arrested three defendants in Utah, Nevada

and New York. Think how embarrassing it

would have been to the DoJ to make a big

announcement and then have to admit that

it could not extradite anyone to stand trial.

Prosecutors do make mistakes. So it is

important to stay far away from anything

that smells of organised crime. The same

with consumer fraud. Online gaming is the

one business where even when the patron

is wrong, he is always right. You want to

avoid having complaints made with state or

federal attorneys general.

avoidanceSince the DoJ is thinking like revenuers

during Prohibition, you have to stay away

from anything you know is illegal. Of

course, knowing what is illegal and what

is not is very difficult, when it comes to

Internet gambling. But a good gaming

lawyer should be able to not only tell

you what is illegal, but what the DoJ thinks

is illegal, even if it is not, like interstate

horseracing.

It is best to only work with licensed

gaming operators. Advertisers are

rarely targets; they get dragged in when

prosecutors go after someone else.

Stop immediately if a government

official tells you to stop, and contact your

legal counsel. Do not do anything involved

with the daily business of gambling. For

example, never help with the collection of

gambling debts.

Get a ‘reasoned Legal Opinion’. The

UIGEA has accidentally given affiliates and

others an additional weapon. Regulations

require operators to obtain a reasoned

Legal Opinion from a licensed gaming

lawyer before they can open a bank

account. This has allowed affiliates and

others to also get these Opinions. It is

not complete protection, but it increases

your sense of security. After all, if it’s

good enough for a bank, it’s good enough

for an affiliate.

It may help to remember that even

during Prohibition, a lot of legal alcoholic

beverages were consumed in the United

States. Doctors made millions of dollars

writing prescriptions for medicinal

whiskey, and the consumption of

sacramental wine increased by 800,000

gallons a year.

Church bingo, anyone?

“Since the DoJ is thinking like revenuers during Prohibition, you have to stay away from anything you know is illegal. A good gaming lawyer should be able to not only tell you what is illegal, but what the DoJ thinks is illegal, even if it is not, like interstate horseracing.”

Harvard Law School educated, ProfeSSor I NeLSoN roSe is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on gambling law. He is an internationally known public speaker and a consultant and expert witness for governments and industry. His latest books, INTerNeT GAMING LAW (1st & 2nd editions), BLACKJACK AND THe LAW and GAMING LAW: CASeS AND MATerIALS, are available through his website, www.GAMBLINGANDTHeLAW.com.



44

One Of the reasOns that affiliates

appear to remain optimistic is that most

seem to feel that they are not necessarily

at legal risk. As the main thrust of the

charges against the online poker sites was

associated with bank fraud and money

laundering, many affiliates feel that the

risk to them is rather low.

Another reason is that affiliates have

more options available to them. Unlike

many furious players, affiliates can

continue to promote Full Tilt, PokerStars,

and Cereus (Absolute Poker and Ultimate

Bet) to their non-US traffic. Likewise,

some see a short-term opportunity to move

players from the big-three sites to smaller

sites that continue to operate in the US.

ImpactHowever, everyone will feel some sort of

impact. According to PokerTracker the net

change so far at Stars, Tilt, and Cereus has

been -28%, -35% and -65% respectively.

This will translate into lost income

for many affiliates.

Affiliates who focused on non-US

customers as well as those who promoted

other brands will feel the impact the least.

In fact, longer-term, they may come out of

this recent shake-up in better shape than

before. Several affiliates are on a shopping

spree at the moment, buying up smaller

websites hoping to use their expertise in

non-US markets to turn the sites around.

There is also optimism that this major

industry shake-up may reverse the trend in

the operator/affiliate relationship which has

mainly been negative for affiliates, with poker

sites paying out less, becoming more creative

in what constitutes a marketing fee and

tightening player qualification requirements.

Level playing fieldWith PokerStars and Full Tilt no longer

able to use their US player base to fund

customer acquisition in less profitable

markets, their competitors are energised

and feel like they have a fighting chance

on a more level playing field. They’re also

looking to take advantage of the inherent

chaos that results in an industry-changing

event like Black Friday.

While Full Tilt and PokerStars

executives are preoccupied with meetings

about whether or not to lay off staff, what

to do with their roster of paid pros, which

long-term projects need to be shelved,

and simply coming to grips on where

they take their business going forward,

their competitors are reaching out to

affiliates, increasing bonuses and doing

everything they can do steal business

away from them.

It’s unlikely anyone will unseat Stars or

Tilt in the near-term as their player bases

are still very strong, even after the player

losses in the US, but it will be a tougher

slog going forward. Greater competition

between the poker sites can translate into

better deals for affiliates who will play a

bigger role in the battle. Many of the non-

US facing rooms have been reaching out to

affiliates with special offers, a move that is

being warmly welcomed by affiliates.

affiliate outlookBut it’s not all roses for the affiliate

community. Many affiliates, especially

those that are US-based, are reporting

problems getting paid out. Because some

sites either credit the affiliate’s player

account or give them an option to cash

out their monthly earnings to their player

accounts, this could be problematic for

those affiliates, not just now, but going

forward as well. For instance, as part of

its new cash out policy to refund its US

players, PokerStars is insisting that players

cash out the entire balance of their account.

However, once the account has been

liquidated, whether Stars will allow players

to access their accounts and how this would

apply to a US-based affiliate who has MGR

customers is currently unclear.

It should come as no surprise that many

affiliates who were too narrowly focused

on a particular room or US-centric niche

don’t have as positive an outlook as other

affiliates. For many of them, their best

course of action might be to sell out to

affiliates who can still market to Stars, Tilt

and Cereus, or change their tactics and

begin targeting non-US traffic.

While it may be many months or even

years before we know who the winners and

losers are from Black Friday (and there may

be many twists and turns to come), at the

moment, it is looking like affiliates who

can weather a short-term loss in earnings

and focus on the long-term potential of a

market in flux may come out on top.

Although Black Friday primarily impacted players and the online poker sites that were still operating in the US post-UIGEA, there is another group of people who are feeling the aftermath of the DoJ’s actions: affiliates. While the full impact isn’t known at this time, the initial feedback from affiliates seems mixed but generally positive.

“Affiliates who focused on non-US customers as well as those who promoted other brands will feel the impact the least. In fact, longer-term, they may come out of this recent shake-up in better shape than before.”

BILL rInI was formerly the Poker Room Manager at PartyGaming. Prior to that, he was a Program Manager at Full Tilt Poker. He currently consults to online poker rooms and writes about the gaming industry on his Blog, www.billrini.com.

44_Feature.indd 44 16/05/2011 19:53

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46

Strangely, for a multi-national industry, the iGaming sector is often a lot like a rural village: news spreads fast and bad news even faster. So the charges issued by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) against the founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker (the Poker Operators) on April 15 have already produced a whole heap of commentary.

Some people are now even nostalgically

reminiscing on where they were and what

they were doing on the infamous ‘Black

Friday’. But to characterise the unsealing of

the indictment as a one-off event is wrong;

better to look at it as a continuum.

planned operationA prosecution of this magnitude probably

took a year or more to put together and

it will run and run like a bad soap opera.

Comforting as it might be to read criticism

and scorn poured over the legal grounds

for the charges, one must assume that

they would not have been drafted lightly,

or carelessly, or without the benefit of

experienced legal advice. Yet even if they

were, there remains a difficulty in fighting a

prosecution when you are not in, and do not

wish to enter, US territory, for you would

surely face arrest and objections to bail.

Although (as far as I am aware) the DoJ

has not previously attempted to extradite

any gambling operators, it may well take

the plunge in this case. It seems to me

that arresting bankers and processors will

not be enough in such a high profile case

and the DoJ will want to remove the liberty

of one or more of the founders of the

Poker Operators. If the allegations about

using numerous dummy companies, to

deceive banks into opening accounts and

unknowingly accepting the proceeds of

Internet gambling are sustainable, then

it may be possible for the DoJ to seek

extradition for fraud without having to

rely on proving any dual criminality for

gambling offences.

The US has an extradition treaty

with Ireland and mutual assistance

arrangements with the European Member

States. A 2003 treaty with the UK is

particularly unfair to suspects extradited

from there. The UK government has

waived the requirement for the US

authorities to make a prima facie case

before the UK courts are obliged to order

extradition (whereas it is still a condition

of an extradition from the US to the UK).

And if I am wrong about the DoJ seeking

extradition, it remains a deeply unsettling

prospect to be a fugitive from US ‘justice’

with a severe practical limitation on your

freedom to travel.

We should also bear in mind that there

is not just a criminal case as there are

also civil forfeiture proceedings against

numerous defendants seeking billions of

dollars in alleged illegal proceeds. Resisting

these proceedings raises a similar potential

problem in that the operators may be

unwilling to attend a US court personally to

give evidence (and be subject to live cross

examination before a jury) for fear of arrest

whilst in the jurisdiction.

Thus, whilst one might criticise the

legal basis for the indictments for all

sorts of good reasons, undeniably (and at

risk of stating the obvious), they present

an enormously expensive and worrying

problem for anyone named in them. Now,

to be a fly on the wall of any discussions

between the Poker Operators’ attorneys in

the US and the DoJ would really make for

some interesting listening.

Implicated partiesYet it is not just those named on the

indictment and/or in the forfeiture

proceedings who have problems (although

theirs are by far the most serious). The

proceedings have also put other US

facing poker sites in an increasingly

difficult position as the indictment is an

unambiguous statement by the DoJ that it

considers the provision of Internet poker

to US residents to be a breach of state

and federal criminal law. Such operators

now face a dilemma and could fall into

one of two camps. On the one hand, the

removal of the biggest players in the market

provides a tempting opportunity to fill

the lucrative vacuum. On the other hand,

if the case against the Poker Operators

is a success (even if only in terms of a

huge fine as part of deferred prosecution

arrangement), the DoJ may well be

encouraged to vigorously pursue those who

had the temerity to take the place of the

Poker Operators; who, after all, owe much

of their success to stepping into the shoes

of the mainstream operators who pulled out

“There is tangible concern as to who might be next to feel the wrath of the District Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York.”

46-47_Feature.indd 46 16/05/2011 15:05


of the US after the passing of the Unlawful

Internet Gambling Enforcement Act

(UIGEA) in October 2006.

Unsurprisingly, the indictment has also

presented the home regulators of the Poker

Operators (in Alderney, the Isle of Man

and Kahnawáke) with their own dilemma

in deciding how they should react and

what level of support they should show.

Each has issued short, fairly tentative

statements at this stage. I doubt that they

will be making too much noise publicly

in the future either. However, another

regulator may take a very different course.

The government of Antigua and Barbuda

has had its fair share of (highly successful)

scraps with the US government and it

may construe the inclusion of at least one

Antiguan company in the forfeiture action

as a tempting invitation to go back to the

World Trade Organisation for yet another

round in its battle of attrition – that really

would be an interesting twist on events.

Next in lineThere is tangible concern as to who might

be next to feel the wrath of the District

Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of

New York. Of course, it is pure speculation

but in my view, for the foreseeable future,

the DoJ will have its hands full pursuing

what is a hugely complex and multi-layered

case against the Poker Operators and the

army of attorneys that has become involved.

Tactically, I believe it will want, if not to

resolve the case, then to feel confident

that it has matters fully in hand before it

thinks about another sizeable target. As

I say, if it has a big success then it will

probably look to pursue other US facing

poker operators or may even move against

the casinos (although that seems a lower

profile and more fractured market with less

obvious targets). In the interim, it is likely

to continue the ad-hoc policy of seizing

players’ funds from time to time as this

presents high reward and little risk with

foreign operators who are more likely to

reimburse players and write off the funds

as an overhead rather than take on any

litigation in the US.

If, however, the Poker Operators

are successful and get the whole case

withdrawn or thrown out by a court,

then what changes? Nothing really in the

legal sense, unless there is some sort of

declaratory judgement that Internet poker

is lawful at both New York state and federal

level. This is unlikely to happen as the law

rarely wraps things up in a convenient and

universally applicable fashion and most

cases are decided on their particular facts.

If the DoJ can be persuaded that it has a

weak case, the most likely outcome will be

some sort of face saving deal where both

sides try to claim a win. One thing is for

sure, the Poker Operators are unlikely ever

to recover their dominant position in the

US poker market. In that sense, as with

the fallout after UIGEA became law, the

US authorities have already achieved a

victory of sorts.

CaveatThe above text is not and does not purport

to be legal advice and no liability is

accepted in relation to the same.

“A prosecution of this magnitude probably took a year or more to put together and will run and run like a bad soap opera.”

peter Wilson is a regulatory lawyer specialising in gambling and business investigations. His gambling practice has built up over 20 years expanding from advising UK land based businesses to an international igaming practice with clients in over a dozen jurisdictions. Peter is known for his comprehensive industry knowledge, and sensible, practical advice. Peter has a wide ranging and varied business investigations practice having represented both companies and individuals facing civil and/or criminal investigation by government agencies. His experience over the years includes dealing with allegations of fraud, tax evasion, money laundering and breach of statutory obligations in matters of food safety, gang master licensing, environmental law, trading standards and financial [email protected]

46-47_Feature.indd 47 16/05/2011 15:05



48

Dominique, Founder of Games and Casino, explores some of the reaction and commentary that has shaped the fallout from the now infamous ‘Black Friday’.

Let’s go over some of the aspects of

this with two prominent online gaming

attorneys. Lawrence Walters lays out the

basics of the story here:

“The Department of Justice (DoJ) is

once again flexing its muscle in an effort to

shock and awe the online gaming industry,

in the hope that it will have some tangible

impact. But that train left the station long

ago. The time for the US to have acted was

back in the year 2000, when the industry

was just starting to coalesce, and rational

regulatory efforts would have paid big

dividends. The US could have been the

epicentre of legal online gambling, with

large license fees paid to the Department

of the Treasury, and larger taxes paid to the

IRS, by operators, on the gaming profits.

Instead, US lawmakers turned to the failed

policies of prohibition, and after years

of trying, eventually passed legislation

in 2006 making receipt of illegal online

gambling funds, well… illegal. So now

the DoJ has turned its attention to online

poker, making a big splash by seizing big

money and bigger domain names. But the

legal basis supporting the government’s

prosecution is highly questionable.

“The indictment, and corresponding civil

forfeiture complaint, make veiled references

to misdemeanour New York gambling

statutes (which themselves do not reference

Internet gambling), along with certain other

unspecified state laws. Basing a multi-million

dollar, international white collar conspiracy

case on some outdated state misdemeanour

seems a bit tenuous, to say the least. Federal

law does not outlaw online poker. That’s

why the feds are scrambling to find some

state law (or maybe a city ordinance) that

criminalises the actual gaming activity

at issue. Even if they dust off some state

gambling statute, adopted before the Internet

was even a glint in Al Gore’s eye, they

have other major problems with obtaining

jurisdiction over individuals and companies

that are located in foreign countries – some

of which enjoy substantial economic revenue

from licensed Internet gambling activity.

“The DOJ has a pretty impressive

conviction rate, overall, but this one will

be an uphill battle for federal prosecutors.”

Lawrence G. Walters, Esq.,

www.GameAttorneys.com.

So, it is near impossible to gain

jurisdiction over individuals residing

in foreign countries, especially if their

activities are legal and licensed in their

countries. Attorney Nelson Rose adds

another aspect:

“On Friday, April 15, 2011, the DoJ seized

the .com names of five of the biggest poker

sites. It is not even clear that online poker

is illegal in every state and territory of the

US. But players in countries like England,

where it is indisputably legal, also found

themselves unable to access their favourite

sites. This is a door the US should never

have opened. The next to step through

could be an Islamic country, which outlaws

alcohol, seizing the worldwide domain

names of every retailer and restaurant that

advertises beer or wine.” Professor I. Nelson

Rose, www.GAMBLINGANDTHELAW.com.

What about the DOJ freezing all these player

accounts, the monies that belong to innocent

citizens? Nelson Rose has this to say:

“On April 20, Preet Bharara, the US

Attorney in Manhattan who had seized

the domain names, announced that

an agreement had been reached with

PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. Technically,

the .com names remain seized. But the DoJ

will now permit the companies to operate

money games outside of the US, which they

always had the legal right to do anyway.

American players can also go to the .com

sites and get their deposits back.

“Bharara issued the following statement:

‘No individual player accounts were ever

frozen or restrained, and each implicated

poker company has at all times been free to

reimburse any player’s deposited funds.’

“Technically true, but misleading.

Exactly how were players supposed to get

their money, when they could not log on

to the seized .com sites? Did Bharara tell

the operators they could refund players’

deposits, and how they were suppose to do

that? Even today, the DoJ has not worked

out all the details on what it will allow.

Notice that the announced agreement is

only with PokerStars and Full Tilt. Those

companies have licenses and approvals

Black Friday Blindsided Everyone… or did it?


by foreign jurisdictions, including

France, Italy and Alderney, which they

want to protect. They also would like to

someday return to the US, once the laws

are changed. Absolute is licensed by the

Kahnawake tribe in Canada and has always

taken the position that it does not have

to be overly concerned with the laws of

Canada, the US, or any other jurisdiction.

So it is standing tough.”

(Editor’s NOTE: the above statement was

prepared prior to Blanca Games, operator of

Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet, announcing

that both of its sites have ceased trading in

the US, and have entered an agreement with

the DoJ to ensure the refund of its players’

deposits, although this won’t include, as with

PokerStars and Full Tilt, the return of either

domain name to facilitate said refunds.)

So then, what does Absolute have to

say about this? Here is the company’s

statement:

“Absolute Poker has retained Blank

Rome LLP as United States counsel to

provide legal advice in relation to civil and

criminal matters filed in federal court in

Manhattan and made public on April 15,

2011. Absolute Poker is aware that on April

19, 2011, the US Attorney for the Southern

District of New York entered into separate

agreements with Full Tilt Poker and

PokerStars. These agreements concern the

use of the respective www.fulltiltpoker.com

and www.pokerstars.com domain names.

The US Attorney, in a press release dated

April 20, 2011, stated that the government

is willing to enter the same agreement with

Absolute Poker and UB.”

Indeed, at time of writing, an agreement

has been announced, although as

mentioned in the Editor’s note, slightly

different in nature to that reached with

PokerStars and Full Tilt.

The official release stated that: “Absolute

Poker has reached an agreement with the

United States Attorney’s office for the

Southern District of New York (SDNY).

Under the agreement, the US Attorney’s

Office has agreed to provide all necessary

assurances that third-parties may work

with Absolute Poker to facilitate the return

of funds to players located in the US. This

provision is an important first step to

returning US player funds.

“The Company has also notified the

SDNY that it has closed its US-facing

operations, and it has agreed to the

cessation of real money poker play in

the US. As such, Absolute Poker has not

requested the return of its worldwide

domain names, www.AbsolutePoker.com,

www.UltimateBet.com and www.UB.com,

and today’s agreement does not provide for

their return.”

Meanwhile, Costa Rica’s version of

the FBI, Organismo de Investigaciones

Judiciales (OIJ), raided the offices of

Absolute Poker and PokerStars and

some private residences, accompanied

by some US officials. Rumour has it that

PokerStars was raided by mistake. The

raids were short and employees were sent

home for just a few hours. This is allegedly

because Absolute had laid off a lot of

employees without the required severance

pay and these employees went to complain

to local authorities.

There was some fallout in the online

gaming industry. The white label Rival

casinos withdrew from the US market,

as did BetUs and Bingo Entertainment.

I haven’t seen many affiliates leave

the market.

What will happen next in the US is

wide open for speculation. Was this a final

swoop to open the market for the Las Vegas

giants? What will happen to affiliates once

the US market does open up? Looking at all

the various bills submitted in the political

arena as of late, one thing seems fairly

certain – regulated online poker will soon

come to several states, if not the entire US.

“What will happen next in the US is wide open for speculation. Was this a final swoop to open the market for the Las Vegas giants?”

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Much of the discussion post-Black Friday concerned the migration of the indicted sites’ players – just who would benefit from the controversy of April 15, 2011? One of the earliest barometers of this shift in player numbers came from a weekly report from PokerScout.com the Monday following the indictments and here, PokerScout Founder, Dan Stewart, assesses the impact of Black Friday on the online poker community.

On April 15, 2011, the Department

of Justice dropped a nuclear bomb on

the US online poker industry. The wave

of indictments and seizures on ‘Black

Friday’ dealt a crippling blow to a thriving

market as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker,

the dominant two sites in the industry,

immediately moved to pull out of the US.

While some online poker players have

found their way to other sites still serving

Americans, many have seemingly stopped

playing altogether.

The ‘big two’ get a haircutWithdrawing from the US market did

serious damage to PokerStars and Full

Tilt Poker (see Table 1). However, those

sites had built up a solid international

player base and, as a result, they were

not hurt as badly as they would have

been just a year or two ago. After taking

the initial hit, losing between 25% and

40% of their traffic, the ‘big two’ quickly

stabilised as their European player base

held firm. Full Tilt Poker even managed to

rebound a bit from its initial 40% loss and

is now down 32% from early April.

While most of the industry has begun

to settle into the ‘new normal’, some sites

are still experiencing fallout from Black

Friday. Cereus Network and Merge Gaming

Network have been the most heavily

affected, although in opposite directions

(see graph).

Cereus troubleFor Cereus Network, the fallout from

Black Friday has proven to be highly

radioactive. The network’s traffic once

ranked as high as fifth in the world,

but that has changed dramatically since

mid-April. Cereus relied heavily on US

traffic and, as a result, the network now

finds itself struggling to stay alive. Unlike

PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, Cereus

did not move quickly to bar US players

from real money games, probably because

the network’s traffic would have dropped

to almost nothing overnight. Instead,

network executives seem to be stalling for

time, but with rampant rumours of debt

default, problems with their customer

support contractor, police raids in Costa

Rica, and employees and pros being laid

off en masse, it is not clear what its survival

strategy could be.

Despite the recent announcement of

an agreement with the Department of

Justice, in which Cereus agreed to bar

American players, the network continues to

allow existing US customers to play. This

means the network’s traffic has even farther

to fall once the promised US ban goes

into effect.

Moreover, unlike the deals reached by

PokerStars and Full Tilt, Cereus’ deal with

the Justice Department does not provide

for the return of seized domains, including

UB.com and AbsolutePoker.com. Without

these primary domains, the network will

find it difficult to recruit the new players

needed to survive. Meanwhile, US players

and affiliates who stuck with the Cereus

network are waiting for word on the fate

of their funds, with many players hoping

that the new agreement with the Justice

Department will eventually allow them to

cash out their accounts.

51-52_Feature.indd 51 16/05/2011 19:56



Merge emerges as a winnerOnly a small handful of sites and

networks still accept American players.

Among them, Merge Gaming Network

has managed to capture the lion’s share

of traffic from US players seeking out a

new poker venue. Merge’s player counts,

already on the rise before Black Friday,

have increased another 77% in the weeks

since. This has pushed the network up

from 20th to ninth place in the worldwide

traffic rankings.

Bodog and Cake Poker Network also

saw an initial influx of players after Black

Friday. Their momentum quickly stalled,

however, as players latched on to Merge as

the US market leader. Bodog and Cake have

not seen significant gains since the week

after Black Friday.

The major European sites and

networks have also attempted to

take advantage of increased player

mobility in a time of flux, but they

have not been especially successful.

PartyPoker’s traffic has grown 10%, but

this may have more to do with the site’s

recent aggressive promotions, such as

the Gladiator, than any real success in

recruiting new players.

The big pictureOverall, the worldwide online poker market

shrank by 18% in the wake of Black Friday.

The US market has been virtually destroyed,

as nine out of ten players have simply

stopped playing, at least temporarily.

Although this is a serious blow, it

is hardly the end of online poker. In

retrospect, this may be viewed as simply

another painful step on the long road

toward regulated Internet poker markets

around the world. If the events of Black

Friday help pave the way to outright

legalisation in the US, then online poker

may be headed into a future that is

brighter than ever.

“Overall, the worldwide online poker market shrank by 18% in the wake of Black Friday. The US market has been virtually destroyed, as nine out of ten players have simply stopped playing, at least temporarily.”

Dan Stewart is the founder of PokerScout.com, the world’s premier online poker tracking site. Monitoring online poker traffic in real-time since 2006, PokerScout provides both players and industry participants with the information they need to guide their decisions.

Table 1: Black Friday’s impact on real money cash game player counts

SiTe/neTwOrk

neT ChAnge

(Avg. plAyerS)

neT ChAnge

(%)

left US Market

PokerStars -7734 -26%

Full Tilt Poker

-5538 -32%

Cereus Network

-1542 -76%

Still in US

Merge Network

+735 +77%

Bodog +184 +28%

Cake Network

+155 +28%

Everleaf Network

+3 +1%

european Majors

PartyPoker +358 +10%

iPoker Network

-13 -0.4%

Ongame Network

-102 -4%

888poker +77 +5%

51-52_Feature.indd 52 16/05/2011 19:56

iGaming Business ■ Issue 68 ■ May/June 201 1

17 P

ages

of i

Gam

ing S

uper

Sho

w P

relu

de Arti

cles

Insi

de

Plus

■ U

SA Leg

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■ Is

the

Gam

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dustry

Un-

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stab

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■ T

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win

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■ E

U Gre

en P

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on

iGam

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Under

stan

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e Le

gal, P

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al a

nd

Com

mer

cial

Impac

t of A

pril 1

5, 2

011

BLACK FRIDAY

01 iG

B _may

june1

1 cov

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dd 1

26/04

/2011

17:5

0

“iGaming Business consistently leads the field with timely and relevant information on the sector. It is clearly written by those in the know, which is why I know it is information I can rely on.”

Join the leaders in the igaming industry and subscribe today!

A subscription to iGAminG business offers you:l 6 copies of iGaming Business magazinel iGaming Business directory worth £75l 6 copies of iGB Affiliate Magazinel The iGB Affiliate Directory worth £75l iGaming Business Newslines delivered twice weekly l Access to all the latest news, events and jobs in

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www.iGamingbusiness.comfor more information and to subscribe today please contact [email protected] Quote 27mVA


interview

54

With the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) having achieved the first regulated iGaming framework in North America, iGB Affiliate magazine spoke to the company’s Director of eBusiness, Rhonda Garvey, about the success of its PlayNow.com site to date and the potential shape of things to come for provincial iGaming in Canada.

What instigated the decision to expand the lottery’s remit to include iGaming products such as casino games and poker? BCLC added casino games to PlayNow.com in the summer of 2010 in response to evolving player and online gaming market demand, and to offer British Columbians legal gaming options where revenue generated stays in BC to benefit all residents.

Describe, if you will, your discussions with regulators in bringing about the creation and implementation of your iGaming offering? British Columbians were spending an estimated $100 million each year gambling on approximately 2,000 available unregulated offshore Internet gambling websites. Our partners in government agreed that PlayNow.com would offer those online players the option to play casino games on a secure and regulated website while helping to keep online gaming revenues in British Columbia.

How have you assessed the success of your iGaming venture to date? Is it going to plan/exceeding expectations? We’ve been very pleased with the response to PlayNow.com and our results are exceeding expectations.

We believe the site’s design rivals anything available in the unregulated environment, and player registration is up by almost 25 percent.

What does that say about the market for iGaming in British Columbia, even Canada in general, in terms of demand and in terms of revenue that prior to regulation, was going to unregulated gambling sites. In 2010, when we began offering casino games such as blackjack, roulette and poker on PlayNow.com, we were the first government regulated gaming jurisdiction in North America to do so. Since then, our counterparts in Quebec have entered the market, with other Canadian gaming jurisdictions considering following suit. Revenues have increased by more than 25 percent from the previous year.

How has revenue from your iGaming offerings impacted the business as a whole, looking at the percentage and monetary increase in revenue since roll out? Revenue from PlayNow.com comprises one percent of BCLC’s total revenue, and is expected to increase to four percent of total revenue by 2014. As mentioned above, the number of registered players continues to grow, with players attracted by the

convenience of the channel as well as new product offerings.

What about the technical challenges in rolling out a significant offering such as this… acquiring the right software, integrating it into your core platforms, creating standalone sites? It’s certainly a complex system to manage. Probably the biggest challenge relates to the selection of vendors who are able to meet the strict requirements set forth by BCLC and BC’s Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch. There are exacting standards for vendors which relate to the integrity of our games and gaming platforms, and we must also adhere to strict procurement guidelines. In the end, these sorts of challenges are what ultimately enable us to deliver an outstanding online gaming experience to our players.

Do you feel that lottery (government) controlled iGaming is a potential blueprint for regulated gambling in the US (given the District of Columbia’s path to allow the DC Lottery to offer “games of skill including poker”)?Obviously it’s a choice that each government and gaming jurisdiction has to make for itself. Having said that, we


believe we are demonstrating how it can be successful in North America.

In addition, due to the nature of the distribution of revenue from lottery operated (provincial government controlled) offerings, do you feel that this is a more ‘ethically’ sound channel for the provision of iGaming, given the stigmas to which gambling is traditionally subject? Research shows that Canadians are gambling online. In our case, British Columbians were spending around $100 million each year on unregulated offshore gambling websites. Without question, it’s in our own best interests to spend that money here in our own province, where the revenues generated can used to benefit all British Columbians through government, community and charitable programs and services.

What is your assessment of the current moves to regulate iGaming in the US and, indeed, the recent drastic action taken by the SDNY in pulling the plug on three of the biggest poker sites? These allegations show that, despite their

attempts to appear legitimate, the US has enough information to lay charges against the principals involved with PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. It’s alleged these websites were operating illegally, without regulatory oversight, and in the absence of controls and standards that regulated companies must adhere to.

PlayNow.com, the only legal online gambling website in BC, operates under strict regulatory controls and employs the highest standards available to provide British Columbians who choose to gamble online a website they can trust. In fact, Canadian banks accept PlayNow.com transactions because of the fact the website is legally operated by a recognised Canadian jurisdiction and in accordance with federal and provincial laws.

How would you assess growth levels in terms of revenue and player volumes for the BCLC in the coming months/years – do you anticipate a vibrant provincial market in the foreseeable future?Like any business we were affected by

the recent economic downturn, but we’re fortunate to have turned the corner and are in a position to forecast revenue and player growth over the next five years. As mentioned, PlayNow.com is forecasted to contribute about four percent of BCLC’s total revenue by 2014.

Finally, how do you see the future of iGaming in Canada? We see the trend towards digital convergence continuing. More information and services are moving to the cloud. Provincial lottery jurisdictions and the provinces themselves will have to make a decision at some point in the future to either take their games online or risk losing market share to outside operators. Competition for the Internet player will not go away, but as long as provinces and lottery corporations continue to be the only legal gaming option for Canadians, co-operation on best practises and other business verticals can prove integral in the effort to gain a competitive advantage over our non-regulated competitors.

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feature

56

The current shut-down of poker’s big boys has given an unprecedented opportunity to the many fledgling and struggling poker sites, usually dwarfed by the combined power of ‘The Big Two’. There has never been a better time for the underdogs to swoop down on players looking for a new residence in ‘value town’. But behold, there lies a looming behemoth, lurking in the wings, with the capacity to devour all usurpers. By Shelley Rubenstein.

The name of this beast may surprise

you, for the most successful poker site in

the world in terms of numbers of signed-

up players – currently at around the 36

million mark – is not PokerStars or Full

Tilt Poker, but Zynga Poker. Yes, the free-

to-play site and one of Facebook’s biggest

success stories.

Zynga, also the creator of the irritatingly

popular FarmVille and Mafia Wars, went

live in January 2007, launching its poker

spin-off six months later. Making itself the

envy of other poker sites, Zynga is able to

legally groom its players from the age of 13,

the same age requirement to join Facebook,

building up loyalty from a young age.

Such is the nature of the social

networking beast that word spread fast and

it wasn’t long before the introduction of

cash payments for chips, allowing entry to

higher stakes games. As well as electronic

booty, it’s now possible to win a seat into

the ultimate of poker tournaments, the

WSOP Main Event. To those who scoff at

the likelihood of accruing serious revenue

from people paying money for play chips,

Zynga’s current monthly take-home is

estimated to be a minimum of $15 million.

The inevitable regulation of online poker

in the US is speculated to be the catalyst

required to trigger a full-on assault on the

poker market from Zynga. Even the least

business-minded person would reach the

conclusion that with such a massive player

base, most of whom have no existing

allegiance to any other poker site, it would

be a no-brainer to introduce real money

play as the next logical step.

When being interviewed, Lo Toney,

Zynga Poker’s General Manager excels in

delivering the kind of vacuity of answer a

politician would be proud of. It seems that

the initiation process Zynga requires from

a spokesperson is to swallow the company

handbook whole, blindly regurgitating

random paragraphs expounding the Zynga

mantra, with scant regard to the relevance

of the question posed.

Curiously though, it’s only when asked

about future plans for real money play that

Toney’s answer categorically seeds roots

in the negative, vociferously denying any

moves into that area… further reminiscent

of the political theme (the moment when

Bill Clinton went on record to deny sexual

relations with Monica Lewinsky comes to

mind, and we know what happened there…)

If there are genuinely no plans to

introduce a real money offering, then

how does Zynga qualify its recent

acquisition of the team from MarketZero?

As the company states: “MarketZero is a

pioneering force in the online poker world,

having established the largest online portal

tracking career statistics of online poker

players, PokerTableRatings.” Surely, this

would only be of relevance when playing

with real money?

Certainly, no-one in the industry seems

to be buying Zynga’s vehement denial of

plans to monetise the site for pay-to-play.

Lance Bradley, Bluff US Editor, comments:

“I think it would be crazy for Zynga to not

consider preparing themselves for a real

money offering either internationally or

in a regulated US market.” He continues,

“They’ve recognised that they’re not

a poker savvy group which explains

why they purchased the guys behind

PokerTableRatings.com. I mean, 36 million

people a month? One percent of that

would be massive.”

Wanting to fully immerse himself, and

Zynga’s fans, into the live poker experience,

Zynga Poker


Lo Toney spearheaded Zynga’s inaugural

PokerCon at the Palms, Las Vegas, held

earlier this year. “The goal of Zynga’s first

event was to bring fans from the web to the

felt. We hosted it as a ‘thank you’ to our 35-

plus million fans across the globe, to bring

Zynga Poker to life. We realised through

interaction with players that they wanted

a way to meet each other in person, while

having fun playing the game.”

When asked the not particularly loaded

question as to whether there are plans to

bring a similar event to Europe, Toney goes

characteristically company line. “We are

thrilled with the feedback we’ve received

from the 500 fans who attended our

inaugural event, and hope to continue to

show our players appreciation with more

of these events. We are still focused on

providing our users with a high-quality and

free social game.”

Top prize if you can spot an answer

to the question there.

Q&a with Lo Toney, General manager, Zynga Poker

What were the initial plans and timescale

for Zynga Poker?

Zynga Poker was Zynga’s first social game,

launched in July 2007, and was one of

the games developed to support Zynga’s

mission to connect the world through

games. Our goal was to make a game

that was fun and could be played with

your friends, no matter where they lived

around the world.

Did the success rate and the amount of

players signed up far exceed expectations?

We hoped that the game would be

successful and, as a company, we are

humbled that Zynga Poker is now

the largest online poker game in the

world. Social games are now considered

to be mainstream – ten percent of

the world’s population have played a

Zynga game.

Are there any territories which have

surprised you by the number of sign-ups?

We’re thrilled that people all over the

world love Zynga Poker – it was clear early

on that there was a huge opportunity to

localise the game experience in native

languages for our players. Two thirds of our

players are non-native English speakers,

and Zynga Poker can now be played in

English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and

traditional Chinese.

Zynga Poker is available to players from the

age of 13 – are you concerned that there may

be people who learn to play on the site and

then go on to encounter gambling problems?

A player must be 13 in order to play Zynga

Poker, as that is the age restriction to join

Facebook. The popularity of poker has

experienced a huge spike in the past ten

years, and we like to believe that by giving

poker fans an outlet to play the game not

only for free, but socially, they are doing

something they love.

Are there any plans to extend the game

range from Texas Hold’em to include

Omaha, Stud, etc?

We are always looking for ways to improve

the player experience, but we can’t comment

right now on new games that may or may

not be in development.

Ashley Mitchell was sentenced to two years

in prison when he stole 400 billion Zynga

Poker Chips, re-selling them on the black

market. Can you talk about the process

from suspecting something was amiss to

Mitchell’s prosecution?

On background, we are not commenting

on the issue with Ashley Mitchell. Our goal

is to provide our players with the most fun

social game experience, which includes

ensuring the safety of our players to the

best of our ability. One component of that,

which we take incredibly seriously at Zynga,

is protecting against illegal player activity.

We aim to make social games that focus on

having fun with your friends, and take every

measure possible to ensure the integrity of

our games is not compromised.

If the UIGEA is revoked, do you think

Zynga Poker will branch out into real

money games?

No, Zynga is not interested in venturing into

the real money US online poker market. We

are focused on providing a great poker game

experience for our players – Zynga Poker is

and will continue to be free-to-play.

How much of an impact on the site and

the poker world do you think it would be if

there was a WSOP winner borne off a Zynga

Poker freeroll?

Our game attracts a wide spectrum of

players – from people who have never

played a hand of Texas Hold‘em, to those

who frequent poker rooms each weekend

and are quite skilled. We work hard to make

sure that Zynga Poker is not intimidating

to players new to the game, but also

sophisticated for the more skilled players.

We’d be thrilled if one of our players went

on to win the biggest title you can in poker –

the World Series of Poker!

Shelley RubenStein plays, commentates and writes about poker. She organises high profile tournaments, advises the leading online gambling sites, mentors celebrities with a genuine interest in the game and has brokered many sponsorship deals. She is a regular contributor to various magazines, such as Poker Player, inside Poker and bluff. Shelley advises and writes for many online gambling sites and poker players including Full tilt Poker, PokerStars, PartyPoker, bodog and ladbrokes.

“If there are genuinely no plans to introduce a real money offering, then how does Zynga qualify its recent acquisition of the team from MarketZero (PokerTableRatings)? Surely, this would only be of relevance when playing with real money?”

ZynGa’S STaGGeRinG facTS and fiGuReS●● Since it launched in July 2007, seven million players from every country log on each day.●● Zynga Poker was Zynga’s first social game.●● 400, 000 people are playing simultaneously at any given moment.●● 260,000 hands of poker are played each day. ●● Zynga Poker sees seven million daily active users and nearly 38 million monthly active users at its peak.●● The average player logs on for two sessions of 45 minutes each per day.●● Zynga Poker continues to be one of the top five applications on Facebook.●● Zynga Poker’s fan page has more fans on Facebook than any other page including global brands, YouTube (28 million) and Coca-Cola (23 million).●● Zynga Poker can be played on Facebook, Yahoo!, MySpace, iPad, iPhone and Android.


FEATURE

58

As this issue of iGB Affi liate travels to the iGaming Super Show in Dublin, it seemed prudent to provide delegates and those unable to attend the conference, the lowdown on the regulatory environment for gambling and iGaming in Ireland.

IntroductionIrish law on gambling distinguishes between

three forms of gambling activity: gaming,

betting and lotteries. The legislation which

regulates each of these forms of gambling

was enacted long before the development

of the online forms of gambling, with the

result that the regulatory environment in

Ireland for online gambling operators and

businesses servicing the online gambling

industry is uncertain.

The unsatisfactory state of Ireland’s

gambling laws has been long since

acknowledged, and a number of the

preparatory steps required to update

and reform Ireland’s laws have been

undertaken, with two key developments

occurring shortly before the demise of the

government which left offi ce in March 2011.

In this overview of the Irish legal

landscape, we provide a high level synopsis

of the current regulatory regime, together

with a summary of the legal developments

which are coming down the track.

Irish law on gambling: the key points Irish law on gambling distinguishes between

three forms of gambling activity: gaming,

betting and lotteries (including bingo).

Irish law on gaming and lotteries

(including bingo) is set out in the

Gaming and Lotteries Act, 1956 (the

1956 Act). Ireland also operates a state-

run lottery, which was established

pursuant to the National Lottery Act,

1986. Betting is regulated by a 1931 Act,

which establishes a licensing regime for

retail bookmakers.

Although none of this legislation

specifi cally deals with online gambling,

Irish law principles of statutory

interpretation require that a “purposive”

approach be adopted when construing

legislation, and that allowances be made

for changes in technology and social

conditions. The result is that the restrictive

rules and principles devised for land-

based operators in the 1931 and 1956 acts

of parliament must be applied to online

gambling activities.

Gaming Section 4 of the 1956 Act prohibits the

promotion or the provision of facilities

for “unlawful gaming”. The defi nition of

unlawful gaming is extremely wide, and

includes all games played for stakes, whether

they are games of skill or games of chance,

in which the chances of all players (including

the banker) are not equal, or in which the

promoter or banker profi ts from the stakes,

otherwise than as winnings from the result

of play. The result is that most (if not all)

forms of casino gaming are prohibited.

However, gaps in the legislation have

facilitated the development of a number of

‘loopholes’ which have paved the way for

the development of a number of land-based

‘private members clubs’ offering casino

facilities in Ireland.

To date, the Irish authorities have tended

to take the view that the provisions of the

1956 Act do not extend to online gambling

services which are located and operated

offshore, even where those services are

received by Irish players. Furthermore,

the authorities have not raised any

signifi cant issue or objection to the physical

establishment in Ireland of support services

and back offi ce operations related to the

provision of online gambling services,

provided that the gambling website being

supported is operated outside of Ireland.

However, no offi cial guidance on this point

has been published.

Lotteries Although the National Lottery has a

monopoly on large prize draws, it is possible

to apply to the District Court for a licence to

run a lottery (including bingo) in which the

total weekly prizes paid out do not exceed

€20,000. However, it is an express provision

of a lottery licence issued pursuant to the

1956 Act that the lottery must be for some

charitable or philanthropic purpose, and that

the promoter must not derive a personal

profi t from it. On the face of it, this rules out

the running of a commercial lottery or bingo

operation in or from Ireland, whether on-land

or online. That said, the lottery licensee is

permitted under the legislation to apply up

to 40 percent of the gross proceeds of the

lottery towards the expense of running and

promoting it, and that provides some scope

for promoters to obtain a reasonable return

from lotteries run in Ireland.

Betting The starting position in relation to betting

is that all betting in Ireland is prohibited,

unless regulated pursuant to the Betting

Act, 1931 (the 1931 Act). Although

the 1931 Act has been amended more

frequently than the 1956 Act, it still only

regulates retail bookmakers, and does

not expressly deal with online betting.

Notably, section 33 of the 1931 Act as

originally enacted prohibited betting with

persons outside of Ireland. The effect of

this section was that Irish punters could

not legally place bets online with operators

established outside Ireland. However, it

was repealed in 2001.

Advertising gaming, betting and lotteries in IrelandThe 1931 Act prohibits the exhibition

of certain signs outside a bookmaker’s

premises. It does not, however, impose

restrictions on media advertising. In general,

therefore, advertising of both onshore and

offshore betting is permitted. One exception

to this rule is Section 32 of the 1931 Act

which deems advertisements which invite

persons to bet on “football games” to be

unlawful. This prohibition is rarely, if ever,

enforced, but to stay within the confi nes

of the law, advertisements which expressly

promote football betting should not be

published in Ireland.

In relation to advertising online gaming,

there is a risk that online advertisements

could amount to either unlawful promotion

or assistance in promoting gaming.

There are various technical arguments

which can be put forward to counter this

claim, and the risk of transgressing the

law may also be tempered by reference

to the aggressiveness of the advertising

campaign in question; for example, it

iGB Affi liate JUNE/JULY 2011 59

could be argued that an advertisement

which simply provides basic information

about online gambling, without

encouraging gambling, is not captured

by this restriction.

Advertisements in relation to lotteries

(including bingo) face the same dilemma

as gaming advertisements; the 1956 Act

provides that no person shall “promote or

assist in promoting a lottery”. The section of

the 1956 Act which deals with lotteries also

prohibits all print and radio advertisements

of lotteries (including bingo), with the

exception of the National Lottery.

Long-term forecast: the DoJ paper on the options for regulating gambling in Ireland Following a public consultation process

conducted in 2009 which generated 70

submissions, the Department of Justice

(DoJ) published its paper on the “Options

for Regulating Gambling in Ireland” in

December 2010. The paper is intended

to provide a ‘roadmap’ for the Irish

legislature in devising a modern system

for the regulation of gambling, including

online/remote gambling, in Ireland. The

paper proposes that the existing 1931 and

1956 Acts be repealed and replaced with

a single statute regulating all forms of

gambling, including casino gaming, betting,

gaming machines, lotteries and bingo,

and their online versions.

When the paper was published

in December 2010, it was criticised

separately by Fine Gael and Labour, who

subsequently formed the new coalition

government. Then Labour TD and current

Minister for Communications, Energy

and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte,

described the DoJ paper as “a ham-fi sted

report without direction [or] conclusions,

for a sector that has been awaiting

regulation for a very long time”. Then

Fine Gael TD and current Minister for

Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Alan

Shatter, was quoted in the Irish Times

on January 5, 2011, as saying that he

deplored the government’s failure “to take

any meaningful position” on a range of

issues discussed in the paper.

It remains to be seen what level of

priority Ireland’s new government will

attach to overhauling Ireland’s gambling

laws. While comprehensive reform is

clearly required, it is unclear at this stage

how quickly the new government will

take up the baton of reform, and whether

it will endorse the DoJ paper, or seek

to go another route.

Short-term outlook: a licensing and tax regime for online bookmakers and betting exchange operators? Pending a complete overhaul of Ireland’s

gambling laws, the indications from the

new government are that a licensing

regime for online bookmakers and betting

exchange operators will be introduced in the

short-term.

Following the budget announcement

in December 2010, that the government

intends to extend the application of

betting duty to all operators accepting

bets from Irish customers, the promised

taxation provisions were passed into law

in January by Section 49 of the Finance

Act, 2011. These include a licence fee

for “remote bookmakers” and “remote

betting intermediaries” (i.e. online betting

exchange operators); the extension of

Ireland’s existing one percent turnover-

based betting duty to remote bookmakers

in respect of online bets accepted by

them from Irish punters (regardless of

where the online operator is located); and

the introduction of a new form of duty

payable on the commission earned by

betting exchange operators on bets placed

by Irish customers using their services.

There has been some media speculation

that the existing one percent rate may be

increased to two percent.

Section 49 has not yet been commenced

and, indeed, cannot be commenced

until such time as a licensing regime

for “remote bookmakers” and “remote

betting intermediaries” is introduced.

However, while introducing new taxes

before developing the licensing regime

which is required to collect those taxes is

very much a ‘horse before cart’ approach,

the introduction of a licensing regime for

online betting operations would appear to

be on the new government’s immediate

agenda. In April 2011, the new Fine Gael/

Labour government revealed its legislative

programme, which included a “Betting

(Amendment) Bill” in a list of twenty urgent

Bills which are to be published by the end

of the Summer Session (i.e. before July 21,

2011). The stated purpose of this Bill is to

amend the Betting Act 1931 in order to bring

remote betting (including betting exchanges)

within the existing regulatory framework,

i.e. to pave the way for the tax provisions in

Section 49 to be commenced.

Concluding RemarksNotwithstanding the criticism levelled by

the political opposition at the DoJ policy

paper late last year, it is clear that there is

a political consensus about the pressing

need to update Ireland’s gambling laws.

Indeed, the Labour Party are on the record

as advocates for a licensing system for

online gambling following the publication of

a policy paper entitled “Raising the Stakes”

in January 2010.

Ireland is likely to take encouragement

from other European jurisdictions,

including Greece and Spain, and to

introduce a licensing system whereby

operators offering their services to Irish

customers will require some form of

Irish licence, regardless of where they are

located. The key challenge in Ireland, as in

other EU jurisdictions, will be to equip the

regulators with effective enforcement tools

to take action against operators who do not

subscribe to the licensing/regulatory system.

Whatever Ireland ultimately decides

to do, it will have to be mindful of the

wider European context. In particular,

Ireland needs to be conscious of adopting

a consistent and systematic approach to

regulating (and taxing) different forms of

gambling. If Ireland takes steps to regulate

online betting in isolation from online

gaming, this may potentially be subject

to challenge by online betting operators

who seek to press a claim grounded on

unfair or prejudicial treatment. Assuming

Ireland does regulate online betting in the

immediate future as planned, it also needs

to look at introducing a licensing

regime for gaming, sooner rather

than later.

JOE KELLY is a Partner with A&L Goodbody Solicitors in Dublin, one of Ireland’s largest law fi rms. For almost 20 years Kelly has advised clients active in the Gaming, Leisure and Licensed Trade Sectors. He heads up the specialist Gaming Law Group which advises land-based casinos, suppliers to the sector, Internet gaming operators and trade associations. Joe heads is a member of the International Masters of Gaming Law, one of the leading international organisations in this sector.

DR JOHN CAHIR is a Partner in A&L Goodbody’s Firm’s IP & Technology Group. John has extensive experience in advising domestic and international clients on the creation, commercialisation and enforcement of intellectual property rights both in Ireland and the European Union.

Joe and John head up A&L Goodbody’s Betting and Gaming Group.

More details including sponsorship packages, conference schedule, the official hotel, all the parties and much more will be available soon on www.BarcelonaAffiliateConference.com


INSIGHT

61

THE ANSWER IS simple: yes and

yes. But before we look at the solution,

fi rst let’s break down your activity and

business model into simple terms. You

invest your resources in an effort to

create or acquire traffi c through a range

of marketing techniques, and send them

to operators which you hope will give

you the best return.

That return (your ROI) is dependent

upon the operators’ abilities to convert

your traffi c and generate high life-time

value (LTV) from your players. Now,

interestingly, it is the operations with top-

notch retention teams that are most able

to generate high LTV from your players,

and which result in you getting paid better.

Even if your deal is entirely CPA-based, if

the operator understands that your players

have a consistently high LTV, they will be

willing to agree to higher CPA terms.

Therefore, by ensuring that the operators

you work with have adopted better

conversion tactics and a modern retention

marketing strategy, you can earn more from

your traffi c. What steps can an affi liate take

to gauge the effectiveness and capabilities

of an operation? Let’s start at the beginning.

Basic conversionCRM, just like all iGaming activity actually

starts with fi rst contact. As consultants,

when we’re reviewing an operator’s

website, we look for the items of interest

to long-term players. There are clear

and obvious differences between what a

serious long-term customer wants, and

they contrast dramatically with the desires

of bonus abusers. Here are a few CRM

considerations which players take into

account when deciding where to play

and what you can look for on a brand’s

website when evaluating if they are a good

destination for your traffi c.

● Big winners’ page: this is why players

come to check out new brands – they

want to win! As such, this section

must always be updated and pumped

with new content and exciting stories.

It is astonishing how many iGaming

operators don’t have this information

listed at all.

● First deposit offer: when an operation

decides on a fi rst deposit bonus, they

are doing more than just posting a deal

online. They are crafting a perception of

the quality and stability of their business.

The offer can’t be too high, and it can’t

be unattractive, nor should it be entirely

generic. You should pay particular

attention to whether the sign-up offer

actually fi ts the brand and is relevant to

the players you are targeting it with.

● Terms and Conditions: who reads those?

Enough players – that’s the right answer

and, as such, you must ensure the text

is coherent and has no contradictions

between the paragraphs. Also, a key

part of the offering is the play-through

(or wagering requirements) and, as

such, this specifi c part should be well

explained. Look for trick clauses and

pay attention to maximum allowable

cash out, as this will clue you into the

fi nancial position of the brand itself. Of

course, nothing is worse than sending

traffi c to a brand that doesn’t pay.

Retention rules!!OK, so now that your players have

converted and you’re starting to see some

cash being sent in your direction, how

can the operators take your traffi c to the

next level, and generate more value out

of each existing depositing player? Make

sure the operator is consistent in the

following areas:

● VIP Club: high level players deserve

to be treated differently, and with

distinction. Otherwise, those money-

makers will look for another place to

donate their charity. Your operators really

need to respect and go the extra mile for

the high profi le players you send, from

personal VIP hostesses, to different

fi nancial terms and all sorts of creative

promotions. If an operation doesn’t have

a VIP program… Pass!

● Headline promotions: your operator’s

website MUST include a dynamic list

of ongoing promotional activities. There

is no other way to describe it better.

This is the barometer being used by

players when determining a brand’s

attractiveness and, therefore, it should

always be as vibrant as possible.

● Promotional backbone/loyalty scheme:

this is the predefi ned, ongoing set of

promotions which is being sent to a

brand’s segmented player-base. This

scheme includes brand efforts for

reactivation, preventing churn, growing

potential VIPs into high-rollers, as well

as cross-sale (make sure you’re not

being shaved). Understanding how

an operation sets up its promotional

backbone is a key component in

evaluating a brand’s capabilities and the

likelihood that they will be able to get

you the most from your traffi c.

ConclusionIt all comes down to picking the most

attractive offer, and players can evaluate

this elusive parameter by reviewing

all manner of aspects before deciding

with which brand they would like to

play. This is why for them, and even for

affi liates, retention is king. Send your

traffi c to operations with the tools and

understanding to keep your players happy,

and you will make more money. Not

only that, but it will actually boost your

own reputation as you can show the high

value of the traffi c you send. An operation

that is thinking about long-term value

has certainly not forgotten about the

importance of an effi cient and attractive

conversion process, and through proper

brand analysis, you can identify brands

that are more likely to convert well and give

you high recurring revenue over the

long haul.

Attention iGaming affiliates! If you are reading this article at the Dublin Super Show, while sipping free beer and gazing at semi-naked models walking the floor, you are probably quite good at what you do. But would you like to quickly and easily make more money from your traffic by maximising ROI? Of course, but can that really be done, you ask? And easily?

SHAHAR ATTIAS, the Founder and CEO of Hybrid Interaction Ltd, is a globally recognised CRM/loyalty expert, and a frequent speaker at iGaming Conferences. Since 1997, Hybrid Interaction has grown into the industry’s leading iGaming CRM Consultancy, with a portfolio including: bwin.party, Casino Club, Play65, eToro, Grand Duke, Viaden and more. Come and meet us during the Super Show at the VIP lounge on May 25 and 26 for a FREE 30 minute ‘Operational Review’. You’ll be glad you did… [email protected]+972-52-8577539

61_insight.indd 61 16/05/2011 19:59


INSIGHT

62

THERE IS AN OLD saying in the technology

world, “Garbage in Garbage out!” By getting

the data right from the beginning of a player

acquisition programme, we can use it to drive

forward a successful marketing strategy.

The following article will provide you with

advice on how to put the right fuel in the tank

and build a steady stream of income from

email acquisition campaigns, by looking

at: sign-up process; qualifi cation; planning

an effective strategy; initial customer

engagement and ensuring long-term success.

Sign-upThe sign-up process on your website or

landing page is, perhaps, the most crucial

part of the process. Unfortunately, it is

something grossly overlooked or taken for

granted. When I speak to affi liates, and

even the operators, there is always a big

debate on whether or not to use ‘single

opt-in’ (simple text box for email address

and a button to ‘sign up now’) or a ‘double

opt-in’ (making someone re-enter their

email address or confi rm their details before

they enter your database). Many marketers

use a single opt-in method, as they want to

make it easy as possible to grab the email

address and details. The problem is that it

is very easy to make mistakes. For example,

[email protected] becomes artimlin@

hotmal.com because I am always in a

hurry! Therefore, even though you have that

valuable email address on your database,

it is worthless; simply because you have

no mechanism to verify it is a ‘valid’ email

address. We’ve also seen instances of abuse

where people are deliberately signing up with

incorrect email addresses to cause problems

for affi liate/acquisition marketers (e.g.

[email protected]).

A simple alternative is to have two

text boxes to enter details, making a new

subscriber double check that the email

address is entered correctly before they

‘submit’ it to your mailing list. This is a great

option, as it only adds a few seconds to the

time it takes to enter details, and it ensures

they have entered the correct email address.

However, you still run the risk of people

maliciously entering other people’s, or non-

existent, email addresses.

When using a ‘double opt-in’, you’re

giving yourself the best opportunity to

validate an email address and, more

importantly, that they want read your

marketing messages. Use an ‘Activation

Link’, as well as the above, to send an

automated message to new subscribers

with a link to confi rm they’ve received

it. This means neither malicious

([email protected])

nor other people’s email addresses can

be falsely added to your clean mailing list.

More importantly, it means people on your

database really want to receive your messages

and are likely to convert more easily into

paying players. It will also assist in achieving

better email delivery rates, as one of the

things Internet Service Providers examine

when fi ltering messages is how many

‘unknown users’ (non-existent or inactive

email addresses) are in a dispatch.

Activation linkUse the Activation Link as a thank you, to

build a little excitement and let people know

what to expect from your future marketing.

An example: “Thanks for joining our mailing

list, we’ll send you all the best offers...” Think

about personalising your brand (introduce

a chat manager, casino manager, fi ctional

author or the newsletter, etc). Subscribers

should feel they are entering a relationship,

not just getting a single free-play, which is

likely to make them more reluctant to leave,

especially with poker and bingo. Also, use

the Activation Link as an opportunity to allow

subscribers to add your email address to their

‘safe-senders’ list. This ensures your images

and links are always displayed, helping

you achieve better inbox placement and

better conversion rates.

Another good idea is to let subscribers

know how often you’re going to send a

message. It’s a very simple thing to do: if

you send monthly emails but a subscriber is

expecting a weekly newsletter, they’ll either

email you about it (a waste of resources) or

forget you (a waste of revenue). With some

gaming clients, we’ve implemented the

‘thank you message’ send after subscribers

have clicked the Activation Link, and we

have achieved very impressive results,

because you’re building a dialogue of

actions between you and the subscriber

(making them more receptive to your brand

and ensuring a better quality of data by

eliminating tyre kickers and competitors).

The best results, we’ve had, are when we

use this ‘thank you message’, not just to get

added to the ‘safe-senders’ list, but to link

to a short survey or preference centre where

subscribers can select what they do and don’t

want to receive. By letting a client decide

between casino, bingo, poker, slots on a

daily, weekly, monthly basis, we can ensure

they stay on our database for longer (thereby,

increasing their lifetime value to us). It also

helps build rapport between your brand

and the new subscriber.

Brand loyaltyWe’ve seen that by adding these steps,

and creating more interaction during the

sign-up process, subscribers become more

loyal to the brand. They are also likely to

invest more time and effort in looking out

for and interacting with your messages. By

developing this dialogue with them, and

by them providing more information on

their preferences, we’ve seen better delivery

rates, lower unsubscribe rates, better open

rates, better click through rates and better

conversions. By looking more closely at

how people enter our database and what

they’re looking for when they do, we can use

that information to maximum effect and

achieve better results.

Ever since the onset of the ‘global

downturn’, the number of acquisition email

campaigns has been on the rise. This means

that it’s a more competitive marketplace,

but it also means that the number of SPAM

emails is increasing. However, if you have

good data, and you send your marketing

messages to people that want them, then

you have a chance at creating a reliable

source of revenue month in, month out. The

question you need to ask yourself is, ‘do you

want a database of 1 million email addresses

or do you want $1 million?’

“The sign-up process on your website or landing page is, perhaps, the most crucial part of the process. Unfortunately, it is something that is grossly overlooked.”

In an excerpt from the forthcoming Global Business of Affi liate Marketing Report, published by iGaming Business, Alex Timlin, Senior Consultant at Communicator Corp, defi nes the strategies to build revenue from your email acquisition campaigns.

62_insight.indd 62 16/05/2011 20:04


dec/jan 2010/11

de

c/j

an

2010/1

1

Social networker: an interview with Michael Birch, Founder, BeBo

the aFFiliate and weBMaSter Marketing guide

the great Seo QueStion: in-houSe vS agency

tough tiMeS ahead For aFFiliateS? a legal exploration

The Wild, Wild East The risk and reward of iGaming in Asia

feb/mar 2011

feb

/mar

2011

New Jersey:

the sigNature state

Law aNd Order: the

ChaNgiNg affiLiate

marketpLaCe

LiNk buiLdiNg: ChOOsiNg

the right path

seO aNd gOOgLe:

OLd dOg, New triCks

INFORMATION, INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS FOR THE BUSINESS OF INTERACTIVE GAMING Surviving

the Republic

A French market insight

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INFORMATION, INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS FOR THE BUSINESS OF INTERACTIVE GAMING Surviving

the Republicthe Republicthe Republic

Surviving Surviving

the Republicthe Republicthe Republic

INFO

RMATI

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NSIG

HT AN

D A

NALY

SIS F

OR T

HE BUSIN

ESS OF

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AMIN

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SIS F

OR T

HE BUSIN

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NEW WEBSITE

JUST LAUNCHED

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INSIGHT

64

More and More gaming operators

are launching Smartphone applications

to attract the fast growing mobile

player community with instant access

to sportbooks, casino games and poker

tables. Business operations are supporting

themselves with new job positions such

as mobile game managers and mobile

affiliate managers, and departments are

being prepared to handle mobile support

requests. Today, we are witnessing an

industry getting ready for the mobile boom

much predicted by industry experts and

research groups.

As the industry is getting ready to

deliver stable and robust mobile games

to players, we can fully expect affiliates to

follow this trend in the coming months.

Indeed, affiliate systems are being updated

to support mobile logistics with player

registrations, deposits and wagering, but

mobile marketing is still a new practice for

most of today’s affiliates.

Going mobile will allow existing

affiliates to extend their services to the

blossoming mobile player community, but

how will players find your app and how

can you maximise your exposure in the

apps marketplace?

Strict restrictions for gaming appsThere has been much discussion as to

how the strict stance of app stores towards

gambling is crippling the gaming industry,

and only a handful of operators have

developed mobile apps that have been

approved by the respective Q&A processes

of the stores. Unfortunately, it isn’t possible

to get a pre-authorised confirmation from

the app stores. Despite the fact that Apple

has approved gaming apps in both the

UK and Sweden, it is no guarantee that

any gaming app will be accepted for these

markets; this decision is made by the app

store’s Q&A process.

Understanding the mobile ecosystem In order to successfully market mobile

services, marketers must understand the

mobile ecosystem. The mobile ecosystem is

the Smartphone environment that explains

how apps are being evaluated by the stores

and how easily or, indeed, how difficult it is

for users to find your app.

The ecosystem can be compared to search

engine marketing concepts: as websites are

achieving better search engine rankings

with proper optimisation techniques, a

good link building strategy and social media

integration, mobile apps face different

rating criteria in each app store.

Today, apps are the driving force behind

the consumption of Smartphones. With

half a million apps available in the Apple

App store and a quarter of a million apps

in the Google Android Market, app stores

are an extremely important element of the

mobile ecosystem.

native app or HTML5 appWhen going mobile, the app architecture

is very important. Whether you develop

a native or HTML5 app, they represent

two very different marketing strategies.

Native apps must be installed on the

Smartphone and are bound to its operating

system, similar to what we experience with

Windows and Mac computers. HTML5

apps are mobile web applications that

execute in the mobile Internet browser and

are, therefore, executable across mobile

device operating systems.

As a marketer, the decision regarding the

app architecture will provide the framework

for how it can be marketed. Native apps

need to be downloaded from an app store

or distribution site, whereas HTML5 apps

are simply accessible by pointing a browser

to the app URL.

HTML5 apps are not usually accepted

in app stores, as this is primary reserved

for native apps. This means that your

customers will not find you in the app

stores if you have an HTML5 app. There

are ways to package an HTML5 app into a

native app to gain access to app stores, but

this might be frowned upon by many users

if it is not done properly.

achieving top positioning in app storesAfter submitting your app store application

and receiving approval from the Q&A

process, life can quickly get lonely if your

preparations are not thorough. Think of app

stores as large online shops with several

hundred thousand items in stock. Each item

is an app, sorted into categories, the smallest

category having 15,000 listed apps. Now you

need to make your app visible.

Let’s look at some of the elements

marketers could consider in preparation for

an app submission.

The app launcher icon Each app is presented with an icon. This

icon becomes the visual identity of the

app that users identify with in the stores

and when launching the app on their

INSIGHT

64

Get the best position in mobile app stores.

android app stores accepting gaming apps

name UrL description

Getjar www.getjar.com A recognised app store with millions of visitors.

Opera Mobile Store mobilestore.opera.com The leading mobile browser recently launched its own app store. Increasing popularity.

Freeware Lovers freewarelovers.com/Android A popular app directory.

Pdassi android.pdassi.com A fast growing European-focused app store.

Appoke Social App Store appoke.com A popular social app store.

Brothersoft www.brothersoft.com/mobile/android Wide reaching app store with worldwide sub affiliates.


Henrik MandaL is a ‘new media marketeer’ with extensive experience with multi-channel marketing development including a variety of online and offline channels. He is recognised as a forward thinking marketing professional, and is the man behind the mobile sportsbetting portal, Kyoogi.

native Vs HTML5: pros & consnative HTML5

Pro: Very fast as locally installed on phone Pro: Cross platform

Pro: Provides excellent user experience Pro: No local installation is needed

Pro: Utilises all phone features Pro: Easy to manage and measure

Con: Updates require new app installation Con: A new language, needs some time to mature

Con: Strict publishing rules for gaming apps Con: Network traffic can be slow

Con: Dependent on app store policies Con: Not installed on local devices

Smartphones. Make sure that your icon

follows good design principles and looks

inviting for potential users.

The app descriptionThis is probably the most important part of

your app submission. App stores usually

support both a short and long description.

With tight length restrictions, it is a

challenge to write an excellent, concise

description. Not only are users evaluating

apps based on their descriptions, but the

app store search engine will also index the

descriptions in local app search engines.

My recommendation is to make enough

time to prepare your descriptions before

you start your submission.

ScreenshotsThis the first ‘sneak preview’ users see from

your app. Make sure that screenshots are

up-to-date and use action screens that give

the user an accurate preview of the game

experience (and not screenshots of the

registration or deposit page, for example).

Promotional videos and imagesMore and more app stores now support

additional promotional images and videos

to integrate to your app inventory page.

Use this opportunity to provide additional

information about your app and use videos,

as this is an excellent presentation tool to

explain what makes it unique.

Get started todayMobile apps are still in their early stages.

There are less than one million apps on

the market, compared to over 100 million

websites, so securing a good position in app

stores is definitely possible if done correctly.

However, don’t merely submit an app to

an app store and wait for traffic to build up.

Work actively to promote your app in forums,

blogs and social media sites. Optimise your

descriptions and carefully monitor your

download metrics to understand how the

mobile ecosystem relates to your app.

For Poker Players, Webmasters &

Party People!!!

iloveonlinepoker.com


INSIGHT

66

WE HAVE ALL sat down at a restaurant

and ordered a soft-drink (e.g. 7UP) and

have been told that the restaurant only

offers the competitor (Sprite). We generally

say ‘no problem’, and happily enjoy our

meal, chug our drink and think nothing of

it. Yet, there is a small percentage of people

who decide to cancel the soft drink as the

brand offered does not appeal to them

– which translates as lost revenue to the

establishment they are eating at.

This type of scenario often occurs

within the online gambling sector, but

with casinos, poker rooms and bingo halls,

rather than soft drinks, with the affi liate

losing out on potential revenues earned.

Although there may be specifi c cases

where an affi liate needs to limit the offering

on their sites – such as when their offering

is a certain software or a very targeted site

(i.e. Bestxwyzpokerbonus.com) – there is

always room for portfolio diversifi cation

and it’s in every affi liate’s best interest to

make sure they have the right balance of

product/service diversifi cation in their

affi liate offering. Here are some of the

reasons that affi liates should really start

taking portfolio diversifi cation seriously as

those who do, simply make more revenues.

Increase revenuesStudies have shown that a vast majority of

online accounts with multiple brands enjoy

playing their favourite games with multiple

software providers. This said, affi liates want

to make sure they are taking every step in

earning revenue for each gaming account a

player opens, and this means making sure

they have an effective offering of quality

gaming products.

Spreading riskPromoting one brand or only one gaming

group may not prove to be the best risk

management strategy as the affi liate’s

entire cash fl ow is dependent on that one

source of income; should anything happen

to disturb cash fl ow, the affi liate is likely to

take a hit. Offering more products, as well

as promoting more than one gaming group

or affi liate program, better protects affi liates

from the seemingly common cash fl ow and

payment issues that the gaming industry

is subject to.

Build customer affi nityThe best kind of player is one that returns

to the affi liate for more offers. Having a

rich product offering gives players a reason

to return to a website or open a newsletter

as they know that the affi liate site gave

them a legitimate gateway to the gaming

site of their choice and when they want

more, affi liates who have more to choose

from, earn more revenues.

Be the master of your domainOK, Seinfeld jokes aside, this issue should

be taken seriously as newer affi liates

need to realise that being an affi liate is

being a business owner. What you put

in is what you pull out and one need

only look at the successful affi liates

within the industry in order to see that

each and every one of them dedicates

time, effort and interest in not only

diversifying their product portfolio, but

choosing the best possible products to

offer to their users So, affi liates need

to take charge, check each and every

program to know what to offer and, most

importantly, take a calculated approach to

making their affi liation efforts as effective

as possible.

Choosing the right strategyPortfolio diversifi cation is not entirely

black and white as there are many ways an

affi liate can choose to build their portfolio.

Everything from offering multiple brands,

multiple software providers and multiple

verticals must be considered when building

the proper organisational infrastructure and

long-term acquisition strategy.

Affi liates need to properly assess their

strategy, as unexpected issues may arise that

could increase costs and ultimately decrease

potential revenues – it may be diffi cult to

target the traffi c needed to get results as

the entire affi liate operation and product

offering is too vast to optimise effectively.

Ultimately, the most common challenge

that affi liates face when trying to offer

different products to the end user is trying

to fi gure out how many products to offer as

not to over-saturate and over-diversify the

total product offering. This can be diffi cult,

especially for newer affi liates, but with a bit

of patience of process, one can optimise the

amount to get the best monetisation results

from their product offerings.

It’s all about maximising earnings potentialAt the end of the day, affi liates who

diversify their portfolio, diversify their

earnings; so make sure that you are one of

those affi liates who has taken every step

in order to earn better revenues from your

hard earned efforts.

“Affi liates need to realise that being an affi liate is being a business owner… what you put in is what you pull out.”

Diversifying your Affi liate Offering

JOSHUA KRIMBERG is currently the affi liate director for AffStars.com, and has over six years of marketing experience in the online gaming industry


INSIGHT

67

WRITING FOR AN online gaming

magazine comes with a fair share of

risk. The relative latency of bi-monthly

print media within a fast paced industry

means any topical analysis could end up

incomplete, irrelevant or plain obsolete by

the time the copy makes it to the print rolls.

Toying with potential topics for this

column on a scorching Easter weekend in

West London, I considered addressing the

Farmer/Panda Google update and its effect

on the affi liate industry, or alternatively

something about the now infamous

US indictments.

But by the time you read this, Panda

will be history. Most affected affi liates

will be working their way back up the

rankings, and the next update – ‘Engineer’

or ‘Squirrel’ according to my sources at

Google – could be on everyone’s lips.

Equally, dust will have settled over the

US indictments and, for all we know,

AbsoluteTiltStars.com could already be live.

Topic of the day could be a US land-based

Casino Group quietly buying stakes in one

of the weakened giants. Or Playtech buying

Luxembourg. Who knows?

In the end I decided to avoid shallow

waters and settled on something long-term

and closer to home: the Virgin Games

website re-design project.

As those of you who visited us at the

LAC Affi liate Conference in London will

testify, this has been keeping us busy

for a few months now. It’s one of the

few curses of the online world: while a

downtown Vegas casino can trade happily

for decades without any need to replace

their old, nicotine-scented carpets, their

online counterparts need more than a fresh

coat of paint every few years. Regular site

overhauls are dictated by the ever-changing

design, ergonomic and social trends, as well

as technological advances. The thing with

an operator’s new website project is that

almost all business units must get a piece

of the action. Everyone has to contribute

one way or another to their new home’s

architecture and features.

The customer acquisition and affi liate

teams are amongst the most demanding

of them all. After all, a new site is a new

opportunity to address issues pertaining

to conversion rates, one of our industry-

crucial levers. Acting on this lever involves

ensuring that almost every logged-out page

features an inviting call-to-registration

module whose aim is twofold: to charm

new visitors and convince them to join.

Tools of charm inevitably include sign-up

bonuses, and any other marketing asset

that distinguishes your operation from the

crowd: a unique reward system maybe,

unique prices and events, unique games

portfolio, etc. Tools of conviction are call-to-

action assets, graphics and buttons. Their

design and labelling are more often than

not a refl ection of a company’s approach

to customer acquisition: aggressive,

‘Sign-up now or else!’ or needy, ‘Register

with us… Please’.

With our eyes fi rmly set on presenting

ourselves as an entertainment destination

rather than a hardcore gambling den,

Virgin’s approach sits pretty much in the

middle: fun, non-intrusive and inviting.

Our secret weapon? The Big Red Button.

Ultimately, what the acquisition team

expects from this exercise is a large

number of prominently placed charm

features, combined with healthy looking,

big red call-to-action buttons. A big ask,

considering our affi liate system provides

full deep-linking functionality, allowing

our affi liate partners to link to any page on

our casino, bingo and poker sites. Quite

demanding as I said, but we have to fi ght

our affi liate’s corner.

The product and retention teams also

have their own justifi ed requirements:

dynamic and customised content serving,

full CMS control, social functionalities,

to name just a few. The production,

development and IT teams want stability,

scalability, site performance and good

plumbing. The design squad seeks

creative fl exibility within the boundaries

of brand guidelines.

All things considered, such a large

scale project sounds like a cacophonous

affair, and, often, it is. The key to success

here is never to lose sight of the end

goal: increased accessibility, effi ciency

and harmony.

Now, will we achieve this harmony?

Will our design team get the last word on

a surprising colour scheme for the new

Virgin Bingo site? Will our acquisition

team get the Big Red Buttons they

so much crave?

The answers will be online in a

few weeks.

PIERRICK LEVEQUE is Head of Acquisition at Virgin Games, managing the home-grown affi liate program as part of the overall customer acquisition strategy. “Affi liate Program of the Year” EGR Awards 2010 and 2009“Best Casino/Gaming Affi liate Program” A4U Awards 2008 “Best Bingo Affi liate Manager” CAP/IGB Awards 2009W: www.virgingames.com/affi liates E: affi [email protected]: www.pierrickprk.wordpress.com T: (+44) 208 237 1563


INSIGHT

68

WE HAVE ALL become accustomed to

using the normal marketing channels

to promote our products. Most of us,

operators and affi liates alike, still make

predominant use of email marketing,

banners/media buys and the like to attract

new customers, but are these marketing

channels getting the right message across

effectively, using the latest developments

in technology?

I don’t know about you but, personally, I

get a number of emails everyday from sites

I have subscribed to (and others I didn’t)

and the reality is that even on the best of all

days I may, if I’m lucky, open a maximum

of ten percent of these emails. So it’s a fact

that 90 percent of emails I receive from

subscribed services go unnoticed and even

when I do open an email… that’s just the

start; it takes much more effort to convince

me to part with my hard-earned cash.

Nowadays, there are a number of

specialised email marketing fi rms that

help companies maximise email open rates

and the conversion rate thereafter, but the

fact is that there could be another channel

that might be more effective than email

marketing – mobile text marketing.

SMS marketingIt is a fact that I open every text message I

receive even if it’s some sort of promotion,

so the fi rst battle is won. It is then up to the

marketer to make sure that the message

delivered to the potential customer is

attractive enough to induce the person to

follow the links provided.

This form of marketing is now becoming

more and more attractive as most

mobile phone owners are switching to

Smartphones, which means better Internet

access and the ability for these potential

customers to follow links in text messages

instantaneously. The time lag that existed

between receiving a message and fi nding

a PC/Laptop to fi nd out more about

promotions received, has vanished.

Operators and affi liates wishing to take

advantage of this trend must make sure

they capture mobile phone numbers and

that this fi eld becomes as important as

the email address when capturing data. It

could also be suggested that one forgoes

email verifi cation and pushes for mobile

number verifi cation upon user registration

as this is more accurate.

I did some quick research online and

found that a number of operators are

requesting a phone number as part of their

required information to be submitted by a

registering customer, but very few of these

actually ask for mobile number (without

giving the option for work/home number).

I didn’t fi nd any operators using mobile

phone verifi cation.

Mobile optimisationAnother criterion that has become

extremely important and that most

operators are giving due attention to is

website optimisation for mobile browsers.

As consumer behaviour shifts to mobile,

marketing efforts will have to support

mobile optimised sites. Companies that

wish to attract business all day long while

customers are on-the-go, will have to

enable consumers to start and complete

transactions via mobile.

There are two major challenges for

operators and affi liates wanting to jump

on the mobile channel bandwagon. First

of all, marketers are constrained by a

much smaller screen on Smartphones

than on laptop/PC screens. This limits the

amount of information and graphics that

marketers can present on a page. Another

important potential problem to consider is

bandwidth. Bandwidth for cellular networks

is considerably less than that of landline

Internet connections, which means slower

page downloads and page loading times.

Although mobile operators are investing

in faster Internet connectivity, marketers

must make sure to build mobile sites

that support the variety of Smartphone

browsers on the market.

Be sure to conduct consumer usability

tests to ensure that the consumer

experience is consistent and that the

online user experience is replicated via the

mobile channel.

As with any online presence, web

analytics becomes crucial in analysing the

relative success of the mobile channel.

Make sure to monitor the customer

conversion rate, bounce rate and other key

indicators of visitors using mobile websites

and compare these to the analytics of

your online website. Critically assess any

signifi cant differences that emerge and

optimise the mobile website content as you

would do the online content.

The mobile revolution is already

happening – can you afford to miss the

boat? With the speed things are changing

these days, we can simply say that ‘the

future is now’. Could we already be facing

the challenge of Web 3.0 when some of us

are still contemplating Web 2.0?

In my opinion, the future will actually

move towards the integration of services

over multiple platforms (mobile and

non-mobile) in such a way that people are

connected to each other and the outside

world seamlessly. Whether we call it Web

3.0 or any other name, it won’t be long

before this will become standard practice

for everyone as social media is for most

of us today. The choice is whether to be

an innovator and start planning ahead or

be a follower and wait for others to

take the lead. Can you risk

being a follower?

Moving away from conventional marketing.

“In my opinion, the future will actually move towards the integration of services over multiple platforms (mobile and non-mobile) in such a way that people are connected to each other and the outside world seamlessly.”

MATTHEW CASTILLO is an iGaming and Affi liate Marketing specialist who has experience working for a leading affi liate software provider, providing affi liate marketing consultancy services to a number of leading iGaming operators. Matthew can be contacted on [email protected]

THE FUTURE IS NOW


INSIGHT

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HAVE YOU BEEN HIT by the recent

Panda update? If you escaped, maybe you

are a little nervous as to whether your sites

will be hit by Panda II, III, IV, or V?

If you are fed up with trying to trick

Google, here are some tips which may

help you to build content which both your

visiting traffi c and Google actually want.

1) Stop building bad quality content In the attempt to rank for volume keywords,

many affi liates have built hundreds of

sites and thousands of pages of, in the

most, pretty poor content for the reader.

The words are there purely to get the page

ranked, with little care as to whether they

are actually read, as long as a percentage

of traffi c clicks straight through to sign-up.

This has worked in the past but in the

future, content which isn’t read, let alone

shared, is unlikely to be seen amongst the

top pages of Google.

2) Get passionate people to build content for youPeople who are passionate about the

subjects you cover on your site will enjoy

writing about them and will naturally

produce good content. At OLBG.com, we

have given a group of bloggers a platform

to write about what they love. Together

they generate hundreds of pages of quality

content per day. People who fi nd the

content actually want to read it because it’s

genuine and interesting and, due to point

1) above, there isn’t much of that type of

content out there.

3) You will no longer be able to game social links effectivelyPutting up a page of content, bookmarking

the page yourself and sharing it on a couple

of social sites won’t continue to fool the

mighty Google. It looks as though the

search engine giant is spreading the factors

it uses to determine if your page is liked

by genuine visitors. As well as increasing

the volume of social indicators it looks

at, it now looks likely that Google will

assess the range, quality (authority) of the

social accounts ‘liking’ or sharing a page

of content. The spreading of these factors

looks set to continue in the future.

4) How user generated content builds your social links The bloggers who love writing for OLBG

gain us regular social links. As mentioned

earlier, passionate writers are proud of what

they write and they want to share it with

their friends and followers so they tweet

it, bookmark it or share it on Facebook

and other social networks, from where

their followers then ‘retweet’ and re-share

creating a vast e-word-of-mouth network.

5) Building your own keyword backlinks is becoming an even more dangerous businessAs Google advances in determining what

is likely to be a natural link, surely the time

spent trying to ‘game’ this becomes far too

great? Wouldn’t you be better investing this

time just building content which does gain

natural links?

6) Good quality, genuine unique content still gets linked toBy way of example, OLBG.com picks up

brand new fresh links from other websites

every day. Aside from the social links

mentioned above, the blogs at OLBG gain

links from other webmasters sharing

alternative opinions to their viewers.

Authority sites such as the BBC and Daily

Mail link to the blogs as well, to allow

their viewers more background reading/

different viewpoints on the subjects they

are interested in.

7) Easy links are almost worthlessAs Panda seemed to downgrade the value

of content on some article submission sites

and/or so called content farms, so too is

it likely that the power of the links from

these sites has been downgraded too. On

the assumption that the harder the link is

to gain, the more value it is likely to have, is

there any point wasting time trying to gain

easy links?

8) Use news and trending stories to gain links not traffi cWe see a huge amount of ‘news’ put out

by affi liates targeting specifi c keyword

terms with the hope of generating betting

accounts. In our experience, efforts on

news type content would be far better spent

trying to write awesome unique content on

trending topics with the aim of that content

being good enough to be linked to.

9) Have content on your site discussing the latest topicsBuilding a community of people interested

in your subject area will, of course,

automatically generate lots of discussion

about the latest trending topics. Live

search results are becoming of more

interest to people and are being used

more by Google. This content won’t only

rank better in search in the future, latest

opinions are more likely to get shared and

linked to as well.

10) People who are buying don’t care what you thinkMost of us want to read reviews from people

who have actually bought and used the

products or services we are interested in

and, ideally, people we know or whom we

know are respected. Genuine discussions

about bookmakers on our forums or the user

generated reviews on our bookmaker review

pages are far more powerful than any sales-

like content we could write.

Ten non-SEO guru tips to protect your sites from future Google Panda updates.

RICHARD MOFFAT joined the Sports Betting Community site OLBG as a tipster in 2004 and a year later became a full time employee. OLBG.com and its family of sites hit over one million unique visitors in April 2011 and the community now boasts over 84,000 members. OLBG also provides live odds boxes for sportsbetting sites via its award winning ValueChecker affi liate program and an industry blog at blog.invendium.co.uk.

Is your Website an Endangered Species?


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webmaster world

If you are thinking of becoming an affiliate in the iGaming industry, you have to assess what it will take to achieve a successful business venture. Things like cost and developing a strategy should be at the top of your list of considerations

The realiTy is that there is no magic formula and no exact timeframe that will guarantee financial success in affiliate marketing. What you also need to consider in order to calculate costs are the tools that you have at your disposal, your marketing channels, your knowledge of the industry you are in, and how much time you are willing to invest in developing your affiliate business.

your toolsAll beginner iGaming affiliates need a website. There are a variety of affordable options when it comes to launching your own site, which can vary from free templates to a new domain name that has never been purchased, even to acquiring an existing URL. Next, you’ll need to register for a web hosting account, which can be free or commercial. Some aspects to consider when choosing your web host are reliability, speed of access, bandwidth allotment, file type and size limitations, FTP access and the amount of web space allocated. It’s not that free is necessarily bad, but you will need to think of your long-term goals if you are to ensure that your web host can sustain your business as it grows.

In terms of your design budget, this is going to depend on whether you will be doing it yourself or hiring a designer and/or a programmer. If you will be designing your site on your own, there are a variety of free and commercial web editors out there with an abundance of free tutorials to help you. Keep in mind at this stage that the design elements, navigability and basic attractiveness of your website are important considerations both in terms of how well your site will rank and how it will attract and, more importantly, retain visitors. The question to consider here is how much value will a professional website designer bring to your business? If you have no programming or design skills, this investment could be money well spent.

The real challenge here is not launching your website, but gaining and retaining traffic. The cost of this really comes down to time and you can safely plan on six to 12 months to get a healthy position in the search engines. Your content needs to be relevant to search terms most used by your target market. To find what people are searching for, relative to your niche, you can use tools like Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool. Here, you can enter the topic of your website, and it will display

keyword phrases that are relevant, as well as the intensity of the competition for those terms.

To get the most out of your chosen keywords, they should be used in several places. First, use them in your meta description and the title of your page. If you have a blog, you can often download plug-ins (depending on the type of blog software you are using) to help you accomplish this easily. Secondly, they must be used in the text of your copy. Use keywords or keyword phrases once every 60 to 80 words for best results. Search engine optimisation is also based on how many links point to your site. It is good practice to connect with other affiliates to share links. Remember, the higher their pages rank, the more clout links from those sites carry.

your marketing channelsIn the last section, we quickly touched on the value of SEO. While SEO is time consuming, it’s free if you do it yourself, and can save you from having to spend as much on paid advertising, if you do it well. It can be strategic to have a varied marketing mix, especially when you are a beginner and are uncertain about what works best for you and your skill set.

insight


The cost of marketing will depend on the marketing mix that you explore. To create an affordable balance, it is a good idea to combine free marketing with paid marketing, at least while you get your affiliate feet wet. In terms of paid marketing, pay per click (PPC) tends to be one of the more expensive options available but, at the same time, may provide faster results when done right. Unlike investing in a good SEO strategy, however, where the time and effort you put in can have a long-term impact, with PPC, once payments stop, so do the benefits. In the iGaming industry, bidding on keywords can also be expensive and as an affiliate there are strict rules to follow in order to launch a campaign.

If you are exploring the area of email marketing, you will have to consider creating a database. As a beginner, you may not have a mailing list, or you may have a limited one, in which case, you can do what some companies have done and purchase a list of names. This can be very pricey. Make sure you create an opt-in section on your site so you can eventually have a targeted list of users who are confirming that they are eager to receive your content.

There are a number of ‘free’ marketing strategies available to bring traffic to your new affiliate site. They include things like social media, blogging and forums. As you consider these options, make sure to keep in mind that while there may be no cost to using these tools, the time invested on your part can be significant.

Your marketing options can certainly go far beyond what has been suggested here, but testing and tracking is the key to analysing your performance. Knowing how well your marketing campaigns are

doing is vital to the survival of an affiliate marketer. Without the proper information on where campaigns are succeeding or failing, it will be impossible to know where adjustments need to be made. So whether you are into PPC, SEO, bonus codes, rakeback, blogging, social networking or emailing, one thing that can’t be overlooked is measurability and ROI. On this note, while a marketing channel like PPC may be expensive, if it’s bringing you an incredible return, then the cost is relative. The same is true of free marketing endeavours like blogging, for example – while there is little cost here, if you’re not converting players with your copywriting skills, then ‘free’ begins to look pretty expensive.

your knowledge The knowledge factor is twofold: how much do you know about affiliate marketing and how much do you know about the vertical you are promoting? These two considerations go hand-in-hand, as it is easier to start marketing something that you are passionate about, rather than promoting something simply because it is lucrative. Stick with what you love, and the money will follow.

That being said, there is a wealth of knowledge at your disposal that you can leverage as a member of an affiliate community. The iGaming space is renowned for its forums where both rookies and experts are welcome to exchange ideas, ask questions and get an abundance of information on the industry. Conferences are another great place to attain more knowledge in your vertical. They provide you with an ideal meeting place to find expert affiliates who have combed the same grounds that

you are now navigating as a new affiliate. And finally, when choosing an affiliate program, make sure to keep your affiliate manager top of mind, especially when you’re just starting your business. A good affiliate manager is critical to your success, especially in the early stages. So while you may be tempted to choose programs based on their commission structure only, keep in mind that it is the affiliate manager of the program that has the ability to develop meaningful relationships and support their affiliates that can make the biggest impact for your start-up.

your timeAs an affiliate, time is one of your greatest resources and assets. Your business is only as successful as the time you dedicate to making it successful. It is what allows you to monitor your campaigns, measure the effectiveness of your marketing channels and make enhancements as you progress.

In essence, time is the one thing that allows you to continue repeating the efforts that generate a strong return on investment. It also helps you learn to steer clear of campaigns, programs, marketing creative, designs, calls-to-action, etc, that just don’t work. Without time, you can have all the money in the world, but if you can’t create continuity, your traffic will eventually dry up and your affiliate business can end up being a financial drain instead of a financial investment.

“As an affiliate, time is one of your greatest resources and assets. Your business is only as successful as the time you dedicate to making it successful.”

Nicky SeNyard is ceO of income access, overseeing their independent iGaming affiliate network, market-leading affiliate software and expert affiliate management services.

Join the CAP Community Today!www.CasinoAffiliatePrograms.cominfo@casinoaffiliateprograms.com

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Increase Your ProfitsAffiliates earn 15% more (on average) from programs by joining through CAP.

Ratings and ReviewsEnsure you are working with reputable programs — our members provide the largest amount of independent ratings && reviews from fellow affiliates.

Complaint Resolution SystemWe bridge the gap between operators and affiliates — we have a private system for listed program and a public forum for unlisted programs.

Free Member ForumsOOur forums are a great resource for affiliates to share insights in the industry.


webmaster world

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The idea that you can only profit from branding in the stream is a fabrication made by those who have likely attempted and failed to tame the beast. The creative marketer can, and will, benefit from social media, like any marketing channel, if they can learn that the social user is simply a different style of customer.

There are basically two places I have not seen a company in gaming completely dominate:1) Social content2) Facebook

That is not to say that there are not gaming companies doing amazing jobs. It is simply to say the space is still uncluttered, and ripe for creative companies to begin to draw players.

Social contentWhen I talk about social content I am speaking about what historically has been utilised by online publishers to draw visitors and reap CPM rewards. This traffic comes spilling from forums, Digg, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and niche social sites to view and interact with amazing content. It is the basic concept of creating catchy headlines, interesting articles/media and propagating it through the web.

Businesses have shown that there are ways to make ‘social’ have positive returns.

Mint, WePay and a host of other US-based start-ups are using social content to fuel brand recognition, customer acquisition and even corporate acquisitions. It is really not much different than the concept of optimising your newsrooms for Google News. But why, then, is there not a major gaming company with the kind of presence in the social space that the above companies share? Because gaming companies feel the need to push gaming as hard as possible, and convert every visitor into a depositor. Social traffic will not convert in the traditional sense, EVER, and this is where gaming companies lose the ROI perspective.

What it will convert in is the following:1) Repeat visitors to whom you can drive

pop-overs based on entry funnels.

2) Newsletter sign-ups.3) Brand recognition (anyone who says this

isn’t important should look at the budget they are spending in London on public signage).

4) Online reputation management.5) Improved search traffic.6) The cross-pollination of content via

Facebook and Twitter ‘like’ buttons.

Each of these items can easily have a dollar amount assigned to it within your organisation, as it is likely you are already driving downloads via these methods in some fashion. Except, the volume available via social media is staggering, even outside of the US where adoption of social media is growing.

FacebookBeyond being a growing phenomenon, this social platform has become the ‘walled garden’ of the new decade. People live and breathe within this portal and, unfortunately, the gaming community was not invited to the party.

Despite not being able to leverage the platform for onsite gaming, Facebook offers a lot of value to the competent marketer. This is especially true with iframes replacing FBML. The iframe replacement allows any offsite content to be pulled into Facebook pages, meaning that Flash, HTML and images can all be pulled from offsite.

Creative web teams can leverage this into off-site promotions via:1) Newsletter sign-ups2) Incentive-based Flash applications

The best part of this is that if you are willing to think outside of the brand box, the

rewards from Facebook’s demo targeted ad system and some killer content can be quite substantial. If you are willing to look outside of the onsite, direct-to-download conversion and get creative with off-brand content, you can find immense value in Facebook. With a gifted Flash developer, CSS/HTML developer and a designer, you can create extensive returns in the channel that will exceed anything being spent offline.

That is really where the pivotal point is. Stop gauging social campaigns against search. They are not search. They will not convert the same, and they are not even close to being similar in practice. Be willing to accept the fact that this is a different type of online marketing, similar, in many regards, to other online media programmes, and even nicely ‘trackable’. The key difference is that in order to unlock its true value, you must be willing to interact with your customer. In essence, you must ‘earn’ their business.

The way to the social user’s heart is through interesting content that they can share with their social graph. It is that simple, and that complex.

“Social traffic will not convert in the traditional sense, EVER, and this is where gaming companies lose the ROI perspective.”

dave Snyder is SVP of Product Development at BlueGlass. Dave is a world renowned Internet Marketing Consultant and has spoken around the world on search marketing and social media, and has consulted for some of the world’s largest companies. Dave parlayed his gifts as a former teacher and writer into his current role as a thought leader in the arena of search marketing. He is also one of the publishers of SearchEngineJournal and DailySEOTip, where he shares his unique perspective on concepts related to search marketing. Dave’s strengths lie in both organic and paid search marketing, and he excels in utilising social media for brand building and online reputation management. Dave is considered one of the foremost authorities on link marketing.

With the saturation of search marketing in online gaming, and the clampdown on US players, the world of social media is becoming more alluring to gaming companies and online marketers who must fight for every depositor. However, if you don’t know what you are doing the cost can be immense and the return small.

73.indd 73 16/05/2011 20:01

iGB Affi liate june/july 2011

WEBMASTER WORLD

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WEBMASTER WORLD

A/B TESTING is a method of marketing testing widely used in the iGaming industry by operators to evaluate various elements of their webpage, such as registrations, marketing tools and landing pages. The value of A/B testing, also known as split testing and bucket testing, is equally important to your affi liate site, and yet is often underutilised. The goal of A/B testing is to increase your response rate and as an affi liate in a competitive fi eld, this is paramount. If you have already incorporated A/B testing methods in your affi liate business and keep this as a recurring activity, then you have begun to identify areas of your online business that yield the best results for your specifi c end goal.

Testing really isn’t an option in affi liate marketing. It’s a must. It’s what allows you to repeat what works and avoid costly mistakes. Here’s a guide to introduce you to A/B testing, and help you begin to yield your best affi liate marketing results yet.

What is A/B testing?Put simply, A/B testing can be used to cultivate your website’s traffi c and potential conversions in the same way a farmer would seed his crops in the hope of a more bountiful harvest. Basically, you need to be willing to work the land and try a variety of methods if you want to generate the highest possible yields. A/B testing is all about variety, analysis and refi nement.

The genius of A/B testing is that it is, a) theoretically quite simple and, b) practically can be as complicated and in-depth as you see fi t for your business. By

taking two versions of the same website and comparing the performance of each based on your metrics of choice, you can determine if your current site has already reached its zenith. More likely, however, you will be assessing whether your site could use some slight modifi cations or a complete overhaul in order to increase traffi c and revenue fi gures.

The practicality of A/B testingAs we all know, quality player registrations are what lead to quality revenue, and unless you instinctively have your fi nger on the pulse of your target markets, you will want to rely on A/B testing to some extent to get into the heads of potential players. Ultimately, you are doing both yourself and

your potential converting traffi c a favour, as you are making a conscious effort to provide them with a product they have already confi rmed that they want supplied.

To better illustrate this concept, a hypothetical case study seems appropriate:

If an affi liate were considering replacing one or more of the ads displayed on their site or modifying some other aesthetic feature of signifi cance, they would be well-advised to use A/B testing. This would allow them to direct a certain portion of

their traffi c through to the test site with the updated banners, while keeping the majority of traffi c passing through the standard site with the original banners.

This is just an example of one of the many aspects of your site that could either attract or repel players that can also be better assessed through the use of A/B testing. Those other aspects include everything from the aesthetic make-up of a website to the writing style used.

Getting down to testingThere are a variety of tools that can be used to actually carry-out your A/B testing. Some of the better known names in the industry include: Google Website Optimizer, Optimizely, Ninja Button and

Visual Website Optimizer, to name just a few. And while an entire article could be written analysing the strengths, weaknesses and pricing of each of these tools, this is an area where some diligent research and investigation will guide you to the choice that is right for you.

One of the things to keep in mind when reviewing the available tools is evaluating what type of A/B testing you want to perform. There are a couple of options available.

“There is little doubt that A/B testing will continue to gain in popularity and eventually be discussed with the same regularity as other tactics such as search engine optimisation.”

INSIGHT

tHE DOs anD DOn’ts OF a/B tEstinG FOR HiGHER COnVERsiOns


The first option is where a modification has been made that requires the display of an entirely new webpage for the site. For instance, you may want to test the receptiveness towards a new skin that you are considering implementing. In this case, you would need to set-up an entirely separate URL to accurately measure this feature’s effectiveness.

If you are testing a more isolated element, such as a variety of banner styles, your site can be set-up to rotate the desired variations on the same page. You will then be provided a statistical breakdown of which banner style performed the best based on your selected metric of conversion.

Standard rules of A/B testingThere are some fundamental rules by which to conduct A/B testing to ensure that the time and effort you put in here yield the improved results that you are seeking. Here are a few tips to consider: 1. Regardless of how many different

variations of the same feature or element you plan on testing (i.e. different version of a new skin), it is crucial to make

sure that all permutations are tested at the same time. This ensures that all environmental factors are consistent throughout each variation.

2. Do not test too many different elements at once (i.e. skin, banners and font), as you want to be able to narrow down the one or two most crucial elements that could be improved or amended to make your site more attractive and successful. The more elements being tested at once, the less effective you will be at targeting the most important site changes.

3. The lifespan of your testing is also an important factor to consider. Just because a football club loses the first couple of matches of the season does not necessarily make it a lost cause. Then again, if that same team continues to lose games as the season progresses, you may want to consider putting your money down on a different club. The items of your A/B testing should be treated in a similar manner. Your new page set-up might not give instantaneous results but extending the

lifetime of your testing will provide a more accurate analysis.

4. A degree of humility will be necessary for successful testing and implementation. That says nothing of the importance of having implicit trust in your testing tool, which is why it is crucial to choose carefully.

There is little doubt that A/B testing will continue to gain in popularity and eventually be discussed with the same regularity as other tactics such as search engine optimisation. And as that popularity increases, the more likely it is that progressively more in-depth analytical tools and strategies will be developed to help affiliates make better decisions through their testing.

Justin Way is an account Manager at income access. in this role, Justin assists with the integration and training of new clients, as well as providing support on a daily basis to an existing roster of partners.


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How to get huge payoffs with landing page optimisation

IN THE ONLINE marketing world, a lot of time and resources are spent buying media, tracking pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, driving organic traffi c via SEO to landing pages, and installing and customising web analytics software to properly track online marketing activities. Dedicated in-house or agency staff craft keyword lists, write ad copy, and manage keyword bidding to achieve the proper profi tability, cost per action (CPA), and return on investment (ROI). Copywriters adjust headlines and sales copy to improve click-through rates (CTRs).

You may agonise over every word in your emails, test headlines and offers, and analyse ‘bounce rates’, ‘open rates’ and ‘unsubscribe rates’ with almost religious fervour. But what are you doing after the click? Are you giving nearly as much attention to optimising your site to improve conversions as you are in driving traffi c to it?

The shifting role of marketingMarketing departments are often evaluated on the volume of traffi c they can generate. Their goals include maximising CTR and lowering CPC. Conversion, or what visitors do once they are on the site, is seen as a sales activity.

But the Internet has blurred the traditional distinctions between marketing and sales. People are not only accustomed to self-service, they have an expectation that when they arrive at your site from an ad, email or search engine, it will be easy for them to fi nd exactly what they want. If they don’t, you’ve lost a sale.

Because of this self-serve mentality, the conversion effi ciency of your landing page is one of the biggest profi t drivers under your control. Are you getting your visitors through to your conversion goals? Many marketers think they are, and it is costing their companies a lot of money in the

form of missed opportunity. Even a good landing page can be improved, and small improvements can have a dramatic impact on your company’s profi tability.

Double digit conversion gainsLanding page optimisation and testing can often produce double digit conversion rate improvements and transform the economics of an online business. But where do you begin? How do you know which landing page elements will perform best?

Your web analytics can provide many important clues to uncover and prioritise potential site problems:

Most visited contentIf a key page is not getting enough traffi c, it may be necessary to move it to a more prominent location on your website, or to create more links to it from other popular pages.

Path analysisPath analysis allows you to see the sequences of pages that visitors use to traverse your site. It may be possible to change the position of key conversion pages or links within the site to benefi t from such ‘drive-by’ visibility.

Top entry pagesA list of the top entry pages shows you the point of fi rst contact with your site. Generally, the more traffi c that is hitting a landing page, the more attention that page deserves in terms of conversion tuning. Traffi c levels can help you to prioritise the landing pages that need to be fi xed fi rst.

Top exit pagesExit pages are the places where visitors leave your site. Each exit page can be viewed as a leaky bucket. If visitors exit your site, they probably did not fi nd what they were looking for. High ‘bounce rates’ on high

traffi c pages are a red fl ag indicating that those pages need attention.

Funnel analysisRegardless of your visitors’ initial wandering path on your website, they must often pass through a well-defi ned series of pages in order to convert. The funnel narrows as people drop off during each step. High drop-off percentages may signal that a particular step is especially problematic.

In addition to using your analytics to uncover problems, take a ruthless look at your landing page as if you were viewing it for the fi rst time. Does it have a lot of visual clutter, such as unnecessary, gratuitous graphics that distract people from looking at your call-to-action? Is your call-to-action clear? Is your copywriting bogged down with marketing fl uff? Do you promise one thing in your pay-per-click ad, but fail to mention it on the landing page? Or maybe you do mention it, but it’s buried among too many choices?

With these basic considerations in mind, you can start exploring variations to your landing page that you could test against the original to fi nd the perfect recipe for conversions.

Timeless testing themesUsing your analytics and ruthlessly evaluating your website is likely to give you plenty of ideas on what you could tweak and test on your landing page. If you’re still feeling stumped, here are some broad themes that you can adapt and explore:

Less is moreAlthough the general idea of de-cluttering is powerful throughout the decision process, this testing theme has an especially powerful impact on improving visitor awareness. If visitors do not recognise quickly that you have something

MAKE YOUR ONLINE CAMPAIGNS WIN BIG WIN!

iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2011 77

in which they might be interested, they will leave your site immediately. These short-timers are the ones who have ‘bounced’ and not clicked on any other links from the original landing page. They represent a significant problem.

Within this problem lies the opportunity for clearing away the clutter and significantly increasing the number of people who have meaningful interactions with your site. ‘Less is more’ applies to a whole range of test elements:●● Fewer and smaller graphics.●● Shorter bulleted text.●● Reduced number of choices and links.

Cut until you can’t stand it anymore, and then cut some more. You will be surprised at how little content is needed on a well-designed landing page. Don’t be afraid to try radically stripped-down alternative test elements.

Personalise itPersonalisation builds desire and affinity for your particular solution. Customisation can be a powerful conversion tool. Personalisation can be tested using a wide array of available tactics. Some examples include:●● Echo the keywords that visitors used to find your landing page as the page title.●● Pre-populate your search box with the text of the keywords that visitors used to find your landing page.●● Present localised content by using geo-targeting information.●● Do not require people to log-in if they have been there before.●● Fill in checkout information for returning e-commerce buyers.●● Customise content-by-visitor role once someone has self-selected.●● Allow visitors to configure your product or service offering.●● Display deeper or richer content to those who have shown enough commitment (based on page views or time on your site).●● Show last-minute special offers via exit pop-ups to visitors who are about to leave your site without converting.●● Follow up by phone or email if someone abandons your registration process part of the way through.●● Proactively initiate a live chat session if your visitor is clearly struggling with something on your site.

Of course, you have to be careful to use personalisation properly. It can be very effective. However, if your tactics are unexpected they can backfire and become off-putting in a ‘big brother’ sort of way.

Test the offerUltimately, it is your offer that gets a visitor to act. However, when considering specific testing elements, there are many ways that you can influence someone:●● The primary offer.●● The total solution surrounding the offer (as discussed previously).●● Headline.●● Sales copy.●● Images chosen.●● Call-to-action text and graphical format.●● Repetition of the call-to-action in multiple screen locations and formats.●● Offer context (e.g., by bracketing the desired action in a bronze/silver/gold set of options).●● Limited availability or other scarceness indicators (e.g., deadlines, remaining inventory).●● Pricing.

Test and tune your way to higher conversionsFinding the perfect combination of elements for your landing page is not a question of design or opinion. You may have some brilliant marketers on your team, but the only experts who really matter are your visitors. The landing page that delivers the highest conversion rate may not be your favourite or even your second favourite. Testing is critical to remove personal biases. And the success of the first test is critical for establishing the long-term momentum for subsequent tests. Here are some testing tips that you can pursue as you get started.

Start smallA great way to start your testing program is with a small test. Once you have demonstrated your ability to pull off a complete end-to-end landing page experiment, you should have enough support to continue. The key to this approach is to appear nonthreatening and not ask for a lot of help. Components of a small test may include:●● Unimportant landing page: do not try to fix your homepage or highest-traffic landing pages first. Such efforts may be actively resisted before you have proven yourself. Pick a secondary landing page that has a reasonable amount of traffic (perhaps from a single online marketing campaign).

●● Small diversion of traffic: if you have only one landing page, you can still conduct your test by diverting a small percentage of the traffic to testing alternatives. This will guarantee that even if your tested alternatives underperform the current

baseline, the overall drop in conversion rate will be small.

●● Simple page changes: if you make simple changes such as headlines, sales copy, and call-to-action buttons, you won’t need much outside support to create your alternative test elements. You can also make such changes in a short amount of time.

●● Basic test structure: use A/B split testing (either on a granular or coarse level) for the test. The data analysis is simple – there are no complex variable interactions or complex design matrices to worry about.

●● Low-cost testing platform: several low-cost tools are available for running basic A/B split and multivariate tests. Many of them are hosted on the Internet and do not even require installation. An excellent choice for this purpose is the free Google Website Optimizer tool.

But remember, your test must still produce results that are meaningful. This means your data rate must be high enough to complete the test in a reasonable period of time, and the financial impact (or at least the percentage of improvement in the conversion rate) must be significant. Don’t run your test if the data rate will be too low, or if the proposed test elements are unlikely to produce conversion improvements on the landing page.

Now it’s time to get startedLanding page optimisation is part art and part science. It requires many diverse skills including design, usability, copywriting, psychology, statistics and project management. But the payoffs from a disciplined landing page testing program are simply too great. Ignore this critical activity at your own peril.

Tim Ash is the President and CEO of siteTuners, a landing page optimization firm that offers consulting, full-service guaranteed-improvement tests and state-of-the-art software tools to improve conversion rates. he is the author of the bestselling book Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions (John Wiley & sons Press, 2008) LandingPageOptimizationBook.com. Tim can be reached by email at [email protected].

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Duncan Fisher, Head of PPC at Latitude, explores PPC and the mobile opportunity.

The latter half of 2010 saw mobile Internet search take off, with remarkable growth stimulated by not only the iconic iPhone 4 and iPad releases during last summer, but also a wave of new Android devices hitting the market at ever more affordable price points. Research carried out by Latitude digital agency has seen this trend continue in 2011. The first quarter of 2011 saw mobile paid search impressions level out at approximately 6% of total ad impressions, falling slightly from a peak of 6.7% in December 2010. This statistic in isolation might imply mobile search is nearing saturation, however, mobile click volumes have continued to increase, reaching 6.7% of total paid search click volume in March.

This trend reflects rising click through rates (CTR) resulting from refined targeting by marketers, and increased consumer engagement with mobile as a search medium. Mobile ads continue to see significantly higher click through rates than desktop, rising to 4.9% in March compared to 3.3% for desktop.

So what does this all mean? Well, if you are in charge of a sizeable online marketing budget then it would be wise to have a mobile marketing strategy in place. As mentioned above, consumer engagement with mobile ads appears to be improving, demonstrated by increases in CTR. Below are some of the

key considerations for advertisers to bear in mind for paid search marketing on mobile.

Develop a mobile siteThe majority of users will engage with your product/service by landing on your website as opposed to purchasing a mobile commerce app. If landing on a non-mobile friendly site, advertisers risk losing potential customers through poor user experience. Quick page loading time is vital for mobile devices, hence:●● If using a standard HTML landing page, avoid Flash.●● Use a page with minimal JavaScript (although this is required for Analytics).●● Large buttons and hyperlinks to make it easier for users to click.●● On page simplicity – make sure content is to the point, and calls-to-action are prominent and high on the page.

Optimise your Google AdWords accountGoogle currently dominates approximately 98% of mobile paid search traffic in the UK. Through AdWords, you can setup a mobile targeted campaign to ensure maximum traffic is yielded within your target ROI. Here are some best practice guidelines:●● Create separate mobile campaigns, targeting mobile devices only.●● Target devices (iPhone, Android and

iPad) separately as users are likely to respond different to your offering in different ways.●● Effective keyword strategy. Target one to three keyword search terms as queries tend to be shorter on mobile.●● Use mobile specific calls-to-action within ad copy; “call us now”, “text for info”, “click to download app”. ●● Implement click to call ads if possible and schedule ads to display when your call centre is open. Send traffic to an online conversion page when the call centre is closed.●● Aggressive bidding strategy. Position one/two on mobile is recommended as sponsored listings occupy the majority of the initial SERP real estate. ●● For localised activity, make use of Google Places, location extensions and geo-targeted mobile campaigns. Geo-targeting is more accurate for mobile than it is for desktops.

Track and monitor effectivelyIt’s a must to ensure effective analytics are in place to track mobile activity. Advertisers should be monitoring this activity constantly, with mobile activity growing and user behaviour constantly evolving and adapting to the channel. It requires regular testing and refining of campaigns to find the right keywords and messaging to drive relevant traffic to your site.

Whilst desktop searches may continue to dominate the overall search market share, it’s becoming widely accepted that mobile Internet search activity will exceed desktop at some point over the next few years. The role for all online marketing mediums will be significant as search engines and marketers continue to adapt their search offerings. Some of the things that we can expect to see develop are more in-line with desktop marketing opportunities; behavioural and demographic targeting through both mobile web and applications. From a PPC perspective, now is a great opportunity for advertisers to take advantage of low cost CPCs, averaging 30 to 40% lower than desktop, depending on the sector. With increasing volumes on mobile, this will change and it won’t be long before the increased competition across mobile search terms leads to CPCs more in-line with desktop. So the key message is, if you’re not taking mobile marketing seriously now, get on it before the competition leaves you behind!

“Whilst desktop searches may continue to dominate the overall search market share, it’s becoming widely accepted that mobile Internet search activity will exceed desktop at some point over the next few years.”

Sessions include:Unlocking Apps Stores & M-webMobile Marketing Linking Into Social Networks CRM & Data Billing & Payment Products and Services Branding Tie-Ups Licences, Regulation and JurisdictionsM-Gambling at Live Events Crossing the Channels

JoinTelemedia 360 and iGaming Business for the first event dedicated to mobile gambling.

With two conference tracks over one day, numerous networking opportunities and an exhibition floor to enjoy this is an event not to be missed if you are serious about finding a space in the mobile gambling market.

Expect to hear from and meet the leading players from the worlds of mobile and iGaming, and take the time to enjoy an exclusive networking party at a top London venue to round off the day.

www.mgamingSummit.com

June 15th, 2011

The King’s Fund, 11–13 Cavendish Square

London, W1G 0AN


marketplace

advertising & Pr

Frontroom

www.frontroom.com

GameOn Marketing

www.gameon-marketing.com

Lyceum PR

www.lyceummedia.com

Market Handle

www.markethandle.com

McBoom

www.mcboom.com

Bingo affiliate Programs

Affiliates United

www.affutd.com

bet 365

www.bet365.com

Dragonfish

www.dragonfishaffiliates.com

Gala Coral

www.affiliates.galabingo.com

StarGames

www.stargames.com

Casino affiliate Programs

AffiliateClub

www.AffiliateClub.com

Affiliates United

www.affutd.com

Bet365

www.bet365.com

BetOnline

www.affiliates.betonline.com

Betfair

www.betfair.com

bwin

www.bwin.org

centrebet.com

www.centrebetaffiliates.com

Chilli Casino

www.chilicasino.com

ComeOn!

www.comeon.com

Dragonfish


EuroPartners

www.EuroPartmers.com

Fortune Affiliates

www.fortuneaffiliates.eu

Gala Coral


Genesys Affiliates

www.genesysaffiliates.com

Grande Vegas Affiliates

www.grandvegasaffiliates.com

Guru gaming

www.gururevenue.com

Intertops Casino

www.intertops.com

Jackpot Capital www.jackpotcapital.com/affiliates

PartnerLogic

www.partnerlogic.com

Rich Club Affiliates

www.richclubaffiliates.com

Slotland

www.slotlandaffiliates.com

StanJames

www.stanjamesaffiliates.com

Star Games

www.stargames.com

Star Partner

www.starpartner.com

Wingate Affiliates

www.wingateaffiliates.com

youwin.com

www.youwin.com

Content & translation

serviCes

Welcome to the MarketPlace listings

section in iGB Affiliate Magazine.

All Listings below are from our

iGB Affiliate Directory 2011 which

is a 150 page directory of affiliate

programs and services companies

specifically for affiliates from translation

to SEO services.

To request a free copy of this

publication or to have your company

listed please contact Richard W on

E: [email protected] or

T: +44 (0) 207 954 3437


Market Handle


Moniker & SnapNames

www.moniker.com

email marketing

Market Handle


Hosting & managed serviCes

Moniker & SnapNames

www.moniker.com

Poker affiliate Programs

AffiliateClub

www.AffiliateClub.com

Affiliates United

www.affutd.com

Bet365

www.bet365.com

Betfair

www.betfair.com

bwin

www.bwin.org

centrebet.com


Chilli Poker

www.chilipoker.com

ComeOn!

www.comeon.com

Dragonfish


EuroPartners


Gala Coral


Intertops Casino

www.intertops.com

PartnerLogic

www.partnerlogic.com

PKR

www.pkr.com

Poker Pod

www.pokerpodonline.com

StanJames


Star Games

www.stargames.com

youwin.com

www.youwin.com

searCH marketing (organiC)

Market Handle


McBoom

www.mcboom.com

Moniker & SnapNames

www.moniker.com

searCH marketing (Paid)

Market Handle


McBoom

www.mcboom.com

Moniker & SnapNames

www.moniker.com

skill gaming affiliate

Programs

Affiliates United

www.affutd.com

bet 365

www.bet365.com

bwin

www.bwin.org

Gala Coral


Rummy Royal

www.rummyroyal.com

StanJames


StarGames

www.stargames.com

sPorts Betting

Affiliates United

www.affutd.com

Bet365

www.bet365.com

BetOnline

www.affiliates.betonline.com

Betfair

www.betfair.com

bwin

www.bwin.org

centrebet.com


EuroPartners


ExtraBet

www.extrabet.com

Gala Coral


Hollywood Sportsbook

www.hollywoodpowerplayer.com

Intertops

www.intertops.com

Invendium

http://affiliates.valuechecker.co.uk

Sportingbet

www.sportingbet.com

StanJames


TOTE Sport

www.totesportaffiliates.com

Victor Chandler

www.victorchandler.com

youwin.com

www.youwin.com

weBdesign

Market Handle


Moniker & SnapNames

www.moniker.com

iGB Affiliate JUNE/JULY 2011

webmaster world

82

On April 15, 2011, the online poker industry was forever changed by the United States Department of Justice. The Department of Justice seized the domains of PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, AbsolutePoker.com, and UltimateBet.com, as well as issued indictments against the principals of these companies. Jeremy Enke, Founder of Poker Affiliate Listings, explores.

The Future for Poker Affiliates

WhilE thErE arE indeed still a small number of poker sites for US players to play at, this has decimated the income of many poker affiliates. Many poker affiliates are questioning whether they even want to remain in the industry.

Regardless of the current state of affairs, I still believe that the poker affiliate industry is one of the most profitable and exciting affiliate niches to operate within. Unfortunately, given the recent developments, it is also one of the most uncertain industries to be in.

With that said, it is important for poker affiliates to diversify their businesses and leverage their Internet marketing prowess into other affiliate verticals. Any individual that can be successful in a highly competitive industry such as poker affiliate marketing will surely be able to emulate that success into different niches.

Let’s face it; the future of online poker for US poker players is widely unknown right now. There is no doubt that US players will always have options to play online poker. However, where they can play and how they can process their deposits is still evolving. For poker affiliates, this makes long-term

strategy and planning nearly impossible.Most in the industry agree that in the

future, we will see some form of online poker regulation in the United States. When this does transpire, it will more than likely be led by lobbyists and Las Vegas casinos. In this scenario, it’s difficult to predict exactly what the poker affiliate landscape will look like.

My guess, however, is those incentive schemes such as rakeback, and even revenue sharing for affiliates, will be eliminated. The new face of online poker will more than likely resemble VIP and player rewards programs such as you currently see in the Las Vegas casinos.

With a more limited number of online poker sites available to US players, there is no doubt that the player values will increase. Unfortunately, I foresee the payouts and commission amounts to affiliates decreasing. My vision of the poker affiliate industry, should regulation take place, is one that closely resembles a more

mainstream or retail affiliate structure.With regulation, you’ll also see a new

breed of affiliate marketers who once thought of online gaming to be ‘illegal’ or a ‘grey area’. These marketers will bring with them additional skill sets such as pay per click and retargeting strategies that are not actively being used in the current US poker affiliate market.

In closing, it is impossible to predict exactly what the online poker landscape will look like a year from now, let alone one month from now. Regardless of how things wind up, there will always be an opportunity for poker affiliates and Internet marketers to earn an income in the online poker industry.

In the meantime, the best strategy for poker affiliates is to diversify their businesses and stay informed on the daily changes taking place within the industry. Those who learn to quickly adapt to these changes will be the poker affiliates that continue seeing success for many years to come.

“The new face of online poker will more than likely resemble VIP and player rewards programs such as you currently see in the Las Vegas casinos.”

oPinion

iGB Affiliate 27 Jun/Jul 2011

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Transcript of iGB Affiliate 27 Jun/Jul 2011