Getting ahead of the game

In the space of a few short months since acquiring our licences from the GB Gambling Commission and the Malta Gaming Authority, JeffBet has built a successful online sports betting and casino brand.

The online gambling sector is highly competitive, with many operators jostling for position as the go-to option for players in their respective jurisdictions. For new businesses, building a player base and carving out a space of your own can be challenging.

New brands should leverage proven acquisition methods to scale quickly and more efficiently. Affiliate partnerships are an avenue that offers operators an established means of accessing new customers.

The value of an affiliate partner

With an already established history as an important part of any operator’s growth strategy, affiliates provide a ton of value to operators seeking to acquire new players.

Any affiliate site worth its salt has built a solid, consistent readership – this is valuable to an operator for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, the sheer size of an affiliate site’s audience and reach is something that takes significant time, resources and effort to build. Particularly if you’re a new operator looking to ramp up quickly, building a native audience for your brand could ultimately be rewarding but not necessarily viable at this stage of your company’s lifecycle.

By partnering with an affiliate site, you immediately gain access to a wide readership, benefiting from its multitude of traffic sources. You can get eyeballs on your brand much faster, driving awareness by leveraging the affiliate site’s network.

An affiliate partnership also allows your brand to benefit from your partner’s awareness and reputation. Affiliate sites spend a lot of time cultivating an audience and establishing trust with their readers.

With your content and marketing existing within the affiliate site’s scope you have an implicit level of trust and legitimacy in your communications. This allows you to spend less time getting caught up in explanations and self-justification and more time demonstrating the value you provide to players, be it through the product offering and markets available, through to bonuses and promotions.

Additionally, affiliates can provide independent review content to easily and effectively communicate new developments, products and features you roll out. In-depth reviews such as these are an important tool for sports betting and casino operators as affiliate reviewers will provide important end-user feedback.

Further, published review content also offers potentially more feedback coming from a wide range of readers – giving you more opportunities to optimise and cater to your players.

What to look for in an affiliate partner

At JeffBet, affiliates have been a key part of our rapid rise and success, but it isn’t just about signing with any affiliate. In order to get the value you’re seeking, you need to do your research on the myriad of affiliates in operation. Knowing what makes a good affiliate is more than half the challenge.

Any decent affiliate will have a website or websites with clear demonstrable value for you. The affiliate should be able to clearly and easily show you the numbers behind their website(s), not just in terms of readership but also in terms of click-throughs and conversions.

If you’re looking for brand awareness reach is fine, but if you want to acquire new customers the affiliate should be able to demonstrate the efficacy of any marketing or advertising spend.

In line with this, look for an affiliate that is an effective communicator, to both readers and you. Clarity in messaging is essential for an affiliate – without it, you may struggle to cut through in this competitive market.

You should also look for an affiliate partner that wants to foster a long-term relationship. A big part of affiliate marketing is about cultivating an audience by leveraging existing trust and reputation. The nature of short-term agreements means that unless the affiliate is a superstar, getting ROI in a timely fashion will be challenging.

Finally, it’s important that the responsible gambling standards deployed by you and your affiliate are aligned. You should seek out affiliates that promote the recommended trust marks for responsible and safe gambling behaviour, such as GAMSTOP and BeGambleAware.

We’ve rapidly built a strong base of returning players at JeffBet, in part thanks to leveraging highly collaborative and successful affiliate partnerships. With solid partnerships, you can build and deliver more successful campaigns that help you acquire new customers and importantly, keep them.

Bio: Thomas Jones is the founder of JeffBet.com, a new online sportsbook and casino brand looking to deliver the best experience to players in the UK and all Malta markets.