1. Hey, Valentin! Thank you for agreeing to share iGaming industry insights with our readers. Tell us a little about how your journey began and how you got into the sphere in the first place.
Hey there! First off, a big thanks for inviting me. It’s a real honour for me!
If we talk about the affiliate marketing industry, I found myself involved with it completely by accident (like many). An entrepreneur friend of mine launched a teaser traffic monetization project and invited me to join his team. The team was tiny, and I was responsible for almost everything: negotiating with advertisers and publishers, marketing, and product matters.
On the one hand, it was a bit chaotic and lacked structure. Still, on the other hand, it gave me invaluable experience in quickly adapting to my environment and the challenges the market posed. In just over three years, we had become one of the largest advertising networks in the CIS market. I was responsible for account matters, interacting with advertisers and also marketing.
2. iGaming 10 years ago and today: what are the key differences? Any global changes?
1. The main one is the market gradually becoming legal. The number of local licenses is increasing, as is that of state regulators and other monitoring bodies that are rapidly closing the technological gap between themselves and advertisers and publishers. And that means they are becoming that much better at dealing with grey-hat advertisers and affiliates. Competition for the attention of users is simply insane.
2. All this is one of the main reasons for the next global change that I would like to mention – the market entry threshold. When I embarked on my affiliate marketing journey, literally anyone with at least some starting capital could join the industry. It could be something as little as $100. The current reality is that beginner affiliates and SEO specialists are immediately forced to compete with companies and teams whose monthly turnovers reach millions of dollars.
3. And this is where the 3rd crucial factor comes into play – traffic sources are allocating increasingly more funds to moderate and monitor ad content. It is almost impossible to consistently get traffic to iGaming offers from typical sources like Facebook or Instagram in today’s age. Many teams have long stopped trying to swim against the moderation tide in these sources and prefer just to wait out the storms when they happen.
This all leads to more traditional traffic sources, like ad networks, becoming more popular. A simple tech flow, loyal moderation, and cheap traffic make them an exceptionally tasty choice for affiliates, regardless of niche.
3. Why is RevenueLab a prime choice if you’re in iGaming?
We have been working in this market for over 10 years now and have an impeccable reputation among both affiliates and advertisers.
It’s also pivotal that Revenuelab isn’t just a list of offers or an affiliate database. a global service that helps its users in all areas of business: traffic monetization, legal services, SEO optimization and market analysis as well as advice on related issues. We build long-term relationships with our users and try to rid them of routine tasks so that everyone could focus on their job. Affiliates generate traffic, advertisers monetize it, and Revenuelab brings them together on its platform and makes the entire process as profitable and intuitive as possible. We always tell our affiliates: “You just focus on attracting traffic and we’ll take care of the rest”.
4. How has the industry weathered the difficult Covid-19 times? How quickly and painlessly did the sphere manage to adapt to global crises and market changes?
The industry has grown significantly during the pandemic, unlike most other areas. But it’s not as cut and dry as it sounds. For example, in many countries, people have been quarantined for a long time, and casinos have become one of the few entertainment options available. Something that can’t be said about betting, which took a significant hit because of the mass cancellation of sports events. On the other hand, cybersport betting is on the rise. The pandemic saw to that.
5. Let’s talk about today. What should newbies who are just getting started in the iGaming industry know?
First of all, I would like to warn those looking for easy money online. iGaming, like any other affiliate marketing niche (or any professional niche, for that matter), is a very complex and high-competitive environment. Don’t trust people promising easy affiliate income, immediate success and mind-boggling paychecks as soon as tomorrow. That’s not how life works. To achieve significant results in any business, you need to work very hard, be able to survive failures and breakdowns, and constantly improve.
6. What budget do you need to promote casino and betting offers, and which payment models are optimal? Do payment models differ depending on the traffic sources?
Budgets aren’t an easy topic. I would recommend newbies join bigger teams to gain experience. If we’re talking about full-fledged teams and experts, I suggest allocating a budget that you would overlook going away.
Evaluate the risks and decide, keeping the worst-case scenario in mind. For paid sources (push, pops, Google, Facebook), the CPC, CPM, and CPA models will do fine since it’s pretty fast money, which will provide enough output for you to purchase new volumes. A SEO specialist, on the contrary, plays for the long con. They pick Revenue Share or Hybrid models. Since the traffic quality is relatively high, it entails more significant profits in the long run.
7. What do you focus on when picking casino offers in 2022? Can you identify the trends that will help achieve the best results?
The primary trend is crypto casinos. The number of search queries for these brands is multiplying, with their payouts simply going through the roof. For example, one of our brands provides a 350 CPA + 50% RevShare payout crypto query casino traffic. That’s a very generous number. Still, this area remains relatively spacey. Sure, there may not be as much traffic there as before, but it’s an excellent opportunity to find your spot in the niche and become a top-tier player 1-2 years later. Additionally, problems with traditional payment methods are forcing players to switch to crypto tools increasingly.
8. Casinos and betting are some of the best verticals on the RichAds platform. Can you give any tips regarding the approaches to designing creatives and landing pages? What is vital we use in 2022 to attain the highest possible CR?
I remember the typical mistake all newcomers make. Almost everyone at the start tries to design the most clickable creative, with the highest CTR, to buy traffic in the auction as cheaply as possible. Such creatives are almost always clickbait and mislead the user. I recommend not neglecting the big picture. Think of your sales funnel as a whole without neglecting certain stages. Cheap clicks don’t always lead to significant profits!
9. Which sports events of 2022 should affiliates that promote betting offers focus on?
Be sure to add the FIFA World Cup to your calendar. This event traditionally attracts fans of sports betting and multiplies the revenue of both bookmakers and publishers.
10. Now a few words about GEOs. What markets is RevenueLab focusing on today, and what are your country-by-country forecasts for the near future?
At the moment, our most popular GEOs are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Europe. Latin America is showing good indicators too, we’re also planning on expanding into Asia.
I believe that Tier 2 and Tier 3 countries will come to the fore soon. Countries with cheaper traffic and an incredible amount of gamblers. The best example would be India. Since traffic is becoming more expensive, brands in Tier 1 GEOs are burning up due to the fierce competition between each other and the excessive supply.
11. How do you deal with dishonest publishers and fraud? Do affiliate programs undergo some checkups before joining RevenueLab?
We’re very picky when choosing publishers and request they provide us with screenshots of stats or some other data from other affiliate programs that could verify their claims. And we rarely get any complaints from our advertisers.
Affiliate programs are subject to a thorough check before being welcomed into our platform. We currently have an overabundance of affiliate programs wishing to join, forcing us to pick only the ones that are most interesting and reliable in terms of solvency. Before joining, each affiliate program undergoes a survey, based on which a decision is made on whether we let it into the system or not.
12. What should affiliates that promote casino and betting offers to keep in mind? Give us your top 3 tips for both newbies and industry sharks.
1. First of all, I’d recommend not going with the flow. Look for new, non-standard traffic sources and monetization models. The stuff that trends are brimming with top players, and getting a piece of that will be costly and complicated. It’s just something you need to come to terms with and keep a cool head when dealing with traffic monetization.
2. Always start with the easy stuff. Not the most expensive GEO, one with your native language – these are the perfect starting conditions. Try working with an audience whose mentality and language you can relate to. It’s a lot easier than diving into completely unfamiliar GEOs. Each place has specific nuances that significantly affect how well the traffic will convert.
3. Be patient. Dealing with any traffic source, and even more so with a paid one, is painstaking work that brings results only when you have a well-structured approach and in-depth analytics.
13. And finally, can you say a few words about the future of RevenueLab? Where is the business headed, what trends do you see, do you launch new projects for market participants?
For July this year, we have planned the global release of RevenueLab 2.0, a completely updated platform format. I can’t say much, but advertisers and publishers will be pleasantly surprised by the innovations.
We’re also continuing to develop our side project — Bluepear.net. This product helps brands combat publishers who drive contextual brand traffic. Over the past year, the product has grown several times. Now we are expanding the team and planning a large-scale ad campaign!
What is RichAds?
🔝 Push and pop ads,
🔼 Domain redirect traffic,
🔝 CPM for domain ads starts from $ 1.5,
⏫ CPC for push ads starts from $ 0.003,
🔼 CPM for pops — from $0.3 in Tier 3, $1 in Tier 1,
⏫ large volumes of available traffic in more than 200 goes.
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