GameOn Affiliates Exclusive Interview
16th July, 2009
Gaming Alerts were lucky enough to gain an exclusive interview with GameOn Affiliates Director Tom Galanis.
Tom joined the gambling industry in 2005 at Victor Chandler as an affiliate executive and progressed to Bet 365, now becoming a director of GameOn Affiliates; a new venture in which the company works alongside both established and start-up affiliate programmes. They aim to assist its client in taking that extra step by focusing directly on the player acquisition journey, from affiliate recruitment to deposit.
1) I understand that you have a degree in History, what made you enter the affiliate marketing world?
I also have a degree in advertising and marketing – I was always keen to get in to sports marketing, and when I landed a job with a sports betting company as their affiliate manager, it was a perfect fit for me.
2) Please could you explain your new venture, GameOn Affiliates, and the services you provide?
GameOn Affiliates came about as a result of personal experiences in the industry. I feel that affiliates and affiliate programs have the capability to enhance the way the industry markets itself. For me, the bonus-led promotional culture that exists in online gaming stunts growth for a lot of companies, so we aim to not only provide management services to affiliate programs, but also develop them in to the point where they can spearhead new positional and overall marketing strategies. To accompany this, we provide workshops for senior and middle management to explore ways in which they can optimise performance and reduce overall marketing costs. On top of this, we offer staff training and development and most importantly, we will implement our bespoke customer conversion system to ensure increased traffic is converted appropriately.
3) How will these services benefit the operator and eventually end consumer?
We aim to increase operators’ understanding of affiliate marketing, and its potential. In this day and age, affiliate marketing is a crucial channel to get right – 95% of UK advertisers state that it’s the most cost effective marketing channel. Our management services will not only increase the ROI of an affiliate program, but during any consultancy period we undertake, whether it be for new or existing programs, our aim is to progress its operation to the highest possible level. Not only will the program’s business owners understand where the program is headed, but we also offer staff training to ensure that once our project has run its course, affiliates are provided with the best possible service. In turn, this ensures the affiliate drives more traffic to the program’s brands – where customers will be met with an optimised registration/download process and get playing where they want to, when they want to.
4) What is your opinion of the rake back affiliate debate?
What’s most interesting is the intensity that this debate has taken. There has always been significant opposition from a number of operators towards rakeback affiliates and licensees. Some may argue, rightly so. For me, the key is whether such affiliates and licensees are providing additional value to the players through other channels. If they are, then fair play to them – they’re using the tools they have to make money, whilst still providing an educational service to the player. I disagree with the view that the affiliate’s role is simply to drive traffic, although Peter Marcus is 100% right to point to the need to avoid the cannibalisation of traffic. However, rakeback is not the prime proponent of this. Operators need to look at the way they market their products. The bonus-led culture we work in has inspired rakeback, and is the main reason why companies are “stealing each other’s customers” as Marcus states. Rakeback is not the problem, backwards marketing strategies are. Poker rooms need to position themselves further apart and provide their players with something differentiable if they want to force the rakeback affiliate’s hand.
We look forward to following the progression of GameOn Affiliates and its future developments in the industry.
By Faye
