Affiliate Success

Affiliate Interviews: Toni Halonen, Co-founder & CEO of Good Game

Published

4 years ago

September 17, 2018

Affiliate Interviews: Toni Halonen, Co-founder & CEO of Good Game

Good Game is an iGaming lead generation company based in Malta. Good Game differentiates itself from its competitors by concentrating only on a handful of sites, focusing on user intent and creating recognisable brands from these few sites. Long-term value for the user and partners has been the key to their success in the Finnish casino affiliate market.

Name: Toni Halonen

Age: 34

Hometown: Ilomantsi, Finland

Living in: Malta

Favourite Food: Traditional Finnish home cooking, Japanese, Indian, Thai

Must-Read Book: The Lord of The Rings, The War of Art

Job Title: Co-founder & CEO

Hi Toni, tell us and our readers a little bit about Good Game. How did your career start in the industry?

I’ve always been fascinated by all sorts of games, be it sports, computer games, board games or gambling. I opened my first online casino account when I turned 18 and started dabbling with online poker around 2004.

After finishing my studies in 2008, I started thinking what I should do for a living and it was then that I came across poker affiliation. The idea of having my own site came to me in 2008, but it took one year of the “real working life” before I jumped into playing poker professionally and chasing my affiliate dream. 🙂

Luckily I wasn’t alone in this, because my childhood friend, Ville Sissonen, also played online poker and showed an interest in affiliation. Our half-serious, half-joke motto in the beginning was: “maximising the passive income”. 🙂 Passwords to our affiliate accounts were always something like “BuyM3rc3d3s2010” back in the day, haha. I still don’t have a Mercedes, but Ville bought his first this year. (The passwords have since been changed, so no point trying to log in. 😉 )

Good Game was established in Malta in 2011 by me and Ville. We came to Malta to play online poker professionally and build affiliate sites on the side. The affiliate business only really started to pay off after our Head of SEO, Jussi Kauppinen, joined the company in 2013. During that time, we also began concentrating only on casino affiliation.

We sold our then main domain in 2015 and went all-in with the money from the first sale straight into building our next project – this time in an actual office 🙂 – and with a team of ten people. That project came to an end at the beginning of this year when our main casino site was bought. Now we’re concentrating solely on our UK project.

Explain your current UK project, Bojoko.com, in one sentence.

Airbnb for online casinos.

What makes it different from other casino affiliate sites based on player communities, casino reviews and social proof?

The biggest difference from our competitors is that Bojoko allows casinos and game suppliers to create their own reviews, and publish their own offers and game reviews. This way they can control their brand (tone of voice, design etc.) beyond their own website and ensure that affiliate marketing for their brand is done according to the UK Gambling Commission’s standards.

Casinos and game suppliers have understood this concept well. New casinos have been especially keen on listing themselves on Bojoko.

What’s the reason behind launching Bojoko? In other words, why does Bojoko exist?

There are a couple of reasons why we’ve built Bojoko. First of all, we wanted to minimise the role of an affiliate in everything the user sees and interacts with on the site. Secondly, we see a big gap in how iGaming is consumed compared to other industries operating online. Selecting, playing and transfering money to casinos could be a lot more fluid and safer than it is now.

Our purpose is to build tools for Bojoko users, which they can then use to create this more fluid, safer vision of iGaming. We want to positively transform the iGaming user experience. This way we can establish casino games as an acceptable mainstream pastime too.

How do you see the UK market?

It’s certainly more competitive than the Finnish casino affiliation market and there are many more established brands which are almost non-existent in Finland. It’s a good challenge to build a site for a large market.

Tell us one change that you want to see in the online gambling industry?

I’d like to see all forms of online gambling becoming as accepted in the mainstream as lotteries are. Offering more user-centric products and safer gambling will move the needle to the right direction. There are good initiatives underway in the UK in these two areas, although I’d like to see us, the gambling companies, driving this change and not relying or waiting for regulators to do it. There’s a much bigger pie waiting to be shared in the long run if iGaming becomes a widely accepted and respected industry.

Do you have any advice for newbies who are looking to venture into casino affiliation?

You should constantly ask yourself questions which reveal what kind of person you are. This helps you find the values and ideals you want to push forward in the industry you’re working in. It will also boost your motivation immensely and endow you with a more holistic approach to building your business.

What do you think will be the biggest trends in iGaming in 2018?

Regulation is one, for sure. It will bring new rules to online gambling once again, but it also brings predictability (such as in Sweden) and new markets (US sports betting) to the table. Predictability and new markets are great things for the entire online gambling industry.

What other new things can we expect from Good Game and Bojoko in the second half of 2018?

Bojoko has just rolled out a new tool which helps users tremendously in their casino selection. The tool is attached to our casino lists and lets users filter and sort online casinos easily with over 30 different data points so you can really get to the one casino that satisfies all your requirements. Just like hunting for the perfect vacation home on Airbnb.

In the coming months, we’ll be focusing on bringing more user features like this to Bojoko. They will help users mainly in two ways:

Selecting online casinos more quickly and easily
Interacting with other Bojoko users in our community

If you find this interesting, the best way to stay tuned to Bojoko and join in the fun is to sign up on the site.

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Affiliate Success

Paysafe’s Income Access wins ‘Best Tech for Affiliates’ 2022 iGB Affiliate Award

Published

2 months ago

April 19, 2022

George Miller

Paysafe’s Income Access wins ‘Best Tech for Affiliates’ 2022 iGB Affiliate Award

Income Access platform recognized as the leading software solution for global iGaming affiliate marketers at industry awards in London

Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform, today announced that Income Access, its marketing technology and services provider, won in the ‘Best Tech for Affiliates’ category at the 2022 iGB Affiliate Awards, held last night at the Troxy, in London, U.K.

Taking place during this week’s ICE London and iGB Affiliate London conferences, the iGB Affiliate Awards recognized the affiliate marketers, affiliate managers, operators and software providers like Income Access that have excelled in the global affiliate space over the last 12 months. Income Access’ ‘Best Tech for Affiliates’ iGB Affiliate award follows a series of major affiliate-focused upgrades to the company’s turnkey multi-channel tracking and reporting platform.

Among 30+ unique reports, the platform’s key reports were enhanced in 2021 through 2022 to optimize the user experience (UX) for affiliates while increasing transparency on data and performance metrics. Other tech enhancements included a move to the cloud to improve response times for affiliates and facilitate scalability for the future.

Affiliate payments were also streamlined through a platform integration with Paysafe’s Skrill digital wallet, with the addition of multiple new currencies.

Income Access continued to strengthen the Income Access Network, the iGaming industry’s longest-serving independent affiliate network. Over the last 12 months, multiple new brands serving a diverse range of iGaming verticals and markets integrated with the Network, and its affiliate membership expanded by 1,000+.

Geoff Smorong, Vice President of Operations at Paysafe’s Income Access, said: “Whether it’s our affiliate platform, the Income Access Network, or our affiliate management services, affiliates are at the heart of everything we do at Income Access. We’re therefore delighted to see our software development and technology honoured at the iGB Affiliate Awards.”

Zak Cutler, CEO of North America iGaming at Paysafe, commented: “Affiliates play an instrumental role in player acquisition for iGaming brands and have helped drive the growth of our wider industry. Given the affiliate channel’s importance, this award is a huge achievement for Income Access, reflecting the innovation, hard work and dedication of their entire team.”

Affiliate Success

Crash course for becoming a master in Casino Affiliate Marketing

Published

2 months ago

April 15, 2022

TheVoice

Intro

Online casino culture is immensely popular. With the increasing popularity of online casinos, another profitable device is also getting popular, known as online casino affiliate websites. A casino affiliate works alongside an online casino in promoting their business in return for a commission. In some cases, they may have experience operating an online casino. They provide all the details regarding gambling activities and other relevant information about a gambling site. So, the players can be well aware before taking any action. In this article, we will be discussing the basics, tips, and tricks of becoming an affiliate (casino affiliate).

Affiliate programs

Casino affiliates act as a mediator between the casinos and players. The casino affiliates get a tracking link for tracking the players who play or register in the casino. The affiliate program ensures to pay a business partner for bringing the players to the casino. Joining an affiliate program is simple as it does not require any sign-up charges. You are only required to have a website, to promote the various brand of online casinos by setting up banners and other related advertisements. Once the visitors click on the ad, affiliates start earning money. There are some essential factors to consider before joining an affiliate program.

You must be sure that you are entering into a partnership with a reliable and reputed casino.
Ensure that the number of commissions is processed timely in a safe environment.

Features of a casino affiliate

Sometimes it becomes difficult to spot casino affiliates and casino websites. Here are a few features that are applicable for casino affiliates only:

Generally, casino affiliates have the same type of imagery and similar language to attract players.
Affiliate websites do not have game catalogs like casino websites rather they provide reviews of online casino games and certain free demo games.
Casino affiliates usually promote multiple casino brands with various logos, advertisements, and offers.
The main goal of casino affiliates is to get players and sign them up for one of their casino partners.

Payment arrangements for Casino Affiliates

In terms of payments, there are two models that are very popular for paying affiliates.

The first one is the revenue sharing model that ensures payment to a casino affiliate as a percentage of profit earned from the traffic generated by the affiliate in a month. In this case, the higher traffic is equal to the higher payment.
The other model is CPA or cost per acquisition model. Here, payment is based on the users’ The online casinos pay the affiliates based on — whether a player signs up for a casino account or signs up and makes the first deposit. But in both the models, the income is based on performance.

Some casino operators provide only one payment option, while others can offer more than two. Before joining an affiliate program, an affiliate should understand certain restrictions, terms, and conditions to keep away adverse effects.

How to Become a Casino Affiliate

Casino brands always want customers from all over the world, and that is why they use casino affiliates to improve their prospective reach. It can be advantageous for the casinos to start in a country where a particular casino brand is not well-known. Various live casino sites are attractive to brands that seek information on their operations. After signing up for the affiliate program and getting an affiliate link, you need to get down to work. The affiliate creates content in different forms, such as text links, banners, and more.

Conclusion

Casino affiliates employ a wide range of interactive online platforms. They provide offers for attracting and retaining customers. But it is very important to do a thorough background or profile check before joining an affiliate program to understand whether the casino is reliable or a fly-by-night operation. If everything checks out, it is a potentially lucrative business to be involved in.

Affiliate Success

OMG Affiliates won the Rising Star at iGB Affiliate 2022

Published

2 months ago

April 14, 2022

George Miller

OMG Affiliates won the Rising Star at iGB Affiliate 2022

OMG Affiliates, a program developed by Vita Media Group, has won the Rising Star Award at the iGB Affiliate 2022!

The award night took place last night (April 13th, 2022) at the Troxy theater in London.

This is the first award for OMG Affiliates where one of the industry’s finest award organizations, iGB Affiliate, has crowned the team for its performance and achievements. The OMG Affiliates was shortlisted in one more category, Best Affiliate Program.

This is also the first award for Vita Media Group as a company and is a solidifying proof of the quality of the different products and business verticals developed under Vita Media Group. As a total summary of the award night, iGB shortlisted Vita Media Group in the Best Casino Affiliate category as well.

After a year where Vita Media Group grew the OMG Affiliates vertical through strategic acquisitions of the rewarded Trada Casino and Greenplay, a casino formerly owned by Codere, the plan for the future holds optimistic plans.

Through this achievement, Vita Media Group continues to expand as a one-stop solution to growth in iGaming.