“Data is the future of the affiliate industry”

Data was described as “the future of the affiliate industry” at last August’s CasinoBeats Summit. The comment was made after panellists were probed on how affiliates and operators can work together to harness the vast amounts of data that they have acquired.
Talking on a panel hosted by Affiverse CEO Lee-Ann Johnstone entitled ‘Changing Affiliate Landscape’, Rightlander founder Ian Sims argued that “data and fact is the way it will go”.
“We’ve already started to see it really because data sites are now probably among the most popular sites on the web,” he told the audience. “I think there’s a logical progression where the operator will provide the affiliate with more data.  I think they’ve been typically quite closed up to now about what they will provide, but I think that’s going to have to open up if they want to keep the affiliate channel active and to encourage new affiliates.”
Sims’ fellow panellists were in broad agreement with these sentiments and stressed that the importance of data will only increase in the near future. “I can say from our side, two words that are really key here: transparency and data,” claimed Catena Media Serbia General Manager Nikola Teofilovic. “And as we all said, we as gamblers, we have a lot of data.”
Additionally, Johnstone suggested that affiliates and operators should be using data “in order to learn how to better incentivise customers or engage new customers based on what’s popular, what slot games are attractive, and then use that data to actually incentivise the customer”.   
Data has been a hot topic for marketers, particularly since GDPR came into place last year. A study from global law firm DLA Piper earlier this month found that there has been more than 59,000 personal data breaches notified to regulators in the eight months since GDPR came into force.
The Netherlands, Germany and the UK topped the table in the report, entitled ‘DLA Piper GDPR data breach survey: February 2019’, with over 10,000 data breach notifications.
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