Many affiliates have mentioned that it’s time for operators to utilise their collaborations as more than lead generation channels. Affiliates have insight to a lot of customer data and when this is utilised properly, would significantly help operator brands understand and engage audiences for better conversion.
Data will change how we plan Affiliate strategies
In a data driven world, Operators should be mindful of accessing data to improve marketing analysis prior to planning their media spend. Using inaccurate data can lead to a a detrimental effect on both building your customer engagement and supporting your brand growth.
Comscore recently released a white paper on how marketers perceive the importance of data to build their online strategies. A fifth of marketers surveyed believed that there would be “no significant impact” if they used poor quality data.
Using accurate data drives successful marketing and affiliate strategy and it’s questionable as to why this figure wasn’t actually zero.
While brands tend to trust their own research more than other third party data sources, it’s also possible that gaps in their findings are causing them to make poor marketing decisions.
The same report showed that 25% of marketers in other sectors to gambling, use third-party data because they don’t trust what their own company has produced. In this sense, it’s important that operators start to look more closely at working with their own affiliates to augment their data which drives their acquisition strategy forward, because Affiliates, also assist with conducting better-quality customer research.
Why this matters?
Customers are more likely to trust a service if data is used in places other than just a company’s own website. As Gloria Cereda, from Catena Media recently mentioned at this year’s Digital Marketing Forum:
“There is a lower level of trust (from players) in a company’s marketing statements when comparing this to the reviews written by a [3rd party] affiliate or comparison site.”
This will help to fill existing data voids when understanding your player behaviour and conversion, since the information will be verified by more sources are more credible as a result.
Focus on building affiliate partnerships
There’s more to growing fruitful operator-affiliate relationships than just understanding the positive and negative aspects of using data within broader marketing strategies. Education, through industry events where data and digital strategy is being talked about and discussed helps to keep you informed on changes in your own and external markets.
While regulatory changes are causing more marketers to focus their efforts for better ROI there’s still a clear split in opinions on what and how much data to share in this context. However it also highlights that the continued cooperation is needed as affiliates become more influential in supporting the digital marketing strategies of operators in future.
