Mr Green on creating a future-proof affiliate programme

Tobias Regnestam, head of affiliates, Mr Green

As the egaming affiliate sector continues to mature and consolidate at a faster rate than ever before, operators are in turn being forced to adapt to such industry changes with modifications to their affiliate programmes. Whether it’s offering new revenue models for their partners or hiring fiercer negotiators to get the best possible deal against increasingly shrewd sales people, operators are utilising new strategies to ensure they keep up with the times.

Mr Green is one such company in a position to meet these new challenges head-on after it recently won the award for best Affiliate Programme at the prestigious EGR Operator Awards. And under the leadership of its new head of affiliates, Tobias Regnestam, is ready to utilise its brand strength, team experience and award-winning affiliate tools to maintain its position in the wake of industry M&A.

“Consolidation in the egaming affiliate sector impacts all affiliate managers,” Regnestam explains. “You’ll have specialists on the affiliate side, you’ll have bigger partners to work with and they will have a whole new set of requirements attached to their roles.

“I’d say it is a good thing when you have partnerships over multiple sites but it comes at a cost,” he adds. “It is important to have a healthy balance between the larger and smaller affiliates to make sure you are not too dependent on one source of traffic that can quickly go away.”

EGR Marketing spoke to Regnestam just days after the operator’s triumph at the EGR Operator Awards to find out what accounts for its success and how he envisions the egaming affiliate sector evolving in the future.

EGR Marketing: Congratulations on winning Best Affiliate Programme at the EGR Operator Awards. What do you think makes Mr Green stand out from the crowd?
Tobias Regnestam (TR): It is a true honour to receive this award and it feels like a validation that what Mr Green and the affiliate team has improved on during 2016 has been well received within the industry. In an industry where everyone is selling pretty much the same product, Mr Green stands out by focusing on offering people a break, a happening, and a superior gaming experience in a responsible environment. A live character will always be more personal than a logo or a tagline and we make use of this advantage in all our actions.

Mr Green recently won the award for best Affiliate Programme at the prestigious EGR Operator Awards 2016

EGR Marketing: How does running an affiliate programme today differ to a few years ago?
TR: We see the affiliates consolidating, becoming stock-listed, and most operators now have a whole team of specialists keeping track of this specific part of the operation. Also, more casinos are becoming publicly traded and the margins all around the industry are constantly being challenged. These are some of the changes pushing operators towards optimisation and better control we haven’t seen before.

On the affiliate programme side of egaming, this means that the affiliate manager today is more likely than not to negotiate with a professional salesperson. I believe that the most responsive affiliate programmes with the highest quality and professional attitude will be identified by the bigger affiliates quickly and will continue to be preferred partners in the future.

EGR Marketing: How has technology changed things? Has it made areas such as tracking and reporting easier, for example?
TR: It’s important to be flexible and to be able to keep up when the affiliates are finding new ways to market their partnering operators. Mr Green uses NetRefer and we make it a point to keep our co-operation as close as possible. We have daily contact to ensure we catch any potential issues and give them the opportunity to react and improve. We always strive to be the first to offer our affiliates every technical tool they need or want.

EGR Marketing: Is it now more common for affiliate programmes to try different revenue models, rather than just traditional revenue share deals?
TR: I think the consolidation of bigger affiliates and stock listings are some examples of what adds expectations and drives these changes. From the affiliate’s side a good revenue share – at a successful casino that can optimise the results from their traffic – is always preferred in terms of total commission for the traffic. However, the reasons mentioned previously would sometimes demand fast results – then it makes sense to take a slightly smaller total commission to have part of it guaranteed.

I think the consolidation of affiliates offer the opportunity to have experts in-house. The mid-size/smaller affiliates go from competing with many affiliates to a few giants with vast resources and you need to secure flat fees or quick CPA deals to ensure the operation keeps evolving. With that said it’s also common for operators to be sold CPAs or flat fees where the player value simply isn’t where it needs to be to motivate the deal. This makes operators think twice before offering new affiliate fixed fee/CPA deals before seeing the traffic in their own systems.

EGR Marketing: What is your opinion on affiliate marketing more broadly? How is its role in egaming changing?
TR: As with all things, it is constantly evolving and the affiliate operation of today is not what we saw five to 10 years ago. I am a strong believer in the affiliate marketing side of egaming. As we move forward, I believe it will grow from being more or less isolated to be a part of the operators’ tools and media strategies where direct marketing in traditional media, direct media buying online and affiliate marketing will play equal parts in terms of importance. They all have unique parts to play when it comes to building the brand and monetisation. The affiliates that keep evolving with the industry will continue to prosper.

EGR Marketing: How do you think the relationship between affiliate and operator is changing? Is it less personal now?
TR: Even though some affiliates are getting bigger, you will never lose the personal connection when both parties have invested in a profitable relationship. I would say that this is and will always be a person-to-person industry. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of operators and affiliates to choose from, so it is important to keep a good relationship and to match offers the affiliate can get from other operators. Even if we are all selling the same products in terms of games, there is plenty of room for differentiation. If the relationship is strong, all potential difficulties can be addressed and solved most efficiently.

EGR Marketing: How big is the affilliate team at Mr Green and how is it broadly structured?
TR: The affiliate team at Mr Green has always been small and efficient. Today we have five people heading up the team and we are looking for more talent to join. Our affiliate managers handle their individual regions together with regional manager, VIP agents, and content writers we like to call ‘The Daily Show’ managers. This way the affiliate manager keeps up to speed with local campaigns, bonuses, changes in the egaming sector as a whole and on the affiliate side. I have many of the Scandinavia-facing affiliates, while at the same time I work on providing the affiliate managers with every tool they need.

Leading role: Regnestam was named head of affiliates in October

EGR Marketing: You have only been head of affiliates for a couple of months. What are your plans now you are leading the team?
TR: To be able to do it now – as we are restructuring the entire affiliate team and moving to Mr Green 2.0 – is a great opportunity. We will make sure Mr Green’s affiliate team continues to perform in an award-winning fashion with focus on a new business strategy, including a broader product offering and a unique, personalised gaming experience and customer communication.

When it comes to specific plans I’m going to be a little abstract, but it involves making sure that as Mr Green moves to the 2.0 version we in the team also take affiliation to Affiliation 2.0. We are fortunate to be working with a strong brand with years of knowledge and expertise in-house. We will use that to the max and make sure that our affiliates keep using us as standard when comparing against other operators. You will, without doubt, see and hear more about this in 2017.

EGR Marketing: What was your background before Mr Green and why did you decide to get involved in affiliate marketing?
TR: I founded a clothing company with my father at an early age and I quickly identified marketing, sales, and negotiations as really interesting parts of the business. I did a lot of travelling in Europe, China and Asia and after a few years we sold the business and I landed in Malta where I joined the egaming sector. I got into affiliate marketing as it catered to my personal interests, strengths and passions. I joined Mr Green’s affiliate team in January 2016 and managed the Scandinavian region before taking the ‘head of’ position in October 2016.

EGR Marketing: How does Mr Green’s expansion into new verticals impact the work you do?
TR: Looking at it from an affiliate point of view, it means we get to work with a lot of partners that we haven’t worked with before. We are in the unique position where we are allowed to take our well-known brand to a whole new audience with its own set of challenges and opportunities. We have recently launched welcome offers for each vertical and geography. That means the affiliate team is working hard on getting the new affiliates on board as quickly as possible.

EGR Marketing: Finally, how do you think the egaming affiliate sector will evolve in the future?
TR: This question ties in a lot with the consolidation in the egaming affiliate sector. I think affiliates will keep getting bigger and filled with experts. I believe that the affiliates who prosper in five years’ time will have adjusted to another type of role in the industry. This will of course reflect the affiliate programmes. Gone are the days when you had to wait two days to get a reply for a question as everything becomes more real-time. Real-time service will be demanded.

We will also see local regulations clean up the market from questionable and sometimes illegal marketing actions. This is something we welcome as Mr Green and our agreements and T&C’s are already enforcing a clean and healthy marketing climate. This means we do not accept traffic from illegal downloading or streaming sites. We have also made a point of not accepting traffic from sites with pornographic content. We enforce a “no excuse policy” when working with Mr Green and have a close relationship with our third-party providers to ensure our regulations are followed.