GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 33 - October 2015

Twelve sites in 12 different languages, with offices in two countries? No problem for this stargazer. What did you do before joining the on- line gambling affiliate world? I spent six or seven years building and managing websites in Europe until I started to focus more on SEO, which I did for the gambling industry. That was about seven years ago. Prior to VegasMaster, I had the chance to work on a variety of SEO projects for dif- ferent markets, languages and strategies. Describe your role with VegasMaster. What do you do in a typical day? I built VegasMaster from scratch with an excel- lent team. That was about two years ago. As you may imagine, it’s been a big and demanding project consisting of con- tent ideas, marketing strategies, report- ing, optimizing, etc. I’m very lucky to be surrounded by a great group of people who help me every day in the best way they can. Where are VegasMaster’s headquarters? Do all your employees work in the same office? Or do some work remotely? Our headquarters are in Malta but our re- search and development is located in Tel Aviv, Israel. That is where most of the team is currently located. We have both in-house and outsourced people carrying out different tasks, such as content, pro- motion, database and development. Perhaps the most impressive thing about VegasMaster is the breadth of the site. It has English, Italian, Greek, Portuguese, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Danish and Dutch versions. (Did I miss any?) How do you translate all of your content into so many languages? There are 12 sites, in- cluding English and 11 other languages. Great job listing our sites! The only one you missed is our Polish site. In regard to translation, very little of the content on our sites is actually translated. Most of it is 100% unique content. Using our reviews as an example, the largest portion is written by as many different writers as there are languages on the site. Since our reviewers experience the ca- sino or game or platform differently, the reviews differ based on the writer’s own personal experience. One of the promotions running at VegasMaster in mid-July was a quiz with questions about movies that featured the casino industry, with a grand prize of a Google Chromecast. How important are incentives like this to driving traffic to the site? We began hosting contests, quizzes and giveaways a few months back. So far, we have experienced very positive feedback about our promotions. However, not all of our events are open to all markets due to some limitations. How often do you get to see and interact with other people in the industry? There is always a lot to do, which can make it difficult to meet with people at the best of times, but I manage to make it happen. In fact, last week I met with two differ- ent partners, and I will be meeting with others soon to develop certain markets and projects. What traits do you look for in an affiliate manager? How about in an affiliate pro- gram? I look for what most people would expect: trust, from both the affiliate man- ager and program. It can be difficult to find this in any field, and it can be particu- larly challenging in ours. Communication and creativity are also very important. What’s your preferred method of com- munication with affiliate managers? Generally, I prefer e-mail or Skype. Of course, it’s always best to meet face to face, but it isn’t always practical or possible. What prompted you to join the GPWA? How has it helped you? The GPWA is es- sential for serious sites. VegasMaster is the first site for which we applied (for the VEGASMASTER David Kalifa GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES Four affiliates who know how to stand out In this edition of our affiliate interview series, we talk to four webmasters who have built some serious brands from scratch. Spanning every vertical — online casino, poker, sports betting, bingo and binary markets — these affiliates have each found a way to make their sites stand out from the crowd. Each takes a unique approach, but they’ve all been able to build a loyal following. It’s not that surprising, then, that two want to have dinner with Henry Ford. But you’ll have to read the interviews to find out why one of them wants to dine with Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson. *Due to space constraints, we could not print the interviews in their entirety. Read the complete text at GPWAtimes.org . GPWA Affiliate Interview Series