GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 7 - January 2009

Due toMicrogaming’s decision to pull out of the U.S., ReferBack recently stopped accepting U.S. players, although you still are accepting U.S.- based affiliates. How will ReferBack change to better market to areas outside the U.S.? And what tools is ReferBack providing to help its af- filiates make the transition? Our local affiliates are often the mediators between the different mar- kets and us as the global operators and they usually know what works best and what doesn’t to attract their target audiences. Based on the feedback we receive and our own research, we provide local- ized marketing collateral (land- ing pages, banners, reviews in the local languages), and gear special promotions around lo- cal events (e.g., Oktoberfest in Germany, Bastille Day in France, etc.). When designing winning advertisements we do consider cultural differences with regards to symbols, heroes, rituals, buzzwords, etc. From ReferBack’s side we provide our affiliates with the right acquisition reports split into geographical ar- eas for monitoring and planning purposes. They can make use of our ad-trackers to monitor performance of differently targeted marketing campaigns, and we offer full support by our dedicated and international market- ing team. In addition to this, we are in the process of rolling out even more multilingual landing pages for all our casi- nos and the Cool Hand Online Poker Room. Note that our biggest casino brand, JackpotCity, is already avail- able in 14 different languages! Affiliates who are keen to provide targeted and localized content to their audience should simply get in touch with us to explore the global opportunities with ReferBack – there are plenty! Earlier this year, ReferBack decided to delve into the poker market with Cool Hand Poker. Why did ReferBack decide to enter the poker market? What distinguishes Cool Hand Poker from other sites? And what makes ReferBack’s poker affiliate program unique? Poker globally continues to grow at double-digit percentages every quarter, and the volume of newbie players is growing exponentially. Some of the top poker rooms are raking inmore than $1.3million per day and newpoker rooms are launching all the time. However, there’s still no online poker environment catering to the recreational player and providing a “shark repellent,” safe environment to play. This is where we want to fill the gap and create a lifestyle brand that average poker players can build an affinity towards. Poker will be run independent- ly to the casinos, with dedicated poker resources, skills, metrics, and thinking. We operate with- out the high-stake tables and rather offer Cool Hand Poker exclusive low buy-in tables in order to increase the length of play time (and hence the “rake creation time” for our affiliates). Our promotions are geared to- wards depositing players, and by creating a lifestyle brand we will drive loyalty, all of which will translate back into deliv- ering greater player value and higher earnings for our affili- ates. You have a marketing background that in- cludes both on- and off-line marketing. What kind of off-line marketing did you do? What lessons from off-line marketing trans- late well into online marketing? I worked as a marketer in various industries ranging from fast moving consumer goods (coffee, ketchup, beer, “Gut-feel and a creative mind are great to stimulate new ideas, and you need to allow yourself to think big, but test small.” STEFFI KRATZ | ReferBack Meet the affiliate managers This month we bring you not three, not four, but SEVEN interesting, informative, and often downright riveting interviews with some of the most dedicated affiliate managers in the business. They’re based in Australia, South Africa (2), Sweden, the U.K. (2), and Singapore by way of Australia and Fiji – and they’ve got a world of experience and insight they want to share with you. Enjoy. *Due to space constraints, we cannot print the interviews in their entirety.We will post the complete text at gpwa.org. 56 GPWA Times | Affiliate Manager Interview Series