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(This interview was originally published in the November 2022 issue of the GPWA Times Magazine.)
Please tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from and where did you grow up? Where do you live today?
I was born in Georgia. Half of my life, I have played a variety of sports such as soccer, table tennis and billiards. In the winter I like to go to the mountains and snowboard. Extreme sports are in my blood.
How did you get your start in the iGaming industry and how long have you been working in the industry? What other jobs have you held in the past?
I can say that almost all the skills that I acquired during my life were very useful to me in iGaming. At about the age of 16, I began to be interested in the internet advertising market, I began to slowly dive into it.
My first step was the creation and promotion of various thematic publics on Facebook with the further sale of advertising in them. These were simple publics with posts about cars for an audience of men and similar ones with recipes for women. During this period of my life, I began to test various tools for promotion. I learned how to work in Photoshop and Illustrator, put the first trackers on links and tried to track the effectiveness of advertising.
As for work, I was always happy to learn something new, so I was happy to go where I was taken, if it was somehow related to online advertising or could help with this. So, in four years, I was able to work in different companies in such positions as copywriter, SMM specialist, web designer, marketer, PR specialist and “targetologist.?
I completely agree that in one to two years it is impossible to become a good specialist, but now it is much easier for me to work with colleagues. I understand them. I distinguish bad work from good work and I can draw a banner or write text myself, if necessary.
As for iGaming, I did not get to it right away. I started with easier directions, such as nutrition. Logging into Nutra is much easier than betting or gambling. It's easier to make a simple video and launch it on TikTok or Facebook. But I can’t say that I really enjoyed working with weight loss products or penis enlargement creams, so when I was called to work at iGaming, I happily moved on.
What is your typical day like as an affiliate manager with Iguana Affiliates?
Usually, my workday starts at 10 a.m. My colleagues and I have a meeting where we set the top priority tasks we need to get done for the day.
Next, I start responding to partners, usually two to three hours a day, since we are just getting started with many. I send out requested information, set up strategies, and negotiate deals.
The second half of the day, I usually use to find new partners, possible ad placements or work through other issues related to promoting Iguana Affiliates. Most of the time is spent cold searching new partners who have never heard of us, so the second half is really long for me. It is difficult and challenging, but I have no choice. I have to put in a lot of effort in order to increase our brand awareness, because there is very strong competition in this market.
What do you enjoy most about your job and, more specifically, working in the iGaming affiliate industry?
Because I have already worked in large companies, I can say for sure that I like the lack of bureaucracy, dress code and clear working hours. I can come to work in swimming trunks and slippers for dinner. I can ask for remote work and the management is quite loyal to this.
The second point I can highlight is the budget. I really like to work with large budgets. If at my last job I was allocated one amount, here, I have to work with budgets 20-30 times more, which, of course, I really like, because I'm trying to get good results, and not look for a place that I just have enough money for.
Tell us about the Iguana name and the brand’s logo. Where did this idea come from and why do you think it works?
At the very beginning, we thought about which market we should enter. Of course, Europe is a very rich market, but the competition is quite high, and most countries have their own licenses, which are quite expensive and difficult to obtain when launching a new product. In LatAm, the market is different. One license covers almost all major GEOs. That’s why we decided to come up with a name so that any resident of South America can easily remember it.
According to your website, Iguana Affiliates was founded by a “team of professionals that has been in the gambling industry for over 20 years.?Please tell us more about the leadership at the company and how it has benefitted you as an affiliate manager as well as the affiliates you partner with.
Yes, it's true. The idea to create our own product came to our CEO and CMO. Our CEO has been in the industry for over 20 years and was a casino PM back in the 2000s. The market was completely different back then, but the methods of promotion remained the same.
This helped us a lot, since at the beginning we did not have the experience of promoting the product from scratch. He was able to correctly focus on tasks, what is needed first and what can be left for later. He was also able to involve his connections and gave us good contractors who could quickly complete the layout and design.
Another plus I can highlight is the connections among the affiliate sphere. We were able to immediately invite strong affiliates who immediately began to bring traffic to our product. At the moment, we see a steady and confident growth, the pace of which would be much weaker if not for this experience.
Your brand sportsbook, igubet.com, just launched in April 2022 What makes it attractive to both players and affiliates?
The situation with igubet is not simple enough, because, if we take the betting market, it completely differs from gambling. And many big companies have already occupied the market. It is difficult to compete with giants such as bet365 or Unibet. Another difficulty is the template of sportsbooks from SoftSwiss. If the casino can be uniquely flexible enough, then all SoftSwiss betting is the same, only the colors and the content with bonuses change slightly. Therefore, in addition to major companies, it is necessary to compete with three to four “twins.?br />
Developing such a sportsbook is difficult, but possible. To do this, we are constantly improving. In April, we had one language (English). Then, in August, we translated it into 21 languages, including Chinese, Korean and Thai.
At this stage, we already have more languages than most competitors. In our situation, it is necessary to find a niche. For us, it has become esports. We are actively working in this direction because the esports market is growing steadily, and tournaments are held much more often than in conventional sports. The next step for us will be the transition to turn-key, where we will already make our own unique design and all development will be on our side.
Please tell us more about the prominence of esports at Iguana. How popular has the esports market become over the last five years and where do you see it going in the next five years?
At the moment we have only one esports event provider ?odin.gg. It provides almost all esports events. These are standard bets that are available in almost every sportsbook. All we can do is give additional bonuses to players and in order to attract esports traffic.
We are already starting to sketch out some options that we will use further, thanks to GG.Bet and Parimatch, for example. They use brand advertising very competently. The players have a clear line of brand recognition, such as tournament advertising, team sponsorship and so on.
As for the future of esports, in the next five years it will develop at a very fast pace, so this is a very promising market that is worth entering now. All the same, the availability of computers and phones helps people from different parts of the planet get closer. We can also mention the fact that esports gives people with disabilities an opportunity to prove themselves and equalizes the chances, because behind computers we are all equal.
Igubet betting has a live streaming service that allows players to watch some events in real-time and if the game doesn’t have a live stream, players can watch the animated videos of the games. Can you tell us more about this feature and if it helps attract FTDs and/or retain players?
Yes, we introduced this feature quite recently and it significantly increased the re-deposit conversion because if a player has a broadcast in front of his eyes, he gets excited.
Sometimes it's easier for players to go to Igubet and watch the broadcast of the match. We noticed this through GA4. As for animated videos, this also helps to increase second deposits. The most interesting thing is that broadcasts and animated videos are broadcast with some delay and players see the game and think that they are betting live, but in fact the difference is two to three minutes, which contributes to an increase of NGR, because the situation can quickly change, and the player sees the “past.?br />
How is Iguana Affiliates preparing for the World Cup and how are you assisting affiliates with promotions?
We have already started preparing materials for the World Cup. At the moment, we are creating an open repository for our webmasters, where there will be banners of almost any size you need. Also, we have already started making GIF/HTML5/mp4 banners, they are a bit more complicated, so it takes more time to work on them. But the first templates are ready.
We will also outsource a motion design specialist who will be able to cut video creatives for our webmasters 24/7, because the easier it is for a webmaster to test our products, the more actively they will come to us. It’s a simple formula: You come to us, we give you all the links and set up bids in 10 minutes. We give/create ready-made creatives for you. In 30-40 minutes of time, you can already test our product.
As a former webmaster I can say that making creatives is one of the most labor-intensive activities for a webmaster.
Very often they are just too lazy to make creatives, so the test process is postponed until later, but we are trying to give everything we can for a quick start.
Do you bet on sports and/or gamble yourself at land-based casinos or online?
Anything related to the casino - definitely not. I never have luck with lotteries or bingo. I spent my luck in some other places. As for sports betting, I sometimes bet on eSports. I can suggest an interesting bet on CS: GO, that when strong teams of Tier 1 level meet, you can safely bet on total cards of 2.5 or more. Such bets go especially well in the playoffs. But unfortunately, it is this total that is often excluded from matches.
What are the keys to a beneficial working relationship between an affiliate manager and an affiliate?
I think it's all about transparency. No infrastructure, landings and other goodies can replace good relationships built on trust. I love telling webmasters the truth, why? It’s easier for me to live this way, I don’t have to remember what and to whom I said, because truth is one.
If we don’t have the opportunity to do something for the webmaster, it’s easier for me to tell him about it and offer possible solutions. If it doesn’t suit him, then it’s probably better, because both of us won't waste time. But usually, when a webmaster sees such an attitude, he himself goes to meet us. He sees that we give not a “drawn?conversion, but a real one. It is easier for him to assess the situation. This is probably the whole point of affiliate marketing. We are all looking for a possible solution for joint earnings and we share responsibility for this with them.
What are your hobbies? What takes up your time when you are not working?
Usually in my free time, I like to get away from the city. I like to spend weekends in nature. I like to run 3-5 km after work. I think that running perfectly tempers the body and spirit and allows you to develop good strength of mind, which has a positive effect on motivation at work.
I also like to ride a scooter listening to the phonk music, it allows me to distract myself from everything. And with colleagues, we often go out and play basketball during the working day. A couple of months ago, we all somehow got into basketball and now many of them are already consistently hitting the basket and our level is reaching the average amateur level.
If someone from out of town came to visit you for 24 hours, where would you take them and why?
Most likely, I would take somewhere to try the local cuisine, pomegranate wine - it is simply divine. Most likely the first point for us will be Gardenia Shevardnadze, an incredible place where you can feel like you are in a fairy tale. The second point would be Mtskheta, the ancient capital of Georgia.
If you could have dinner with three people, living or dead, who would they be?
Most likely, if I had such a choice, pragmatism would take its toll. And I would like to have dinner with Dietrich Mateschitz, the creator of Red Bull, as one of the most talented marketers in the world. Warren Buffett - as one of the most famous investors and Jeff Bezos - the creator of Amazon. I would take a recorder with me and try not to miss a word.
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14 December 2022, 1:58 pm #1
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Affiliate Manager Interview Series - Nick Ganter
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