eGR Power Affiliates 2012 - Bingo

The past 12 months have been some of the most challenging in gaming with Black Friday topping the list of hurdles affiliates have had to overcome.

Not only that, revenue share deals are constantly being squeezed while uncertainty surrounding who will win out and how newly regulated markets, such as Spain, will perform are putting affiliates under more pressure than ever before. However, many have invested in other niches or diversified in order to find more traffic.

It is these that have made the grade in this year’s eGaming Review Power Affiliates.

Later this week we will bring you the leading affiliates for casino, poker and sports betting, but today we begin with bingo.

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Trevor Edwards (pictured) – Founder, sunlight-bingo NEW ENTRY

eGR: How did you get into affiliate marketing?

Trevor Edwards (TE): I worked in a pharmaceutical factory until 2008 but got into affiliate marketing in the gambling sector in 2006. I was making £15 CPA deals for Foxy Bingo via affiliatefuture.co.uk before I was aware that you could earn residual income. By the middle of 2008 it was the likes of Winkbingo that really helped me grow my site earnings as sunlight-bingo was ranking for keywords and the traffic I was getting from Google worked very well sending it to Wink.

I left the day job in October 2008 to push the site full time. Sunlight has around 24,000 uniques per month and makes four figures a day, but I’ve been diversifying into other areas such as slots and casino over the past 18 months and it’s going well. I still have my last ever monthly wage slip from the factory in my office that is for considerably less. This reminds me just how fortunate I am to be in this industry.

eGR: Who do you work with regularly and why?

TE: I work a lot with ignitebingo.com and Mandalay Media whose sites convert well. They have excellent CRM and player retention and are arguably the only ones SMS messaging their players on their mobiles as soon as a new promotion appears.

eGR: You have made more money this year than any other, why?

TE: This year has been my best yet mainly because, on an educated hunch, I threw all my eggs into Ignitebingo brands such as Costa Bingo and Sing Bingo and by pushing thousands of players to their sites it paid off, as does things like sending low volumes of high-value players to slots sites used predominantly by bingo players, such as fluffyfavourites.co.uk and bingoslots.co.uk. I look for niche angles where I can send low volume, high-value slot players.

eGR: What is your long-term goal?

TE: I’m putting money into SEO, especially around my new sites. Having a network of affiliate sites will hopefully pay off in the long run, but at the same time I am eager to find alternative ways to generate traffic to my sites and will be trying out alternative methods this year such as TV advertising and PPC with landing pages to build bigger mailing lists.

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Bingo affiliates:

Balls up bingo

Founder/Principal: Nickie Shute, founder

Domains: ballsupbingo.co.uk; ballsupbingo.com; lottery.co.uk; euro-millions.com; gamble.co.uk

Owned by Yorkshire-based Take That Ltd since 2008 ““ 11 staff. Seen bingo revenues decline but diversified into cross-border lottery and casino offerings. Bought several significant domains in expectation of US market opening.

Bingo hideout

Founder/Principal: Ben Thorns/Tom Thorns

Domains: bingohideout.co.uk

Solid Digital marketing headed by the Thorns brothers. Also operates Nobullbingo.com, Spabingo and sister Hideout brands for poker, casino, betting, lottery and skill games. Generates monthly traffic of 30,000+ people and has a monthly income of five figures.

Bingobase

Founder/Principal: Raj Ramanandi

Domains: bingobase.com; bingobase.es; bingobase.it; freebingo.net; casinobase.co.uk; pricelessbingo.com; champagnebingo.com; superfreeslots.com; teaandbingo.com

Digital Prophets runs UK, Spain and Italy-facing portals, including freebingo.net. Heavy focus on retention for the next 12 months.

Bingoport

Founder/Principal: Scott Logan

Domains: bingoport.co.uk; bingopals.com; ladybirdbingo.com; dingobingo (Facebook app); Operator via livebingo.com; nuttybingo.com; divabingo.com

First to gather and present data that enables players to make informed decisions about where to play. Highly respected and top of most operators’ lists.

Free bingo hunter

Founder/Principal: Simon Smiley

Diversified into social bingo in 2011 with Bejig and Facebook brand Avatingo. In business since November 2008. Handed the reins over to two former Ladbrokes personnel to concentrate on Avatingo. Smiley says bingo brands are increasingly introducing social features to real-money games in order to drive traffic and increase loyalty.

OhMyBingo

Founder/Principal: Ben Starr

Domains: ohmybingo.com

Established 2009. Preparing to launch a new network with his own new, as yet undisclosed brand, and at first three other partners. Its parent company is 15 Marketing.

Online Bingo.co.uk

Founder/Principal: Cashcade

Domains: onlinebingo.co.uk

Bingo portal owned by Cashcade focusing on driving traffic to bwin.party-owned bingo sites including Foxy and ITV Bingo. Lost ground recently but brand is still significant.

Superfreebingo

Founder/Principal: Chris Wesson, Little Star Media

Domains: superfreebingo.com; superfreeslotgames.com

Average of 150,000 inbound clicks per month ““ buy in traffic and sell it out for more; 18-22% conversion rate. Since January 2008 acquired 45,000 new bingo players for UK operators.

Which Bingo

Founder/Principal: Phil Fraser

Domains: whichBingo.com; whichbingo.co.uk; freebingo.co.uk; quebingo.com

Early entrant in 2000. Positions itself as a media owner rather than as an affiliate business, however it remains at the top of many operators’ lists. Parent company is Focus Online Management.

This article originally appeared in the March issue of eGaming Review. To find out about subscription options, click here.