Power affiliates 2011 - Bingo
Welcome to the second edition of the Power Affiliates 50. Here we profile the industry's most influential bingo affiliates.
Balls up bingo
Founder/Principal: Nickie Shute
Domains: Ballsupbingo.co.uk; Ballsupbingo.com
Yorkshire-based Take That Ltd operates five bingo portals driving traffic mainly to UK but also some US sites. Key personnel include founder Nickie Shute.
Bingo hideout
Founder/Principal: Ben Thorns/Tom Thorns
Domains: Pokerhideout.co.uk and other non-bingo .co.uk hideout sites
Also operates Nobullbingo.com and sister Hideout brands for poker, casino, betting and skill games.
Last July it introduced its ‘Bingo Odds Booster’ live tracker, as well as live details about how much money is in pots on its site review pages. It has monthly traffic of 30,000+ unique visitors and monthly income of five figures.
Bingobase
Founder/Principal: Raj Ramanandi
Domains: Bingobase. com; Bingobase.es; Bingobase.it; Freebingo.net; SuperFreeSlots.com; CasinoBase.co.uk
Headed by founder and MD Raj Ramanandi, parent company Digital Prophets runs UK, Spain and Italian-facing portals, including Freebingo.net. Bridged the affiliate/operator divide last year, launching TeaAndBingo on the Virtue Fusion network.
Bingoport
Founder/Principal: Scott Logan
Domains: Bingoport.co.uk; Bingopals.com; Ladybirdbingo.com
Creator Scott Logan’s three-year-old portal was the first to gather together and present data in a way that enabled bingo players to make properly informed decisions about where to play. Top of most operators’ lists.
Freebingohunter
Founder/Principal: Simon Smiley,Quick Think Media
Domains: Freebingohunter.com
Relative newcomer which has rapidly made inroads into the market off the back of the UK’s free bingo explosion. No longer runs Bingominis.com.
Online Bingo Club
Founder/Principal: Rob Hutchison
Domains: Onlinebingoclub.co.uk
Netherlands-based Hutchison’s main brand has been driving traffic to UK bingo sites since 2006. Also runs the Unlucky For Some portal.
Online Bingo.co.uk
Founder/Principal: Cashcade
Domains: Onlinebingo.co.uk
Bingo portal owned by Cashcade driving traffic to all brands but with a focus on the PartyGaming-owned bingo business’s main sites including Foxy and ITV Bingo.
Superfreebingo
Founder/Principal: Little Star Media
Domains: Superfreebingo.com; Superfreeslotgames.com
UK-focused portal owned and operated by Milton Keynes-based marketing company Little Star Media. Headed by managing directors Chris Wesson and Kylie Morgan. Since 2010 the company has sought to replicate its bingo success with the new Superfreeslotgames.com portal. Average of 150,000 inbound clicks per month; 18-22% conversion rate; since January 2008 it has 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
Established in 2000, Which Bingo positions itself as a media owner rather than as an affiliate business. However it remains at the top of many operators’ lists of the biggest affiliates.
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Q& A affiliate focus
OhMyBingo
Founder/Principal: Ben Starr
New entry: OhMyBingo.com
Established: 2009
Monthly traffic: 48,000; average conversion rate: 21%
Parent company: 15 Marketing
eGR: You were one of the first bingo affiliates to advertise on TV “ what encouraged you to go down this route and what impact has it had?
BS: We looked at other, more established affiliate markets and saw that the major players were spending more on offline advertising than the actual operators. Take the car insurance market for example; bar a couple of stubborn brands that aren’t on affiliate websites, it’s the comparison sites that you see with the celebrities and Russian meerkats.I didn’t want to launch yet another portal that gets its traffic by ranking behind the brand term and hoping that brand does some heavy advertising. It sounds bullish, but your best business case in that scenario is a mere second. OhMyBingo.com aims to become the number one destination for new and existing players to choose their first/next online bingo site.
eGR: OhMyBingo has its own free bingo game as well as its other services “ do you envisage more bingo portals introducing similar elements in the near future?
BS: Having a successful, stable and regularly updated free bingo platform is hard work, time consuming and very costly. Until ranking for brand terms leaves the forefront of the online bingo affiliate industry, I don’t think we will see any more free bingo games of note. Whatever a bingo affiliate does on-site, the aim is for the visitor to click away “ something like a free bingo game isn’t always a popular choice for a site owner.