Christoffer Gronlund, Co-Founder of Winlandia, explains why more affiliates are transitioning into operators themselves and the key to unlocking a successful partnership between publisher and brand.
We are seeing more and more affiliates transition into online casino operators. What makes affiliation the ideal learning ground for becoming an operator?
Customer acquisition is one of the greatest challenges an operator faces, but it’s an affiliate’s bread and butter. The sole focus of an affiliate is to engage players across various channels, push them to their websites and then on to the brands they work with. The affiliates that have been able to master this are among the top customer acquisition specialists in this space, and those skills can easily transfer to directly driving players to an online casino brand.
Today, affiliates are brands themselves and use a wide range of tools for reaching players, from SEO to PPC, paid media, programmatic and even above-the-line – the same tactics you’d use for an online casino brand.
Of course, there is much more to operating an online casino – regulation, payments, content, bonusing, etc – but the combination of a good white-label platform partner and a solid team can ensure a smooth transition from affiliate to operator.
How did your past experience in the affiliate space prepare you for moving to the operator side?
I started my career in the industry at Betsson and its Affiliate Lounge program. I had responsibility for the Nordic market and ultimately for developing and growing a network of affiliate partners in the region – this was back in the very early days of online casinos working with affiliates for customer acquisition.
I later moved on to ComeOn where I was part of the original crew tasked with running the operator’s affiliate program, as well as being the Country Manager for Sweden. This, combined with a passion for marketing, gave me a really deep insight into customer acquisition and just how important affiliates are for full-funnel marketing when it comes to driving players to an online casino brand – especially if that brand is new to the market.
I quickly learned what a good affiliate program should look like, and how to build strong, long-lasting partnerships with affiliates. This understanding and experience would come in very handy when I was given the chance to be a Co-Founder of FinlandiaCasino.com (now Winlandia.com).
How has this experience shaped Winlandia Partners and the relationships with your publishers?
It has been instrumental. Over my time at Betsson and ComeOn I was able to learn what does and doesn’t work when it comes to running an affiliate program and to use this as the building blocks for Winlandia Partners.
To me, it quickly became obvious that the key to success was the strength of the relationship between the brand/program and the affiliate, and that this relationship had to be built on transparency and honesty. This means providing affiliates with a platform that allows for accurate tracking and detailed reporting, underpinned by fair commercial agreements that work for both parties.
Today, personalisation is also a must, and this is why we offer each affiliate partner things like a dedicated landing page, unique bonus offers in some cases and active CRO. While some programs look for quantity of partners over quality of partners, I believe it’s far more effective to work with a smaller number of semi-exclusive affiliates but for those affiliates to be the absolute best in the markets they target. This approach also means we can give more resources to each partner, further strengthening the relationship and ultimately producing much better results for both parties.
Just how effective are affiliates at driving brand awareness in new and existing markets?
They are hugely effective. Affiliates have the brand awareness and immediate, direct access to players that a new online casino brand could only achieve after months of marketing and advertising. They also have the trust of the player – trust that can take a casino brand many years to foster.
By selecting the right affiliate partner or partners at launch, the online casino brand can be immediately pushed to players – players who are highly likely to sign up and play as the demand for new casinos in all markets is incredibly high. This is the approach we have taken, entering exclusive launch agreements with the likes of Gambling.com, Askgamblers.com and GiG/Gentoo to push Winlandia in new markets such as the UK for a number of weeks before then going live with a select number of hand-picked semi-exclusive partners after. It’s proven to be hugely effective for us.
How will the affiliate space evolve over the coming years?
Affiliates will continue to push boundaries in how they approach customer acquisition. Where once the battleground was mostly SEO, affiliates are having to upskill and become experts in other channels. This is actually really exciting, and we are always happy to work with affiliates looking to try new things.
I think we will also continue to see affiliates become big businesses – gone are the days when you could throw up a simple WordPress site and in a matter of months generate significant revenues.
Today, affiliates are big businesses with specialist teams across development, design, content, CRO, paid media, legal, etc. This will ultimately lead to more consolidation, with the power players buying up their rivals or access into new markets. This makes for a really interesting time for the affiliate industry and one that I am thrilled to be a part of.
That being said, I have concerns around regulatory frameworks becoming too stringent and potentially forcing affiliates to work with unlicensed operators in black and grey markets.
Over-regulation can mean markets are no longer viable for operators and affiliates, but these companies still need to make money and many turn to unregulated markets with limited or no restrictions in place. The rise of the black market is a serious concern for the industry – in the UK, for example, the Gambling Commission has said it will publish a comprehensive study in 2025 to better understand the size of the black market and improve its monitoring of it. I expect to see other regulators follow suit.
