“Operators don’t need to have their own technical team”: a SOFTSWISS expert’s view on key affiliate platform features
Recognised as the Affiliate tracking software of 2023 by SiGMA Awards Eurasia, Affilka by SOFTSWISS provides a reliable and sustainable product for over 240 brands. We talked to Angelika Antonova, Head of Sales at Affilka by SOFTSWISS, to find out what sets Affilka apart from other similar products, how the integration is going and what innovations are in store for partners in 2023.
What are the current trends in affiliate marketing in the iGaming industry, and how is Affilka adapting to these trends?
The iGaming industry is always rapidly changing and requires constant upgrades and enhancements from software providers. In the era of influencers, streamers and Tiktokers, offline promotion and real-time data become inevitable elements for every affiliate tracking software. Operators want to make data-driven decisions to build a high-performing marketing strategy so reporting on player activity, cross-device tracking, and in-app monitoring are crucial.
Speaking about the financial part of the business, the market share of crypto operations is increasing every year and stable coins have recently become more popular than Bitcoin (BTC) which is susceptible to fluctuations.
Affilka has been working on everything I mentioned and is constantly improving its functionality to stay ahead of the curve. We have many new features that will be released soon, not to mention a new traffic report and player behaviour prediction tools.
How does Affilka help iGaming companies manage their affiliate programs more effectively?
A big advantage of Affilka is the full customisation of affiliate commissions. Our Commission Constructor is not limited to standard CPA, RevShare, Hybrid or CPL deals, but any combination of those as well as multiple custom conditions can be added. Custom commissions could be assigned to a single affiliate based on their traffic source, product they’re promoting (casino, sportsbook or poker room), and players’ GEO, as well as playthrough activity so that every player behaviour may be covered by the deal.
To build stable trustworthy relations with affiliates, an operator has to care about timely payouts and diverse payment options. Apart from working with operators’ own payment merchants, Affilka offers its integrated payment methods of Skrill, Neteller, CoinsPaid and bank transfer which help to save time as the affiliate payouts are processed within several clicks straight from the operator interface.
In-depth reporting allows for the tracking of affiliate performance and player activity across brands, products, campaigns, countries, commissions and referral links on a granular level and close to real-time. All the data is aggregated in a single report which is customisable for every user making Affilka stats even more valuable for quick data-driven decision making.
Automated processes help the parties save a lot of time while working with the software. For operators, the bills are generated automatically in the system based on the commission setup, payments processed within several clicks, reports sent to BI tools via CSV, XML, JSON and API. Batch actions could be applied to different activity, mass email newsletters are sent via integrated email platforms. Affiliates love working with our software because once postbacks are configured, automated report export is set up, and payout requests scheduled, there is no need for them to constantly log into their profile at all. They may concentrate more on marketing efforts rather than checking the updates on a daily basis.
Can you share any success stories of iGaming companies that have migrated to Affilka from in-house solutions?
There have been lots of cases when initially operators developed their in-house affiliate solutions. After growing to a certain point it often became obvious the software needed more resources or lacked the required functionality, many of them migrated to Affilka.
Let me mention a prominent example of BC.Game who shared their positive feedback. The migration to Affilka for them resulted in an increased monthly player acquisition substantially. It also optimised use of marketing budgets, streamlined affiliate management with flexible commissions and effective allocation of team resources. I’m sure that’s not the limit and Affilka will bring even better results for BC.Game in the future.
What are the key features of Affilka that make it stand out from in-house solutions?
First of all, for a reasonable price, an operator gets a ready-to-use affiliate platform built with best practices, continuous upgrades and full support. Affilka was built with the demands of industry leaders in mind and it has every feature to satisfy the expectations and requests of operators and affiliates.
Secondly, an operator doesn’t need to have their own technical team who will constantly upgrade and maintain the software to meet the trends and requirements of the market.
One more advantage of Affilka compared to an in-house solution is a well-deserved reputation for being a transparent and fair solution. I’ve heard many stories when affiliates simply refused to work with an in-house affiliate platform due to slow data synchronisation, lack of certain postbacks, difficulties with transferring data to their trackers and most importantly the mistrust of the data displayed to them as an operator may amend it on their side.
Taking the above into consideration, it turns out to be more profitable to use an ‘off-the-shelf’ solution reputationally, in terms of the team resource distribution and financially as the monthly cost is usually less than the salary of one developer.
How does Affilka integrate with other iGaming software platforms?
The integration is done via API – it’s an automated reliable solution to exchange information between a casino, sportsbook, or poker room platform and Affilka. Our API allows data syncs to happen every 15 minutes, meaning that the statistics are being updated and postbacks are frequently being triggered both for an operator and their affiliates. Any custom period of data update may be set, but the industry is moving towards near-real-time data and so are we.
About Angelika Antonova
With 7 years of experience as a Deputy Director in commercial real estate, Angelika Antonova joined SOFTSWISS in 2020 as a Sales Manager for the Affilka Team. Within 3 years, Angelika took the Affilka platform to new markets – in addition to SOFTSWISS clients, Affilka is now used by many B2B providers and operators who previously relied on in-house platforms. Since the beginning of 2022, Angelika heads the Affilka by SOFTSWISS sales team, which grew to 5 people in May 2023 due to high demand for the affiliate platform that now powers over 240 brands.
About SOFTSWISS
SOFTSWISS is an international iGaming company supplying certified software solutions for managing gambling operations. The expert team, which counts 1,500+ employees, is based in Malta, Poland, Georgia, and Belarus. SOFTSWISS holds a number of gaming licences and provides one-stop-shop iGaming software solutions. The company has a vast product portfolio, including the Online Casino Platform, the Game Aggregator with thousands of casino games, the Affilka affiliate platform, the Sportsbook Platform and the Jackpot Aggregator. In 2013 SOFTSWISS was the first in the world to introduce a Bitcoin-optimised online casino solution.
