In addressing the future, the company repeatedly hit several points that it believed were crucial to moving forward – as it aims to become the world’s biggest media platform, according to Jesper Søgaard, Better Collective’s Founder & CEO.
Delayed gratification
First, its VP of Acquisition Marketing, Gavin Moore, spoke about the importance of Better Collective’s ‘Delayed Gratification Model.’
While he was on stage, Moore highlighted the moves that Better Collective is able to take in the market that its rivals cannot – due to its significant market share, saying it can take a strategic long-term view in receiving profit from its investments.
Moore spoke about how Better Collective’s strategy is to continually monitor the state of a vertical and wait for it to come to fruition, as it doesn’t need to see immediate returns to keep its business running. This is a fact he hit home repeatedly, telling the audience that Better Collective’s peers do not have the significant capital required to follow such a business model. Moore used the metaphor of a child being left alone in a room with a marshmallow and being toldby an adult that if it was still there in 15 minutes the child could have another. In other words, Better Collective is waiting for larger profits to arrive in the future, as opposed to cashing in early.
Finally, Moore added that Better Collective’s market position was significantly better than that of its rivals, saying it has key relationships and trust built up over many years of cooperation with its partner; something no other company could match over a period of a mere 12 months.
Revenue streams and LatAm
Next, the company highlighted how it wanted to add new revenue streams to its business. A comment made on the stage was “lifetime means lifetime” when it pertained to investing in new revenue streams, with Better Collective telling the audience it was committed to the long term when choosing to invest in new revenue streams.
Though it wasn’t ready to tell the audience what many of these new revenue streams it would be targeting were, Better Collective did state that the LatAm market was something it wanted to push further into – calling it a ‘strategic priority.’ During the event, the company said it expects the LatAm and North American markets to grow significantly more than Europe going forward – which would make sense, given that Europe is an entrenched mature market that has been saturated by competition for decades. More on LatAm later this Trafficology...
Making acquisitions
A large part of Better Collective’s focus was on making future acquisitions, where it said it was ready to take its time and ‘apply incremental business models’ to acquired companies that will help it become more profitable or successful further down the line. While speaking about mergers and acquisitions, Søgaard added that the affiliate will “take a disciplined approach.”
Brand utilisation and US markets
Coming to the topic of the brands that Better Collective already has partnerships with or own outright, during the event, it said it would ensure product quality would be at the forefront of everything it did. In its pursuit of the US market and the market share Better Collective is looking to attain in the country, Søgaard spoke of the need to take its product quality and taylor it to localised markets in the right manner – thereby consolidating its position.
Furthermore, the CEO said the company relishes the challenge found in the US markets currently, telling the audience it “prefers having competition” and is confident in the company’s abilities due to its “strong relationship” with sportsbooks, with which it wanted to continue it “close collaborations.” Finally, Søgaard added that he personally hoped California would legalise online sports betting in the near future.
Trafficology Verdict
All in all, the strategy for Better Collective going forward comes from a company that is flexing its muscles in the affiliate market. Recently, it took a greater than 5% stake in Catena Media, a company that until recently was in lockstep with Better Collective as one of the super-affiliate brands. So, when a company takes up such a stake in its biggest rival, the swagger and confidence that comes after is bound to surface. We saw clear evidence of this during Better Collective's Capital Markets Day.
Better Collective’s strategy is to continually monitor the state of a vertical and wait for it to come to fruition, as it doesn’t need to see immediate returns to keep its business running
