What can we expect

Yana:
In your opinion, what was the biggest challenge and accomplishment for Pin-Up Partners in 2023?
For me - my new role in the ecosystem as the Head of Pin-Up Partners, changes in the management structure due to the doubling of staff and new departments such as the quality control and training departments, while maintaining the quality of work. There was also the launch of three new geos and a multiple increase in the number of active partners.
 I believe that we have accomplished many ambitious and challenging tasks and we will find many more new and interesting things in the New Year.

What are you excited to see from the industry in 2024? Are there things you are not as enthusiastic about?
The industry as a whole is more or less constant - every year there’s more “tightening of the screws”, but at the same time everyone is used to finding new approaches to keep the traffic flowing. This trend continues year after year, so we do not expect significant changes. I expect every partner to treat their traffic responsibly, to understand its LTV, to work on retention and in general to work on quality. We, in turn, will continue to expand our expertise and improve communication with partners to offer the best conditions and help our partners gain maximum profits from their traffic.

In what aspects of team management or company culture did you see the most improvement in 2023?
We are learning to appreciate vacations - previously a lot of employees did not know how to take vacations - they either did not take them or worked 20-50% of the vacation time. Now we have approached the issue in a new way and sometimes we practically send employees on vacation! A lack of rest leads to burnout; this is something many of us know.
 If we’re talking about me, during my first two years in the company I took a vacation only to pass the exams. Only enthusiasm and desire to grow and develop in the ecosystem kept me from burnout. Now I use my own example to show the team how to approach workload planning in order not to lose performance and avoid overwork.

What does the process of vetting and launching affiliates look like? How do you know the partnership will be productive and long-term?
At the launch, we ask questions that relate to the client’s experience with the traffic source and previous results. Afterwards, we give advice and all the requested resources for the launch [of traffic] and then we accompany the process. Productive cooperation is all about open and transparent communication, where each party understands the goals and benefits of the partnership and is focused on the common result.

New Year is just around the corner, do you have any New Year Resolutions, both personal and professional?
Two times a year I make a survey on the results of my life - on my birthday (I have it in the summer) and on New Year’s Eve. I do not make resolutions, but I set ambitious goals for myself. A year ago I set myself a goal to live by the sea and now with my new position I have managed to change my place of residence. Now every morning I am greeted by the Mediterranean Sea.

Eugene:
In your opinion, what was the biggest challenge for Pin-Up Partners in 2023?
It is becoming more difficult to get traffic to iGaming offers. Auctions in advertising networks are becoming more expensive and the average cost per click increases by 20% annually. The biggest challenge was to keep the bar of high profitability for our partners.

And what was the biggest accomplishment of the Pin-Up Partners team?
We have doubled the number of active affiliates and helped thousands of new affiliates successfully transition from other verticals into iGaming.

What are you excited to see from the industry in 2024? Are there things you are not as enthusiastic about?
Most likely, we are waiting for a turning point in the internet marketing niche itself, with new methods of promoting iGaming products and attracting players entering the scene. The focus will shift from instant benefits [and payouts] for affiliates to long-term affiliate cash flow and the importance of referred player loyalty.
 I doubt things like AI, VR and AR will be the “new wave.” The market is young and users are typically conservative on such drastic transitions. At the same time, the traffic from social networks has not yet exhausted its potential and people will continue to prefer the usual formats of interacting with entertainment products. In principle, people do not change their patterns of behavior on the Internet too much.

In what aspects of team management or company culture did you see the most improvement in 2023?
I can only answer for my Sales department. In order to meet the challenges in the field, the team must develop multi-expertise. To be an excellent Sales manager, the ability to “sell” is no longer enough. You need to continuously improve your negotiation skills, business administration, analytics, understanding of technical aspects of traffic monetization, keeping up with current marketing trends and a lot of smaller details.

What does the process of vetting and launching affiliates look like? How do you know the partnership will be productive and long-term?
At the initial stage, it is sufficient to confirm that the affiliate is committed to long-term work. Launching an affiliate’s work is only a small part of the overall workload. This is where the manager’s expertise comes in handy because further on there will be a period of “warming up” to each other in order to achieve the desired win-win. At this stage, we provide all possible assistance. This includes selecting conditions for this or that type of traffic and providing applications for driving traffic and choosing the most converting approach or angle and analysing statistics on already attracted players to improve the effectiveness of subsequent campaigns.

New Year is just around the corner, do you have any New Year Resolutions, both personal and professional?
On the personal side, it is of course to pay more attention to health and add a couple of new countries to my own travel atlas. From the professional side, it is to once again achieve exponential growth.

KATIA:
In your opinion, what was the biggest challenge for [Pin-Up Partners] in 2023?
August and September were remembered for the mass app bans in Google Play, associated with a major update to Google’s app policy. This created a lot of problems for affiliates who used apps in their funnels.
 That was the real challenge because despite the fact that traffic volume from ASO, FB and In-app shrunk, the plan needs to be executed and traffic volumes need to be maintained. To overcome this situation, we started to shift to the approaches with PWA and iOS-apps.
 One of the ways out was the use of SMS-landers. The idea is simple: the user was offered to enter a phone number on the landing page and receive a link to access the product via SMS. The retention rate in this case is not as high as in apps with Push notifications, but it worked as a temporary alternative. Despite the recovery of the app market, we continue to expand our portfolio of accepted traffic sources; this includes SMS, Push, PPC, email and more!
 Thanks to adaptation and diversification, we managed to maintain and grow our traffic volumes.

And what was the Pin-Up Partners team’s biggest accomplishment?
The main task of affiliate programs is to buy quality and payback traffic, the target volumes of which are growing every year thus raising GGR. The year 2022 was remembered for the surge of influencer traffic in combination with Facebook and Telegram. This approach gave good results at first, which inevitably fell over time, regardless of how the traffic was “fluffed.” In 2023 we focused on traffic sources that gave better quality. It was the year of optimising processes and focusing on quality. Now, summing up, we can see how the optimisation of processes and focus on traffic sources that give higher LTV led to the growth of GGR.

What does the process of vetting and launching affiliates look like? How do you know the partnership will be productive and long-term?
First of all, we find out who we are working with. It can be a solo affiliate, a team, an affiliate network, an advertising network, or many others and all this can be understood in one personal call. This way you can understand who is in front of you, what volume of traffic they are ready to provide, from what sources and with what experience they came to us.
 It is equally important to understand the partner’s needs: someone needs a special offer, someone needs an exotic payment model or someone needs a custom bonus. We are ready to give all this in order to achieve productive cooperation.
 After this introduction, we purchase a test volume of up to 300 FD and evaluate it. After testing we look at how many players are left and how they play. We estimate LTV. After that we start working on improving the quality of traffic in subsequent launches and check the funnel to achieve better LTV on the product and give win-win conditions.

You work in regions such as LatAm and Asia, are there any markets that you find particularly interesting/ attractive and why?
We find the regions we work with to be the most interesting :)
 From LatAm we have Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Peru and from Asia we have India. Each of these regions implies a certain specificity.
 LatAm is a Tier 3 region and to get the best results you need to pay a lot of attention to player support and the tools they use. This market becomes profitable when working with a high volume of traffic, as LTV is relatively low and traffic can pay off for a long time.
 We also receive traffic from Turkey and Canada and working with them looks quite different. Traffic volumes there are less, but the LTV of players is higher (hence the rates).
 As a result, each market requires an individual approach and we are ready to help our partners adjust their approaches and campaigns to get the most out of their traffic.

New Year is just around the corner, do you have any New Year Resolutions, both personal and professional? In the New Year, I want to actively exercise to improve both my well-being and raise my professional effectiveness.