The upside of affiliate networks

In January of this year, Acroud acquired both Matching Visions and Voonix to strengthen its market position. Can you give us an introduction into Matching Visions?

Matching Visions is an online affiliate network, predominantly focused on the casino market, but it also has sports, loan and finance options as well. We house hundreds of different online casinos, specialising in all kinds of countries; nowadays, we are focusing more on the European markets, including the Scandinavian, Eastern European markets and more.

We house thousands of different online affiliates, in the wide range of channels – we have lots of setups and are very adaptable. However, we are strictly compliant, really trying to stick to GDPR and other regulations.

Connection is important to us, and that is why we cater a special experience just for our affiliates. Matching Visions offers publishers access to the best REV share, CPA and Hybrid deals in the market. With monthly campaigns, competitions, specialised deals, and best of all, one payment for all your brands, so no chasing companies for your money.

All relationships we create at Matching Visions are aimed at the long term. We believe that if you are happy and succeeding, then we are too; that’s why we strive for the best!

And Voonix?

Matching Visions and Voonix are linked together because they're partly built on the same technology. We’re primarily focused on the medium to large affiliates. All data is combined into one dashboard – that was the whole idea of Voonix. Every time an affiliate went out and wanted to go directly to the operator, they ran into that challenge that they had to collect all the data manually. So if you work with 100 different operators, you have one system where you can monetise all your affiliate programs.

We started back in 2017 and now we have over 1,200 operators on the platform. It’s a time saver for the user; it gives you an overview of all your traffic, hopefully prompting better business decisions. So when we say save time, it’s also about saving resources and saving money. It will make it easier for you to make more money as you have a total overview of all your traffic sources.

What are the benefits of joining an affiliate network for smaller affiliates?

Matching Visions allows people to be something bigger. Whether it’s the casino or the affiliate, their success is our success. We’re not in anything on a short-term basis. So while that may disappoint some operators, we want to protect our affiliates and that’s the reason we’ve been so strong all these years. We really try to build and strengthen affiliates and their growth. We’re well-known for taking small affiliates and guiding them to being the best they can be. We try to instill a sense of community in Matching Visions.

We have worked with various large affiliates over the years, but our real specialty is the small-to-medium affiliates, which we help to grow. We really try ensure we stay ahead of trends, catering for a much larger variant of affiliates. We try our best to cater for you, whether you are somewhere in Africa or anywhere else in the world.

But are there any challenges to being part of a network, as opposed to being an independent affiliate?

The main disadvantage is we essentially look for small to medium affiliates, and the biggest disadvantage is once they’ve grown, they want to get to a much bigger size, hire their own staff and own management. Once they get to a much larger size, there is the potential of them wanting to do more on their own. But we try to turn a disadvantage into an advantage and introduce them to casinos and just use a referral from the casinos instead.

That way both parties are happy, and the affiliate can do what they deem best for business. We’re very transparent in everything we do to ensure full trust from our affiliates and that’s what keeps our business running strong and having such a reputable name at the end of the day.

As a final word, where do these acquisitions now leave Acroud?

For us, having these guys as a part of our group gives us access to top-notch software. It also, of course, helps us build an ecosystem where we have a lower risk profile in the group, since we have different business areas. We believe software-based affiliation services is the future for a lot of us in this industry. So that’s the position we are going for with this acquisition.