The rise of the affiliate app

Affiliates are finally beginning to rise to the challenge posed by native applications, with some delivering products which could teach operators a thing or two

While new app launches and updates are rarely big news within the egaming sector these days, the new norm has never quite transferred to affiliates. So when several of the leading affiliates, including At The Races, Team FA and Oddschecker announced major new app developments during the summer, it might have come as surprise to an industry which has become used to affiliates lagging well behind operators when it comes to native applications.

Affiliates have traditionally been hesitant to embrace apps but developments in tech are beginning to create a new wave of products which are punching at a similar level to operator’s offerings. Apple’s App Store includes a number of affiliates within its Sports top 100, with the likes of Oddschecker, At The Races and AccaTracker vying with major operators for position.

Running an app has not always been a logical decision for an affiliate. The native application is the ideal medium to keep a user engaged without external distraction, but unlike an operator, that is not always the primary goal of an affiliate. Yet changing market reality and the increasing emphasis operators place on apps is forcing affiliates to follow suit, and for the first time some are building products which are even driving the market forward.

NEW REALITY

There are now an increasing number of reasons why apps are a must for affiliates. Team FA, which has pushed its AccaTracker app hard in recent weeks, said developing an app was a way of building up a number of assets to diversify away from a single revenue stream and ensure that it wouldn’t be damaged by regulatory changes or other unforeseen circumstances. The affiliate has plans for a new multi-sport app down the line.

“The great thing about having an app is it’s something you own and you’ve created, unlike Facebook where it could change the rules tomorrow,” Jamie Knowlson, co-founder and CEO at Team FA, told eGR Digital Marketing in July. “I guess Apple can in a way but AccaTracker had a total of 502,000 users last season and in its lifetime over 750,000 people have used it. We are the biggest independent football gambling app out there.”

Affiliates have not always talked about apps in such glowing terms. “I don’t think developing an app has been a top priority for affiliates up to date,” Matthew Glazier, managing director of Dynamic Content Limited who also manages a number of affiliates, says. “If an affiliate has their sites optimised for mobile, then to have an app doing the same things as the site often feels like a case of duplication for no particular gain. That said, a lot of affiliates now have some form of app.”

INSIDE JOB

Perhaps the most significant breakthrough driving the new generation of affiliate apps has been the ability to allow a user to place a bet through an operator without leaving the affiliate environment. In-app betting solves many of the problems affiliates have tended to grumble about on mobile, particularly unreliable tracking and accreditation.

Oddschecker, which recently extended this functionality to its desktop site after pioneering it on mobile, is among the major affiliates to offer in-app betting through the affiliate environment. And the new At The Races app, which currently ranks above several major operators including Unibet, BetVictor and Betway on the Apple App Store, offers in-app betting through three initial partners: bet365, Ladbrokes and William Hill. “It means that users can securely place bets with each of those bookmakers without leaving the At The Races app environment.” Matthew Taylor, director of new media and innovation at At The Races, says.

The integration of in-app betting is no easy task for affiliates, which is why we are only starting to see its widespread implementation now. But the benefits are obvious. Taylor says that At The Races rejected the option of launching with more partners and simply linking to bet slips in the native browser because it was decided better to concentrate on those partners who could provide in-app betting functionality. In this instance, a more seamless betting experience was considered more important than a wider choice of operators.

But he stresses that the choice presented “a far bigger technical hurdle” as well as raising several compliance issues surrounding Apple’s guidelines as well as the requirements of each partner operator.

LESSONS TO LEARN

Despite the progress in recent months, there is no doubting that operators remain a step ahead of affiliates when it comes to apps.  To close that gap affiliates will have to learn the same lessons operators faced while developing their product suites. “It is obvious but the single most important consideration is that the app has to be an excellent experience for the user,” Taylor at At The Races says. “Apps are all about first impressions and if they are a bad experience the user will simply never go back – that means that we won’t release new functionality until it has been thoroughly tested.”

Taylor says that while it is still early days for the firm’s new apps, it is already seeing impressive sign-up rates through the apps which are on a par with the desktop site. He says there are plans for new developments and updates in the coming months to drive further traffic.

There may be lessons for operators to learn from affiliates, too. The engagement the likes of Team FA are now driving through an app would be the envy of many operators, and this in part because the affiliate has placed its app at the centre of its digital marketing activity. The focused approach of At The Races and its decision to use only those operators who could offer the best integrated experience shows that desktop’s content arms race does not always transfer to native applications. And with operators now keener than ever to drive organic mobile growth rather than cannibalise its own desktop share, a burgeoning affiliate app revolution can only be good news.

This is an extract from eGR Mobile Intelligence issue 23.