Affilka
Source: SoftSwiss

‘Affil U Bro’: How the Affilka platform is solving pain points for iGaming operators

It might be a ‘new kid on the block’ among more established affiliate tracking platforms for iGaming operators, but Affilka – an offspring of SoftSwiss – has made huge strides since evolving into a platform independent of its parent company in 2019. 

Anastasia Borovaya (pictured), Affilka Product Owner at SoftSwiss, tells us about the platform’s key features, delivering performance data in real-time, solving pain points through its unofficial slogan of ‘Affil U Bro!’, and why it has become vital to unite the affiliate tracking for multiple iGaming brands under a single platform.

SBC: An easy one to start, what is Affilka? And what are the platform’s key features?

AB: Affilka is a new kid on the block among affiliate marketing software providers in the iGaming industry. It had originally been built into the SoftSwiss Gaming Platform before it evolved into an independent product in 2019.

The same developers who built our flagship B2B brand stood at the origins of Affilka. SoftSwiss’ vast experience in the iGaming sphere paired with unrivalled technical expertise provided a powerful foundation for a new product. 

There are several key features of our affiliate marketing platform. It has an extremely flexible commissions constructor aimed at optimising marketing expenses. Importantly, we don’t just offer our operators a standard set of RevShare, Hybrid, CPA commission plans with limited functionality – we empower them to create their own unique reward algorithms with as many dynamic rules as possible.

Then there are the built-in payment processing methods. It is crucial for every affiliate program to make timely payouts to their affiliates. And just as important is to do it efficiently, preferably in just a few clicks. Affilka cares about your financial officers’ sanity, who we’re sure have bigger fish to fry than processing invoices one-by-one.

And finally, high load resistance. Visits and redirects through affiliate referral links account for 90% of all application load. To ensure that referral links are functional at all times, all tracking is delegated to a separate application we’ve created which utilises GO as its programming language and MongoDB as its database. This combination allows us to handle high loads of multiple requests simultaneously and achieve high-availability and fault-tolerance.

SBC: Operators are increasingly targeting multiple gaming jurisdictions with different lead brands; with that in mind, how important has it become to unite affiliate tracking for multiple iGaming brands under a single platform?

AB: If a business operates multiple iGaming brands, it’s a lot more convenient to unite them under one affiliate program. It maximises brand exposure among affiliates, increases the revenues of all umbrella-brands, optimises work efficiency of affiliate managers and reduces various operational costs. The books, reports, commissions, settings, accounts history are all stored and managed in one place. 

When an operator adds a new brand to their affiliate program, affiliates know about it instantly. They don’t have to undergo a registration and verification procedure or submit their payment details all over again. They most likely have the same manager assigned to them. 

The whole onboarding and get-them-while-they-are-hot procedure is eliminated, and affiliates can start promoting the new brand right away. Plus, affiliates promote hundreds of iGaming brands. It might be a real headache for them to log into every single affiliate program just to check their performance or request a payout. 

SBC: Just in terms of assessing the competition – what are the traditional flaws in affiliate tracking that SoftSwiss has sought to correct through Affilka?

AB: When assessing the competition, we try not to focus on our competitors’ flaws, but rather on their strong sides. It gives us food for thought and fuel for innovation. 

SBC: Okay, so let’s take it back to tracking affiliate marketing performance in real-time, how ‘live’ is this? Or is there any sort of reporting lag?

AB: Affilka integrates with iGaming brands via an API. The minimal frequency with which we can accept and update data is every 15 minutes. Most operators prefer to send the data to us once an hour or once in every couple of hours. So, it’s pretty close to real-time!

SBC: You recently launched a new module collecting data on player visits, registration, deposits, and cashouts. Why is this more granular data so important to sit alongside the more traditional information on affiliated players?

AB: Well, it’s not exactly new. It was part of our MVP version back in 2018. This data was aggregated on partner and campaign level. In 2020 we started breaking down data by player. Thus, affiliates and operators can analyse specific players in more detail and understand their gaming patterns and deposits/cash-outs activity. 

In addition to this standard information and players’ bets and wins, we’re also collecting data on their bonuses, chargebacks, and various third-party expenses such as jackpot contributions, payment systems fees, game providers fees, etc.

In developing our product, we stick to the principles of transparency. The more information is available to operators and affiliates, the more well-grounded their business decisions are, and the more mutually beneficial, safe and secure affiliate-operator relations can become.

SBC: What can you tell us about the operators onboarded to Affilka so far? And what has the feedback been?

AB: Being a SoftSwiss offspring, we have landed a lot of deals with SoftSwiss-powered casinos and sportsbooks such as Bitstarz, N1casino, Manekicasino, 7bitcasino, Kingbilly, SlotWolf, Fastpay, etc. After all, SoftSwiss offers a one-stop service for iGaming brands. However, we cannot rest on laurels, and we need to earn our own bread.

This year, we have already signed up eight third-party brands not powered by SoftSwiss. I would be bragging if I said that the feedback was exclusively positive. But with no challenges there is no growth. We are constantly learning from our operators, surprising them with ideas and improving on our mistakes.

We have an unofficial slogan of “Affil U Bro!” We feel our customers’ pains, know their problems and help to solve them. Hopefully, one day our clients will become our brand ambassadors.

SBC: And finally, what does a successful 2021 look like for Affilka?

AB: It’ll be a year of sustainable growth. We want to onboard as many new customers as possible, while expanding to new markets and refining our platform for more iGaming products. 

It is important, though, that all our clients are happy and satisfied, that our software gives them the opportunity to scale their business and become ever more successful, that we maintain the quality and regularity of software releases and that we hold up to the high standards of safety and security we are always preaching.

In 2021, we will hopefully get rid of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ll finally get together for a great team building event. You know, all stories are better with a pint of ale.

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