AFFILIATES
Building an affiliate business Y
Mark McGuinness, Chief Marketing Officer at
Devilfish.com goes beyond traffic and CPA to offer his expert advice gained from years in the industry and his own experiences of what it will take to build the next generation of affiliate business in iGaming.
ou hardly hear talk of forward innovation in the affiliate sector anymore. The debate has narrowed to compliance headaches, admin fees, opaque reporting, and the constant churn of affiliates and operators migrating to ‘new platforms’ that promise efficiency but rarely deliver higher financial returns. Beneath the noise, the model itself has stagnated. The future won’t belong to those who extract value, but to those who create it and affiliates who act as co-creators, not contractors, and build experiences that players genuinely trust.
SETTING THE SCENE: THE OLD MODEL NO LONGER WORKS When I launched my first two affiliate websites over a decade ago, the game was brutally simple: rank on page one, buy cheap clicks, and out-convert the competition. Whoever mastered SERPs and PPC dominated. That formula has fractured. With AI reshaping search behaviour from Google’s Search Generative Experience to conversational engines like ChatGPT, organic ranking is less predictable. Paid media, meanwhile, is more expensive and less controllable, as algorithms now prioritise engagement over bid size. The once-linear ‘rank, click, convert’ model feels like chasing smoke now.
Back then, speed and spend ruled. Whoever scaled faster won. It was efficient but not human. Operators treated affiliates as a cost line; affiliates saw operators as interchangeable. The system produced volume but not value. It rewarded arbitrage, not authenticity, and built a marketplace that extracted more than it created.
22 DECEMBER 2025 GIO
Today’s players and especially Gen Z see through keyword-stuffed content and soulless bonus lists. They crave connection, community, and credibility.
Having launched and managed major affiliate programmes for regulated operators globally, I’ve seen the shift first-hand. The affiliates who thrive now aren’t gaming algorithms; they’re building audiences that trust them. The model hasn’t died; it’s maturing.
THE NEW REALITY: FROM ARBITRAGE TO AUTHENTICITY We’ve entered the era of shared experience. Players don’t want to be ‘acquired’; they want to belong. The modern affiliate’s value lies not in generating clicks but in curating journeys. Narrative Transportation Theory explains why. People are persuaded by stories they can inhabit emotionally. The best affiliates no longer publish static reviews; they tell stories that immerse – the tension of a crash game, the anticipation of a roulette spin, the buzz of community play.
Take CasinoHeadz, one of Europe’s most dynamic content-led affiliates. Instead of listing offers, they film real player reactions. Their engagement rates are three to four times higher than traditional reviews, and operators pay for emotional resonance, not raw traffic. The future belongs to creators who build experiences, not inventories.
THE EMPATHY GAP: AFFILIATES WHO DON’T KNOW THEIR AUDIENCE
Here’s the truth few admit: most affiliates know almost nothing about their audience. They
target keywords, not people, chasing anonymous search clicks and aggregated social profiles. That’s not marketing. That’s mechanics.
The irony is that we call ourselves marketers, yet many affiliates have no emotional model of their players. They can quote CTRs but can’t describe motivations. They can recite top- performing keywords but not human intent. In 2024, according to iGaming NEXT, the average casino affiliate generated over 70 per cent of traffic from anonymous or indirect sources – a number that highlights just how little behavioural insight underpins most campaigns.
Good marketing begins with empathy. It’s not just about data points, it’s about understanding what your audience feels, fears, and desires. Yet most affiliate operations skip that first principle entirely. They treat people like metrics.
I’ve sat in too many meetings where affiliate strategy decks talk about ‘users’ instead of players. It’s always the first red flag that we’ve lost sight of what drives loyalty. When affiliates move from data to understanding, everything changes. They stop selling bonuses and start building belief. That’s when audiences become communities and clicks become conversations.
WHY THE CO-CREATOR MODEL WINS
The next generation of affiliates are co- creators, not contractors.
Framing Theory shows how presentation shapes perception. The old affiliate framed offers as ‘what you get.’ The new affiliate frames them as ‘what you feel.’ It’s the
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