Alanbase: adapting affiliate strategies to new Brazil realities

As operators and suppliers flooded into Brazil to make the most of the new opportunities that the regulated market provided, their marketing efforts ramped up. 

Key to this process is affiliate marketing, and affiliation is big business in Brazil. Having a partner to help acquire and retain players is essential to growing market share and being on the path to profitability in Brazil. 

Alanbase Chief Marketing Officer Dasha Nikolaeva chats to SBC News about the state of play in Brazil for the affiliate market, as the affiliate data and stats management company continues to partner with Brazilian affiliates. 

There has been plenty of change in Brazil over the last few months and Nikolaeva observes that the regulatory change has had a significant impact on the way affiliates act in the new market. 

“Almost all the webmasters that were running tier three geos were actively working in Brazil around four or five months ago,” says Nikolaeva. “Many products were given backups or allocated large budgets for new users. With the right approaches and competent retention on the product side, users showed high activity, high rollers flew in, and advertisers were ready to increase the volume of traffic they received.”

But now the state of play has changed. No longer a grey market, Brazil has stringent regulations on what affiliates can and cannot do. 

One ordinance requires all communication, marketing, and advertising actions to prioritise social responsibility and promote awareness of responsible gambling.

As a result, Brazilian regulations explicitly prohibit the use of the word “free” or any equivalent expression. Operators and affiliates are also barred from suggesting that sports betting can lead to wealth or associating the concept of success with gambling.

Another requires all affiliates and marketing material to target exclusively adult audiences, avoiding symbols, graphic resources, animations, or language associated with children and teens.

This brings changes that affiliates have to adapt to, says Nikolaeva. 

At the moment, due to market licensing, most brands have stopped accepting social traffic, tightened the requirements for KPIs, and the purchase of SEO and PPC has become a priority. 

“Given the large number of Facebook teams on the market, there is a shortage of products ready to accept this type of traffic, so everyone is looking for brands that are ready to accept this type of traffic, so everyone is looking for brands that are ready to buy users from social media.”

With a whole portfolio of clients under its belt working around the world, Alanbase is in a good position as a data management firm to understand what works and what doesn’t work for affiliates. 

Equipped with the data, the company can advise clients what strategies to adopt to yield the best results, and Brazil will be just one market where affiliates are looking to find the winning formula. 

Nikolaeva says that experimentation is a good tool in new markets with new regulation. 

“We recommend actively testing products for Brazil that have not been previously driven. As an affiliate, you may have missed a certain diamond, but it could be very close. Start working with local brands, try to drive traffic with lower ROI, but choose offers with KPI. Work on improving the quality of traffic so that products are ready to accept users from Facebook even in these conditions. 

“Like the entire market, we expect advertisers who will be ready to take the place of the big brands that previously provided uncap, but we already have something to offer for testing and scaling.”

Reaching traffic on social media is no easy task. It’s often expensive and difficult to convert into active players. But one technique that Brazilian operators and affiliates are increasingly turning to is influencer marketing. 

Influencers are big business in Brazil and both operators and affiliates are taking advantage of this by linking with relevant creators and influencers who can help market their products. 

While a popular method of marketing, using influencers can be a challenge, particularly from a regulatory perspective. There are movements in Brazil’s legislative and regulatory halls which seek to limit influencer’s impact on the market.

Nikolaeva is keen to add a word of advice to all stakeholders who are interested in working with influencers.

“Most influencers want to work with licensed brands because it will be more secure and “white”. After receiving a license, the products will discover new horizons for offline advertising, actively cooperate with local stars, and sponsor sports clubs and events. 

“Influencers, as before, will be interested in increasing brand awareness and trustworthiness and attracting an audience loyal to the blogger/ athlete/celebrity, which can always be passed on for additional sales/repeat deposits.”

Nikolaeva concludes: “We think that the Brazilian market will undergo significant changes in the near future, but there is nothing static about affiliate marketing, so you need to keep your finger on the pulse and closely monitor market updates.”