With over a decade of experience in the digital marketing landscape, Rocahead has firmly established itself as a forward-thinking and innovative affiliate marketing network.
In the lead-up to her appearance at SBC Summit Rio, SBC News sat down with Rocahead’s Co-founder and CEO, Jenny Gonzalez, to discuss how looking beyond the gambling industry can elevate a brand’s marketing output and how building an authentic, personable brand is central to Rocahead’s success.
During the interview, Gonzalez shares Rocahead’s journey to becoming the affiliate network she wished had existed when she first entered the industry. She also discusses how her team’s extensive experience as both affiliates and advertisers allows them to craft bespoke solutions that maximize ROI for clients.
Additionally, Gonzalez touches on navigating the unique challenges of the Brazilian market, the evolving regulatory framework, and the importance of pushing brands to think creatively and think outside the box.
SBC: Hi Jenny! Thank you so much for taking the time to join us for this interview. To start things off, could you give us an overview of Rocahead? We’d love to learn more about your business model – how Rocahead approaches the market, its target audience, and the value it brings to customers.
Jenny Gonzalez: Hi, SBC team. Thank you for having me; the pleasure is all mine. Let’s start at the beginning. Our team has been in the industry for well over a decade both on the advertiser and affiliate sides. Rocahead is simply the combination of all of these experiences, culminating in an affiliate network we wish we had when we were affiliates, as well as the ally we needed when we were advertisers.
Rocahead applies its extensive experience across multiple verticals, with our constantly developing technology, to help both sides of the equation achieve better results, and maximize the ROI for everyone involved. Our team has a wide array of nationalities and has collaborated with various verticals worldwide since the very beginning. This has provided us with in-depth experience on the online marketing side, as well as the constraints and complexities of running advertisers’ operations in different GEOs.
Ultimately we understand our customers’ problems because we have been there ourselves. We have made it our purpose to come up with better solutions that optimize customer acquisition strategies without compromising the goals of either side.
SBC: Rocahead operates across several verticals, not just gambling. How has your experience driving traffic in diverse sectors sharpened your approach specifically within the gambling industry?
JG: Great question! When you operate in more than one vertical, you acquire a bird’s eye view of the entire marketing landscape. Being an online marketer, you realize that the differences amongst verticals are more related to the point of maturity of the vertical itself, rather than the product being promoted.
Intrinsically it is important to understand that these are not silos and that the knowledge gained from one vertical can absolutely be transferred to another when the time is right. Gambling right now, for example, is where online dating was 10 years ago. When media buyers started demanding Pay Per Lead instead of CPA, It was challenging and scary as an advertiser/operator, because you felt the risk was too high. No matter how many times you express the benefits of more money being made long-term with revenue share, there is nothing to be done if the traffic demands it at a big scale. Eventually, you will have to comply. It is only through using experience and technology that this endeavor will become slightly less daunting.
SBC: With over a decade of experience in affiliation, media buying, SEO, and mobile apps, how has this broad skill set shaped the way Rocahead delivers value?
JG: Our extensive experience makes us more empathic with both affiliates and operators. We have deep insights into the various acquisition methods, enabling us to provide strategic guidance on how to further scale marketing efforts effectively. Additionally, we can draw on the successes of what other brands might have done to achieve the same goals in the past.
Essentially, Rocahead becomes a business friend you can consult and brainstorm with to see what else you could be doing differently. We all get stuck in our own ways and the bigger the company, and the longer you have been doing something, the harder it is to think outside of the box.
SBC: Personal branding isn’t common in affiliation, but you’ve embraced it on social media. How has that visibility strengthened Rocahead’s position?
JG: Absolutely, branding has been another out-of-the-box choice, especially with me running the @onlinejenn brand on social media. Here, the aim is more than just exposure and transparency, it’s also about ensuring partners understand who they are working with (which brings fantastic reliability and reputation to the Rocahead brand).
What I am trying to do is to inspire others to work hard and follow their own dreams. As a female CEO in the industry, who worked her way up from junior affiliate manager back in 2010 (when there were even fewer females in the affiliate marketing industry), I feel it’s my duty to show others that taking charge of their own careers pays off.
Plus, to be 100% honest, in the age of AI-generated content, social media overload, and widespread misinformation, personal brands will become more and more important to all of us. In the long term, rather than focusing on the content itself, the question of who curated the content will be even more relevant. Users simply want to know they can trust what’s being said.
SBC: You’ve mentioned that ‘affiliate marketing is a great ally when entering new markets.’ With SBC Summit Rio coming up, how do you see affiliate marketing driving growth in Brazil and shaping the relationship between operators and players?
JG: Brazil has always and will always be a world of its own, from its culture and payment methods to its online behavioral patterns and customer lifetime value. The most exciting part of how unique the country is relies on the size of the market and how nationalist Brazilians are.
Brazil also has one of the most advanced affiliate marketing scenes in all of South America. For us, this requires tapping into a very specialized knowledge of the marketplace as well as traffic sources that operators might not be familiar with.
Brazilian customers are also very litigation-friendly, which is something all of us need to keep in mind, as it poses some challenges. However, if done correctly, tackling Brazil as a separate market will only bring long-term growth to both operators and affiliates.
SBC: With growing interest in Brazil from both local and global companies, what are your expectations for the new regulatory framework, and what early predictions do you have for the market?
JG: As excited as I am about the potential growth of the market, I am concerned about how advanced they are with legal aspects. My very early predictions lean towards a strict regulatory framework that will need to be taken seriously as it could lead to very serious lawsuits.
SBC: As SBC Summit Rio moves to Riocentro, one of Latin America’s biggest venues, what are your main goals for the event, and what do you hope to gain from speaking on the panel?
JG: Personal expectations are HIGH! I am originally from Venezuela but most of my professional experience has been based and speaking at conferences in North America, Europe, and Asia. So not only will SBC Summit Rio be my first time in Brazil, and my first affiliate marketing conference in South America, but also my first speaking engagement with people who are culturally closer to my own background.
The fact that it will be an event of this magnitude only makes it even more exciting! I will definitely need to have a good game plan to be able to speak to everyone I want to speak to and develop as many new relationships as possible.
SBC: You were at SBC Summit in Lisbon where the Affiliate Leaders Summit debuted. As it returns to Rio, how do you view the importance of a dedicated event for operators and affiliates to meet?
JG: Speaking at the SBC summit in Lisbon (the city where I’m based and that I love) was the most pleasant surprise to me. I have been attending huge marketing conferences for years, but this was the first time that I found everything in one place. Even at Web Summit (the other comparable event in Lisbon that is also held at the same location), you find lots of incredible stuff for business owners but very very little for affiliates.
At affiliate conferences the information for affiliates is very advanced but very affiliate-focused; what made SBC Summit so special is that it achieved a good balance between one side and the other. This allowed us to attend and simply change between pavilions based on our interests and meetings for the day.
Additionally, I believe it is a great opportunity for people on the operator side to be exposed to affiliation, as well as the other way around. This hopefully means there is a little more understanding from both sides and more flexibility/transparency when it comes to collaboration. It’s easy to forget the symbiosis of this industry and lock ourselves behind the business mentality of us vs. them, so events like the SBC Summit allow both sides to take some time to understand the challenges the other faces.