SiGMA Europe Malta & 2024 Conference Agenda

The SiGMA Malta conference was the last major show for me to end the year. I just don’t have the time nor budget to be hopping on a plane to Bangkok for Affiliate World but there is always next year. Speaking of Affiliate World, SiGMA being a part owner of Affiliate World, they have a lot of shows happening in 2024.

Quick shoutout to Eman PULIS for putting on a great show! Another shoutout to Sami from svenskaspelare.casino!

Here is a quick summary of how the whole week went for us

• Met a lot of new people
• Caught up with many amazing friends
• Surprisingly amazing networking on the ferry

In this post I”m going to cover a lot of topics but I want to first focus on what I learned at the show. Actually I’m going to share what I’ve been learning all year from the shows I did attend. That is new people and new companies I discovered that I believe are going to be very influential in the future of iGaming as well as affiliate marketing.

I believe that as much power as affiliates have in funnelling players to operators, I think the operators have a certain power and responsibility. That responsibility is in optimizing acquisition and retention. The affiliate at this point can only send traffic and measure performance like earnings per click (EPC) to know which brands deserve the most traffic.

I’ve been asked on a few podcasts how I think affiliates can improve their business and my answer is changing. Something along the lines of that we can only measure the ROI of our traffic and learn what operators are doing to improve their retention rates and increase player value.

So what is the future of these industries?

Big Data & AI

Here’s a short list of new companies that are on my radar that I think operators all should know about.

1. Fieldstream
2. Golden Whale
3. Greco

Ok Greco is a bit well known out of this list but I still think it’s worth mentioning again. The other 2, I like to put into a category of helping operators optimize player values with big data and AI.

I’ve had the chance to meet Staffan from Fieldstream and Eberhard and Claudia from Golden Whale. These are projects that I believe have been important since the start of the iGaming industry but nobody has made an effort to try to tackle player optimization using data analytics. Sure, both companies have AI in their mix but I think both of them will not only benefit operators, but it will have a trickle down effect for affiliates as beneficiaries.

Fieldstream / Staffan Engström

After trying my best to do some extra networking on the SiGMA Telegram channel, I got in contact with Staffan Engström and we had an impromptu meeting. If time were permitted, we could have chatted all day and I made it my mission to make sure he knew of the other companies I’ve been learning about at the show and the past few months.

Golden Whale / Eberhard Dürrschmid & Claudia Heiling

I’ve heard about Golden Whale before the conference but it wasn’t until I connected with Eberhard Dürrschmid on LinkedIn that we decided to have a chat and learn about what our companies both do. We setup a meeting in Malta with him and his co-founder Claudia Heiling. Although we might not have the perfect opportunity to work together so soon, our insights we get can only educate our companies and help us get stronger.

Greco / Ozric Vondervelden & Ed Dickerson

Sadly I didn’t get to see these 2 gents, Ozric Vondervelden and Ed Dickerson, at the conference but I usually see them at every other show. I met Ozric at the NEXT.io show in New York City earlier this year and I was impressed by their work. As a former bonus hunter, I kinda have an idea what these guys are building and I had no idea bonus hunting had become as sophisticated as it is today. Or rather, maybe it isn’t sophisticated but that operators and platforms simply have really bad holes in their game that allow for easy abuse.

If I was an affiliate, I’d want to know they have blocked bonus hunters which hurt affiliates in every way.

In the past 2 years, we have marked over 800 iGaming affiliate programs as closed. I’d guess that at least half of them suffered bonus abuse that could have contributed to their demise. Bonus abuse lowers player values and nobody is winning.

How was SiGMA for you?

This is the question we sometimes ask each other at conferences to compare notes and the FOMO crowd wants to know this. Although the answers might be a little uneven, most said this was the best conference by far.

My simple answer for this event was, it was better than the last 4 major shows combined but that may be circumstantial for us at StatsDrone.

Why?

Well because we spent the entire year focused on product-led growth and we just relaunched our app redesign just before the show.

I talked to a few other industry friends walking around the floor and a few that had booths and some colleagues said by day 2, the show already exceeded expectations. The rest was just a cherry on top.

What could be better at any of the conferences

There are some booths that I think they simply hire or bring the wrong people. Usually in 20 seconds I can tell if this person I’m talking to doesn’t really know what they are talking about. It is a sad waste of everyone’s time and a lost business opportunity.

I’m not sure this is going to change anytime soon but I wish any company investing to bring people to a major conference would put some effort into it. As I write this, I remember that ICE in London is usually the worst.

What needs to change in the iGaming industry

Whenever I meet people from outside of the industry including ones I invite into iGaming, the reactions tend to be the same. People tell me they thought iGaming was the most advanced industry because of how much money is involved but they are shocked that it is the opposite.

If you don’t believe me, trying going to an affiliate conference outside of iGaming like Affiliate Summit or Affiliate World and you’ll see what I’m saying is true.

I think not enough people are looking to advanced their careers. I will be a broken record in saying this, but big data, analytics, Business Intelligence and AI are going to make major changes in the industry. The wheels in motion for these changes are already happening but it might take a year before people realize the game has changed on them.

How I leverage LinkedIn for conferences and networking

If you’ve read this far, I just want to explain how valuable LinkedIn has been for me for getting more out of conferences.

How do I use LinkedIn to get more out of these conferences?

• Find new people to connect with and meet
• Setup meetings
• Learn of events happening
• Post content so I can be top of mind for people attending and the FOMO crowd

I got a lot of feedback from people at the conference that they say they like my content (woohoo!) and probably too many people that seem to know me better than I know them.

My closing tip as I think there are too many sales focused people in the industry. Make as many solid connections as you can WITHOUT making a pitch. When you connect with people, you can choose to not add a message. People will likely connect with you more when it doesn’t come with a pitch. If you are going to send a message, try to experiment and do something other than selling. If you are patient, you’ll get an opportunity for selling or better yet, that person will recommend you to others.

2024 Affiliate Conferences on my Radar

• London Affiliate Conference
• Next NYC
• Affiliate Summit East NYC
• SBC Summit Lisbon
• Affiliate World Budapest
• SiGMA Europe Malta
• CMSEO (Matt Diggity will tickets even be possible to get?)

See you in 2024!