Content king as Covid boosts competition in Asian affiliates industry

July 25, 2022 Vietnam Emerging Markets Industry Updates

The affiliate market in Asia’s online gambling industry is expanding, with Covid giving an additional push, but any website without deep and local content will struggle to survive.
As the pandemic forced people to stay at home there was a shift to online in all aspects of daily life, but it proved a mixed blessing for Asia’s affiliate industry. It’s true players shifted online, but there was also a major hit to consumer spending power as companies furloughed workers.

“Operators and affiliates had to restructure the way they have been working by sending everyone to work from home and this had an impact on acquisition and payments,” said Dov Allin, CEO of Marketing Cross Media. “Acquisition and player value rose at the beginning as players had more time to play from home. But if your business grew more than 25 percent in 2021, well done. If you have a stable and secure activity, be thankful. Definitely some brands and affiliates suffered as the financial crisis was there.”

“Agents lost the most and had to convert into affiliates and this is why I believe we saw an increase of new affiliates and brands, especially in Vietnam,” he said.

How is Asia’s affiliate business changing?
The affiliate market in Asia is in its infancy relative to Europe, with many operators having preferred to work through the agency system. Allin estimates that in 2015 about 90 percent of online traffic was through agents, with virtually no affiliates working in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia or South Korea.

In the past few years that has changed dramatically with only half of the traffic coming through agents. Changes in the Asian market happen quickly and what might take six years in Europe happens in three in Asia.