{"id":8349,"date":"2023-07-07T08:40:51","date_gmt":"2023-07-07T08:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/?page_id=8349"},"modified":"2023-07-07T12:50:45","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T12:50:45","slug":"interview-with-john-wright-from-statsdrone","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bettingwebsites.org.uk\/articles\/interviews\/interview-with-john-wright-from-statsdrone\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview With John Wright From StatsDrone: B2B Affiliate Program Stats Tracker Founder"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"johnFor those that don’t know, or maybe just haven’t thought about it, most brands in the gambling industry use affiliates to help them acquire customers.\u00a0 Affiliates exist in almost all industries and even pre-date the internet.\u00a0 They offer a legitimate means by which companies can onboard new customers in a crowded market place.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of affiliates in gambling in all verticals; casino, sports, poker, bingo, lottery, etc., and there are a lot of brands that want affiliates to send them traffic and accounts.\u00a0 It can be difficult for affiliates to keep track of the accounts they send to various programs, especially those that work with many brands.\u00a0 This is where B2B affiliate software comes in, it offers a means to help keep track of data across various platforms in one place.<\/p>\n

This side of the industry isn’t showcased very often, indeed a lot of people are not even aware it happens.\u00a0 Therefore, we set out to interview someone who could shed some light on how these things work.<\/p>\n

Kindly, John Wright, co-founder of StatsDrone<\/a> – a leading affiliate program stats tracking software – agreed to an interview with us.\u00a0 John started off as a player, became an affiliate, has been an affiliate manager and now runs b2b affiliate stats tracking software to help other affiliates.<\/p>\n

Join us as we chat with John to help you understand how affiliate marketing works, how data is tracked and whether being an affiliate is a worthwhile career.<\/p>\n

Hi John, can you give us a bit of background about yourself?<\/h3>\n

\"johnMy career in iGaming and affiliate marketing wasn\u2019t an intentional one. I went to school for engineering with a focus on robotics and AI. Who knew it would take 20+ years before everyone would all be into AI. I had a highschool friend that was getting into professional gambling. He was trying to recruit me for his card counting team and travel to the US to play. I thought this idea was beyond ridiculous.<\/p>\n

Two years had passed and his stories only got bigger and weirder. One day he showed me a cheque he got in the mail from playing online casinos. This story just got even dumber for me and I tuned it out. I changed my mind when he said he bought a BMW M3 Roadster so I went to visit him and see what was new. Turns out online casino bonus hunting was a thing and it worked.<\/p>\n

I did this for 5 years which enabled me to travel the world and I got exposed to affiliate marketing and the iGaming industry. This will be a short summary of the story but it lead me to working on the industry side as a player and affiliate manager managing a few white-label casinos. I was able to see how much affiliates were making and how little capital it required in getting started. From 2010 I started building and growing affiliate sites.<\/p>\n

Throughout these years, I didn\u2019t really have great joy in doing any of these tasks. They were all work and perhaps affiliate marketing required the most creativity but I felt it was the same job day in day out. Build a site, design it, maybe make a custom program, create content, build links, manage your accounts, etc\u2026 When I started to see the problems affiliates had, that is pain points for affiliates, this lead me towards starting my own software company with a business partner. Creating software is going back to my engineering roots and where I have more fun doing the work I do today.<\/p>\n

You started out as a player; how did that go for you?<\/h3>\n

\"johnIt went well but it was extremely nerve-wracking. Any type of pro gambling you do, you need to learn to separate your emotions from the outcome. That includes winning and losing. I started off playing $2 per hand playing blackjack when casinos would allow you to play a signup bonus on most games except roulette.<\/p>\n

My first time playing I deposited $100, got a $50 bonus and cashed out $36 and that took me about an hour. I did all of this investing $500 I had on my credit card which I was nearly at my limit.<\/p>\n

My thought process is, if I lose my $500, it is a fraction of my university debt and I\u2019ll just get a job since I have an engineering degree. It simply worked and I was able to play for many years increasing my hourly rate along the way.<\/p>\n

How did you get into working in the iGaming industry?<\/h3>\n

When you do bonus hunting, you see everything. New casinos, ones that close, every type of bonus you can imagine. You see how players are treated, you discover affiliate sites, then you learn about the affiliate programs. If casinos could afford to pay me as a player making money from them, there must be more money on the other side. And there was.<\/p>\n

You have worked as an affiliate and an affiliate manager, many of our users won\u2019t know much about what affiliates are, can you explain what an affiliate and affiliate manager is?<\/h3>\n

\"johnJust search for any gambling keywords in Google and about 80% of the results will likely be from an affiliate site. Take a brand like 888 and search for \u2018888 casino review\u2019 and you will find probably over 1000 affiliate sites.<\/p>\n

Affiliates make money when players click on links and make a sale. This is really the core element of affiliate marketing which globally is worth around $20B per year. The stats on the market cap of affiliate marketing will vary but simply put, it is a massive industry.<\/p>\n

An affiliate manager is a unique job. You need to find affiliates to promote your brands where they earn commissions. It is purely B2B and there is simply no good training available in the typical education system. Some companies have made their own affiliate manager courses and these are really everything.<\/p>\n

Personally, I think most of the affiliate managers working in iGaming are not properly trained and need training to do their job better.<\/p>\n

What did you do in your role as an affiliate and an affiliate manager and what did you learn?<\/h3>\n

As an affiliate, I focused on ranking for various keywords. I mainly focused on creating casino reviews and I call these fishing nets you throw in the sea, waiting to see what you might catch.<\/p>\n

As an affiliate manager, I just would try to find ways of getting more affiliates and ensuring that the brands I represented would get more exposure on those affiliate sites. It lead to some great networking and people I\u2019m still friends with today.<\/p>\n

You have also had exposure to the negative sides of gambling when you volunteered for betblocker, can you tell us about that?”<\/h3>\n

I supported Duncan Garvie from BetBlocker.org<\/a> in the early days. Duncan saw first hand the effects of gambling as he processed a large number of casino complaints over 10 years. I did the design of the website and app including the recent redesigns.<\/p>\n

There is a dark side to online gambling but this is why I’m happy to volunteer some of my time towards BetBlocker and support it publicly. I think the iGaming industry should support initiatives like this one. I mean it is a registered charity, doesn’t require any personal information for registration and is no cost so you can put on as many devices as you need.<\/p>\n

To this day I’m still shocked at how many gambling executives I talk to that have never heard of BetBlocker. Slowly but surely this will change and it is nice to see the industry start to get behind it with donations to the charity.<\/p>\n

How did you get into providing affiliate software and why?<\/h3>\n

Being an affiliate manager, player manager, and an affiliate has given me a unique look at the industry. I\u2019m an engineer by trade so my mind is geared towards identifying and solving problems. As an affiliate I would experience all sorts of situations that I felt there was a necessary service needed:<\/p>\n