Are you concerned about how to build or improve your site’s sports or novelty content? Do you feel that all available live odds solutions are mass produced and not quite the right fit? Odds feeds are a current hot topic, and affiliates who thought that integrating a feed on their site was out of reach might just find their solution in ValueChecker Affiliates.
ValueChecker Affiliates is the only live odds solution that can be customised to meet the needs of individual affiliate sites, while offering ease and control in building high quality content for an affiliate’s site traffic. Income Access speaks with Sinead Lambert, Affiliate and Marketing Manager, to learn more about the latest live odds solution to hit the market.Income Access: Firstly, can you explain what ValueChecker Affiliates is and how it works?Sinead Lambert: It’s a flexible live odds solution for webmasters. Webmasters/affiliates can create their own live odds boxes and integrate them throughout their site e.g. within their content or on their homepage. The boxes are also fully customisable. Webmasters can choose what they want to display e.g pick and choose the bookmakers, and create custom styles for the boxes. The result is webmasters get a live odds solution to suit their site and their needs. Not a carbon copy of what their competitors have.
Affiliates earn through their own links. There are no set up costs or maintenance fees. We work on a traffic share basis and any site can go live within 10 minutes.IA: For an affiliate, what are the key benefits that ValueChecker Affiliates offers?SL: There’s no comparable solution out there. This is a solution built by affiliates for affiliates. We know the pitfalls of existing solutions, because we’ve used them ourselves. We wanted to create a solution which gave the affiliate control and which was accessible to all affiliates.
The benefits to affiliates are:
– They can choose what they want to display
– It’s 100% customisable
– They earn through their own links
– There’s no set up costsIA: In what ways is ValueChecker Affiliates customizable?SL: Affiliates can change just about everything. They can choose what bookmakers, sports, markets, language, time zone and the number of selections they want to display. They can also fully customise the style and size of the boxes to match their site.IA: How does ValueChecker Affiliates differ from other live odds solutions that are currently available to affiliates?SL: Most other solutions charge a fortune for something that’s identical to what every other affiliate has. Affiliates have no control; the solutions are very unaccommodating and inflexible.
ValueChecker Affiliates gives webmasters/affiliates the opportunity to create a custom built solution. Also, it’s not just for sports betting, affiliates can create odds boxes for a wide range of specials/novelty betting markets ranging from politics to TV shows. We are also constantly asking our affiliates for feedback and integrating that feedback into our development plans.IA: How does displaying live odds add value to an affiliate site? What are potential disadvantages for affiliates who don’t offer live odds?SL: We actually posted about this recently on our company blog. Each year, it’s becoming increasingly more competitive for affiliates. It’s not as easy as slapping a few bookie banners on a webpage. Now, affiliates need an arsenal of tools to attract visitors to their site, retain and convert those visitors to active betting accounts. One of the most essential tools is live odds. It is not a luxury anymore; I believe it’s a necessity for affiliates.
Primarily, it stops site leakage to live odds sites or competitors who offer live odds. People are savvy, they will check to see where they can get the best price before placing a bet. If an affiliate doesn’t offer that service, they will leave the site and check elsewhere. So, the affiliate did all the leg work and some other site converts their customer and earns the commission.
It’s also about getting players in at the right stage in the betting process and keeping them there right through until they place a bet. For example, if you attract someone with a term like Cheltenham Betting, you need to have the right content on your site to keep them right through to placing a bet and vital to this is displaying live odds.
And lastly, offering live odds increases the volume of traffic affiliates send to bookmakers, which in turn will have a positive effect on their commissions. In this competitive market place, I don’t think affiliates can afford to not offer live odds.IA: How does ValueChecker Affiliates help affiliates in the promotion of sporting events?SL: Affiliates provide their visitors with event previews, tips, bookie offers etc. Adding live odds to the mix not only adds value to the readers but is also a persuasive marketing tool. It gives site visitors the full package, everything they need to know to place a bet, there’s no need for them to leave.
The boxes can also highlight different opportunities readers maybe aren’t aware of e.g with the odds boxes you can show all Man Utd [Manchester United] bets that you can bet on now, or matches and tournaments for a specific tennis player.IA: ValueChecker Affiliates took home the coveted 2011 iGB Award for ‘Best Innovation’ in the iGaming Affiliate Industry. Can you explain what you think contributed to the win?SL: The iGB Affiliate Award Judges said “ValueChecker is the first tool of its kind, simple to use and fulfils a need for many smaller affiliates helping them promote a range of brands in an efficient, customized and targeted manner.”
We took a huge risk to build something which benefits others. It was a big investment from us in terms of money and time. There’s no other solution that’s comparable in terms of flexibility. And also, it has the power to truly change the landscape of sportsbook affiliate marketing.
Like I said before, offering live odds was something that was only open to the top tier or super affiliates, due to exorbitant costs. But, with ValueChecker Affiliates it levels the playing field, and allows affiliates of all sizes to display live odds.IA: Cheltenham and Grand National, arguably two of the biggest sporting events of the year, are just around the corner. How are affiliates using this tool for the promotion of these events, and how does the promotion of these events differ?SL: These two events are when sportsbook affiliates make their money. They’re the biggest events in the sporting calendar due to their mass appeal. People, who wouldn’t place a bet all year, will place a bet during the Cheltenham festival next week or on the Grand National next month.
There’s a huge amount of betting activity, but there’s also a huge amount of competition. Affiliates are competing with large corporation style affiliates and bookmakers with massive SEO budgets, for positions on Google. So during Cheltenham and Grand National, if an affiliate gets a visitor to their site they better make sure they have the content there to convert that visitor.
For Cheltenham, our affiliates are integrating the individual live odds race boxes into their content, race previews and tips pages. Some are adding the boxes to their forums, homepage and navigation bars. The boxes are flexible in size and can be adapted to fit into most spaces.
After speaking with Sinead, its without a doubt that ValueChecker Affiliates is the product that the affiliate marketing world has been long awaiting. With its customizable display features and ease of use for all size affiliates, it’s no wonder that ValueChecker Affiliates has been titled the iGaming Affiliate Industry’s “Best Innovation” for 2011.
To learn more about ValueChecker Affiliates, the latest live odds solution, visit their website at http://affiliates.valuechecker.co.uk.
