Stop Buying Traffic Until You Fix This | Gor Chatyan | PartnerMatrix

iGaming Real Talk is launching the next series. This is the fourth event out of the 11 events we're doing this year and I'm very excited to bring you the insights from the expo floor. This time on the affiliate as well as operator relationships as well as what's missing in the industry. What's the trend? What are we looking at when it comes to 2026, 2027 and beyond in terms of the trends, AI and everything else. This series is brought to you by EvoVerse.

They offer custom crypto casino solutions as well as source code. This series is also brought to you by Wicked Games. They create slot games that slap. Hello and welcome back to another episode of iGaming Real Talk. I'm here at Afiliapub conference in Madrid. This is my first time here at Afiliapub and I have with me Gore from Partner Matrix. Gore, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much my friend. Thank you very much. My pleasure. This is also for me the first time in Afiliapub. Oh yeah. And I really really really shocked because my expectations no so big this now. So thank you very much for invite me and let's talk.

Yeah definitely and I think there is something with the small events right you can do more networking you can have a little bit more deeper conversations in that sense because when we go to like larger expos it's more about okay let's chat later kind of conversation but I think here it's a little bit different so that's what I'm seeing at least in the last two days. So yeah, so let's kick off. Our theme for this series is mostly around affiliates.

And what I wanted to talk to you about is affiliate fraud. We have seen that almost like in the last year operators reported 82% increase in the fraud.

Unfortunately. Yes.

So what do you think is the biggest mistake operators do when they are working with affiliates?

Oh, it's very very hard and difficult question because for every operator it's a separate maybe sometimes it's even not mistake that's not say mistake but sometimes is the less expertise in the markets and they're starting to work with the affiliates with whom they are not passing a lot of separate testing process. For example if we are talking about CIS market there is very very hard to work with the media buying teams in CIS because there is so many media buying teams.

You should know everyone. You should know each of them. You should know how to work them because sometimes the biggest mistake is that they are starting to receive the traffic from the affiliate but not thinking about the acquisition side of the business but they are putting all the effort on acquisition. The traffic is coming and it's becoming scammers because they are not passing the correct KYC processes.

They are not passing the correct acquisition models and they are coming only with the big bonuses and we know that big bonuses is one of the big reasons of scammers or they are coming for this and you should have the correct strategy in B2B providers.

There's also another topic that is widely discussed in the industry at the moment which is affiliate shaving. Do you think that shaving happens actually and people don't speak about it?

To be honest. Yes.

Yeah. Cuz usually people don't agree to that when I'm talking to people. Okay. In the private chats but...

Yes I agree with that and we have solution for that and how we come from Partner Matrix. Yes we have solution and what kind of solution we bring to the market. It's the affiliate management service.

But I didn't know it was just out of curiosity. What kind of solution... And how is solution helping the affiliates especially and operators escape of the shaving process? Okay. And how does it work? Does it let affiliate know what's happening?

Oh, it works. Our affiliate manager is like third party who is analyzing making the strategy and putting the KPI from operators and working with the affiliates. So he is not interested in the operator side and he's not interested on affiliate side. He is interested on the quality of the traffic and quality of work between these two parts.

So he is becoming the third party between the affiliates and operators and it helps operators to work directly with a lot of affiliates with whom they are afraid because they are working with them first time and the affiliates they help to work with the new operators because the shaving process mostly is coming with unfortunately with the new operators. Yeah. So our service...

Is it widely in the new offices?

I think yes. It's my own opinion but I think yes. And the affiliate management service it helps all the affiliates make be trusted that what they did if they did the quality job their quality job will be recognized because our affiliate managers will keep the both side to be maximum trusted and maximum receive. We it must be win to win for both of them. I think this solution helped a lot of operators already doing this few months.

And there is an automated thing as well or it's more like a service...

Coach they have the automated things also and it's a service and I think that this year a lot of companies will understand that the service management systems is becoming more and more popular more important but anyway this I think in this stage this year it is the best solution to involve the affiliates and the operators in the same in the same place.

Okay. And if there's one thing you want to advise an operator on how to run their affiliate program in the best way possible, what would it be? 2026 and beyond.

Good question. Very good question. Yes. The main thing is to understand correctly your market and the behavior of your players because when you will understand the behavior of your players, you will understand what kind of acquisition to set up in your operation. Don't do business only because you know a lot of affiliates. No, your product must be...

Because we see most of the new operators they just throw more money at the volume.

Yes.

But as you saying, if you don't focus on the behavior, then what's the use? This just going to churn.

Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And behavior is very important thing. You should make sure that your product is work correctly in that market. Because it's easy for affiliates also to bring good traffic. How you think how affiliate will be the traffic in the product is especially for Europe market. But you are bringing this product to LATAM and saying I have one product and I have 11 markets. So it's really hard. It's really hard.

You need to spend a lot of years to adapt your product to all of these markets. Otherwise in Germany and in Mexico there is two separate type of people. There is two separate type of regulation. There is two separate type of even acquisition channels. So you need to adapt your product. So you can't be one operation and say this operation is for all countries. You can't do it. But when you pass years and you adapt your operation specially for all of that.

Yeah, this is I think the best thing that I want to wish to operators.

Thank you so much Gore for joining me and giving this little insights. I know this is a short interview but you know short interviews are the best because anyone can say thousand words but to say the same thing in 10 words is very difficult. So thank you for giving that sharp advice and yeah that's it guys. Thank you for watching. Do follow Gore on LinkedIn as well as Partner Matrix and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

If you have any questions for Gore as well wherever you're watching do let us know your thoughts in the comments below and I'll see you on the next show. Thank you.

Thank you.