SBC Summit Americas: Data bridges gap between affiliates and operators
If the SBC Summit Americas panel on data-driven strategies taught us anything, it’s this: Gaming operators and affiliates have no choice but to move beyond siloed efforts and start acting like strategic partners. And that shift starts with data.
Clinton Cutajar, Chief Technology Officer at MediaTroopers, cut to the chase early.
“Paid media is expensive. If it’s not handled with precision, it can sink your budget in a week,” he said. “Real-time postbacks, clean attribution, and collaboration between affiliate managers and operators isn’t a luxury anymore. It’s survival.”
For Sally Davies, Head of Marketing at Desert Diamond Mobile, data is the only way to eliminate internal blame games between acquisition and retention.
“Without clear segmentation and reporting, it becomes opinion versus opinion,” she said. “The first thing I do when I go into a company is ask, ‘where is your BI team?’ Let’s sit down and build reporting that shows us the right players, at the right time, with the right spend,” she said.
Joshua Mau, Director of CRM at Mohegan Digital, brought a property perspective. “On the land-based side, we had static segments. Now, digital is dynamic. We can react in real time, but only if our integrations are tight.”
That integration challenge came up repeatedly. Great tools exist, but many platforms don’t talk to each other. “You can have ten people manually running a system that one smart integration could automate,” Davies noted. “If your team is still using Excel to track customer behavior, you’re already behind.”
Panelists cited LiveRamp, Wager Games, and Optimizely as strong solutions. But they agreed that tools don’t matter unless the tech stack is built to support them.
“If vendors don’t integrate with each other, it doesn’t matter how unique their features are,” Mau said.
The conversation also turned to zero-click search and AI’s disruption of affiliate strategies.
“We’ve gone from zero to about 20% of search being handled by AI overviews,” said Cutajar. “SEO is no longer just backlinks. If your data isn’t structured for AI to scrape, you won’t get seen.”
The buzzword of the day was personalization.
“If I log into a sportsbook, I expect the homepage to show me my teams, my bets, and promotions that make sense to me,” Davies said. “You’re not just competing with other operators. You’re competing with Instagram and TikTok for attention.”
Responsible gaming also got a thoughtful nod. The panel applauded FanDuel’s move to use AI to detect risky behavior in real time. If a deposit seems out of character for a player, the system asks if they want to set a limit before completing the transaction.
But Davies was quick to note that AI alone isn’t enough. “VIP hosts know things algorithms don’t. That human layer still matters.”
As the conversation wrapped, the panel tackled the build-vs.-buy dilemma. For smaller operators, the message was blunt: Don’t build. Buy smart.
“By the time you build, your tech will already be outdated,” Davies said. “Affordable integrations can be up in weeks, not years. Just pick the right partners, not just for functionality, but for who they’ve already integrated with.”
In an industry known for high spend and high stakes, the lesson is clear. Data is no longer optional. It’s the foundation of trust, performance, and player lifetime value. And for the first time, affiliates and operators might finally be ready to act like they’re on the same team.
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