Building engagement: How affiliates utilise text-based player communities

At times, getting players to affiliate sites can feel like a fleeting transaction – they click, find the bonus, snatch it and vanish without a trace. This lack of lasting engagement can be frustrating, especially when igaming affiliates are already in a highly competitive sector and facing tremendous pressure from the unpredictable Google.

When SEO is no longer a future-proof solution, community-building is more important than ever for player retention and diversification. In a recent iGBA interview, we spoke to gambling streamer Scott Richter about his journey building the viral YouTube channel The Big Jackpot. With the rise of TikTok and catchy short-form reels, many affiliates are already leveraging their impacts on video-based platforms and collaborating with influencers for outreach. 

By comparison, text-based social media and online forums, tracing back to the earliest days of the internet, might seem mundane or even outdated. Yet their potential and popularity aren’t to be overlooked. WhatsApp, for example, boasts 2.95 billion active users worldwide – far more than TikTok’s 1.69 billion. Still, without flashy visuals and eye-catching filters, many might question their appeal or feel unsure about where to begin. We talked to three affiliates about why they’re turning to text-based communities and the strategies that make them work.

Reddit: SEO-driven forum 

Neil Walker (below), founder of livecasinocomparer.com, has been running the review site for 11 years alongside his YouTube channel, where he has more than 10k subscribers and regularly receives thousands of views per video. Recently, he extended his digital footprint by launching a subreddit forum. 

The decision, as Walker explains, comes from his observation that existing igaming communities mainly focus on slots, and the few live dealer communities haven’t gained significant traction. Given that operators “aren't likely to post actively in online gambling forums due to content management issues”, he believes now is a perfect time for affiliates to build up a niche community.

“I'm not saying I'm trying to be the best, but I felt my existing authority and branding might make now the right time to create a community where both players and brands can gather,” he says.

For Walker, community-building also means getting to know his audience better and inviting open discussions with players beyond the one-to-one emails he often receives. Though his YouTube content has been well-received, he finds that users on video platforms typically engage briefly. 

“The problem with YouTube is people might ask a quick question or make a statement tied to a specific video, then they just disappear. There’s no discussion on a wider topic.” 

A believer in “old school, bulletin board-style” forums, Walker is particularly fond of Reddit. Yet an even more compelling reason to pivot to the platform is its unique SEO advantage that newer text-based social media platforms such as Telegram and Discord cannot match, thanks to its strong relationship with Google.

“Google indexes Reddit content easily, making questions and discussions widely accessible. That’s attractive to me because it means I'll get more visibility without doing much self-promotion,” he explains. “You can also cross-post to other subreddits, where millions of people visit for other reasons and might become engaged with your forum. So there’s more exposure.” 

Nevertheless, Walker highlights one particular challenge with the platform – its lack of automatic moderation, which video-based channels like YouTube typically provide. He suggests that affiliates closely monitor their communities to limit spam and inappropriate behaviour.

Having launched the forum only recently, Walker is still experimenting with content strategies, posting everything from welcome introductions to discussion prompts on live marble races. Right now, his main priority is converting existing audiences into active Redditors.

“Advertising the community using other platforms is the key. I’ve put the link to the subreddit on the website, LinkedIn, YouTube and in my newsletters,” he says. “I’m getting members signing up to the channel. Hopefully, when people start to respond more, it will gather momentum and snowball from there.” 

WhatsApp & Telegram for player retention 

Marc Samouilhan (below), director of igaming affiliate agency Global Ad Ventures, has been in the African igaming space for nine years, managing around 20 websites across 15 countries. He started the business by “following the standard affiliate playbook”, launching websites and pulling in traffic, an approach he says has been working great.

“However, we have also been building our own communities of users on various channels, most notably WhatsApp and Telegram,” he adds. “These channels form part of our main strategy, which is to de-risk from SERP changes, enable us to promote multiple operators to the same users, assist with player retention and build our own brands to future-proof as much as possible.” 

Samouilhan explains that his approach is “text-based before video” rather than prioritising text-based social media, as he is still working on launching TikTok and YouTube channels later in the year. 

“We went this route as I’m a big fan of automation and we found it easier to automate the content creation for our text-based channels than video. We were able to re-use and re-package the web content we had into content, which meant no additional resources were needed,” he says.

However, Samouilhan emphasises that automated content should only form the base of text-heavy channels. Frequent polls, quizzes and competitions are equally important to encourage engagement.

When choosing a channel, Samouilhan suggests that affiliates be aware of user preference variations across markets. For instance, compared to Europe and the US, where Discord is widely used in the igaming community, the platform doesn’t enjoy the same popularity in African countries. Samouilhan’s current main channels are Telegram, WhatsApp and SMS, though he has also seen moderate success with Facebook and X. 

“But I think affiliates can overthink this aspect and try to do a deep dive into the unique aspects of the market like cultural differences – this leads to analysis paralysis. The best way to find out what players want is to launch and get feedback,” he adds. 

To better monitor channel performance, Samouilhan has designed analytic tools to help guide content optimisation and message timing based on users’ engagement patterns. He also runs regular surveys to ensure content aligns with players’ needs. 

“Some markets require slight changes. For example, in South Africa, we might promote the Premier Soccer League (PSL) more as it is extremely popular. In Kenya, we might promote jackpots more, and in Nigeria, we might promote more virtual games.”

Nevertheless, Samouilhan reminds affiliates to be careful when managing their channels, noting that WhatsApp frequently suspends accounts featuring gambling content. While Telegram is more open, caution is still needed to ensure account safety.  

DIY forum: The Mr Gamble approach 

When most affiliates are heading to third-party text-based social media platforms for community building, one is swimming against the current. An affiliate with just six years of history, Mr Gamble is relatively new in the industry. In July 2023, it launched a forum within its website – an approach usually only adopted by long-established brands such as AskGamblers and Wizard of Vegas. 

Yet, the forum is performing surprisingly well. According to Paul Puolakka (below), CMO at Mr Gamble, it saw significant growth last year with a 387% increase in topics and a 1054% growth in post count; The current total user number has reached around 12,000.

Like many affiliates, Mr Gamble started with an SEO-driven site, in addition to providing live streams on Twitch and slot reviews on YouTube. Although Twitch has chat features, Puolakka noticed that user feedback “can easily get lost in the live chat”. In comparison, conversations in text-based social media are well-documented and more structured. 

“Video content is the trend, but I don’t see traditional text-based forums disappearing. People still value reading feedback and detailed discussions, which isn’t always possible in a short-form video format. It's like comparing watching a movie to reading a book – both provide information but in different ways,” Puolakka explains. 

Paulakka believes that building a platform from scratch can offer many advantages that third-party channels cannot provide. For example, while user-generated content on both Reddit and proprietary platforms is heavily favoured in SERPs, the forum’s integration gives a free boost to the main site’s SEO performance. Additionally, the public visibility of player discussions can aid in brand-building by creating transparency and authority. Owning an admin panel and implementing tracking programmes also enable “a better overview of activity,” especially engagement levels. Furthermore, as noted by Valeria Martinez from Betting Ladies in a recent iGBA profile feature, forum integration enhances the user experience as players won’t need to log in separately.  

Apart from offering regular B2C content, such as exclusive bonuses and holiday specials, Paulakka highlights the forum’s unique B2B benefit: “Game providers and payment providers can all create profiles on our site. For example, a slot studio can have its own profile and promote upcoming releases to players. This allows our B2B clients to showcase their new games or campaigns.” 

In terms of challenges, Paulakka echoes Walker and says, “the hardest part was and still is getting users to the community”. He recommends that affiliates promote their new online gambling forums using existing channels and run exclusive campaigns like raffles to encourage players to join. To maintain engagement and ensure a positive user experience, Mr Gamble has also hired a full-time moderator to manage the forum.

“It’s important to test different strategies to see what resonates with users. We’ve experimented with various approaches – some worked, some didn’t. A/B testing is key to finding them out,” Paulakka explains. 

“This process is similar to any form of marketing: you must continuously test different approaches, analyse the results and refine your strategy based on what works. Understanding your audience, including their demographics, is essential to making decisions.”

Running an online community isn’t easy – it’s like being a city planner in a virtual world, where affiliates must navigate everything from localisation to moderation for sustainable engagement, higher player retention and greater authority-building opportunities. While a self-built forum offers more flexibility, it may not suit smaller brands with limited resources. Affiliates can learn from the above but must ultimately choose a platform and content strategies that best suit their audience, capabilities and long-term goals.