In a highly competitive “bonus blitzing” affiliate market, the only real winner is the bonus hunter. These affiliates may be sending traffic through to their partners in volume, but many of their users are just looking to play through a good deal, never to return.

At Slots Temple, we believe the “stack ‘em high, watch ‘em fly” approach to aggressive bonus-driven traffic no longer flies. We wanted to focus on improving the quality of the traffic and that meant doing things differently.

We began life as a site that offered free demo games and slots tournaments, and this helped to build a highly engaged base of players that genuinely loved playing slots. But we wanted to take this to the next level.

When we were awarded a UKGC gambling license in 2022, it meant we could offer cash prizes for our free tournaments. And then the next logical step was real-money tournaments in the UK with juiced-up prize pools, and ultimately real-money slots.

To create better quality traffic, you need to engage with your customers to better understand them and foster loyalty. It helps if you have a unique value proposition to increase the stickiness of your brand and engage audiences more effectively.

Our real money tournaments are a real UVP and are proving wildly popular with our users. The stakes we offer are low. You can play a slots tournament for as little as 1p, and the free-play model remains a large part of what we do – exclusively so outside the UK.

Ultimately, we want to be a safe place for players, which is why offering low stakes games is important. It’s about fostering a player base that trusts us and feels comfortable playing with us.

Yes, we’re blurring the lines between affiliate and operator, but our players know we’re not just chasing profits at the expense of everything else. Ultimately, our players see us primarily as a destination for fun play and prizes, and it’s important that we maintain that balance. If they thought we were simply out to rinse them, we’d lose their trust, and they wouldn’t come back.

Instead, it’s about offering more choice and increasing that stickiness. It also helps us better understand what games our players like to play so that we can offer more personalized recommendations.

And this is how real-money slots tournaments can really increase the quality of traffic. If a player has been playing a certain slot in a real-money tournament, for example, and wants to play at a partner site, we can guarantee that we are referring a player who is already highly engaged with the game and is ready to transition to higher stakes.

Of course, within the framework of real-money tournaments, it’s important to continue diversifying offerings by devising new formats. We have turbo tournaments, risk tournaments — a multitude of formats and price points so everyone can play the way they want to.

Our real-money tournaments are further enhanced by what was always a highly gamified platform. So, we have leaderboards, Xpoints, rewards chests, and challenges.

Continuous challenges, incentives and rewards keep users engaged over the long term. These elements can appeal to users’ competitive nature and desire for achievement, as they play for bragging rights. This enhances social elements and encourages them to engage frequently with the product

Adding fun and playful elements enhances the user experience beyond the tournaments themselves. Regular rewards and recognition prevent burnout and keep users motivated. And engaged and motivated players are more likely to become passionate about the brand.

Creating a player base that produces true value to your affiliate partners requires a number of the right ingredients, plus a lot of care and attention. But the affiliate landscape is changing, and affiliates need to get creative to get sticky.

Author: Fraser Linkleter, CEO at Slots Temple