Traffic Lab Q&A: Buckle up for the ride

For affiliate firm Traffic Lab, its ethos has been one of experimentation and creativity. A need for fresh business ideas has fuelled its rapid growth in the last few years. The firm has been expanding at a fast rate, from just six people to now 41. While Traffic Lab’s roots are in casino, it is keen to explore other avenues including expanding the business out of Denmark and further afield.

Based in Copenhagen, Traffic Lab is a forward-thinking affiliate marketing firm founded in 2013 by CEO Sebastian Agerskov and co-founder Tuomas Jauhiainen, but Agerskov has since bought 100% of the company from his founding partner.

Traffic Lab specialises in generating traffic to casino sites by just about any means possible. Affiliate channels include SEO, PPC marketing, social media marketing, email marketing and display marketing. Gaming Innovation Group (GiG) recently paid tribute to the affiliate, insisting Traffic Lab had delivered “exceptional results” in promoting GiG’s B2C Rizk Casino brand.

Traffic Lab’s flagship brand Casino Bernie is an eye-catching cartoon casino comparison site with a focus on trust – the USP is that it magnifies the small print for players that the operators don’t want you to see. The multi-national site is available in 14 different markets, ranging from Finland to Mexico, and amasses more than 215,000 page views every month. The site is also live in the UK.

Closer to home in the Nordics, Traffic Lab utilises its Gratis Chancer and Kasinohai brands. Here, CMO Peter Gunni chats to EGR Marketing about leaving the Danish armed forces to join the egaming industry and visiting social networking giant Facebook in Dublin.

Traffic Lab CMO Peter Gunni

EGR Marketing: Tell us a little bit about Traffic Lab and the background of the business.

Peter Gunni: Traffic Lab was founded in 2013 by Sebastian Agerskov and Tuomas Jauhiainen. They started the business by having a bit of fun while sitting in a basement, sending out mails and trying things out. Then it quickly grew quite a lot. In the first couple of years, it was just those two. After several years they started expanding and in the last couple it has been crazy – we have expanded from around six people to 41 and we have been scaling at a rate of four people per month.

EGR Marketing: Has the business changed over the years?

PG: The values of the business have changed from the past to now. It is a very experimental area – we call ourselves a laboratory because we can experiment and be creative. It is a space where people can feel relaxed and that is also a key element of the affiliate business. We can do whatever we want so long as it is compliant and that is amazing.

EGR Marketing: When did you join the company?

PG: Two years and two months ago. I only joined because I was a friend of Sebastian’s. He said “you can try media buying” and I had no idea what it was. I was doing something totally different as I was a soldier in the Danish military. He said, “you are not allowed to ship out on deployments anymore, haha”. Anyway, I said “yeah, let’s go for it.”

EGR Marketing: Has Traffic Lab ever thought about going public?

PG: We want to stay private and keep it 100% within ourselves. That is the goal for now. We want to be self-sufficient and that is why things are growing so fast. It changed dramatically because we went from two people with two opinions to having a more corporate feel, we’re still down-to-earth and everybody is heard. A good idea is a good idea no matter where it comes from.

EGR Marketing: How does the role of CMO change for affiliates compared to operators?

PG: I don’t think it changes that much. My mantra is 100% to create a self-driven marketing team. I have to make marketing decisions on the players’ behalf because the player is totally our focus. I want to give the player everything from a technical, content and marketing perspective. They are my key responsibilities as well as discovering new marketing channels but I love having a team where everybody is capable of doing everything for themselves.

EGR Marketing: Do you encourage remote working?

PG: Yeah, we do it a lot actually. Mostly because our transportation in Denmark is sometimes really shit so people can’t always rely on it so people often work from home. Having said that, we love hearing each other’s opinions and if you are working from home, it can be kind of hard to hear that opinion.

EGR Marketing: Aside from media buying, what are the main strategies for the business?

PG: Some of them are a secret so I can’t tell you! We started with core SEO and then email marketing but it has changed quite a lot over the last two years. Our main focus is still SEO in Denmark and Finland but we also created a multi-international site called Casino Bernie, which we run our campaigns from. We have a couple of different campaigns that we promote to operators. Operators can pick or choose which campaign they want, from brand awareness to CPAs. We have media buying but that includes SMS, TV advertising, email marketing and social media.

EGR Marketing: Is Casino Bernie a comparison website and Traffic Lab’s key brand?

PG: We created Casino Bernie a year ago. It is our international site and I believe it is quite different to other comparison sites. We wanted to create a site where you could compare casinos like everybody else, but we needed to do more for the compliance sector than the operator sector. Often sites like that have big blown up letters saying HERE IS THE BONUS or GET THE BONUS but on this kind of site we show everything that the casino doesn’t want the player to see. We get the small print and blow that up into big letters so all the terms and wagering requirements, and that has opened big opportunities for us because the players consider Casino Bernie to be more trustworthy due to this kind of honesty.

Flagship Traffic Lab brand Casino Bernie

EGR Marketing: What operators have you been working with?

PG: Mostly casino operators. I think I have a list of 600 different operators that we have been working with. If they have the right licence in the right area, we’ll consider testing every brand.

EGR Marketing: In which markets is Casino Bernie live?

PG: Casino Bernie is multi-national, but it is mainly in Europe right now and also in the UK. We don’t focus that much on the UK though because player value there is different to other markets. It is live though and I think we have around 50k visitors a month on the UK part of Casino Bernie. That is quite small scale compared to some of the other European nations that we are focused on. Germany is the biggest ranking country, especially the DACH region and Scandinavia is also our main focus. The UK probably accounts for around 2% of traffic on the site.

EGR Marketing: Is there a team at Traffic Lab that solely focuses on compliance?

PG: Yes of course, we have our CSR team which always have their ears open to the market. Our CEO also spent a lot of time just tracking everything down and we also have a data protection officer that helps keep track of all these different things. The operators are also quite helpful and let us know what the regulations are and how they might be changing for us, as well as what we need to be aware of. We have been shortlisted for our first compliance award this year so it is going great.

EGR Marketing: Most of Traffic Lab’s revenues come from casino, but do you have any sites that focus on other verticals?

PG: Our main focus is casino but we have other projects going right now that we are not quite ready to release out into the world because we want them to be the best of the best before they go live.

EGR Marketing: Do you have eyes on launching in the US market?

PG: We have actually put that back on the shelf for another couple of months. We are looking forward to it though and right now we require some localised people over there who will need to set some things up for us. That is going to be the next step for our business – moving out of Denmark and expanding elsewhere, but it is not in our direct plans right now. Our office is in Copenhagen. We did have an office in Estonia before Sebastian bought out his co-partner, but now we are solely in Denmark.

EGR Marketing: Will Traffic Lab change now that Agerskov has bought out his co-founder?

PG: Tuomas was a big part of this company. He spent a lot of time teaching us and was a close guide of mine. I don’t think we will change in any way but we will keep that spirit going that they created in the beginning. I am not aware of what he is planning to do next but he is going to stay and help us for a little while. He will stick around as a consultant for us and will help us move forward.

EGR Marketing: Do you do much above the line marketing on either TV or radio?

PG: We have been in discussions about TV and it is in our potential plans in Germany but right now we are waiting for the confirmed Schleswig-Holstein regulations. We heard that something might be happening in June. It has been approved but has to be approved in two hearings or something like that. We will wait like all of the other operators.

Traffic Lab’s Finnish brand Kasinohai

EGR Marketing: In many markets we hear consumers complaining about the amount of gambling advertising on TV. Is the same true in Denmark?

PG: Yes, I think it is very similar in Denmark. We have just had a hearing going on where they agreed with the television stations to limit the amount of gambling commercials. It has just eaten the whole market. It is at such a level that people just start to ignore it and that is quite a shame.

EGR Marketing: What do you think the key trends will be in egaming affiliation throughout the rest of 2019?

PG: I think it will be a rumble if we see Holland follow Sweden with new regulations and licences. The main trends for us will be SEO and social media. We are working very closely with Facebook right now and went to visit their headquarters in Dublin. That relationship is continually growing and that is who we created Casino Bernie for in the first place. It has given us big opportunities.

 EGR Marketing: Why is Facebook so important for Traffic Lab and Casino Bernie?

PG: It creates a different kind of value for us. We see players sticking with the brand for a longer period of time. The initial value isn’t that great for a social media player, but the lifetime value is amazing. When you combine that with a website that only exists to create trust between the player and the brand that is going to create some very good synergies.