“Our personalities are our strength” – Erik Joelsson, Joelsson Media Group
Erik Joelsson, CEO of Joelsson Media Group, joins the latest series of affiliate interviews on Affiliate Grand Slam
Erik Joelsson, speaks about the Joelsson Media Group, about their two brands AboutSlots and CasinoDaddy, about what sets them apart, and about their community – follow his story below.
When and why did you start considering affiliate business as a career?
After I graduated from high school, I immediately started to work as a B2B salesman. My two brothers, Mathias and Anton, joined a company in Malm? and worked in the IT field for a while. When it relocated, we decided to open our own business together. We started working a lot with lead marketing, and we were out early when it came to social media, Twitch, YouTube, and keyword optimisation.
In 2016, we chose to open Joelsson Media Group because we were passionate about online gambling and we were experts when it came to casinos and slots. We wanted to run a business to spread our knowledge and make it easier for gamblers to find bonuses and casinos.
What is Joelsson Media Group? How did Joelsson Media Group take off? What do you do at Joelsson Media Group?
Joelsson Media Group was born as a Swedish family business. My brothers and I have always shared a passion for the casino industry, and after longing for our own business, we embarked on this adventure, which often feels similar to a hobby, even though it involves lots of hard work.
We work with affiliate marketing, and we own two brands: AboutSlots.com?and CasinoDaddy.
AboutSlots is a website that features casino reviews, slot reviews, and the best bonuses available online, while CasinoDaddy is the name of our YouTube and Twitch channels, in which we stream as we play slots and interact with our audience.
Joelsson Media Group took off over the years, as our community, our team, and the services we offer expanded. Though success also came with hardships, we have been able to add many new services and features to our platforms, and we’ll be expanding in new markets and countries soon.
Our job today consists of managing our staff and working alongside them. Plus, we stream almost every day and deal with new affiliations. Our goal has always been to share our knowledge of the industry with the public – whilst maintaining a down-to-earth attitude and having as much fun as possible. And that’s one of the main pillars of Joelsson Media Group, together with transparency and authenticity.
Tell us a bit more about your business model, concept, and culture.
Joelsson Media Group is an affiliate network company with a focus on the iGaming industry, which means that we provide high-quality traffic and have great long-term relations with game providers. Our business is a combination of our YouTube and Twitch channels, together with the informative website AboutSlots.com.
Our goal is to focus on the most efficient way to promote our quality partners to end-users. As we grew, we became an established source of quality and valuable leads to our business partners, thanks to the community we’ve created on Twitch and YouTube, which represent more traffic to AboutSlots.com.
We’ve found innovative ways to attract more leads and retain them – thanks to their passion for iGaming. We’ve now partnered up with hundreds of great casinos that can meet the expectations of our users.
As influencers in the iGaming industry, we feel responsible for our end-users, and take great pride in treating our customers and partners with the attention and quality they deserve.
What sets you apart from other affiliates and what is it that makes your traffic proposition/traffic sites unique?
Our business model is what I believe sets us apart. We have a unique approach and we provide our viewers with lots of information. We show them the best bonuses, give them exclusive deals, review casinos and slots for them, keep them up to date with the gambling industry news, teach them how to gamble, provide them with massive giveaways and most importantly, we stream on Twitch and YouTube, which allows us to cover online gambling from all points of view.
We’re all about entertainment and fun, and we try to always keep that attitude on our website and channels. Our users should feel free to have fun in complete safety at any of our partners’ platforms. They can easily contact us – either via chat or through the forum – and know we’ll do our best to help them with their issue.
What incremental value do you provide?
Many of our employees work on managing AboutSlots.com and making it better, but what sets us apart is that our business is paired with our increasingly popular Twitch and YouTube channels. Both channels attract a lot of viewers, who are then exposed to the website. This helps it generate a lot of organic traffic.
What can you tell us about AboutSlots?
AboutSlots is a one-stop-shop for online gamblers. We provide exclusive casino bonus deals, casino reviews, and slot reviews, as well as giveaways and all essential information regarding the iGaming world.
We provide users with the latest offers so that they’re always up to date with the industry. Working in close contact with gaming companies, we always make sure users get high-quality information. Furthermore, AboutSlots offers an easy-to-navigate environment and UX design that will meet the users’ expectations and needs – offering them a top-quality experience.
At the moment, we have more than two hundred B2B customers on AboutSlots.com. Our website, however, isn’t just a landing page for affiliate links. AboutSlots offer a never-ending variety of features and content – including reviews, offers, news, promotions, competitions, videos, and more.
What can you tell us about CasinoDaddy?
CasinoDaddy is home to the largest online casino streaming community in the world. If you know casino streaming on Twitch then you’re probably familiar with the CasinoDaddy channel, where you can watch your favorite games, exciting bonuses, and massive wins almost around the clock.
Our streamers provide viewers with entertainment that comes from playing some of the best-known slots as well as table games such as roulette, blackjack, or Caribbean Stud. Furthermore, our community is open to everyone, whether you’re new to the iGaming world or you’re an experienced gambler. Twitch streams take place every day and are completely free to watch. In fact, just by watching and participating in some competitions, you could win cash with no risk involved.
Together with streams and giveaways, you’ll also find information about online casinos, bonuses, and promotions, which should help you decide where to play and how. Streamers and more experienced viewers on the channel will also offer their insights and advice on any and all online gambling topics.
No matter your level of experience, CasinoDaddy is the place to be! Whether you just want to watch games played in real-time, chat with others about casino and non-casino topics, or want someone to help you decide where and what to play, you’ll find it all on our channel.
The Twitch channel has been around for more than five years, and it grew into the number one casino streaming channel on the internet. There’s a large number of regular viewers that join the channel today and new ones join us every day.
The CasinoDaddy community is very strong and it also represents a meeting place for many like-minded people. Many of those regularly frequenting the streams have become friends, so the bond goes well beyond just watching slots spinning on the screen.
How big are your Twitch and YouTube channels compared to your more traditional SEO sites out?
Our Twitch and YouTube channels are some of the most famous iGaming communities available online, and it’s also thanks to the wonderful users we have there that AboutSlots thrives. In fact, viewers often follow us to AboutSlots.com and enjoy the content provided on our website.
What helps make your performance successful? What are the main challenges?
Starting your own company is incredibly fun, but requires a lot of hard work too. The main challenge for us was to create a structured business. Everything has been growing quite fast for Joelsson Media Group in the last few years, and we’ve had to keep up with change. With all the components within the company that should be in harmony, we need constant planning and structuring to achieve the results we aim to. This is also what charms us about this industry: no days are ever the same, and you have the chance to always learn new things.
At the beginning everyone goes through the process of finding their own niche and setting themselves apart from the competition. When we started out, we weren’t experienced streamers, and the affiliate world was completely new to us. We also didn’t have the same confidence on camera, but together with our audience, our experience grew.
The more we streamed, the more we learned that our personalities are our strength. People like watching us, and we like to interact with our users. We’ve formed beautiful friendships with our viewers, and we share a big deal of trust and loyalty. They trust us to provide them with the best possible information, and we reward their loyalty as often as we can.
Which markets do you focus on and do you see any potential in the emerging markets?
Our main markets are the United Kingdom, Europe, and Canada. We see a lot of potential in many regulated markets, however, the one we’re currently focusing on is the USA, for which we just obtained a license to promote.
Which qualities and skills are essential in an affiliate team/business?
The main thing we aim to do is to always be transparent and helpful to our users. We don’t see our readers and viewers as profit and numbers. If you use one of our links, you are one of us, and we’ll do everything possible to make your iGaming experience the absolute best. Furthermore, we consider this relationship with end-consumers a warranty for our partners.
We also have dedicated live support and e-mail correspondence with anyone who is associated with AboutSlots.com. We make sure that no one is mistreated or abused when it comes to iGaming experience.
How does technology play a part in your day-to-day life?
Technology plays a big part in everyone’s life, especially when it comes to iGaming. We mostly play online and thanks to technology we keep in contact with our community, to whom we deliver streams and other types of content. Without technology, AboutSlots and CasinoDaddy definitely wouldn’t exist.
What does it take for an affiliate business to thrive?
I think what matters the most is to focus on quality leads, not quantity. The easiest way to thrive with an affiliate business is to always put the users first. We always engage with our audience and find the best service providers to recommend.
Technically, my advice to someone who is interested in this business would be to focus on conversion rates and not commissions. Don’t chase high commission rates, and focus instead on promoting brands that convert a lot.
How do you choose your operators and how do you manage relationships with multiple operators?
We choose operators based on their reputation and performance. We analyse casinos and game providers carefully, taking into consideration several factors such as security, games performance, banking methods, UX-friendly websites, and much more. All the casinos and game providers recommended by either AboutSlots or CasinoDaddy have been thoroughly vetted and are the best performing out there.
We also listen to our users and readers: who better than them to know how these providers perform? We always follow up on any complaints and make sure that our users always feel safe and looked after.
What is your approach in the initial stages of a new partnership?
A partnership between an affiliate and a manager is a two-way street. It should be mutually beneficial, and both parties should gain from it, as long as there’s clear communication and an effort to understand each other’s needs.
The quality of management is important to us, especially when we’re working with a new brand. It’s important that if one of our players runs into an issue with the casino, we can talk to their team and resolve the issue for them directly. This type of communication and helpfulness is probably what we value the most outside of a brand.
How do you see your future?
Our company has grown together with our plans and dreams for it, and now more than ever we aim at continuing our expansion. We’ll soon be offering even more services, and we have many more plans for both AboutSlots and our Twitch and YouTube channels.
One of our dreams would be to collaborate on the development of a slot one day. It would be really interesting to see how our experience translates into a finished product our users could play at. We’ll see what the future has in store for us!
Have you ever been to SiGMA?
I’ve been to the SiGMA event in 2017, at the Malta Fairs and Convention Centre in Ta’ Qali, Malta. It was a really unique experience, to be in an environment filled with such passion for the iGaming world. I’d love to participate again in the future, but it’ll mostly depend on AboutSlots and CasinoDaddy’s priorities in the upcoming years.
Tell us a bit about yourself – after all, business is done with people, not just companies! Your hobbies, favourite book, favourite quote, whether you are into Gaming yourself, etc.
Most of my gambling happens while streaming on YouTube and Twitch. Outside of it, my friends and I like to take the excitement of games up a notch with sports bets.
I’m also a father to two awesome boys, and I love to spend time with friends and family, exercising and travelling. I also have a soft spot for super-fast cars!
My favorite book must be Moby-Dick. It’s the first one I remember my dad reading to me as a child. And the quote I live by is “Sooner rather than later”.
Toronto is the perfect hub for SiGMA’s growth in North America, making it a nexus of networking and business development in the region with regards to land-based, iGaming, sports betting, and more. Playing host to a massive iGaming industry, Toronto will be the home for the SiGMA Group’s initiative to link the industry pioneers of the continent together for 3 days of networking, workshops, and awards. To learn more about sponsorship and speaking opportunities or to inquire about attending the event, please contact Sophie on?[email protected].
