"In a licensed market, the funnel works differently – the pace is different, and first results take time. But if the goal is to build a business that runs steadily three months from now, a year from now, and two years from now – then the white market is the only right choice. Because at its core are contracts, legal transparency, and real guarantees for both sides. Neither the advertiser nor the partner will ever find themselves in a situation where they've sent traffic and the brand simply doesn't exist the next day."
3 key pieces of advice for affiliates starting out with a licensed product:
Shift your mindset – white market products require a different approach
If you’ve worked exclusively with grey market products, the first and most important step is to change your entire way of thinking. A white market product is a fundamentally different working model, where the FTD is only the beginning. What follows is a long tail of metrics that white market advertisers track and use to evaluate the quality of your traffic: retention, LTV, player activity, average deposit. Here, the quality of every player you bring matters – not just FTDs volume.
The key to long-term monetisation is deep platform expertise
"Platforms like Google, Meta, and TikTok operate with licensed operators under heightened scrutiny: algorithms are more sensitive, requirements are stricter, and the cost of mistakes is higher. That's why deep platform knowledge is not a competitive advantage here – it's a baseline requirement. Knowing how to launch ad campaigns may not be enough. You need to understand how the platform interprets advertising content in a specific jurisdiction, what signals trigger manual review, and how to structure a campaign so it runs consistently – not just until the first moderation flag."
Match your traffic source to the requirements of your target GEO
Once you’ve studied the compliance guidelines, it becomes clear which traffic sources actually work in a specific GEO. Understanding the requirements of a particular jurisdiction lets you immediately build the right setup: choose a channel that passes moderation, adapt creatives to local restrictions, and focus your budget where it actually converts.
For example, influencer marketing in the Netherlands is completely closed – if your core mechanic relies on working with bloggers, this market will require a full switch to a different traffic source. Or if you’re running paid social traffic to Ontario, you need to understand that while the market is technically accessible, a high self-exclusion rate and strict targeting requirements make this channel significantly less effective than, say, PPC or SEO.
At the same time, PPC on branded and event-based queries works excellently for the Irish audience. The target audience actively searches for specific events: Premier League matches, UFC, GAA. PPC campaigns on these queries deliver consistently strong results – especially during peak activity periods around major events.
The First 30 Days in the White Market – Must-Have Toolkit
Before sending your first traffic, make sure you have everything in place – technically, legally, and operationally. We’ve put together a list of essential tools to help you build a stable, well-structured foundation for long-term performance:
Legal & compliance base
- Disclaimers – Ad creatives require disclaimers for each GEO. Up-to-date templates can be requested from your personal Tonybet Affiliates manager.
- Compliance guides – For each active GEO, there is a clear set of rules: ad format requirements, wording restrictions, and mandatory disclaimers. Request them from your personal manager and keep them close — this is your go-to reference before every launch. A guide studied before a campaign goes live costs far less than a blocked ad.
"We recommend taking the time to build a solid compliance pack for your creatives once: disclaimers, logo, links, formats, sizes, font ratios — and then simply replicating it with minimal adjustments for each campaign. This is far easier than finding yourself in a situation where hundreds of banners have gone out with incorrect short terms and need to be completely reworked. Proper preparation at the start saves not hours – but weeks."
- Blask – A competitive intelligence and market analytics tool built specifically for iGaming. Before entering a new GEO, you can see how saturated the market is, who dominates it, and whether there’s room for new traffic.
Tracking & attribution
- Voluum – One of the most popular trackers in affiliate marketing, supporting S2S postbacks and multi-touch attribution. Works well with paid channels and is a solid choice for starting out in regulated markets.
- RedTrack – Clean interface, cookieless tracking, strong integration with Meta and Google. Popular among media buyers.
- Binom – Fast, affordable, self-hosted. A good option for those who want to keep their data in-house.
- GA4 with custom events – Set up tracking not just for registrations, but for FTDs, session depth, and repeat deposits.
- Basic cohort analytics – Track players by acquisition period. The first 30 days will reveal traffic quality. Focus on retention and average deposit, not just FTD count.
What underpins scaling after your first launches on a white market product?
In 2026, the strongest iGaming affiliate programs are built around server-side tracking, transparent commission logic, and rigorous partner management. Regulations now affect not just the legal side – they touch affiliate recruitment, ad approvals, creative control, and payouts. Source: Scaleo, March 2026.
What does it mean?
The regulatory landscape is changing faster than many can keep up with. Where operators once absorbed responsibility for affiliate actions – acting as a buffer between the regulator and the partner – that approach is now being reconsidered. Several jurisdictions are already actively developing direct affiliate licensing frameworks, and transparency requirements for affiliate activity are being tightened consistently. The message is clear: those operating in grey areas or pushing the boundaries of what’s permitted risk finding themselves under direct regulatory scrutiny – with no operator to hide behind.
"If you don't have a strong analyst, you can't see the full picture: what the player does from the first click, how they respond to a creative, how their behaviour changes a year in, which bonuses and banners work specifically for them. That's the foundation on which a comfortable funnel and a stable product are built. That's why operations matter – all the end-to-end processes that accompany a player from the first touchpoint to long-term engagement require a systematic approach. Without that, scaling becomes a lottery."
Conclusion
The regulated market is becoming a new kind of freedom. Freedom from risk, from instability, and from the situation where a brand can disappear overnight. Here, everything is built on trust, data, and long-term relationships. This is the path that leads to a sustainable business – one that works a month from now, a year from now, and two years from now.
The Tonybet Affiliates team brings years of expertise in entering regulated markets with quality and sustaining that presence for years. And we’re ready to share that experience.
Join Tonybet Affiliates via the link or reach out at [email protected]
