At the back of iGB Affiliate 2026 was the Pulse Theatre. Ever so slightly removed from the humming of the conference room floor and the packs of robot dogs roaming the aisles, this was a forum for lively debate. Here, among other discussions, Trafficology observed Line Peteri host a debate on the value of first-time deposits (FTDs). The conversation was prefaced by the acceptance that for many, FTDs remain the North Star and the number one guiding principle of affiliate marketing. But the reason we’re here is because many believe it's not quite as uniformly clear cut as that.
The job of an affiliate is twofold: it must drive traffic, of course, but it must also demonstrate on an ongoing basis that the traffic being generated is down to the work they are doing. Operators are going to select their partners based on the value added – this is nothing new.
On the face of it, this doesn’t seem too difficult. When an affiliate partners with an operator, as long as there’s a steady acceleration of traffic, something must be working. But it’s in the measuring of traffic where the question of success becomes more nuanced. There are different schools of thought on how best to quantify traffic, but the thing that operators really crave is value. With that question, it becomes even more important for an affiliate to clearly justify its processes, and so the metrics for doing so are debated even more heavily.
First-time deposits
Unpacking the true value of FTDs were Ben Holmes, Growth Director at Moloco, and Dan Shannon, Head of Player Acquisition at Betable. It’s important to say that neither panellist was falling over themselves trying to disprove the importance of FTDs, but there was consensus that the metric is not the be-all and end-all. As our moderator Peteri notes, an obsession with first-time deposits can distort your assessment of value in the long term.
This gets to the heart of why measuring traffic or value is complex. Of course you can monitor it very directly using page views, unique visitors, total sessions or clicks. Likewise, you can measure value very directly through revenue. But as Peteri is getting at, obsessing over short term positives can obscure long-term strategic faults.
As Shannon explains to the gathered crowd at the Pulse Theatre, FTDs are valuable precisely because the metric cuts a middle ground. With FTDs, you don’t score yourself based on those aforementioned traffic metrics, because if a site visitor doesn’t make a deposit, it has no relevance to the operator’s top line.
Concrete value and reliable data
The panellists also allude to the fact that clicks and traffic volumes are not always what they seem – no one is here advocating for the use of bots or fake traffic to bump up the numbers, but there’s no denying it happens. With FTDs, that isn’t a question. They make the leap from sheer traffic to concrete value. But the metric still doesn’t necessarily address the question of sustainable growth, which is what the most successful affiliates will be able to manufacture. Shannon concedes: “Large numbers of FTDs don’t automatically indicate success.”
Holmes is more skeptical still and points out that: “If you become too focused on FTDs, over time, you’re potentially not acquiring the users you need at the right price, and you’re maybe acquiring ones you don’t.” His read was that retaining high-value players is a far more worthwhile pursuit. A slightly more involved form of analysis – first-party data – is how Moloco operates, and that’s the way that Holmes believes operators and affiliate programmes can actually increase a player’s value. That’s how he sees strategically-minded affiliates turning a first-time – potentially one-time – depositor, into a sustainable source of revenue.
Google and the benefits of compliance
The Pulse Theatre had plenty more to offer over the conference and conference-goers enjoyed a rare chance to hear directly from Google through Digital Consultant Camillo Cortesi.
Cortesi got the audience engaged early on, asking how many Google searches we thought were made each day. The answer was a gargantuan 8.5 billion, which none of the guesses got near to. We may not have needed reminding, but the potential in Google ads is proportionately enormous. Cortesi was a bundle of positivity and energy. In his mind, the inevitable journey of AI was one that will soon eradicate the black market – a bold viewpoint – and that marketers need to build this into their strategy. As far as he’s concerned, compliance has never been a more profitable business plan: It’s never been a better time to be a fully compliant operator.”
And while AI cracks down on the black market, he sees the next generation of monetisation as being borne out of AI’s ability to scale compliance across all sorts of different jurisdictions at once.
Fingers on the pulse. Eyes to the future.