Affiliate Interview Series - David Sneekes - BBCasinos

**GPWA Abby** · 8 November 2016, 11:16 am

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Age: 35
Hometown: Alkmaar, Netherlands
Living in: Alkmaar, Netherlands
Favorite Food: Tiroler Gröstl
Must-Read Book: I Am Zlatan, by Zlatan Ibrahimović

Site:
bestbettingcasinos.com

(This interview was originally published in the October 2016 issue of the GPWA Times Magazine.)

When did you launch bestbettingcasinos.com? How long did it take for it to start producing revenue?
We started with the preparations in December 2014, and we went online in February 2015. The first revenue came as a surprise, but it started at the end of March 2015, so within two months. That first revenue was a real motivator. It gave us just the kick to go for it!

You said you got into the affiliate business in 2008. How did you get into iGaming affiliate marketing? What did you do before? Are you a full-time or part-time affiliate?
In the past I worked as an affiliate manager at Scoot Media, a performance-based marketing network. During my work there I was also pushing some casino offers, like Unibet and Karamba. I always liked the gambling world, and did some sports betting and gambling in casinos in Holland. When I saw the revenues and possibilities of the offers I thought, why not start my own website, just to level up my online marketing skills and to earn some extra money? So in 2009 ?or maybe 2010, I don't know for sure ?I started a small website in Holland and kept it just for a few months. Then I sold it to a guy who was in the business for a longer time. The reason I sold it was that I was going to start my own business, out of affiliate marketing and online marketing. I started a company where I designed and started a mobile soccer app for local football teams in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, there are around 3,000 local football clubs. And I saw a business in giving every club its own app. During the years from 2012 to 2013, the business with apps was OK, and I got two people to work for me, so I decided to do something alongside it. Then, I started doing some freelance work for FruityCasa. A friend of mine started it, I think in October 2014, and I worked there for three and a half days a week on a freelance basis. From the beginning, I started to like the business again. So I decided to start my own website again. And within one or two months, I decided to start my own website with my business partner.

I am not a full-time affiliate. I am still doing freelance work now, but I'm working in the adult and dating industry for a few days a week. It's quite a different business, but it's also online marketing, SEO, media, marketing, so the combination is good and we can still manage to do the casino website in a part-time manner.

Bestbettingcasinos features both casino games and sports betting. How much traffic does each section of the site get?
The casino section gets the most traffic. Sportsbook is too small. I think only 10% of all traffic goes to sportsbook. For the casino, we are getting more than 250 unique visitors through Google on a daily basis. We added some sports betting because some of the casinos offer sports next to the casino, and they asked us if we could also give some attention to the sports section.

How do you decide which casinos to promote?
Good question. I was looking around, for example, on the GPWA forum, to see the posts on the reactions from people for the different casinos. We went to a conference in London, then Berlin, Barcelona, Amsterdam, and just talked to the guys. I don't like it when affiliate managers are too pushy, pushing you all the time. I always tell the casinos that we are in this long-term. We just went online in 2015, for 14, 15 months, so we're just a startup. We don't want to be pushed. I want to make revenue; you want to make revenue. So, yeah, the most important thing is to decide which casinos to promote. I look at the offers they have and the number of games, and the providers. Most of the time if they use Microgaming or NetEnt, those convert the best, at least in my case.

Your site is currently available in English, German and Swedish. Do you have plans to add additional languages at any point?
Yes. First we are going to translate more and more of our important pages. All the pages are written in English, and some important pages are already translated in to German and Swedish. We just started with translations around two or three months ago. And we've chosen to translate the most popular pages that we have and the pages that get the most search results. Every month we look at the top results of our pages, and these pages we give to a freelancer, and he or she translates it. As for plans to add additional languages, we already have a few pages in Dutch.

What are some of your sites' unique selling points? How do you stand out from the crowd?
If you visit the website, you will see a different design than a lot of other casino affiliate websites. Some of them look the same, with the same template. I'm not sure of the name; it's a template on WordPress and most of them use it. But we've got a pretty unique Web design, with nice colors. We also have thought about our own way of writing. We always speak straight to the visitor, in the "you" form. And every casino that wants to get listed on our website will get a full listing. A full listing includes a minimum of eight unique SEO pages, with a minimum of a thousand words. That's a pretty good amount of text, which is also good for people to read. And I think our news section is pretty unique. We write casino news every day. It could be general casino news, new games, new bonuses or news about the legalization of online gaming in the Netherlands. It's also one of the most-read sections of our website.

The Dutch government recently passed a remote gaming bill, and it's expected to be fully enacted as early as the beginning of 2017. What's your reaction to this news? How will this bill affect you and your business?
This will for sure affect our business and our strategy. Because we are a team of Dutch people, we will prepare a huge translation of our website. We are working with multiple languages at the moment. And when it is all sure and the final date is confirmed, we will start translating our most important pages. But in your question you said beginning of 2017. I think this is impossible with the Dutch government; in my opinion, it will all be arranged at the start of 2018 at the earliest.

It would be a great improvement if this goes on because almost everybody in the Netherlands already gambles, and around 500 million euro goes out of the Netherlands to betting companies in other countries. With this change, we can keep some of it in our own country, I imagine.

Do you have employees, or is your affiliate business a solo operation?
It is a two-man operation. I started this website with my former employee Koen Verkerk. Shortly after we started to execute this project, it was clear that this was going be a good team. Koen is very strong in technical SEO and the online marketing part of SEO. And I am the man who leaves the office to set up deals and set up collaborations with partners. I love to chat with the casinos, love to go to conferences, to party, all that kind of stuff. I am a real dealmaker. Above that, we have a few freelance writers and translators, which we use when we need them. There's one guy from Kenya, he's writing for us every day, and he delivers good stuff, and, of course, he gets paid for every word he sends us. So the original team is two, and there are some freelancers hanging around it.

Do you gamble yourself? Online or in brick-and-mortar casinos?
I love to gamble; I don’t do it big, just for fun. Most of the time I do sports betting because placing a bet on the game makes it a little more interesting to watch. And I often go to foreign football games and sports events, and it's always nice to put a bet on it when you go there. So yes, I like to gamble, but I'm not a big one, I don't spend hundreds of euros a month on it. Maybe for some, one hundred euro a month is a lot?

How often do you get to see and interact with other people in the industry? Have you attended any conferences?
Through Skype we have daily contact with people from the industry. And I try to attend all iGaming conferences and some other interesting ones. My favorite conference at the moment is the BAC (Berlin). I think it was the first one in Berlin, but I really loved that it's a new city, and I love the people in Germany, and it's a nice city to go to. And I really like the interactions with the people in the industry; I just made some appointments with some guys for a meeting in Malta. So there really are some awesome people who work in casinos, and I get to have fun over there. The last two conferences I couldn't attend because I was on a skiing holiday and a cycling holiday, but I'm definitely going to visit Berlin again.

What traits do you look for in an affiliate manager? How about in an affiliate program?
An affiliate manager must not be a pushy one. Pushing affiliates does not work to your advantage. An affiliate is good at what he does; let him do his thing. And if your brand is converting, it will automatically get better positions on the website. It will also get more content. An affiliate wants to make money just as much as the affiliate manager.

I love it when an affiliate manager is proactive. Contacts you with new promotions, gives you the right images and keeps you up to date. This also applies to the affiliate network. For an affiliate program, it is very important to send newsletters. Some of the casinos send us newsletters every week with a nice amount of text in it that we can rewrite; that's the easiest thing for an affiliate that way, if they can do it. And above that, in my opinion, it is important that both affiliate manager and network are honest with you.

What's your preferred method of communication with affiliate managers?
The best and easiest way of communicating with affiliate managers is Skype. I have all my contacts on Skype. And every time we add a new post for a certain casino brand, we communicate it on Skype, so they know what we are doing for them. The majority of managers finds this to be a positive thing, and that means we have a good connection with them. Of course, we cannot always deliver the numbers, for some casinos more than other ones, but I always want to have a good connection with them and be honest with them and have them be honest with me.

What prompted you to join the GPWA? How has it helped you?
I am always interested to read about actual stuff in the industry. And above that, I want be informed about changes in the industry and if there are problems with affiliate networks or casino brands. It's always good to read about it, because you can then act on it. And, of course, it is fun to read the off-topic stuff that comes around, about movies and about conferences and the parties that are organized and the giveaways you can get, that kind of stuff. When I can or when a topic interests me I will step in to the discussion and try to give my opinion on it.

It has helped me with some SEO stuff, and also with choosing some good converting brands.

What do you like about the industry?
I like the way it changes all the time. Almost every week there are new casinos ?and casinos closing, of course; that is not the most lovely thing because you just build up some players and then they stop. But I like that new casinos are coming in, with new techniques and new live casino things. Some people I know hate changes. But I like it when things change because you can jump on it and in the end, if you jump on it and you do it well, it will bring you some profit. We are online for just 15 months, and the bigger players have already got a good reputation on Google, so the only possible way we can score is when things change, we can step into it and try to get in position on things. The casino industry is also interesting because of the unlimited information you can write about. There is never a dull moment in this industry.

And don't forget about the conferences and the people in the industry. It is always nice to see all of them again when you visit one of the conferences across the world.

If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be and why?
I think I mentioned it before. The pushy affiliate managers. And the ones that keep on sending me e-mails or Skype messages when we already talked about a deal; it works the opposite way. It's one thing I don't like. Say when you go to a conference, and affiliates in general are very good and I like them, and then you go to the binary options section, for example, and it makes you crazy ?ranting and ranting and pulling you into the stands. I don't like it.

And I am waiting for the moment the list of restricted countries gets shorter. Everybody wishes that the list of restricted countries gets shorter and shorter. But I know that is just a dream. Maybe step by step, some countries will stop. But I think I can always dream about it.

What do your family and friends think of your work as an affiliate?
Most of them have no clue what I am doing. But when I use the comparison of club promoters at the beaches in Spain, most of them understand it a little bit better. So I call myself an online club promotor, which makes it easier for family and friends to understand the business.

Most of the people near me are very interested in the work I do. Once they understand how it works, they want know more and more about it.

How do you manage your to-do lists? Do you use any special software to help you out?
My to-do list consists of an Excel sheet in which we add all the casino brands on our website. In the Excel sheet, we have a column for every post we have to write for each casino. That makes it easier to see what we still have to do. And every time I write a post, I make the cell green. So in 10 years, all the cells have to be green, I think.

And above that, I work with pink Post-It papers on my computer screen. On these Post-Its, I add the priority news items that have to be written ASAP.

How much time do you devote social networking for your site?
Social networking only costs us a few minutes a week. We are not extremely active on social media. We have a Facebook page with 240 likes and a Twitter page with 3,557 followers. In most cases, when we add a news post or a review post, we post it on Twitter, maybe two or three tweets a day. And on Facebook we only add the most important and the best offers, the offers we think are going convert well. But with 240 likes, not a lot will come from there.

What's the most difficult thing about running your sites?
I guess that must be finding the time to write all pages I want to add to the website. I think of new interesting posts every minute. I wake up in the morning with 10 pages in my head I want to write, and in the end I can only write two or three a day. I also have the other job, the freelancing for the dating industry. It's a lot of time. And above that, we have new ideas to get the website to the next level on a weekly basis. In the end there is never enough time to execute all the ideas within the time frame you want.

What’s the best thing about running your sites?
Ha ha. That is a little bit the same as the answer on the previous question. I love to brainstorm with my partner. Brainstorming about new ideas to get our website and revenues to the next level.

I also love to make deals with new casinos. I like speaking with the affiliate manager on Skype and making a nice long-term deal with them that fits both parties. In that case, when we are making a deal, we also get to know the affiliate manager a little bit better, and ask some personal questions. I like contacting other people from the industry ?could be on a thread, could be at the conferences.

What do you do to stay in shape ?both physically and mentally?
I am a sport cycler. Every year I have a few challenges. This year in June, I went to Italy with a group of cyclers. It's also why I missed the affiliate conference in Amsterdam. Every day we climbed a new mountain in the area of Bormio. And on D-Day ?that is what we call the day we try to meet our challenge ? we climbed the Stelvio two times. The Stelvio is a high mountain of I think 2,700 meters in Italy. We did it one time from the Bormio side, and did another climb from the Prato side.

To train for these challenges, I often do cycling and running in my hometown or in nice areas across the world.

Cycling is also a good way to stay fit mentally. During cycling you have loads of time to think about business or your life, what you want to do in the future. I often cycle with Koen, so we can do our business meetings on the bicycle. It's a great way to have a meeting and be sportive at one time.

What do you do with your spare time?
I love to do impulsive things. I often visit international football matches with friends or family ?most of the time, matches of my favorite club, Newcastle United. Because of my involvement in both the gambling and dating industries, I visit a lot of conferences across the world, because in the dating industry there are also a lot of conferences. I always add a few days to those trips to explore the area where the conferences are hosted. So when I go to New York for something, I stay there two days longer to see things in New York; when I go to Las Vegas I want to stay a few days longer to see the Grand Canyon or something ?just traveling around the conferences; it's a combination of business and pleasure.

Above that, I love to go skiing during the winter. Two times a year we go to Austria, my friends and I, and those skiing trips with my best friends are priceless.

What did you dream of doing, both professionally and personally, when you were a kid?
As a kid I always wanted to be a pilot ?until the moment I had to make a choice after my middle school. I had two forms, one for the pilot study and one for commercial economy. Some of my friends and family told me "You don't want to be a pilot, you want to be commercial," because I was someone who could not sit still. So in the end I decided to throw the pilot option away and I signed up for the commercial study at the school in Alkmaar. And now that I'm traveling the world for the conferences, I am sure that was a good choice. I guess sitting in a plane for eight hours would have made me crazy.

If someone from out of town were visiting you, what's the one place you'd definitely take them to see?
If they came from another country I would definitely show them all the water in my area. I would take them on boat with some music, some drinks and some food. And we would go sailing through the area for a day or two.

I live in the north of the Netherlands. This is one of the rare places in the world where we live underneath sea level. So for some people it's really strange to come here; some people don't like to come here because they are scared that once they're here, everything's going to be underwater. We have lots of small waters, lakes and nice green areas; it's really nice to sail around in a boat and have some drinks and some fun.

When you need to get as far away from work as possible, where do you go?
Skiing in Austria! Once I step into my skis I forget about everything. I love to do some nice off-slope skiing in the fresh powder. As Vin Diesel once said in the Triple X movie, "Nothing like fresh powder."

What's your all-time favorite movie?
Very hard question, because there are so many good movies. But if I have to choose one, I would choose Boondock Saints. I have a self-made brush painting of this movie in my house. And I share their spirit, with the quotes they have on their tattoos: "Veritas, Aequitas." Which means Truth and Justice in Latin. I really stand for both of those words.

If you could invite any five people, living or dead, to dinner, who would they be?
Ha ha. Great question. The first, without a doubt, is Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the football player. I love that guy and everything he does and says. He's great. And I would say Gordon Ramsey, so he could make the dinner. If he is eating it, I know for sure it will be an amazing dinner. For the background music I will invite Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen. A few weeks ago I went to Bruce's concert in Holland; it was amazing, great reviews, and he's still going strong in his old age. A dinner without a beautiful girl is not complete. So I would like to invite Kaley Cuoco, the actress from the Big Bang Theory. And I want to finish with David Copperfield. He can add just that part of entertainment we need with this group of people.

Name three things that people reading this magazine don't know about you.
Three things is pretty hard because I am really an open book to everyone around me. But if I have to name one, it would be a ski accident I had in 2001 that resulted in 15 broken bones and seven broken teeth. I hope that is enough, because I think that's the only thing people don't know. I can't think of any other things.

**dfiocch** · 8 November 2016, 12:07 pm

Great interview, great name

**Soplica** · 8 November 2016, 1:04 pm

Great interview, I read it in the magazine

**santomarco** · 8 November 2016, 1:18 pm

Great to read this interview!

Cheers

**BBCasinos** · 8 November 2016, 4:25 pm

Originally Posted by dfiocch

Great interview, great name

haha thanks everybody. Loved to do the interview.
Just for the record. My firstname is Dave

**sweetbet** · 8 November 2016, 6:16 pm

Great site and nice interview.

**agsgroup** · 8 November 2016, 11:45 pm

Great Interview, thanks for sharing!

PS: I agree about Tiroler Gröstl

**BBCasinos** · 9 November 2016, 12:38 am

Originally Posted by agsgroup

Great Interview, thanks for sharing!

PS: I agree about Tiroler Gröstl

haha yes Grostl is amazing isn't it?
A shame i only eat it a few times a year as i am only in Austria for a few weeks a year.

**agsgroup** · 9 November 2016, 1:49 am

Originally Posted by BBCasinos

haha yes Grostl is amazing isn't it?
A shame i only eat it a few times a year as i am only in Austria for a few weeks a year.

Yeah, same here... and its not quite the same when I try to recreate it myself either

**BBCasinos** · 9 November 2016, 1:53 am

Originally Posted by agsgroup

Yeah, same here... and its not quite the same when I try to recreate it myself either

easy answer, don't try it.

**Miles_FTA** · 9 November 2016, 5:33 am

Sites looking Fantastic man keep up the great work .

Good guy and Good System and Good affiliate

**BBCasinos** · 9 November 2016, 12:53 pm

Thanks for your reply and compliments Miles.
Always Nice working with you.

**sakisarv** · 9 November 2016, 4:59 pm

Great Interview, thanks for sharing

**BBCasinos** · 10 November 2016, 12:44 am

Originally Posted by sakisarv

Great Interview, thanks for sharing

thanks. And no probs. Always willing to share stuff with people from the industry.

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