Q&A with Alina Famenok, Already Media - From Traffic to Trust and the New Rules of iGaming Affiliation

For years, iGaming affiliation has followed a well-worn formula - optimise for SEO, rank operators, and drive conversions. But as competition and player expectations have intensified, this approach is quickly becoming outdated. Affiliates who fail to evolve risk irrelevance.

Few understand this shift better than Alina Famenok , a young CEO who is redefining what it means to be an affiliate in today’s market. Under her guidance since the company launched in 2021, Already Media has become one of the industry’s fastest growing affiliates.

She now leads a team of more than 270 people worldwide, delivering more than 100,000 FTDs to partners every month, with Already Media assets receiving more than 20 million visitors over the last year. But the company’s success isn’t built on old models - it’s driven by a new philosophy.

For Alina, the future of affiliation isn’t just about rankings and traffic; it’s about brand credibility, cutting-edge technology, and building communities that keep players engaged long after the first click.

In this conversation, she shares her vision with WarriorLab's CEO, Gali Hartuv, for how affiliates can adapt, compete, and thrive on the backdrop of rapid change.

Gali: What are the primary areas where you see the most rapid change in the affiliate space?

Alina: I’d argue that we’re undergoing a fundamental shift in iGaming affiliation right now. For almost three decades, the template was quite well-established. You built an SEO-optimised page focused around listing and ranking operators.

From our perspective, that’s no longer enough. iGaming affiliates, in general, need to do a better job engaging users.

At the heart of this is world-class content that people actually want to consume.

Gali: Why should affiliates care about retention?

Alina: This is one of the most counter-intuitive parts of being an affiliate. On the one hand, your job is done the moment you send a user to a partner.

We spend our days creating great websites with world-class content, but the goal is to actually send the user somewhere else! However, I think this is beginning to change. When you acquire a user, and then successfully send them off to a partner, that’s a great result and you generate revenue from it. But it’s also a one-time transaction.

You need to keep acquiring more users to repeat the trick. That’s why we believe that finding ways to retain your audience, as an affiliate, is so important. It creates the opportunity to refer the same user to multiple partners, and of course generate a greater ROI.

Gali: So, how do you go about creating affiliate assets that are sticky?

Alina: There’s no single answer here, but we think it boils down to three components: brand, technology, and community.

For a long time, affiliates didn’t really think too seriously about their brand. That was an area for operators. But we’re now increasingly investing in recognisable, innovative brands that immediately resonate with users.

Remember, trust derives from brand. If we are presenting a review, we want our readers to know they can trust it as an honest appraisal. By building brands people can trust, our reviews in term become more trustworthy.

With technology, this is the beating heart of our operation. It’s wide-ranging, but we invest a significant portion of our income in R&D so we can continue to innovate.

And community is something that’s becoming increasingly important. It’s about giving users a reason to return beyond the content.

Gali: Could you give a practical example of how you are implementing the above?

Alina: Absolutely. Our purchase of the legendary poker affiliate PokerListings is a good example. We acquired it back in March. It had been a well-known asset for many years, but I think it is fair to say it had lost its way a little. It needed to be dealt a new hand.

We immediately began implementing change. We re-built the site from the ground up, so it loaded quicker and gave us greater flexibility.

We pivoted its content output, away from the same old lists and reviews and towards the type of content we knew would genuinely engage a poker-loving audience. That’s things like exclusive interviews with popular players.

We’ve begun to roll out poker tools that give players a reason to return. Things like advanced hand analysers and educational resources.

And we’re building a nascent community around the brands via streams, Q&As, and other interactive elements.

It’s only been a few months, but we’re already seeing a massive change. And more importantly, it provides a blueprint for how to create a different type of affiliate experience for users.

Gali: Would you say the community-focused approach is scalable?

Alina: Absolutely. But it does mean thinking a little differently. With SEO-focused assets, the game is often around volume, and producing as many high-performing sites as possible.

Communities scale more organically, and they require more attention. It might be a case of focusing investment on a handful of assets, rather than thousands of them.

It’s also about being flexible. Opportunities present themselves in unexpected places, and you need to be ready to react.

Gali: How are changes to Google’s search algo impacting the affiliate space?

Alina: It is still the biggest factor. SEO traffic remains our most important segment. The challenge for us is to make sure we aren’t adversely impacted whenever there’s a change.

Look back to the March core update Google rolled out earlier in 2024. It decimated many affiliates, some of whom unfortunately went out of business.

You need to mitigate against sudden changes, and there are few ways we approach that. Obviously we listen closely to what Google is saying. We don’t act against the guidance; for instance by churning out huge volumes of AI-generated content that no one really wants to engage with.

But the great thing about focusing on your tech, your brand, and your community is that it both helps boost your SEO performance, while at the same time meaning you aren’t fully dependent on it.

Gali: Are these changes to affiliate space happening everywhere? Is there a difference between regulated and emerging markets?

Alina: I would say they are fairly universal. Every market is different and presents unique challenges, but there are certain global trends that should be feeding into what you are doing, regardless of market.

Gali: Looking ahead to 2025, what are going to be the most important trends, and how do affiliates stay ahead of them?

Alina: This space has never been more competitive. You need to find a way to differentiate.

That stems from putting the customer experience ahead of everything else. Content, tech, brand, and community. It should all be led by the user.

Listen to what they say, and how they interact with you. Keep this front of mind, and you’ll be ready for whatever comes next.

The affiliate space is evolving at breakneck speed, and those clinging to outdated models risk being left behind. As Alina Famenok of Already Media makes clear, the future belongs to those who think beyond rankings and traffic - those who build brands players trust, leverage technology to enhance engagement, and create communities that keep audiences coming back.

But the real challenge isn’t just recognising these shifts - it’s executing on them before the competition does.

So the question remains, as the rules of iGaming affiliation continue to change, will you be the one shaping the future or struggling to catch up?

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