Alex Bukin, ReferOn: “The real challenge for operators today isn’t finding traffic; it’s cutting through the daily chaos so they can make decisions in seconds instead of days”

Focus Gaming News spoke to Alex Bukin, CEO at ReferOn, about how the company is addressing operational friction and legacy data challenges in affiliate management.

Exclusive interview.- As affiliate marketing becomes increasingly data-driven and complex, operators are looking beyond basic tracking tools towards platforms that can simplify workflows, improve decision-making, and strengthen partner relationships. In this interview with Focus Gaming News, Alex Bukin, CEO of ReferOn, discusses how affiliate management is evolving from an operational necessity into a strategic growth function, and why reducing “noise” has become one of the biggest priorities for modern operators.

Bukin also reflects on ReferOn’s recent industry recognition, including winning Affiliate System of the Year at the AffPapa Awards, and shares his perspective on automation, AI, and the future of affiliate technology. From tackling migration challenges and improving data transparency to helping operators scale more efficiently, he explains how the company is positioning itself as a partner for businesses seeking greater control, faster insights, and sustainable growth in an increasingly competitive market.

ReferOn recently won Affiliate System of the Year at AffPapa Awards and was shortlisted for two EGR B2B Awards. What do these recognitions mean to the team, and what do they say about the platform’s evolution over the last year?

Honestly, we don’t build software just to win a quick press cycle. But taking home Affiliate System of the Year and locking in two EGR B2B shortlists is an incredible testament to the team’s dedication. It validates what I call our internal engine: constant constructive dissatisfaction.

For the team, this recognition proves that refusing to settle for legacy industry standards is the right path. The igaming sector has been stuck in “mostly working” legacy thinking for too long. We used our own past frustrations as our product roadmap, actively engineering those daily headaches out of a manager’s workflow. On top of that, we are constantly communicating with both prospective and existing partners to learn what they need in order to keep improving their daily experience with ReferOn.

In terms of evolution, over the last year, ReferOn transitioned from a fast-growing disruptor into a mature, enterprise-scale, award-winning platform trusted by operators. We heavily focused on data integrity and usability, making efforts to translate complex backend logic into intuitive visual guidance, giving teams their time back to make faster, better decisions. Ultimately, our focus remains unchanged: building technology that removes operational friction, gives teams greater clarity and control, and enables them to scale affiliate programs with confidence.

“In terms of evolution, over the last year ReferOn transitioned from a fast-growing disruptor into a mature, enterprise-scale award-winning platform trusted by operators.”

Alex Bukin, CEO of ReferOn.

The affiliate landscape has changed dramatically in recent years. What are the biggest challenges operators face today when managing affiliate partnerships at scale?

If I had to use one word, it’s noise. The industry has grown so fast, but instead of making things easier, operators are drowning in scattered data and buried under the endless task of stitching together data from various spreadsheets and sources. When you grow your network across multiple brands, you hit three big walls:

• Playing catch-up with old data: too many teams are stuck using old-school tools that only give you yesterday’s news in massive spreadsheets. If your team is wasting hours just to find out what happened this morning, you’re always reacting instead of leading.
• The endless manual grind: It’s crazy how much time is still wasted on basic admin. If your managers are spending 70 per cent of their day manually typing in custom deals, tracking links, or chasing down payouts, they aren’t doing their real job, which is actually talking to partners and growing the business.
• Losing trust in the numbers: When you launch new brands or enter new markets, everything gets messy fast. If your data is split across different systems and your affiliates don’t trust your tracking, the whole relationship falls apart.

While growing your business can cause more headaches, choosing the right infrastructure will help you avoid them. The real challenge for operators today isn’t finding traffic; it’s cutting through the daily chaos so you can make decisions in seconds instead of days.

Many operators still see affiliate management primarily as a tracking function. Why do you believe it should be viewed as a strategic growth driver instead?

To be completely blunt, viewing affiliate management as just tracking is like buying a high-performance sports car just to sit in traffic. If you only treat your platform as a passive spreadsheet tool, you’re missing out on serious revenue. This is exactly where ReferOn’s approach and value lie: enabling operators to concentrate on growing their business. Affiliate Management Software needs to be a strategic growth driver for 3 major reasons:

• From counting clicks to hunting value: A basic tracker just tells you how many clicks you got yesterday. A strategic setup tells you exactly which partners are bringing in your highest-value, longest-lasting players. It lets you stop guessing and start putting your budget where the real return is.
• Moving from arguing to collaborating: When your data is 100 per cent accurate, and the system automates the boring manual work, the whole relationship changes. Your team stops wasting time arguing with affiliates over missing stats or broken links. Instead, they can actually sit down with partners and brainstorm how to double the business.
• The Tandem Bicycle Effect: Affiliate managers need a few weeks for onboarding and learning the new system, but your affiliate platform should ensure you never lose momentum. Think of it like a tandem bike: the operator keeps pedalling forward, regardless of who swaps into the co-pilot seat. By standardising data and cutting onboarding with ReferOn to a single day, you lock in total operational stability.

Automation and AI are transforming every area of igaming. How do you see these technologies reshaping affiliate management?

Let’s cut through the hype first. AI in affiliate management shouldn’t just be about slapping a generic chatbot onto a dashboard and calling it a day. It’s about building a smart backend that gets the technical clutter out of the way so your team can focus on real human relationships.

The real magic happens when we move into what I call the “ask and get” era of data. Instead of an affiliate manager spending an hour building a custom report to see why a campaign is dropping, they can just ask the system. By connecting AI directly to platform data, something we’ve focused heavily on with technologies like the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the software acts as an instant data analyst. You type a simple question and get a clear answer in seconds instead of digging through endless tabs.

From there, automation takes over the daily grind. Things like setting up complex reward tiers, mapping postbacks, and processing multi-currency payouts should happen completely on autopilot so your team isn’t acting like data-entry clerks. At the same time, instead of waiting for a weekly or monthly review to notice a weird spike in traffic or a sudden drop in player value, the system monitors everything 24/7 to flag fraud or tracking errors in real-time. This saves you from burning budget on bad traffic before it gets out of hand.

“AI in affiliate management shouldn’t just be about slapping a generic chatbot onto a dashboard and calling it a day.”

Alex Bukin, CEO of ReferOn.

ReferOn will be attending iGB L!VE London. What conversations are you hoping to have with operators and affiliates during the event?

We are attending iGB to meet the operators and affiliates who are genuinely tired of fighting against legacy systems and are ready to scale.

When it comes to operators, the big conversation we want to have is about migration. Moving away from an old system usually feels like a logistical nightmare, but we want to show them just how painless it actually is to migrate to ReferOn, backed by our deep experience in making that transition seamless. At the same time, we are looking forward to talking with data providers, specifically casino and sportsbook platforms, about how fast and easy integration has become. Thanks to our newly developed automated integration process, we’ve stripped away the usual technical headaches so systems can connect and sync data faster than ever before.

For the affiliates, the focus remains on shifting them from guessing to absolute trust by showing them how our real-time tracking gives them 100 per cent transparency. If you are an operator, platform provider, or partner who wants to see what a fast, frictionless setup looks like in action, we invite you to schedule a meeting with our team at iGB L!VE London to explore how modern affiliate technology can simplify your operations and accelerate growth.