“How Royal Partners is building a consistent presence in Europe and Latin America — interview with Alex, CBDO at Royal Partners”

Alex, CBDO at Royal Partners, discusses the company’s strategy at SBC Summit Lisbon, its affiliate ecosystem positioning, and key growth markets.

Exclusive interview.- Royal Partners is a Gold Sponsor of SBC Summit Lisbon, where the company aims to strengthen its visibility across priority markets and deepen relationships with affiliates, media buyers and other industry partners.

In this exclusive interview with Focus Gaming News, Alex, CBDO at Royal Partners, discusses the strategy behind the company’s presence at SBC Summit Lisbon, the role of sponsorship in building long-term recognition within the affiliate ecosystem and the markets driving its next phase of growth. He also explores how Royal Partners approaches CPA, RevShare and Hybrid partnerships, measures the longer-term value of industry events and uses practical market experience to strengthen its position within the global affiliate landscape.

What strategic message does Royal Partners aim to convey through its sponsorship at SBC Summit Lisbon?

Our Gold Sponsorship at SBC Summit Lisbon reflects where Royal Partners is as a business and where we are heading. We want to strengthen Royal Partners’ visibility across high-value markets and show that we are investing consistently in our growth, partnerships, and position within the global igaming ecosystem.

Europe remains a core market for Royal Partners, and our objective for the 2026/27 season is not simply to maintain our presence. We intend to expand it. SBC Summit gives us direct access to leading affiliates, media buyers, industry experts, and other partners, so having a strong presence there is strategically important.

The sponsorship is also a way for us to support SBC and stay actively involved in the wider industry community.

How does sponsoring the conference reinforce your positioning within the affiliate ecosystem?

For affiliates, visibility matters. It helps them understand which programmes are active in the market, which companies are investing, and which ones are likely to be there for the long term.

Our Gold Sponsorship at SBC Summit makes that commitment visible. Many companies are becoming more cautious with budgets, so continued investment in major industry events also says something about our stability and our plans for future growth.

It gives Royal Partners a stronger presence at one of the industry’s main events, builds brand recognition, and puts us in direct contact with both existing and potential partners.

Which markets are central to your growth strategy for the 2026/27 season?

Tier-1 European markets and Latin America are the main priorities for us.

We are selective about expansion. A GEO has to make sense for the brand, offer enough player value, and give affiliates a realistic chance to scale. In the 2026/27 season, that is more important to us than simply adding more countries to the list.

In Europe, we want to grow further in markets where we already see strong demand, high player spending power, and an active affiliate community. Competition is high, so success depends on much more than the commercial offer. The brand, localisation, payments, and overall user experience all have to work for that specific GEO.

Latin America also offers strong growth potential, but we do not treat the region as one market. Player behaviour, payment preferences, regulation, and traffic sources can vary significantly from country to country.

“Competition is high, so success depends on much more than the commercial offer.”

Alex, CBDO at Royal Partners.

How does offering multiple partnership models strengthen your long-term relationships with affiliates?

Affiliates work in very different ways, so applying the same commercial model to everyone would make little sense.

CPA, RevShare, and Hybrid are the structures we use most often, but we are not limited to those. Terms depend on the affiliate’s strategy, traffic profile, GEO, and the brand they are promoting.

For some partners, CPA is the better fit because they want more predictable revenue. Others prefer RevShare because they work with high-value traffic and focus on long-term player value. Hybrid can make sense when a partner wants a balance between the two.

We also look at traffic source, conversion, and player quality. The right structure can vary from one market to another, and it may change once an affiliate starts scaling or testing new GEOs.

The aim is to agree on terms that work for the partner’s traffic rather than forcing every affiliate into the same framework.

How do you measure the ROI of sponsorship in terms of influence and recognition rather than direct sales?

We would not expect an event like SBC Summit to pay for itself in immediate revenue. Sponsorship has a longer cycle.

In the short term, we look at things we can measure directly: visibility around the event, media mentions, new contacts, meetings, and the quality of the conversations we have.

We also pay attention to what happens with existing partners. Are they bringing up new GEOs? Do they want to test another brand? Are there new traffic opportunities that came out of a meeting at the event?

Then we follow those contacts over time. After three, six, and twelve months, we can see how many became active partnerships, what traffic they generated, and what commercial results followed.

Brand awareness matters, but eventually it has to translate into business value. That is how we judge whether the investment worked.

“Affiliates work in very different ways, so applying the same commercial model to everyone would make little sense.”

Alex, CBDO at Royal Partners.

Which themes or discussions at SBC Summit Lisbon align most closely with your brand goals?

The Global & Emerging Markets stage is highly relevant to us, particularly the discussions around Western Europe and Latin America. Both are priority regions for Royal Partners, so topics such as regulation, taxation, localisation, payments, and competition are directly connected to the decisions we make.

The Affiliate Leaders Summit is equally important. We are interested in how the affiliate market is changing, how partners are assessing traffic quality, and how commercial models such as CPA, Hybrid, and RevShare are evolving.

Technology also matters, particularly where it helps with analytics, personalisation, automation, and campaign optimisation.

How does Lisbon fit into Royal Partners’ broader strategy of building thought leadership in the global affiliate market?

For us, thought leadership comes from practical experience.

Our team works with different GEOs, traffic sources, brands, and commercial models every day. That gives us experience in areas such as acquisition, conversion, retention, localisation, and affiliate management.

Lisbon is particularly valuable to us because SBC Summit brings together people from both Europe and Latin America, two regions that are central to our growth plans.

It is also one of the few events where you can meet major affiliates, operators, media companies, and other industry professionals in one place. That makes it useful not only for business development, but also for exchanging practical market knowledge.

Our presence there is part of a broader approach. We want Royal Partners to have a consistent presence at major industry events rather than appear only when we have something specific to promote.

We are more interested in sharing what we actually see in traffic and partner performance than making broad predictions about where the industry is heading. SBC Summit gives us a strong platform for those conversations and puts us in direct contact with partners working across both regions.