The Income Access Network (IAN) is not really an online bingo network at all. So if you are just looking for a new network to try out, try one of Bizzy’s other links. If however, you are interested in how the online bingo industry works, read on. Because the Income Access Network IS a network, but more of a marketing than a “bingo” network. It runs affiliate programmes to promote online gaming sites. So online bingo sites are involved, but with more of a business promotion focus than the game playing end.
I’m afraid that this means that you have to acquire a tolerance to nonsensical business and marketing jargon. This can be a real struggle, but if you can grasp an understanding of the corporate lingo, you will be in heaven! Therefore, Income Access Network can “from a single access point”…provide “diversified marketing opportunities across multiple products and verticals”. Sounds painful to me. This results in “increased traffic and corresponding revenue.” Ah, I understand that bit – that means that it gets you more customers (sorry, players) and therefore makes you more money. The network comprises of “25,000 publishers across all verticals.” Ah yes, that means that lots of different types of companies have all signed up for their “powerful and intuitive analytics” (big computers and data software). This allows advertisers to “drill down to granular, player-level data”. That means that they can study the behaviour of even individual players on line. Don’t be too concerned though – they are not doing that to spy on you personally. It’s so that they can “target their marketing” and therefore make more money. Or as they would probably say “drive revenue in a more vertical orientation, thereby enhancing your bottom line and increasing yield at shareholder level”. I think you’re probably getting the picture.
Basically, whenever anything happens on line, this can be turned into data and analysed. Online bingo is no exception. So Income Access Network analyses this data in order to help its members increase their numbers of customers and get those customers to spend more. They can do this in several ways. One way is often referred to as SEO: search engine optimisation. This is a way of ensuring that when you type a search enquiry into your internet device (let’s face it, that means Google it), then services like IAN try to make their customers come as near to the top of the results list as possible. This can be done by ensuring their business customers use words (called “key words”) that are likely to be searched for. This is a constant battle: Google try very hard to stop this form of manipulation by altering their software (“algorithm”) constantly in order to outwit this behaviour. Another way is by mutual and cross-advertising – basically, this is a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” approach. Businesses are competing with each other, but if the whole market grows, everyone benefits.
This is just to scratch the surface. There are loads of ways that these services use our data to try to get us to spend more. It’s really the price we pay to have a “free” internet. Someone has to pay in the end, so all that “free” data we provide is used to make sure it’s us! The entire online bingo world uses these techniques, and many of the biggest names are signed up to the Income Access Network to supply them. If you are a marketing professional you would probably call it “outsourcing”. Dragonfish, 888 Holdings, Bingo.com… I could go on, but it would be a VERY long list.
I just thought I’d leave you with one final bit of marketing gobbledegook for you to translate. This one comes from the Dragonfish website and refers to the magnificent service that the Income Access Network provides. Call it homework if you like…
“A number of third party integration platforms… have been integrated onto the Dragonfish bingo software platform to provide partners with maximum flexibility in utilising their incumbent marketing assets.” If you can interpret that, you can go to the top of the class!
