“SEO is more at risk” – Vasylyna and Nikita

Vasylyna Shyshova and Nikita Novikovskyi, Streamer and Producer of Vasyslot Twitch channel, join the latest series of affiliate interviews on Affiliate Grand Slam

Vasylyna Shyshova and Nikita Novikovskyi, from Vasyslot Twitch channel, speak about their business model based on followers, their relation with their subscribers, and how to rank in this highly competitive ecosystem – follow their story below.

Vasylyna and Nikita, how did you first get into the affiliate space? Were you always focused on the Gaming space?

Nikita: I started out as a sales manager, then as a blogger manager and as an affiliate manager on the brand side. I have been in the gaming field since 2017, in gambling since 2019. I have loved computer games and sport since childhood; I find gambling very interesting.

Vasya: Nikita tried to push me into streaming, since before that I was streaming online games. This time the offer was to try streaming a casino – and this became my passion. To be honest, I didn’t really understand the monetization in affiliate marketing, but Nikita brought me up to speed very quickly and I liked it.

From your experience, what is the most ideal, streaming for a few hours per day, such as 2/3 hours, or for very long hours, such as 8 hours+? What do your followers prefer?

We build relations with subscribers in such a way that every format suits them. We share with them our feelings, and events before and after streams. Hence, even if the stream lasts only one hour, they are happy to be with us, for which we are very grateful. On average, the stream lasts 3 hours, which, in our opinion, is currently the optimal time. We came to this organically, because it is neither long nor short.

You are currently focusing on streams for Ukrainian and Russian. Are you planning to focus on other GEOs?

We are now streaming in Russian. The audience of our channel is divided approximately 50/50 by GEOs, UA and RU. We plan to expand into other GEOS, and for this we created the Vasilinaplay channel, where we have a couple of streams and about 100 subscribers. These were test streams in English; there are plans to develop them.

Which GEO locations are best suited for streamers? Where do you believe is the most up and coming region for Twitch?

We started with our native GEO. In the future, we will build on the most popular GEOs who understand English and which are interesting for casino operators.

Do you believe that streaming disrupts traditional SEO? If yes, how?

No, we don’t think so. These are completely different sources in our opinion. Perhaps streams take away part of the audience from SEO traffic, but this is a very small part to talk about disrupting the SEO source.

Which are the most important streaming hardware and software at the moment?

Streaming requires a powerful computer and preferably 3 monitors as you need to be as comfortable as possible. There are different software solutions; for the start we chose OBS, which is currently the best solution for us. We know there are other solutions on the market and probably, we are going to check some of them and choose the most suitable for us.

This model is truly unique.

Until recently, there was a heavy M&A activity, with smaller affiliates with good ranking websites being bought out by the bigger fish out there. Nowadays, it seems however much easier to capture traffic and deliver good results on Twitch rather than trying to build a good-ranking . Based on what you experience and with all these great streamers, how true is the above observation? Do you think we will see a slow down of affiliate websites being bought? For a brand, these are different sources of traffic. You can’t refuse any of them, you need to test both. The SEO requires more cash investments at the beginning. But again, it depends on what goals and what path to choose. I also do SEO, and I can say that the mechanics are fundamentally different. The approaches are completely different, different type of traffic, users’ behavior, and growing strategies. Someone is more suited to the sites’ development, someone launches streams and finds their own keys that help them grow. As for me, I do not see any competition between these two sources. What I can highlight is that SEO is more at risk. For example, local licenses, regulations that can restrict the certain GEOs, and pool of partners. In streams, I think there are fewer risks in this case.

Have you ever been to SiGMA?

I, Nikita, attended SiGMA Malta in 2019. We went to Amsterdam together for the iGathering, for Vasylyna it is a new experience. We went to SiGMA Malta 2021 and this was Vasylyna’s first visit to SiGMA.

Tell us a bit about yourself

After all, business is done with people, not just companies! Your hobbies, favourite book, favourite quote, whether you are into Gaming yourself, etc.

Nikita: Besides that, I like sports. I play hockey, American football. I also really like snowboarding, I am addicted to it. I play guitar and I am trying to play drums. Moreover, I am constantly watching streams on the Vasyslot Twitch channel.

Vasya: In addition to streaming, I work as a model and as a personal and fashion stylist. One of my main hobbies is Latin American dancing. Also, when time permits, I play computer games and cross-stitch. Favorite quote: Always go to your goal and don’t ever look back.

Read more about SiGMA Affiliate Grand Slam here.

SiGMA Asia 2022

After the exciting set of conferences that was Malta Week 2021, the SiGMA Group plans to take the world by storm with the golden steeples of Kyiv and the snowy city of Toronto being hubs to draw the best and brightest of the iGaming world together. Our next expo takes us to cutting-edge metropoli of the United Arab Emirates for three days of networking, panel discussions and festivities. Stay up to date with the latest and greatest through SiGMA News.