On the eve of the largest FIFA World Cup ever, co-hosted across the Americas, the Chief Commercial Officer joins the Affiliate Leaders Summit panel at SBC Summit Americas on the operator-affiliate shift from acquisition volume to long-term player value, as Clever positions hybrid commercials and deep localization as the new LatAm standard.
Fort Lauderdale, FL, May 5, 2026: Clever Advertising, the international performance marketing partner for tier-one iGaming operators and fintechs, will bring Chief Commercial Officer André Machado to the panel “The Operator / Affiliate Partnership Imperative: From Acquisition Volume to Player Value” at SBC Summit Americas 2026, taking place June 9 to 11 at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The session is scheduled for Stage 4 of the Affiliate Leaders Summit.
The panel arrives at an inflection point for Latin America. With Brazil now in its first full year of regulation, Mexico recalibrating, and Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina advancing their own frameworks, the region has become global iGaming’s most contested growth market and the most exposed to the limitations of legacy acquisition models. Drawing on Clever’s LatAm operation, one of the largest the company runs globally, Machado will argue that the pure-CPA era is closing and that hybrid commercials, combining upfront CPA with ongoing revenue share, are the only structurally honest way for operators and affiliates to share the LatAm opportunity. The hybrid model ties affiliate compensation directly to the depth and longevity of each player, not to the moment of the first deposit.
“It’s not the end of CPA. It’s the end of pure CPA. Hybrid models align directly with the real LTV of a player and restore fairness to the operator-affiliate relationship. That is what stops bonus hunting and starts compounding,” said André Machado, Chief Commercial Officer at Clever Advertising.
That argument lands with particular force in the weeks ahead. The FIFA World Cup 2026, the first 48-team edition and the first co-hosted by three nations (United States, Mexico, Canada), kicks off on June 11, the closing day of SBC Summit Americas, with Mexico opening the tournament at Estadio Azteca and hosting matches across Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey. Set to be the largest tournament in the competition’s history at 104 matches over 39 days, the World Cup will land directly inside Clever’s most active LatAm corridor, where the company is projecting an intent uplift in the order of 30% across iGaming campaigns during the tournament window. Under a pure-CPA model, a surge of that magnitude rewards volume capture irrespective of player quality. Under hybrid commercials, both operators and affiliates participate in the LTV that the World Cup audience produces, and remain accountable for it long after the trophy is lifted.
Beyond the commercial reframe, Clever will use the panel to advance what the company internally calls the Localization Imperative: the recognition that LatAm is not a single market but a set of distinct ones, each with its own dialect, payment rail, and content gravity. Translated creative is, in Clever’s view, the most expensive shortcut in the region. Native-dialect copy, market-specific compliance dashboards, integration of local payment rails (Pix in Brazil, SPEI in Mexico, PSE in Colombia), and prioritisation of locally resonant content such as crash and instant-win formats are now treated as non-negotiable inputs to LatAm performance, not optional refinements.
That foundation is paired with Clever’s continuous-promotion engine. The company’s current LatAm campaigns combine AI-generated creatives, sequential advertising journeys, and dynamic, contextual odds ads that adjust in real time to fixtures and player behaviour. The objective is twofold: combat the ad fatigue that quietly erodes CTRs across long campaign cycles, and prolong player value by balancing odds-led activation with game-led entertainment. Creative rotation and optimisation are run continuously, always within the operator’s brand guidelines and aligned to the operator’s own promotional calendar of top matches and headline games of the month.
That alignment underpins the broader argument Machado will bring to the Affiliate Leaders Summit stage. In a region of LatAm’s scale and operational complexity, Clever contends, the affiliate must function as an extension of the operator’s marketing department, not as a detached third-party traffic source. Shared calendars, shared brand discipline, shared data, and shared upside are what separate partnerships that compound from partnerships that churn.
“In LatAm, we don’t sit outside the wall. We are an extension of our partners’ marketing departments, and that is what real partnership looks like when you take the word seriously,” Machado added.
André Machado’s panel will take place on Stage 4, Affiliate Leaders Summit, during SBC Summit Americas 2026. The Clever Advertising team will be present across all three days for one-on-one operator and affiliate meetings via the SBC Connect app, with senior leadership from the company’s LatAm, North America, and European operations on the ground in Fort Lauderdale.
About Clever Advertising
Clever Advertising is a performance marketing agency for tier-one iGaming operators and fintechs, with six global offices and over 370 marketing specialists. Under a risk-free revenue-share and CPA model (no fees or minimums), we deliver end-to-end creative production, influencer campaigns, and data-driven media buying across affiliate, paid social, SEM, and emerging channels. Our proprietary tech, including campaign trackers, compliance dashboards, and deep data integrations, unlocks exclusive premium inventory and real-time optimisation. Visit us at cleveradvertising.com.
