Ahead of the upcoming SBC Summit 2025, which will feature a dedicated Affiliate Leaders Summit, we sat down with André Sousa Machado, Chief Commercial Officer at Clever Advertising, a platinum headline sponsor of the Affiliate Leaders Summit.
What elements of SBC Summit work so well for your organisation, and why is it important for you to be there this year?
SBC Summit is a perfect fit for what we’re trying to achieve at Clever. It’s all about direct engagement with global operators, sharing insights on compliance, and building those crucial face-to-face relationships. For us, being there really cements our position as a trusted global partner. It boosts our visibility across Europe, Latin America, and the US, and it helps us get a real feel for what’s happening with regulations and opportunities on the ground. It’s also our chance to show off some of our latest tech, built specifically to tackle compliance and boost marketing performance everywhere.
What’s your key objective at this year’s event and what are the main products/services you’ll be promoting?
Honestly, our key objective is to cement our reputation as the go-to partner for transparent, data-driven affiliate marketing. We’re really excited to be promoting our latest innovative services and products. A big one is our performance-first Influencer Marketing vertical. It’s been delivering fantastic acquisition results for partners across the globe, with super engaging and compliant campaigns on YouTube, Twitch, and Instagram. We’ll also be showing off Lemonday, our AI-powered mobile news app, demonstrating our commitment to offering app-install solutions to our partners. Lemonday gives operators a completely brand-safe space to connect with a mobile-first audience through native ads. Both of these show real-world results, like better player acquisition, higher retention, and top-notch campaign performance in specific markets.
What would you highlight as the biggest opportunity in the betting and gaming industry over the next couple of years?
Without a doubt, the biggest opportunity is in merging top-tier compliance with truly personalised customer experiences. This is all being driven by smart AI and marketing tech. The operators who get this balance right, who can stick to the rules whilst giving players a tailored, engaging experience, are the ones who will win big. You can see this happening especially in fast-moving markets like Brazil and the US. Clever is perfectly placed to help operators grab this opportunity, using our market expertise and our own tech to make the most of it.
What elements of your business do you feel are best placed to take advantage of that opportunity?
It really comes down to our own technology, our promotion channels and our global market knowledge. Those are our key strengths. Our tools for dynamic content and our AI-driven platforms give us a serious edge in running personalised, compliant marketing campaigns across all channels, and at scale. On top of that, our unique Publisher Network and our specialised influencer marketing strategies let us get incredibly specific with our outreach. All this gives operators the best of both worlds: the flexibility to move quickly and the confidence that everything is fully transparent. That combination is vital in today’s fast-changing regulatory world.
What areas of the business should we be looking to for innovation in the next 12 months?
Well, I can’t give all our secrets away just yet! But I can say we’re always working on the next big thing. Over the next 12 months, you’ll see some brilliant upgrades to how we connect iGaming operators with their audiences. Think even smarter tools to really dial in performance, more speed and flexibility in getting campaigns live, and fresh creative ideas that properly grab players’ attention on every channel.
What new technology do you feel will have the biggest impact for stakeholders?
I think AI tools for compliance and marketing automation are going to be a complete game changer for everyone involved. By using smart machine learning, our platforms can handle compliance checks automatically, sharpen campaign targeting, and adjust creative approaches on the fly. This massively cuts down risk and makes everything more efficient. For our partners, it means they can grow their business with confidence across different regulated markets, getting a great return whilst protecting their reputation.
What core challenges do you help solve for your customers/partners?
Operators today face three big hurdles: soaring acquisition costs, ever-shifting regulations, and fractured channel silos. At Clever Advertising, we tackle all of those head-on. First, our revenue-share model aligns our incentives with theirs, so the marketing budget can be saved for other things, or even shrunk. Second, our focus on compliance and transparently sharing our media sources demystifies our process. Third, our in-house tech and media-buying teams move at startup speed, pivoting campaigns across affiliates, programmatic, influencers and more in real time. And because we handle everything from creative to conversion under one roof, our partners get a seamless, full-funnel solution that drives ROI without any fixed fees.
What are you hoping to learn from the conference at SBC Summit and which elements of the agenda will you be focusing on the most?
For me, this year’s SBC Summit is all about one word: reinvention. That’s why I’m particularly excited to be speaking on the panel, ‘The Future of Affiliation: Reinvention, Resilience, and Relevance’.
It feels like we’ve moved past simply talking about adapting to new rules. This panel will be a great forum to tackle the bigger, tougher questions. For instance, how do we prove our relevance when acquisition models are changing so fast? How do we build genuine, value-driven partnerships instead of getting stuck in a race to the bottom on CPA? And most importantly, what does true resilience look like for an affiliate business today?
It’s not just about surviving; it’s about innovating to become indispensable. That’s the conversation I’m keen to have in Lisbon, both on stage and off.
Secure your place at SBC Summit here.
Are you an operator or affiliate? You can apply for a complimentary ‘Full Event Pass’ here.
