The switch from cost-per-acquisition (CPA) to revenue share seems to be working out for the affiliate group Better Collective so far. The company reported a record quarter, which helped stabilize full-year EBITDA to roughly what it was at the end of 2021.
Here is a look at the top-line numbers for Better Collective:
Q4 revenue: €86.1 million, up 63% YoY from €52.7 million
Q4 EBITDA: €35.2 million, up 115% YoY from €16.3 million
2022 revenue: €269 million, up 52.1% YoY from €177 million
2022 EBITDA: €36.8 million, down 3.3% YoY from €37.2 million
World Cup drew 300,000 new sportsbook depositors
The World Cup helped boost revenues for Better Collective in Q4, with over 580,000 new depositing customers. This smashed the performance of the past eight quarters on that front. The previous best was Q2 of this year, which produced 387,000 new depositors.
“We sent another record numbers of NDCs to our partners with more than 580,000 during the quarter and around 1.7 million during all of 2022. Around 8% of those were sent on revenue share contracts. This is a truly amazing number building for the future,” said Better Collective CEO Jesper Søgaard. “The quarter was driven by a strong group performance top with exceptional deliveries during the Men’s World Cup and a strong performance in our US business across all our brands. All of this led to the upgrade of organic revenue guidance for 2022 up from 20 to 30% and ended at 34%.”
Over half of that 580,000 stemmed from the World Cup, according to Søgaard.
“To put it into perspective, the 300,000 is more than the last four men’s World Cups and four men’s European Championships combined. Compared to the men’s World Cup 2018, our key figures have increased tenfold, a testament to how far we have come in just four years.”
Better Collective thinks rev share will stabilize revenue stream
Søgaard sang the praises of the company’s ongoing switch to revenue share during the earnings call, noting that they were up to six partners on rev share in Q4 compared to four in Q3.
“We are confident that this undertaking will be transformational in the long run because it will be generating a consistent flow of recurring revenue based on our long-standing operations with revenue sharing in Europe and rest of world. We can go on these experiences and are therefore confident that the move really is going to pay off. We remain very excited about the move in the US and it will make revenue less seasonal while enabling us to take part in the overall growth in the market, rather than relying on specific sports events and state launches,” added Better Collective CFO Flemming Pederson.
The company is also increasing its stake in paid media, such as the Atemi Group, which had a strong Q4 as well.
Søgaard said 2023 has been off to a similarly strong start, but cautioned this stemmed largely from the one-time event of sports betting launch in Ohio. Without a World Cup to help boost revenues, the expectations are certainly high for 2023, with €290-300 million in revenue for the year and EBITDA of €90-100 million.
When asked about the company’s strategic investment in competitor Catena Media, the group reiterated that they have no comment on the matter.
Plans for 2023 also included more expansion into Latin America and Søgaard said there are plans to invest funds into that effort, including a “proprietary technology platform for display advertising.”
