ReferOn: "We’re investing in the type of accountable and secure foundation that the industry has been looking for"

Affiliate marketing has grown into a fast-moving part of the iGaming sector, but behind the scenes, running an affiliate programme is still far from straightforward. Many managers say they are bogged down by outdated systems, fragmented data, and the manual work that comes with tracking, payments, and reporting.

To understand what’s going wrong and how it can be fixed, Yogonet spoke with Vlad Bondarenko, Head of Product at ReferOn, a platform built specifically for affiliate management. In this interview, Bondarenko explains the main pain points the ReferOn team sees in the industry today and how they have tried to approach them differently, from consolidating data and simplifying payouts to improving tracking and fraud detection.

What do you see today as the biggest operational obstacles for affiliate managers and operators? Which are the problems that cost them the most time, money, or trust?

Legacy and fragmentation. Many existing systems feel like they’re straight from 2009, with band-aids used to fix fundamental issues. They’re chaotic and unclear with hardcoded logic, confusing calculations, and three different dashboards all showing different numbers. 

Managers need to waste their time explaining payouts, chasing reports, and solving problems that shouldn’t exist. So, we believe that the real cost is not missing “innovative” and “powerful” features, but operating on platforms with deep-rooted core issues.

Many affiliate programs still struggle to bring together data across multiple brands or verticals. How does your platform tackle data fragmentation and give managers a true single view?

We rebuilt the architecture to focus on real-time data and a single logic layer. Whether our user manages 1 or 10 brands, ReferOn provides:

• One consolidated dashboard.
• One source of truth.
• Full multibrand support with cross-geo visibility.
• Hourly GGR/NGR updates
• Pivot-style reporting
• Inline stats
• Click-to-player tracking

All that in one accessible and easy-to-understand system. You don’t need to export multiple spreadsheets or fiddle with a bunch of different tabs to understand what’s happening. You just see it.

In affiliate relationships, reward structures can become so complex that neither side feels fully confident. How have you approached designing payout models that are both sophisticated and easy to understand?

Our system was meticulously designed with the needs of real affiliate managers in mind, as a result of continuous and in-depth consultation with our users. 

We designed a layered reward system where logic flows naturally:

1. Default plans trickle down (program → affiliate → tracker).
2. Overrides are instant, not hidden in Excel.
3. Sub-affiliation inherits the logic, and no-bundling applies down to the tracker + geo.

And all this is visible in an accessible yet comprehensive calendar view. You always know what applies, and, most importantly, why. No surprises, guesswork, or unnecessary complications.

Payments and financial reconciliations often involve heavy manual work and delays. What have you done to streamline these processes, and how does this impact the day-to-day workload for affiliate teams?

We didn’t just make slight tweaks to our payment systems. We completely rethought the affiliate payment layer from the ground up to help cut out the chaos for affiliate managers. With ReferOn, payouts are bulk-generated with full accrual transparency, which can be split by geo, brand, or player.

Affiliate managers upload invoices directly into the system once they confirm payout methods, and finance teams then get full visibility into status, amounts, and breakdowns. All in one user-friendly interface. Even without full autopayments (yet), we’ve reduced payment friction by making the logic clear, fully transparent, and traceable. No unnecessary back-and-forth.

Tracking failures, like broken links or wrong offers, can damage hard-won affiliate partnerships. How important is real-time tracking and alerting, and what level of immediacy can operators realistically expect?

It’s critical. Without real-time postbacks or monitoring, affiliate managers will only find out something’s broken when it’s too late. And at that point, who knows the extent of the damage? ReferOn pings postbacks instantly and shows anomalies, such as zero FTDs, a spike in clicks, or a drop in CR. Our platform even has the capability to trace player behaviour after the click, not just the click action itself.

There’s also the question of user experience. What are the design principles that guide your platform, and how does this translate into shorter onboarding or simpler workflows for affiliate managers?

Our design principle is simple:

1. If our users need a manual to do the basics, there’s something wrong with the UX. That’s on us. 
2. Flexibility should remove steps, not add them. If it does, then it’s not really flexible.

ReferOn is built for speed and clarity with persistent filters, contextual stats, and workflows that follow user logic. We call it “customisation without custom dev.” It’s how our affiliate managers can work faster, why workflows feel like second nature, and why their affiliates activate quicker.

Fraud, self-exclusion breaches, and multi-accounting are growing concerns. What types of automated safeguards or early signals are you building into your platform to help operators catch issues before payouts?

Fraud and compliance are huge concerns in so many industries, and for good reason. As affiliate programmes scale, so do the risks: bonus abuse, self-exclusion breaches, attribution fraud, multi-account setups, and so much more. To combat this, we’ve designed ReferOn to help our users catch these red flags early instead of having to scramble after the fact. Here’s how:

• Transparent tracking at every level (click-to-player, deal logic, KPIs, etc.) allows faster detection of anomalies.
• We’re also actively (but carefully) exploring embedded fraud signals and third-party integrations as part of a dedicated suite. 

We’re creating a system that actively empowers teams to detect and prevent fraud early to bolster security. We don’t want our users to act retroactively. 

As affiliate programs scale from one brand to ten or more, where do legacy systems typically break, and what architectural choices allow your platform to handle this without slowdowns or chaos?

Legacy systems aren’t equipped to deal with how far the affiliate marketing industry has progressed and can’t handle multi-brand chaos. So many times we’ve heard affiliate managers voice their frustrations: logic gets duplicated, reports break, managers lose control.

We’ve built ReferOn from the ground up, completely differently from legacy systems. We support:

• Multiple affiliate programmes under a single accessible interface.
• Hundreds of brands across different structures and rules.
• Isolated reward logic, visibility layers, and KPI configurations per brand or partner group.

All of this is possible because of our backend architecture built for modern complexity, not retrofitted to patch it. Our microservice architecture, optimised data models, and understanding of customer needs are what let us scale without compromise.

Transparency remains a perennial challenge. How do you ensure that agreements, performance metrics, and payouts are clear and fully documented, so trust can be built on more than just conversations?

ReferOn views transparency differently. We treat it as a product layer, not just a useful support function. Every reward plan is visible and well-documented, payout formulas are traceable, and inline stats show what’s applied where. We don’t have any hidden multipliers and don’t require any Excel patchwork. Transparency inherently builds trust. We know that numbers don’t lie when the system is clean and reliable.

Stepping back, it sometimes feels like the industry still markets basic functionality, reports, tracking, and payouts as if they were innovations. What do you think will actually drive meaningful change in affiliate operations over the next five years?

We’ve reached a bit of a plateau when it comes to product innovation in affiliate marketing. Instead of more features, I believe the real innovations will come in better foundations.

I’m talking about real-time infrastructure, smart automation (not just tasks, but logic), and modular architecture that adapts. Affiliate tech shouldn’t feel mundane or complex for the user. When platforms remove the tedious manual tasks, explain decisions clearly, and reduce clutter, they’ll win the “innovation” race.

Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunities for technology to transform affiliate management? Whether through AI, dynamic offers, or more intelligent reward systems, what’s on the horizon?

I don’t think the biggest opportunity will be anything flashy. It’s more about fixing the basics that have been broken for years now. Security is long overdue for a reset. Most legacy platforms still allow payout details to be edited without traceability, for example. Role-based access, audit trails, and permission logic should be the baseline, not features marketed as “advanced” or “innovative.” We’re investing in the type of accountable and secure foundation that the industry has been looking for.

Another frontier is intelligent cohort management. Reports shouldn’t just present data; they should flag problems. Whether it’s CR drops or FTD patterns, we’re building tools that don’t just show. They signal in real-time. Payments are also still a mess across most platforms. We’re moving toward full-cycle automation to avoid cross-department confusion and the days of Excel chaos. At ReferOn, balance top-ups, payouts, and approvals are all handled natively. 

Then, there’s reward logic. We’re finally seeing the industry catch up with KPI-based reward structures that adapt in real time to traffic, behaviour, or device type. This should be deployable in just a few clicks, not after a two-week back-and-forth.

Offerwall will be a game-changer. Think of a centralised, filterable hub where affiliates can self-service campaigns with pre-configured KPIs and automatically created trackers. Less support tickets and no spreadsheets. Empowering the affiliates. But the catch here is that these aren’t far-fetched ideas. It’s what we’re already doing and working on. Beyond that?

• AI agents to monitor KPIs and detect fraud
• Gamification layers to re-engage mid-tier affiliates
• A unified affiliate ID across programmes

That said, we stay grounded. Progress happens feature by feature, fix by fix. Every automation we ship today is a step toward the ecosystem we envision tomorrow.