Episode 700: How Partnerships & CRM Drive Growth in iGaming with Optimove

In Episode 700 of iGaming Daily, SBC Media Manager Fernando Noodt sits down with Adi Dagan, Senior Director of Partnerships at Optimove, live from the show floor at ICE Barcelona, to explore how partnerships have become a critical growth driver for iGaming businesses.

Adi explains why Optimove has shifted from a direct-sales mindset to a partnership-led strategy, focusing on building long-term relationships that deliver real commercial value for operators, platforms, and service providers. The conversation covers how Optimove works with partners across business, technology, and marketing, why retention has become the single most important metric in modern iGaming, and how “positionless marketing” is reshaping CRM and player engagement.

The episode also looks at how regulatory complexity is influencing CRM strategy, how responsible CRM can support compliance in newly regulated markets, and why deeper collaboration with the right partners is central to Optimove’s vision for 2026 and beyond.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why partnerships have become a core growth engine for iGaming suppliers
• How Optimove builds long-term, value-driven partner relationships
• Why retention now sits at the heart of iGaming strategy
• How CRM can support operators in increasingly complex regulatory markets
• What “positionless marketing” means and how it changes CRM operations
• Why Optimove believes closer, more strategic partnerships are key to future growth

Host: Fernando Noodt
Guest: Adi Dagan, Senior Director of Partnerships, Optimove
Producer: Anaya McDonald
Location: ICE Barcelona

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[Music]

All I get by with a

little help of my friends,

the legendary Landon Mcarnadew couldn't

have put it any better.

Anything gets done

better with a little help,

a little partnership

and a little teamwork.

And that's why we are here

live at the Ice Show floor

on the OptiMov booth.

I'm Fernando Notte and

welcome to iGaming Daily.

And today, a very special guest with us,

Adi Dagan, Senior Director of

Partnerships at OptiMov.

Adi, how are you today?

Fantastic, how are you, man?

I'm great, I'm great.

It's lovely to see people face to face.

Yeah.

And this episode is

brought to you by OptiMov,

the creator of Positional Marketing

and number one player engagement solution

for iGaming and sports betting operators.

And speaking of meeting face to face

and building partnerships,

you actually are making the most of your

presence here at Ice

and meeting your

partners here at the booth

and running a very interesting initiative

you were mentioning just

before the recording started.

So why don't you tell

our audience about it?

Yeah, so actually, I

want to take a step back

and I really like the way

that you open the podcast.

All right.

Yeah.

Nice voice, you should be

seeing it more, I have to say.

Okay.

But I think that this is the...

It's kind of the theme

of what we're doing, okay?

Right.

I'm leading the gaming

partnership team at OptiMov,

which basically means

that I have a team globally

that is deployed in order to create

business relationships.

But actually, what I'm trying to build,

what we are OptiMov trying

to build and aspire to build

are true friendships

and not relationships.

And not in a cheesy way of saying that,

but in a very practical way.

I've been in the

business for 20 years now,

which means I'm pretty old.

But I've been in B2B business and gaming

and at the end of the day,

people want to work with

people that they relate to,

that they like, they sympathize with,

aside from the

professional product offering.

And this is exactly the kind of approach

that we're trying to build in OptiMov.

So we strive to build

professional relationships

that bring obviously business value

and product value to our partners,

but also have

interesting personal relationships

that yield endless

interesting opportunities.

Because at the end of the day,

when people talk to people

that they enjoy talking to,

the magic happens, right?

And we're seeing that with the partners

that we're working with.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's very

interesting what you're saying.

And going back to the initiative

that you did with your partners.

So you were recording

them and talking about them.

And so you can get feedback

from what you have been doing

in the last three years.

We spent the first couple of days,

we've done a few testimonial

sessions with our partners.

And the idea here was

to get the real feedback

and authentic feedback

about what's happening.

We want to hear what's going well

and what's going not well,

because we always strive to improve

and to be better at what we do.

But it was very

insightful to hear the feedback

from our partners

regarding the daily interaction

with our team.

We've had partners from

different kind of partners,

whether it's gaming platforms

that we're working with,

whether it's service providers

that we're collaborating with,

consultants that are helping us expand.

And it was really

interesting to hear the feedback.

And as I said, first of

all, it's important for me

always to hear things

that we can do better

because we're not perfect,

although we're as close as

possible to be as a company.

But also to hear the feedback

that our vision and strategy

of how we see partnerships

is actually reflected

to the daily ongoing

with our partners.

So it was great to

hear that they feel that

they have a true

partner on the other side,

that we're attentive,

that we're listening to the

stuff that they're saying,

that we're able to

adapt as much as possible

or at least try to adapt.

Not everything is possible

and there are

constraints and limitations,

but we always want to show our partners

that we are listening to them

and we're trying to give them the best

support that we can.

And of course, you

have many partners now,

but it has not always been the case.

So OptiMove came from an emerging brand

to a leader in the CRM

and marketing industry.

So how do you look back into this road

you have gone through?

So yeah, OptiMove has

been around for 14 years now.

Pini, the founder and CEO,

has built an amazing

product, an amazing company,

but he was very focused for many years

about direct sales and business growth.

Well, in the last couple of years,

OptiMove has kind of

shifted the way it thinks

and in order to double down

and invest more in those partnerships.

And the reason is very simple.

I mean, the partnerships that we're doing

always bring mutual

value to our partners.

Okay, we want to be

partnering with people

that understand the value

of partnering with OptiMove,

which I can tell you

better about in a few minutes,

understand the

product that we're building

and understand how partnering with us

amplifies their brand or their offering.

And actually the results

over the past couple of years

have been tremendous.

I mean, we've managed

to significantly grow

our partner outreach.

We now have partners

everywhere in the world.

And it shows that when

you meet the right partners,

people that have a strong

foothold in specific markets,

people who know better the markets

that you're trying to penetrate

and they understand

the value of OptiMove,

they understand the value

of what we can bring them.

Again, that's where the magic happens.

So yeah, I think a major shift

in the way that we think as a company

has been to invest

more in the partnerships,

not only on the relationships,

but on the technology around it

and everything else that we're doing

as a part of the partnership team.

So and of course, Adi, you are a drummer.

So when forming a band, you

want to get the right members.

Yes.

So you want to get the

right partners as well

when running this band that OptiMove is.

And so why don't you explain us

what the philosophy

behind the partner program is

and what do companies need to understand

when approaching you and

looking to partner with you?

So the philosophy is very simple.

We want to partner with

people who want to partner with us.

Okay, this is a huge industry.

The competition is fierce

for us, for everyone else.

Every company here is

fighting for business

and we're mature enough to know

that we want to partner only with people

that understand the value of OptiMove

and understand how our product offering,

very unique product

offering can help them.

So but when I'm

looking at the partnerships,

I like to divide it to

three avenues or pillars.

The first one is the

business relationship, okay?

Where the relationship goes

and personal slash business slash

friendly relationship.

Obviously, we need to understand

that there's mutual

potential business value

because if that doesn't happen, there's

nothing behind that.

The second thing is we do a deep

technical implementation

of the solutions.

So we need to have a partner

that is willing to

collaborate with us on that.

That means that they need

to have the right mindset

that they need to, again,

be willing to do some kind

of investment in order to

benefit from the product,

from the partnerships as we do.

And the third part is

I'd call it the marketing

or educational part of the partnerships

where we try to do a lot of educational

and marketing

activities with our partners,

where we amplify the mutual offering,

whether it's a gaming

platform, whether it's an agency,

we combine the unique knowledge

that we're bringing as

being the market leader

in CRM automation in the business

and combine it with the partners.

And that always shows tremendous results.

For example, we've just, earlier this,

at the end of last year,

we've done a very

interesting event in Cape Town

where we hosted a bunch

of partners and clients,

but we co-hosted it

with a few local partners.

And the result was outstanding.

I mean, in means of content,

we gave a lot of air space for,

sorry, we gave a lot of

air time for our partners

to express their domain knowledge

and the geographical

expertise in the area.

And we backed it up with the knowledge

and expertise that we have as OptiMove.

And the results were fantastic.

I mean, it was a beautiful

two days in lovely Cape Town.

We had a chance to go to a winery

and drink some wine and have oysters,

but it was a lot about

building the relationships

and the partnerships.

And that's what it's all about.

I mean, you mentioned winery and oysters,

and I definitely feel like I want to be

an OptiMove partner right now.

Yes, you are.

Yeah, so that sounded great.

But right now, we're going

to do a very quick outbreak,

and we will be right back with more of

Adi Dagan from OptiMove.

And we're back with more iGaming daily

live at OptiMove booth

at Ice Barcelona 2026 with Adi Dagan.

Of course, we were talking about how

you've been growing so far

and OptiMove has, of course, turned into

a very powerful platform.

But how do partnerships help with the

growth of the platform?

So like I mentioned earlier,

when we're looking to partner,

we're looking for the right

partner at the right time.

One of the major business

avenues that we're exploring

and expanding is collaboration

with gaming platform providers.

And when we're doing these partnerships

and doing them properly with mutual

intent from both sides,

we see at the end of the day,

direct value that is

brought to the client.

For example, if we do

a proper implementation

with a gaming platform, we

enhance it, we optimize it.

That enables the client, the end client,

which is the operator, to

better operate with OptiMove,

which directly means

significantly more revenue

for the gaming platform, for

the operator and for OptiMove.

So we see that every time we double down

and we invest on those partnerships

and we get mutual

investment from the partner

that we're working with,

the result is immediate

and direct to the clients.

That gives them more

features to use in OptiMove,

gives them more

flexibility, more stability.

And more often, it

gives them more insights

of how a specific platform

performs with our technology.

So we're able to further

educate them to share case studies,

to deep dive, sorry, to dig deeper

into the specific markets

that they're working on,

specific challenges that they have

and give more expertise to the client

when they're operating the daily daily,

day-to-day CRM activities.

And how are you leveraging your knowledge

with those partnerships to help

the mutual growth of both sides?

Listen, we're a market

dominator as far as CRM goes.

We have over 1,000

clients in the gaming space.

The amount of knowledge that

OptiMove has is unparalleled.

So we are able to support our partners

through insights and data insights

and case studies that no other provider

in the industry can do that.

So when we're looking at specific clients

that we wanna help with a partner,

we're able to benchmark,

we're able to give insights,

we're able to give them an opportunity

to understand how to measure themselves

and which are the

pitfalls they need to optimize

in order to perform better.

We are all about retention, right?

And I think if there's one thing

that the industry has realized in the

last couple of years,

that retention is the

key of everything, okay?

This is why the industry is

investing a lot in gamification

in order to increase engagement,

which is basically another tool to

improve retention, right?

And OptiMove is the number one leader

as far as retention goes.

So we are able to walk

hand in hand with our partners

in order to support their clients

through our mutual technology

in order to optimize their performance.

That's what it's all about.

And again, when we're doing

it with the right partners,

the results are outstanding.

What would you say that is the number one

or one of the most common things

that your partners bring to you,

the issues your partners brings to you

and how you help them solve it?

I think the problems

that they bring to us,

often it has to do

with regulations, okay?

So obviously in a lot of

newly regulated markets,

there are implications on

CRM and marketing, okay?

There are email limitations, channel

limitations, et cetera.

And we're able to support

them through our technology

and what we call

responsible CRM, if you want,

where we actually support the regulation

in the local market

through our technology,

implementing the

limitation of the regulation

through our technology.

And that actually makes the life

of the operator very easy.

So this is something that

we're seeing as a trend,

I guess, in the last couple of years.

And I think that this is

where you can actually see

how CRM is impactful,

not only on the actual

marketing side of things,

but actually on the daily operations

where the clients are operating under

increasingly changing

and more challenging

regulator environments.

And of course, one of the pillars of your

speech is the

positionless marketing concept.

So I would like you to like give us a

brief explanation of what

it is and how does it help

operators and how does Optimo help

iGaming companies become positionless

with all your tools.

So, you know, Pini, our CEO, is a huge

basketball fan and he took that

positionless concept from the

NBA where, you know, back in the days, if

you were a small guy in a

football and basketball team,

you would be the guard

and you would be a big guy.

You'd be the center

where now sport has changed.

By the way, same thing

goes for football, right?

Barcelona's Tiki Taka and the

positionless approach

has been all over sports.

So Pini is a big

football and basketball fan.

So this is how we

brought it into the company.

And that basically means that in this day

and age, especially with, you know, AI

all over what we're doing,

is the ability to allow anyone in the

organization to do anything.

And our technology is exactly the

solution that does that.

You can, you know, do all of the

marketing activities

that you need in one place.

You don't need, you know,

too many expertise to do it.

That's all right there.

You can create your content.

You can decide on the segmentation.

You can automate your campaigns.

You can do anything being positionless.

He took a lot of inspiration, again, from

NBA and The Last Dance in

Netflix, if you've seen it,

was a fantastic series.

But talking about the ability, especially

in 26, 27, where again,

we're surrounded by tools

that give us the

possibility to do basically anything,

implementing that

approach to our technology.

And of course, you've been

here with your partners at ICE.

You met them.

You heard their feedback.

You, of course, have your own plans and

your own roadmap ahead.

So what are your expectations in terms of

partnerships and in general, of course,

for this year and the new future as well?

So my main theme for this year, as I've

been telling the team in

the past few days, you know,

as we're looking towards this year, is

create friendships, not partnerships.

Not again, not in a cheesy

way, but in a very practical way.

We want to get more

intimate with our partners.

We want to know them better.

We want to know the challenges that

they're facing, the ones

that we are able to help them.

We want to, you know, understand the

environment that they're working with.

Often they can bring us insights about

the clients that we

have, that we don't have.

And we want to be able to

share this back to them.

And I think if I'm going back to the

beginning of the

conversation, I'm a very people's person.

I've been in B2B for 20 years.

It's all about people.

And I'm very proud of

the team that we have.

We have a fantastic team that is able to

help us create those

partnerships globally.

And the one thing I would say is the kind

of the headline for this year is get

closer and more

intimate with the partners.

Again, just to clarify, we're looking at

this as a significant

growth engine for Optimal.

We know that when we're doing the right

partnerships, it's a win-win-win

situation for the operator, for the

partner and for ourselves.

So we're strong believers in creating and

formulating those relationships.

And that's definitely the number one

vision and strategy for me for this year.

Well, Adi, it's been great

having you on iGaming Daily.

I guess the bottom line of this would be

you've got a friend in Optimal.

Yeah, definitely, man.

And I'm surprised you didn't mention as

one of your goals for

2026 to get a drum set.

Yeah.

But you know, if anyone has a drum set

lying around or wants to give that a drum

set, I'm sure you'll take it.

Fantastic. I live in Madrid, please.

By all means.

All right. You can reach out to us and

ask for Adi's address

to send that drum set.

Let's meet here next year and make sure

that I have one, right?

Yeah, if you don't have a drum set next

year, I'll be pay a set.

No, that's going to be a problem, man.

All right. All right, Adi.

Thank you very much. Thank you, man.

Adi Dagan, thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Anaya McDonald, for

producing this episode.

I'm Fernando Notte.

And to our listeners out there, we'll see

you in the next one. Goodbye.