Vertical growth of partnerships

1) What is Vertical Growth Partnerships

Vertical growth of partnerships is a systematic deepening of cooperation along the entire vertical of the value chain: from content (studios/providers/RGS) and distribution (operators/marketplaces/affiliates) to payments, KYC/AML, anti-fraud, analytics and media. Unlike horizontal expansion (more partners of the same class), vertical growth is aimed at greater depth of integration with fewer key partners, increasing LTV and network resilience.

• Increase ARPU/LTV through exclusives, co-branded products and better experience.
• Reduce traffic costs and operational risks through integrated processes.
• Regulatory sustainability and speed of entry into new jurisdictions through local partners.
• Network strengthening: from data sharing to collaborative decision-making models.

2) Maturity model

1. Resell/Listing - basic listing of content/services, minimum exchange of metrics.
2. Co-sell - coordinated GTM campaigns, general OKRs, SLAs and seasonal peak plans.
3. Co-build - joint development of feature/games/payment scenarios, common backlog, sandbox.
4. Managed Value Chain - joint NOC/war-room, end-to-end SLOs and shared runbooks.
5. JV/Revenue Pooling - common P&L by domain (for example, live content or market payments).

Transitions between stages should be accompanied by a revision of SLA/SLO, DPIA (data risk assessment), and renewal of contracts (exclusive right, MFN conditions, RevShare/CPA mix revision).

3) Partnership vertical domains

Content (studios, aggregators, RGS): exclusive releases, early access, co-branding.
Distribution (operators, marketplaces): co-promo, cross-product missions, tournaments.
Payments and Finperimeter: PSP orchestration, local APM, fallback routes.
KYC/AML/antifraud: exchange of risk signals, unification of scoring, agreed RG limits.
Affiliate networks and media: end-to-end attribution (click→FTD→retention), shared postbacks.
Analytics and AI: joint showcases, propensity models/blacklists of bots, A/B frameworks.
Infrastructure and CDN/edge: joint PoP, latency optimization for live streams.

4) Technical integration: how to "stitch" the vertical

API gateways and contracts: versioning, idempotency, rate-limits, S2S signature.
Event bus (EDA): unified schemes (Schema Registry), domain topics (rates, payments, KYC).
Security (Zero Trust): mTLS, short certificates, vendor zone microsegmentation.
Observability: common traces (trace-id through), war-room-dashboards, SLI by partner.
Data exchange: PII minimization, tokenization, DUA (data use agreement), DPIA, masking.
Sandboxes and emulators: partner staging environment, synthetic users, contract tests.

5) Economic models and pricing

RevShare/CPA/CPL/Hybrid: under product and jurisdiction; stepped volume grids.
Performance bonuses: uplift to RevShare for exclusive/early release/traffic quality.
SLA penalties/credits: monetary/in-kind compensation for SLO violations.
MFN/exclusivity: term/region limited; decompose into features/channels.
Cost-to-Serve: direct (infra/API quotas) and indirect (support, localization, compliance).
Risk-pricing: discount/premium for chargeback risk, fraud profile, regulatory complexity.

6) Legal and Compliance

Scope of the contract: geography, channels, content, brand/creative rights.
Data Processing Addendum: roles (controller/processor), retention periods, cross-border flows.
Responsible Gaming: uniform limits/self-exclusion policies, exchange of RG signals.
IP and content: localization rights, live streams, advertising materials.
Escalation & Audit: audit windows, technical and financial reviews, stop-clause.

7) Risk management and brand safety

Brand Safety Matrix: "red zones" of creatives/channels, pre-moderation, allow-list domains.
Fraud and bot traffic: common signature base/ASN, "honey traps," synthetics for catching spoofing.
Payment risks: fallback routes, PSP exposure limits, chargeback stress tests.
Regulatory risks: geo-blocks, data localization, partner verification (KYP - Know Your Partner).

8) Joint GTM and funnels

Co-promo calendar: releases, tournaments, derbies/championships, payday peaks by country.
Unified attribution: UTM standards, postbacks, "last optional touch" model, retention attributes.
Marketplace cards: technical listings, SLO, pre-checks integration, partner rating.
Creative hub: shared-library of banners/localizations, adaptation to regulatory requirements.

9) How to scale "in depth"

1. Focus on Top-10 "anchor" partners in each domain.
2. Joint SLO and OKR, shared mission (e.g. p95 deposit <1.5 sec; live latency <300 ms).
3. Exclusive products/features for priority markets (limited time).
4. General dashboards: RCA-log, cost-to-serve, growth metrics by partner/region.
5. Unified ranking scoring of partners (quality, volume, risk, compliance, rate of change).

10) Vertical growth success metrics

Revenue: RevShare pool by partner, ARPU/LTV, share of exclusives in GGR.
Traffic quality: FTD→D30 -retention, organic fraction vs stimulation, churn-speed.
User experience: p95 login/deposit/bet/back, drop-off in the steps of the ICC/payment.
Reliability: uptime partner integrations, MTTR incidents, feilover speed.
Risk: chargeback-rate, fraud-rate, RG-incidents per 1k active.
Operating system: partner onboarding time (TTO), feature output time (TTM), cost-to-serve.

11) Anti-patterns

"Wide but shallow": Dozens of listings without deep integration and generic SLOs.
Raw data contracts: PII flows without tokenization/minimization and DPIA.
Single entry point without scaling: common gateway/PSP without reserves and quotas.
Zero war-room: "every man for himself" incidents, no general tracing and runbooks.
Unlimited exclusivity: blocks maneuver in the market, increases legal risks.
Chasing quality-free CPAs: LTV degradation and RG incidents.

12) Onboarding and growth checklist

• KYP check (finance, jurisdictions, compliance, security).
• Signing MSA + DPA + SLA/SLO + data streams and DPIA.
• API keys, sandbox, schema contracts, rate-limits, S2S signature.
• Set of metrics and dashboards, war-room channel and RCA process.

• Co-sell plan: markets/channels/creatives, test zone A/B.
• Joint SLOs, quarterly OKRs, retro and roadmap.
• Domain extension: platezhi→KUS→antifrod→analitika.

• Co-build: features, exclusives, custom scripts.
• Revenue pooling on dedicated streams, general PoP/edge optimizations.
• Regular DR exercises and legal updates (exclusive, MFN).

13) Data management for vertical growth

Minimization and tokenization: only necessary attributes, PII - turnkey.
Event contracts: strict schemes, version evolution, backward compatibility.
Lineage and audit: tracking who/when/why used the data; revoke mechanisms.
Coordination of AI models: fairness, drift monitoring, explainability for the regulator.

14) Operating model

Governance Committee of Partners: monthly P&L, risk review, roadmap.
Unified partner catalog: card with business SLAs, compliance, contacts.
Runbooks и SRE-подход: shared-oncall, SLI/SLO, error-budgets, change-policy.
Contract tests: before partner release; "black boxes" in synthetics 24/7.

15) Evolution Roadmap

v1 (Alignment): listing + common metrics, KYP, basic SLAs, joint GTM calendar.
v2 (Integration): unified API/events, war-room, SLO, joint A/B frames.
v3 (Co-build): exclusives, joint products, revenue pooling by domain.
v4 (Networked Governance): common portfolio of markets, joint PoP/edge, predictive plan.

16) Artifact patterns (short)

Partner Scorecard: Scope, Quality, Risk, Compliance, Technology, Innovation.
Joint SLO Sheet: p95 on critical transactions, target uptime, MTTR.
GTM-Brief: campaign goals, offer terms, cross-channel rules.
Data Sharing Matrix: what fields, for what, legal framework, shelf life.
Incident Playbook: contact grid, escalation thresholds, RACI, RCA template.

17) Brief summary

Vertical growth of partnerships is a movement into depth, where shared SLOs, integrated data, collaborative products, and a single operational discipline turn a set of "point" integrations into a connected value network. With competent legal, data security and a transparent partnership economy, the ecosystem receives high LTV, resilience to failures and accelerated entry into new markets, and each vertical participant receives predictable growth metrics and reduced risks.