Grandstand co-founder and CEO Kevin McCrystle believes SEO is “certainly not going away” but stressed the company will continue to focus on diversifying away from organic search marketing so as not to be impacted by future Google search updates.
McCrystle was speaking on the Nasdaq-listed affiliate’s analyst call on Thursday, 13 August, and was asked by analyst David Bain about offshore spam on the internet across international markets.
In response, the CEO said spam was “getting better” and that Google was doing a “better job” of handling it.
“The regulatory environment in a handful of the countries where we have predominantly SEO-focused businesses have not been helpful,” he added.
“UK is an example of that, where we are seeing CPA down about 15%. But we are seeing some positives there. In the North American business, the marketing is up pretty substantially and that also includes SEO.
“It not down everywhere, that’s for sure. But in terms of the future, SEO is certainly not going away.
“We are really focused on diversifying away from SEO, so we are less impacted by whatever the future of Google is.
“This includes many channels but ultimately building direct user relationships that allow us to sell subscriptions, fintech, tickets etc, to those audiences, and also cross-sell into affiliate platforms.”
SEO strategies have come under pressure due to the rise of zero-click search results and LLMs. Catena Media boss Manuel Stan told analysts this week the affiliate needed to “reduce the dependency on SEO”.
McCrystle’s comments follow similar ones made by then-CEO Charles Gillepsie in March, when he told EGR that Google wasn’t focused on cracking down on affiliates promoting black market casinos.
Gambling Commission executive director Tim Miller echoed that sentiment in January, in another conversation with EGR.
At the end of 2025, the European Commission launched a formal anti-trust investigation into Google to find out if the search giant’s use of online content to power its AI tools violated EU competition law.
Financially, Grandstand reported Q2 revenue of $37.8m (£27.9m), down 5% year on year (YoY). The decline was attributed to growth in data revenue offset by lower marketing revenue.
Adjusted EBITDA slumped 44% to $7.7m, from the $13.7m reported a year prior, with a margin of 20%. Gross profit fell 14% YoY to $31.8m.
Grandstand reiterated its full-year guidance of between $165m and $170m in revenue and $45m to $50m in adjusted EBITDA.
Last month, the affiliate rebranded from Gambling.com Group to Grandstand.
The post SEO is “certainly not going away”, claims Grandstand CEO first appeared on EGR Intel.
Despite the statement, Kevin McCrystle says recently rebranded Nasdaq-listed affiliate is diversifying its strategy to be less impacted by Google, as Q2 revenue falls 5% YoY
The post SEO is “certainly not going away”, claims Grandstand CEO first appeared on EGR Intel.