Hi, everyone. Welcome to the full year results for XL Media for the year 2020. Very excited about some of the news that we've got to share with you today. If we can go to Slide number 2, please, we'll start to get into some of that detail. So clearly, we're a performance publishing business that has been around a fair amount of time.
We've always our mission is to basically acquire consumers, engage them in some ways and activate them to then buy a product or service from the partners and the customers that we represent. We work in 3 main key verticals. That's casino, Sports and Financial Services, we are increasing our North American presence. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that over the course of these slides. Headquartered in the U.
K, growing presence in the U. S. And we have a sort of shared service backbone that operates out of both Israel and Cyprus. So a global company that's growing fast. I'm not going to talk too much about the numbers.
I'm going to let our CFO, Ian, talk about that over the course of the next few slides. So if we can go to Slide 3, please. So one of the most important things that we've done over the course of last year is to stay on target. We've talked about our corporate priorities being portfolio management and then also premium branded assets. So I'm going to unpick those slightly for you to give you context to some of The next few slides in the content we're going to talk about with the webcast.
So firstly, portfolio management is When I came into the business, it was very clear to me that we needed to understand the value of our assets, what markets, what territories they were playing in, what the growth potential was and what were the potential risks and opportunities that we were seeing. So we made a very conscious decision at the tail end of 2019 to move a lot more into U. S. Sports and play predominantly in regulated markets. So we were taking a very kind of Product life cycle approach to how we were thinking about our assets, where they operate and where we're going to invest our time, effort and money.
The second thing that we looked at was what how do we really make sure that when we think about that focus, we operate on a quality over quantity basis. The reason being is, I think both the industry is guiding us in that direction. Consumers are expecting more content rich consumer centric sites. The brands and the products that we represent need more help and support in marketing to those consumers. So we're really now focused on premium branded assets as opposed to just websites.
That means we're really thinking carefully about the consumers and the audiences that we're trying to engage with and the products and services that we're representing. So we've made a sizable shift. Now with that, we're also providing, as you can see on this slide, a lot more transparency on where we operate, which brands we operate and what they do. So you should expect that to be a common theme going forward. Now clearly, to achieve those corporate priorities, it's very important for us to continue to invest in technology, continuing to invest in people.
Now technology for us means proprietary data being utilized to drive the best consumer experience possible. So we are really focusing on our data architecture, data models to support artificial intelligence machine learning to play a greater part in how we engage and activate the consumers that we work with on a daily basis. Now further to that, we're also using the best of people. We are looking at how we can use creativity, design, content to complement that technology and create that really rich, engaging experience on behalf of the consumer. So hopefully, that explains the Corporate priorities for you.
If you go to Slide 4, please. Now some operating highlights. Again, I'm going to get into the details on This in a little bit more detail in the deck. But we it was a transitional year for us. We had some sizable headwinds early in the year with both penalty from Google and then also COVID impacting our operations.
Luckily, we've recovered from that over the course of the year, and we've seen a strong Recovery both in Sports and Personal Finance coming out in the tail end. We made some significant and transformative Acquisitions in the U. S, again, I'm going to dive into those in a bit more detail. We addressed some of the structural issues that we had both in terms of the organization structure that we had. We collapsed the organization slightly and we thinned it out whilst also changing our tax residents from the Cyprus back to the UK.
And you're going to meet one of our executive team, Ian, who is the CFO, and he's going to then talk about the financials in a bit. In addition to that, we're also then going to talk about what we're doing to rebuild our casino business and then how we're really delivering on those corporate priorities that I that I spoke about earlier. Right. If you go to Slide 5, please. Ian, over to you.
Thank you, Stuart. So moving on to Slide 6. As Stuart has already alluded to, 2020 was a year of transformative change for XL Media. In January, we've closed our remaining media operations down and a number of our casino assets were impacted by a manual ranking penalty. Later in the first half of the year, our sports revenue were impacted by the onset of COVID-nineteen and the cancellation of many sporting events worldwide.
Despite this backdrop, the revenues recovered well in the second half from a low point in June and the year closed with the company delivering $54,800,000 in revenue. More importantly, the exit trajectory for the year showed much promise. Our cost of sales were $20,500,000 leading to a gross profit of $34,300,000 or 63% gross profit margin. Operating expenses were adversely impacted by a change of our internal capitalization policy on our proprietary technology as we move away from a focus on self developed products. We moved our corporation tax jurisdiction to the U.
K, leading to some one off expense. Furthermore, the recruitment of our new executive team was offset by substantial reductions in the overall company headcount during the year. Operating expenses for the year came in at $30,000,000 Leading to an overall adjusted EBITDA of $12,200,000 The company completed Phase 1 of its transformation program and booked reorganization costs For the year of $2,500,000 Overall, profit before tax came in at $1,100,000 Moving to Slide 7. As we previously mentioned, our revenue for the year closed at $54,800,000 Our casino business generated 61% of this revenue Our Sports unit generated a further 22%. Our Finance business unit generated 15% of total revenue And alongside U.
S. Sports will be a key growth area for us in future years. As the company continues its focus on premium branded assets And a target to reduce the number of sites we operate, it is interesting to note that in 2020, 50% of our revenue Came from just 17 websites. 75 percent of our revenue came from just 60 sites. So it is worth noting that we Started the year with more than 3,500 active sites.
Furthermore, as the bottom left hand pie chart Over half of our revenue came from revenue share agreements in 2020. But importantly, the shift of new business, as shown principally by the right hand chart, is in CPA or cost per acquisition. This is a trend we expect to continue as our growth markets, U. S. Sports and Finance, Typically pay for a CPA model.
Moving to Slide 8. 2020 was a challenging year for XL Media, but we take huge confidence in our trajectory for the year. Both revenue and the EBITDA dipped to a low point in June With the second half showing promising signs of recovery, our acquisition of CBWG in December 2020 adds further strength to our future, And 2021 has begun strongly. Stuart, back to you.
Thanks, Ian. So Obviously, a year of transformation with a number of moving pieces. So I'm going to just unpick that a little bit more and provide some details on some of the substance to support this transformation. So if you could go to the next slide, please. So let's think about that.
We had, as Ian mentioned, our financial performance was hit by these headwinds of COVID-nineteen and then also Google Casino. And we were starting to see, as you can see from the previous slide, that recovery driven predominantly by personalized personal finance and sports. We've also made sure that we are adhering to our strategic priorities to really put some substance to the branded assets and reduce our portfolio down to the few sites that we believe are going to make the difference. As you can see, again, from Ian's slides, you can see that we were already heavily focused from a revenue a trade standpoint, we just haven't necessarily applied our resources in a similar fashion. That's what we put in place as well.
So we're Going to then talk about the U. S. Opportunity in a bit more detail now. So let's go to Slide number 11. So firstly, let's Talk about the casino rebuild plan.
We are building from a new baseline with a focus on quality. So what that really means is, again, we used to operate a number of sites that were very similar, all targeting a similar consumer in the same territory. We've ripped up the rule book on that and now we're only doing a few sites per territory per vertical. That gives us real quality Execution, it means that each site can operate as a brand in its own right. And it means that we're thinking very carefully about the editorial about the content that's required to support that local community, really engage with the site and maximize the revenues and returns that we get from it.
We haven't forgotten about trying to get The sites out of penalty, we have successfully got 3 sites out of penalty already. And we have ongoing plans to continue to work with Google to get the rest. But bear in mind that from a revenue standpoint, that will have very little impact over the course of this year, even if we did get them reconsidered. So whichever scenario that we're looking at, we are going to be building from a lower base going forward. And for that, we need to organize the business to be able to support the growth of the assets that we can operate that are fully ranked and performing well in the markets that we operate today.
So that's the key focus for us going forward as well as also considering looking at various asset disposal strategies that could support alternative ways of us rebuilding our business. Next slide, please. So let's talk about North American Sports. We've made some significant progress on that over the course the last few months with acquisitions both in December March. It's widely publicized and very well understood.
The U. S. Market is an enormous market that's growing a lot faster than most people anticipated And already can be seen to be an estimated €20,000,000,000 at maturity, 3x bigger than the UK market. So Huge market potential, huge market opportunity, and it's very important for us to have gone into that market with substance, with personnel and with capabilities. So if we can go to Slide 13, I'll talk about some of the regulation that's affecting that.
So What's clear is the federal government in 2018 allowed each individual state to be able to start to regulate. And so far today, we We've seen 9 active states in the U. S. That allow legalized sports betting. We anticipate that to grow to 34 states by the end of 2022.
So as I said earlier, this is growing a lot faster than it was anticipated. We're seeing a huge momentum shift in finding sports betting being able to be allowed. And we're able to now capitalize on that through the assets that I'm going to It relies on that through the assets that I'm going to speak about on Slide 14. So let's Talk firstly about CBWG. This is the group that we acquired back in December of this year.
So there's a 3 pronged attack required for the U. S. Market, owned and operated local assets. And this is really the sweet spot of CBWG. They operate localized sites and assets in regulated markets, Currently got in excess of 550,000 visits per month and they are performing incredibly well, outperforming even our original when we did the acquisition plan.
So very successful local owned and operated. In addition to that, We acquired something that complemented our existing capabilities, which is Reef Media. It's an agency Approach that allows us to monetize other people's traffic by offering them a partnership where we help monetize that traffic and introduce The consumers and the traffic and the audiences that they see on their sites and match make them with the products and services of the operators that we work with on a daily basis. So, CBWG is both owned and operated, but also offers us its network or agency model that allows us to go to market through media companies. And then if we move on to Slide 15, Sports Betting Dime is a Pan American site that is well known already due to its Longevity to sports betters across the U.
S. It was set up in order to provide consumers with the confidence, knowledge, expertise and data to engage in sports betting and be able to be confident in the bets that they're placing. It was set out to really drive and deliver both technology apps and also services and data to support those consumers. So it's a Pan American brand, performing incredibly well from a traffic standpoint. Our job now since acquisition in March is to really go and monetize it and make sure that we turn on that opportunity to create revenue off the back of the traffic that they've generated significantly.
They operate across a variety of different sports and they also operate and can give data and information both at collegiate level and also at professional sports. So huge market opportunity. So in summary, we, as I mentioned earlier, have really focused on 2 strategic priorities: reducing our assets and making sure that we really create sites with engaging content, meaningful community aspects and that really engage and Inspire and Activate consumers, giving them the trust to act with us on the sites we operate. Plus, we're also diversifying our portfolio into the U. S.
And we've got really nice substance in the U. S. To start building that business from, not only in terms of assets, but also in terms of people. We're really putting Our money where our mouth is and investing heavily in the U. S.
To be able to grow that business. Further to that, we're not finished in terms of the transformation. We've still got one things to do in terms of transformation this year, whether it's rebuilding our casino business or whether it's looking at how we could utilize best practice technology or third parties to complement our existing business. So their transformation is ongoing. Further to that, it's important for us to continue this momentum looking at how we grow the business in the U.
S. With further acquisitions to support the already good progress that we've made so far. So Good news, we're on track in terms of seeing a material improvement in terms of revenue. We've built out these foundations that will really help and support our business in the future. We planted the seeds for growth in the U.
S. Market, which will help and support us in the long term. And we're really starting to put some substance behind recovery and rebuilding our casino business. So thank you very much
I've got a Couple of questions now coming in on the web. So I'll take these in turn. Can you throw it to Ian and Sure. They can choose between them. Can you talk us through how and why CPAs differ by territory and market From Simon Strong.
Sure. Yes, of course. So quite often, the Business model is linked to the maturity of the vertical or the territory in which we operate. So for example, in some of the more mature casino territories In Europe, we've seen that the predominant business model is revenue share, Whereas in the U. S, the preference currently by the operators, because it is such an immature market, incredibly high growth, where their focus is really on acquisition of consumers at scale.
They prefer a CPA model. Now the reasoning behind it is, when you're in acquisition mode, you're just trying to hoover up as many consumers as you possibly can, which you then believe you can monetize with the products and services that you have. This is an operator viewpoint. Whereas in a more mature market, the opportunity To really look at revenue share and driving lifetime value, stickiness from those consumers. You've already hooed up the market, it's already mature, then you want to Basically, look at how can you generate as much income from those consumers as possible.
So that's the kind of general shift between the two. What I would say is that I do see in the future our predominant business model becoming CPA. So we're already seeing that as some of the slides demonstrated, but I do anticipate that's a trend that we're going to continue to see. Now the importance of that is This is why technology and data becomes more prevalent in terms of executing our strategy because Basically, we are trying to understand from the behaviors of the consumer, both off-site and on-site, how valuable they are to us and to the product or service that we're introducing them to. So therefore, it's very important for us to have technology and data and deploy artificial intelligence to understand that data and then make sure we're matchmaking the consumer with the right product or service at the right CPA.
Thanks, Stuart. Another question from Ed James. Strategy to increase the depth of content and community engagement. Could you describe how you've created the infrastructure to make that as scalable as possible? In other words, will there be operational leverage to this aspect and time?
Yes. Quite a regular Question this one because there's a perception that it's not something that we've done historically. It was actually we've been very successful historically in utilizing content to engage consumers, particularly in the Financial Services business. So what was evident to me coming into the business and throughout 2020, it was that the Financial Services business already had a reasonably rigorous content workflow. They used 3rd party contractors to be able to develop some of the content that we were creating.
They had editorial oversight and regular meetings to decide what content we were going to create, whether it was to monetize or just because it's going to inform the market. And that was particularly relevant during COVID, where we wrote some articles talking about some of the increase in food delivery services, for example. So the Financial Services business has already always had a good content workflow in place, not necessarily as automated as I would expect. So again, from a Technology standpoint, I would see us improving our content workflow from an automation standpoint. And in addition to that, I would look to us to improve how we pay contractors to write that content.
So at the moment, we typically pay per article, but in the I could even think as paying per word, tracking the return on investment, all that kind of stuff, which is quite commonplace in more traditional media companies. Now when I think about the community aspects, that's a lot more relevant in the casino space. So it's typically quite hard to write content for the casino space unless we're doing things like trusted reviews and user generated content. So the community aspects become more important. And when I think about WhichBingo, for example, one of our biggest sites, We have an excellent community forum there where consumers can engage and understand more about the products and services in which we operate.
So The way to think about it is sports and financial services heavily content driven. Our focus is to improve content workflow, editorial, changing the business model and how we look at return on investment. Casino, a lot more focused on community, user generated content, social to a certain degree. And then sports kind of has a bit of both. And then we will be using technology and platforms that we're investing in this year to build out that kind of content system to support the future of the business.
Thanks, Stuart. I'll concentrate on the few questions on the U. S, so I'll Trying to sort of bring those all together in 1, and maybe one to end. Could you please talk about the traction of the U. S.
Business in March?
Sure. So our U. S. Acquisitions, obviously, early days for both of them, particularly for SPD, which we didn't acquire until the middle of March, But CBWG was an acquisition we made middle of December. March is typically a significant quarter in the U.
S. For sports activity. You have both the Super Bowl and the March Madness period. So we've been really, really pleased with CBWG as a sort of initial asset purchase. It started the year very strongly and the 1st 3 months of its performance were well in excess of expectations.
So we're really pleased with the way CBWG has start. It's early days for SBD. It's obviously a business that we need to fully monetize and that will take a period of time. And as we said, when we acquired the asset, It will really be 2022 before SPD start showing significant revenues and profitability. But at the moment, we're very, very happy, particularly with the traffic around, yes, SPD in the early months.
Thank you. What's your thought on New York? It says when the XLM website will be updated to cover the new assets and new history, but I think the big point there is probably The potential for regulation in New York and how we are positioned for that?
So we're well positioned Through CBWG to target the New York State and also we see it as being a very lucrative and significant market for us in the future. So both with the broad Pan American branding and and traction from a traffic standpoint with SPD that gives us all regulated and unregulated market coverage from a traffic standpoint and the more localized assets that we've got through CBWG. We think we're well covered for the New York State as well as we think it's a very important market for us going forward.
Thank you, Stuart. And on the sports betting dime, Can you illustrate the monetization angle, I. E, where they are and where they could be? Any numbers around that would be useful. So I guess sort of regular traffic versus unregulated traffic, etcetera.
Yes. So at the moment, roughly, it's about 60% of their traffic is unregulated, maybe a little bit higher. As everyone knows, there's only 9 states in the U. S. That we're currently targeting.
That's going to grow to 14 by the end of the year and then probably get to 22 by 22 by the end of 2022. So the opportunity With SPD, as we laid out as part of the acquisition, is that they're a Pan American brand that gives us really nice indicators on the appetite in both regulated and unregulated markets for consumers to look at betting. And what's an important point on SVD is it is for betters. It was created to give betters good data, good information, good insights on what to how to bet and where to bet and where they can potentially get the best returns. It is for betters rather than kind of a comparison site that just shows a list of operators where you can bet.
So That gives us really good market intelligence, really good knowledge of the audiences that we're engaging with, and also it really helps us in terms of prioritizing where we deploy a more localized owned and operated assets going forward. So that's how it fits in.
Thank you. Just one way, Neil, do you want to start again on the U. S. The somebody talks about the traffic in SPD spiking around sort of December, January. And are we comfortable that this is all legitimate SEO and white hat activity?
Yes. So we obviously, one of the key things that I did coming into the business is to really make sure that we With our own assets, we're clean. We wanted to operate a very transparent white Environment when it comes to all of the verticals in which we operate, we built an audit capability to make sure that the sites that we operated, especially from some of the learnings that we had from January in 2020. We audit and have a robust way of evaluating any of the acquisitions that we're making. So we feel very confident in the cleanliness of the traffic that SPD has been driving.
It had to bear from the regulator as well, so not just only Google, but we also had a lengthy period of engagement with the regulators to make sure. So we feel very confident in both the cleanliness of the traffic and also the size of the opportunity that SPD is creating from the traffic it generates.
And one on what we like to call the 3 pronged approach, Stuart, in the U. S. Maybe you could just describe the sort of 3 pronged requirements in the U. S. Strategically in terms of local, national and agency.
Could you just take the audience through that for a minute again?
Yes, of course. So the we made a very conscious decision when going into the U. S. That it was crucial for us to have a 3 pronged attack to the U. S.
Firstly, I think it was Slide 13, I was speaking to. And by the way, it was 34 states by the end of 2022, just to correct myself. But On Slide 13, we spoke about this kind of speed that we were seeing regulation proliferate across the U. S. That creates both local opportunities with local fan bases that are highly centric and centered around their local teams.
We believe having a really good local owned and operated coverage with fan bases gives us really nice access to Highly engaged people, audiences that will allow us to then monetize them and introduce them to sports betting. And it is kind of the social norm in the U. S. To kind of participate in some way, shape or form in betting. As you can see from the magnitude of the Before regulation, it's about $150,000,000,000 spent on betting every year.
And when we couple that with this Pan American brand, the sports betting dime. That gives us a different type of angle into the market. That's more suited towards sports betters. It means that they are People looking to place bets and are already probably reasonably conversant in how to bet, what to bet on and do so on a regular basis. So Sports Betting Dime gives us that Pan American coverage that, as I mentioned earlier, gives us a really nice insight into both the regulated markets that are growing very quickly, but also gives us an indication of the size of the opportunity in the unregulated markets, creating a bit of a bow wave for us.
So when those markets regulate, we know how much to deploy, what kind of assets we could look at to then capitalize on those opportunities at the local level. Now in the middle, there's a kind of opportunity for us to benefit from the agency business that came on board through CBWG. So XL Media has long run something called Reef Media, which is a network business that we operate predominantly across Europe. Now that acts as an intermediary between operators and publishers. So We don't own and operate the sites themselves.
We utilize 3rd party sites that are typically could be blogging, influencers, could be media companies, And we help them monetize their traffic, their audience with the offers and the deals and the relationships that we have with the operators themselves. And in the future, we see that being supported further by technology and perhaps different payment terms. So we have a 3 pronged attack, Owned and operated local assets. We have a Pan American brand with SPD and then we have an increased level of coverage through an agency or a network business that allows us to use localized media companies to go to market and help them monetize. All of those things gives us some really nice insight on how the U.
S. Market is performing, how it's growing, where the audiences are, what they're looking at and what kind of CPAs the operators are willing to pay. And above all else, it gives us significant scale, and we're very pleased to have achieved that over the last few months.
Thank you. A couple of questions I'll throw to Ian on sort of margins Stroke investment. You mentioned higher investment multiple times in the statement and on the call. Is this higher than you suggested during the recent fundraise? And then given the company's new focus on higher quality assets and its implied more labor intensive nature, do you expect the company's normalized Operating margins to be lower compared to historical levels.
Maybe mop those 2 together in?
Yes, sure. I think there's a couple of things to think about there. I think from an investment point of view, we have we are approaching this transformation in stages. And I think We're now looking at Phase 1 of the transformation having completed with the acquisition of the 2 U. S.
Businesses. So With that stage to complete to an extent, we're now focused on what we need to do to really grow this business to a significant level. And Stuart's already touched on a lot of the opportunities that we've got across the U. S. But also, we must remember that casinos are a Huge part of our sort of global revenues at the moment and we still have some growth opportunities there.
The focus going forward for us is really going to be how do we technology to maximize revenue streams as well as some bolt on acquisitions. And I think as part of the transformation, the transformation costs Point of view, we will need to invest in internal technology. The business has not invested significantly in the past in core internal systems, non proprietary systems, so financial systems to an extent. So we will need to spend some money in that area. But broadly in line with what we discussed during the equity raise, this is us just now really looking at what we're So referring to as Phase 2 of the transformation.
Thanks, Ian. Maybe just one off quickly, Similar on the cash position. After the recent acquisition and the capital raise, what is your net cash position? Is there any room for further acquisitions?
Yes, there is room for further acquisitions. As you'll know, from the recent equity raise, it was heavily oversubscribed. So we did use the opportunity to take a little bit more cash into the balance sheet. Current cash balance sheet, as you've just seen from the financial statements at the end of 2020, It was around the $13,000,000 mark. We're now sitting on just short of $40,000,000 so about $38,000,000 Right now, that gives us Yes, a reasonable pot of money, should we say, to look at tuck in acquisitions.
We're actively looking at an M and A pipeline, particularly across the U. S. A, but also in European sports as well. So we will consider all sorts of what we consider as tuck in acquisitions. And we're well funded to make The contingent payments from the 2 acquisitions that we've already made, yes, and we're sort of happy with where we are for the future.
Thank you. Stuart, please explain the Google blocking and whether and when that will come back. So the whole sort of Google, Eshu, maybe you could cover in one hit.
Yes, sure. So The important thing to note about and let's talk more generally first and then I'll cover the Google aspect specifically. So Not all of our casino assets were impacted, and I think that's the first very important point. We have Well performing assets in key territories that we continue to focus our time and effort on. And in line with our strategy to kind of Manage our portfolio and go for quality over quantity, we've gone from thousands of websites down to less than 100 now.
And what's really important for us is to deploy our resources and capabilities against the sites that are driving the most revenue. And I think Ian talked about that in the presentation about the revenue and Concentration aspects of our business. So 1st and foremost, we have existing assets performing very well in key territories that we need to continue to resource. The second thing is, we have done some really heavy lifting in getting Our sites, the 10 sites we've identified to the quality and the standard that we believe is necessary to get them reconsidered. The good news is we've got 3 sites we considered already.
We've got 7 more that we need to get reconsidered, which we are going to continue to explore how we get those reconsidered. But from a resourcing standpoint, we've done a lot of the heavy lifting to get those sites back to where we believe they need to be to get successfully reconsidered. And therefore, we will be utilizing and spreading some of the resources that we're working on those and put them back to help drive some of the sites that we've already got ranked and performing well and get them to go even better than they are today. So I think that's The first point is we're redeploying resources to focus on the ranked assets that are performing well to make sure that we get the maximum level of returns. In parallel, we will continue to help get help from third parties to continue the reconsideration process.
We believe, as I said earlier, that there are the right quality. We believe there may be some additional technical elements that we need to continue to work through, and we're seeking 3rd party help to be able to do that. Now the crucial point in all of this It's that even if we got those sites reconsidered, the revenue impact to us in this fiscal year and even into early next fiscal year is fairly limited. So there is not the kind of magic button that you press and revenues get back to their former state. That's not the case at all.
It is all about rebuilding the casino business from the ground up. We've done a lot of work in terms of the structure. We've done a lot of work in terms of how we operate. We've also done a lot of work with regards to the team and the structure that we're putting around it. So the opportunity for us is to take the assets that we've got today and that we've invested time, effort and money in rebuilding and getting them to grow as quickly as we possibly can going forward.
So hopefully, that provides the right level of clarity there.
Stuart, maybe I'll just add a couple of data points to that, just for sort of clarification. So Yes, Stuart touched on the fact that impact of these sites that are currently deranked for 7 sites, it was not material to our overall results. Just to put a couple of bits of data around that. So the 7 sites that Stuart talks about really for us, the impact to group revenues is less than 3%. Yes.
And actually the impact to the overall casino business itself is only around the 5%, 6% mark. So yes, you can see that Despite the fact that we are focusing on these sites, we do intend to get them reranked as soon as we can. The actual impact to overall revenues is not as significant Yes, one more thing.
Thank you. Stuart, aside taking a long, which I know you'll take, frame for us the impact from Apple's IDFA change, please.
Well, I think I'm going to broaden that question because it's something we get asked quite often actually with regards to what's the effect of Apple, Google, GDPR and how will that affect our business as an affiliate. The short answer is that Some of the changes that Apple and others are making could be of benefit to us as a business. We sit on Significant amount of first party data, so just to explain that. We generate a lot of the data from the consumers as part of the operations of our day to day business. We have our own trackers that help us understand which pages the consumers click on, how long they spend on certain content, which introductions we then make to operators, how they perform with the products and services that they've signed up for with the financial institutions, for example.
So we have this wealth of first party data that we sit on that we can utilize to drive our business. Now a lot of the kind of external market commentary Talks about 3rd party data. So 3rd party data is used to kind of chase you around the Internet with programmatic advertising display. So it's when you're you might have looked at a barbecue because the weather was nice, suddenly you're looking at another site and that barbecue keeps following you. That's programmatic and that's powered by 3rd party data.
And a lot of the GDPR and a lot of the work that Apple, Google and others is doing is to restrict That level of frustration that consumers have in being chased around the Internet with products and services that they might have already purchased or that they were looking to purchase when the weather was nice. So we believe that actually some of these industry changes actually amplify and support us as a business and us as an industry, particularly with regards to affiliates because we absolutely get the benefit from using our first party data to make a really good introduction and matchmaking between the consumer and the product or service that we're promoting. And that then means that we are a valuable, either acquisition engine for the customer that we operate on behalf of or we are a kind of very good retention tool for them to keep reintroducing the Assume it's back to their product or service that we introduced to in the past. So hopefully, that gives you clarity. We sit on 1st party data.
That first party data is incredibly valuable from a behavioral standpoint. We use that to do our job. Operators and financial institutions and Our customers find that valuable for them as they look to either acquire or retain the consumers that use their products and services.
Thank you. Perhaps I could just pull a couple of questions together into 1. New markets, geographic or verticals that we might Consider entering.
So I'll go for it and then I'll Ian, if you want to add anything. So We've been very clear. Ian kind of mentioned this slightly. We kind of think of our transformation in 3 phases. Phase 1 was to address The issues that we were finding with COVID and then also with Google, plus also make some material changes to how we operated and structured the business, and we did that, largely speaking, in 2020.
2021 is about us becoming more proactive in laying the foundations for building the right technology platform to play in the U. S. And expand on our existing verticals that we're already committed to. So U. S.
Sports is a great example. It's a regulated market, high growth market and it's nicely aligned with the assets that we have in Europe, like 101 Great Goals and freebets.com and others. So it was Evolution, but we weren't going into a territory which we didn't understand. Also during 2021, it's important for us to perhaps look at some subverticals. Also, in financial services, there's some really lucrative and attractive acquisition opportunities that we're looking at, but they probably It sits outside the norm that we would have looked at previously.
They would be more focused on a specific audience with perhaps a more localized product offering that we would then represent. But The core focus for us in this Phase 2 is to address those system and Technology challenges that Ian spoke about where we just want to create the right platform, safe in the knowledge when we move into 2022, Whatever acquisition we then make in any vertical or any territory that we decide to go into, we can then really support it with a robust Technology, working practices, systems that then can support that growth and allow us to then go into that market with confidence and then also underpin any valuation on multiples that we've then paid for those assets. So just to recap, Phase 1 was about really addressing some of the core concerns we had in the business and dealing with the stuff that was being thrown at us from COVID and then also the Google deranking. Phase 2 is us being proactive about building the technology and the systems required to support our future state whilst also investing in verticals that we're already present in. Phase 3 is then taking that platform, that knowledge, that experience and then applying it to other verticals and territories in a very considered way.
Thank you. We're not going to get through every single question, so I'm trying to ensure we're at least covering all of the topic areas. Do you have any revenue guidance for the start of the current year Or any projections, one to Ian,
I guess? Yes and no. So as we've sort of alluded to Briefly already, the start of the year was strong principally because of the new acquisitions that we made, CBWG in particular, very big Quarter for sports in Q1. So we're very happy with the way the year has started. We haven't got numbers in the market yet.
It is our intention to start putting forecasts back into the market this year. And I would expect that our first numbers will go back into the market towards the end of Q2 this year.
Thank you. How many months do you estimate it will take to reach a mature revenue profile at SBD? One for I guess either of you could take that quite easily.
Yes, Stuart, I can do it from a numbers point of view. You can do it from a sort of business point of view. So our business case, our business model, We really looked at, I mean, it is taking what is effectively a fairly low, almost 0 based business onshore to monetize it. So, yes, it has started already. It has started well in terms of traffic.
It is starting to monetize quite nicely and is already generating revenue. We expected it to take between 12 18 months to really get up and running. But as we've sort of touched on, our hope is that this is an ever increasing sort of part of revenue because we're currently working with the 9 regulated states, which means we can only make money in those 9 regulated states. But as Stuart has alluded to already, once you get to 30 plus sort of legalized states by the end of next year, all of those will add Revenue to the top of the funnel. So yes, we expect 12 to 18 months for the business model to be operating as we would expect it to, But then hopefully, continual growth in revenues, yes, for the foreseeable future.
I think it's also a great opportunity to kind of discuss how we look at the business. So we look at acquisition, activation and activity, The 3 kind of components of what we do, I think I mentioned it in the presentation, but acquisition is, are we seeing a lot of traffic? Are we engaging with the right audiences? And are we seeing them spend time on our site? And therefore, have we got an opportunity to engage with them in a meaningful way.
Then we look at activation. So are we taking those impressions, those visits, those users, engaging them well enough to then try and convert them. So are we introducing them to a financial institution to look at a credit card? Have they been accepted for that credit card? And therefore, is that triggering a payment?
So the activation piece sits in the middle and is on-site and it's Are we performing on our sites really well? And then the activity piece is once we've made that introduction, are we Seeing any incremental revenues, and that's particularly pertinent for revenue share deals that we signed today. So are we Constantly reintroducing some of the consumers that we introduced to the brand or the product or the service historically and seeing them drive increased levels of revenues, and that's what we call sort of tail revenues or old money. So when we reflect on the business with SPD, we're looking the first primary leading indicator we look for in SPD is Have they got really good traffic growth? Are they really good in terms of ranking?
Are we seeing dwell times on the sites Really, really good. And are we starting to see conversions happen in the regulated states, as Ian said? Because if that is happening, then that means that when the states come online and regulate further, that gives us that really significant upside in terms of revenue. So Important to note is from a shareholder standpoint, 3 As acquisition, activation, activity and on the metrics that we're looking at from Acquisition and activation, SPD is building nicely.
Thank you. Guys, on that Note, I'm going to hopefully, we haven't covered every single question, but we've covered all of the subject areas in reasonable details. I'm going to throw it back to The operator is Stuart to see if there are any final questions on the conference line.
This is the operator. There are no further telephone questions. And I guess this concludes the question and answer session. And I would like to turn the conference back to Stuart Sims for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Well, thank you, everyone, for joining. I know this is the first time that we've done this under my tenure. It's been an enjoyable experience. Hopefully, we covered a lot of ground today and gave you some highly relevant information. We are actively trying to be a lot more transparent in the business and the dynamics and where we're focusing our time and effort.
So very keen always to get feedback from shareholders and potential investors on the progress that we're making or ask any further questions. We're very keen to engage as much as possible. But many thanks for your time.