Performance Marketing in Gambling: Features and Benefits

Our experts will talk about the stages and rules of the creation of a campaign, evaluation methods, and the main analytical indicators.

What Is Performance Marketing in the Gambling Industry

The tasks depend on the specifics (geography, legal framework) of the business and the ambitions of entrepreneurs. Most often, the results are expressed in KPI metrics — financial performance indicators.

Performance marketing is used when it is necessary to increase the conversion on a gambling website, the size of the average bill, as well as the profitability of an online casino, and advertising costs. Much less often, the solution is used to improve the image performance of the iGaming platform and increase brand awareness.

As a rule, the described type of marketing is used to promote virtual portals and sometimes — land-based casino packages. The advertising method is closely related to digital tools, Big Data, and other progressive technologies.

Advantages of Performance-Based Advertising

Let us consider the core strengths of the solution:

Relevance

Any marketing campaign and strategy is adjusted situationally here and now. The assessment is affected by both analysis of intermediate results and the current economic situation in the country and the world, as well as political events and the actions of competitors.

If you spend more money on advertising than you earn, then it will quickly become unsuccessful. And vice versa: good conversion and profitability rates encourage operators to invest even more funds and develop specific promotion channels.

Integrated approach

A performance-based campaign combines many useful tools.

Specialists use SEO, SMM, social media targeting, direct and native advertising, and other methods. Entrepreneurs can cooperate with affiliates, delegate part of the tasks to outsourcing, place target publics on marketplaces, and conduct remarketing.

Part of the campaign is focused on the promotion of mobile casinos and high-technology iGaming applications for smartphones.

Measurability

The described type of advertising brings specific results that can be easily converted into KPI metrics. Most often, benchmarks are related to revenues, customers, or the size of the average bill.

Measurability of parameters through real sales is the strength of performance marketing. You can easily determine how much profit a specific promotion channel or group of customers has brought.

Affordable price

Clients pay only for the final result: the earned profit, the number of attracted users, and the reduction of costs for advertising.

A thorough analysis is carried out for each promotion channel, which allows you to optimise marketing expenditures.

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Online Casino Promotion

The success of an advertising campaign is evaluated based on the following metrics:

CPA — Cost Per Action of Gamblers

Target objectives in the iGaming industry include:

• registration and verification on the website;
• deposition of funds;
• launch of a specified number of solutions;
• consent to the use of cookies, etc.

The CPA metrics show how much money an entrepreneur spent to make one client or group of gamblers perform the desired action. To calculate CPA, the total advertising budget (or expenditures on a specific promotion channel) is divided by the number of conversions.

CRV — Customer Referral Value

The metrics are similar to the previous one, with the only difference that in the case of CRV, a specific action of gamblers is taken into account, such as a click on an affiliated link. Further, clients can choose to register in an online casino, deposit money, and launch several slot machines.

The CRV parameter is usually calculated when an evaluation of the effectiveness of an affiliate program takes place. Thus, entrepreneurs can analyse expenditures on the attraction of 1 player during the cooperation with affiliates.

LTV — Customer Lifetime Value

This indicator shows how much money a particular gambler brought to the casino during his entire activity on the gaming site.

The parameter is calculated as the product of the average bill of a customer and the number of completed game sessions. LTV is analysed for a week, month, quarter, or year.

ROI — Return on Investment in the Marketing Niche

The indicator illustrates:

• direct advertising costs;
• the amount of income that entrepreneurs were able to receive due to current business expenses.

To calculate ROI, the difference between income and expenditures is divided by operating costs and multiplied by 100%.

The higher the ROI, the more effective the performance campaign is. Low rates show entrepreneurs the need to use certain promotion channels.

AOV — Average Order Value

The parameter is used to assess the profitability of long-term investments in relation to the total number of game sessions.

The higher the indicator, the more competently a casino owner uses customer retention tools. We are talking about one-time bonuses, tournaments, seasonal missions, cashback, and other activities included in the performance strategy.

To calculate AOV, the net profit for the reporting period is divided by the number of game sessions during this time.

Effective Ways to Promote an iGaming Project

SEO Optimisation

Features of SEO promotion:

• Double approach.
• Good content on the gaming site.
• Traffic from external sources.

SMM Promotion

Specialists use 2 methods of promotion:

• Social media targeting.
• Cooperation with opinion leaders.

SMM marketing is focused on Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Twitter, VKontakte and other social networks. It is also possible to promote online casinos on popular streaming platforms: YouTube, Twitch, TikTok.

Native Advertising

Benefits of using the tool in a performance campaign:

• High level of confidence from the audience.
• Protection against spamming.
• Different formats.

Other Marketing Tools

Popular formats of the performance campaign:

• Viral advertising.
• E-mail newsletter.
• Algorithmic purchase of advertising.

To achieve measurable results, specialists use advertising tools in the complex.

SEO Optimisation

This type of promotion means an improvement of the position of a website in search results. Most often, operators focus on Google and Yandex as the internet platforms with the largest number of users and thematic queries per day.

Features of SEO promotion:

1. Double approach. Since 2021, Google algorithms have been set up so they first index the mobile casino and then evaluate its desktop version. To get a good position in the search results, you need to take care of stable performance (loading speed, quick response to gamblers' requests) and high-quality graphics of a project in both versions.
2. Good content on the gaming site. The ranking system pays attention to internal links, print layout, and meta tags. The published materials (texts, videos, and graphics) are subject to such requirements as EAT (expertise, authority, reliability).
3. Traffic from external sources. These are news sites, blogs, author's columns, and rating resources. Marketers post thematic articles on specialised platforms with active links using which people can go to an online casino.

SMM Promotion

Specialists use 2 methods of promotion:

1. Social media targeting. Active actions are aimed at certain categories of gamblers, who are grouped using machine learning technologies. Ads are shown exclusively to the target audience, which increases the effectiveness of advertising.
2. Cooperation with opinion leaders. These are bloggers, streamers, current and former athletes, as well as gambling market analysts with a huge number of subscribers. Influencers recommend a specific online casino to their audience, distribute bonuses and promotional codes with increased cashback, and publish links for registration in VIP tournaments.

SMM marketing is focused on Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Twitter, VKontakte, and other social networks. It is also possible to promote online casinos on popular streaming platforms: YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok.

Native Advertising

This is useful information addressed to the target audience. In the gambling niche, these are men aged 25–40 with a stable income above average and diverse hobbies.

Benefits of using the tool in a performance campaign:

1. High level of confidence from the audience. Proper native advertising does not hide its commercial focus but, at the same time, benefits the client. The materials help operators to improve their interaction with players and not annoy them.
2. Protection against spamming. Native integrations cannot be limited by ad blockers and are not subject to banner blindness or other protective measures. An advertising message is sent to those users who follow the link and register on the gaming site.
3. Different formats. Native advertising includes interesting posts on social networks, articles in blogs, bright videos, and other exciting materials.

Other Marketing Tools

Popular formats of the performance campaign:

1. Viral advertising. It is difficult to create such content but the effect of its publication exceeds all expectations. Viral materials spread independently, provoke discussions, form conflicting opinions, and get excellent feedback from the target audience.
2. E-mail newsletter. It is used to attract new clients and improve communication with regular casino visitors. In messages, operators can inform people about new promotions and games, offer personal bonuses, as well as remind them of current tournaments and missions.
3. Algorithmic purchase of advertising. This format is similar to targeting that takes place in social networks. The main difference is real-time modelling of the marketing message, which further increases the conversion of a virtual casino. The solution is distinguished by the democratic cost of online traffic and automatic configuration. Entrepreneurs can buy advertising on thematic marketplaces and specialised auctions.

Stages of Launching a Performance Campaign

Advertisers, SEO marketers, analysts, programmers, writers, and web designers work on the promotion of online casinos. Together, they develop catchy creatives, carry out routine maintenance on gaming sites, and monitor the compliance of advertising with legal and regulatory requirements in the chosen country.

Let us consider the main stages of the implementation of a performance campaign:

Definition of goals

Objectives must be realistic, measurable, achievable, and time-limited.

It is good when any goal can be associated with financial performance indicators: conversion rate, income, and RTP percentage.

Deep analytics

Specialists study the customer's project (business area, website, and loyalty program), competitive environment, peculiarities of legislation in the chosen jurisdiction, and other external factors.

Previous marketing campaigns are also subject to thorough analysis.

Creation of a media plan

This is a table with the ads release schedule in the context of the promotion channels used (SEO, SMM, native advertising), goals set, and planned profitability indicators.

The document clearly states the initial and expected KPIs, the timetable for achieving the goals, and the budget (general and with the distribution for each channel).

End-to-end control

Specialists evaluate the intermediate results of the performance campaign and promptly make adjustments. Inefficient channels are excluded from the media plan but effective ones, on the contrary, receive more financial injections.

The Main Things about the Benefits of Performance Marketing

• The strong points of the solution include its relevance, integrated approach, measurability, and affordable prices. Together, all this ensures high efficiency of the promotion and achievement of specific results (conversion growth, profit improvement) in a short time.
• KPI metrics are used to evaluate performance. These are the cost of the target action, the referral value of the client, the return on investment, the size of the average bill, and other parameters.
• To promote an iGaming project, operators use SEO optimisation, SMM marketing, native and viral advertising, e-mail newsletters, algorithmic purchase of ads, and other formats.
• A performance campaign includes the definition of goals, in-depth analytics of current activities of entrepreneurs, creation of a media plan with budget allocation for each channel, and end-to-end control.

We use effective marketing tools and take into account the rules of gambling product advertising, which are relevant in the selected jurisdiction.

From us, you can buy such profitable and reliable casino solutions as:

• turnkey online platforms;
• White Label projects;
• security software;
• casino scripts;
• slot machines in the HTML5 format;
• payment aggregators, and much more.

For more information, please contact our managers.