Ad platforms and the marketing technology (MarTech) used to scale paid media across them all come jam-packed with automatic optimization capabilities. However, many iGaming user acquisition teams have still not perfected the art of optimizing successful advertising campaigns. From Google, Facebook, and Instagram, to Native, and Push—you need a structure to your approach to paid ads.
The Opportunities
It’s taken a long time for the iGaming industry to reliably have access to the lucrative Tier 1 advertising platforms that offer access to the most intelligent and highest-earning demographic user bases and geographic locations. It is no longer as scalable to simply go after the lowest hanging fruit—the less competitive Tier 2 and 3 advertising opportunities with lower purchasing power.
This means it is mission-critical that your iGaming organization is allocating its ad spend based on the accurate results of your campaigns. To know if your campaigns are performing well, you must analyze them at a very granular level through the lens of the subID data connected to your users' actions before reaching your offers.
Advertising Campaign Objectives
Before diving into the fertile waters of how to formulate subIDs, UTMs, and pixels, you must successfully target the right demographic user bases. In other words, begin your approach from the desired result your team is looking to achieve with a given campaign.
Your advertising campaign objectives should always align with your ideal customer profiles and the best users based on historical and current performance. There is no sense in targeting users who don't complete the kinds of actions that lead to the highest return on investment across your specific iGaming product.
Prerequisites to Conversion Rate Optimization
Before your publishing partners can scale successful campaigns, you must lay the proper foundation in the form of digital resources.
The top digital resources your publishing teams should leverage are:
- Landing Pages: A successful landing page converts the right demographic users at measurably consistent rates
- Publisher Reference Points: Embedded in your tracking links, you must allow partners to pass Sub-/UTMs through, and report on them, to ensure publishers have relevant conversion and quality data to optimize their campaigns
- Integrated Conversion Events: Server-to-server postbacks or pixels that allow your marketing partners to receive conversion data in real time
Why You Should Tier Your Auto-Optimization
It is essential that your teams set up campaigns in a way that allow you to capture insights pulled in real-time that offer a granular level of detail. Set clear KPI’s, stick to them, and keep everyone in alignment working towards improving the same metrics.
Math and Algorithms
You need to start thinking in an evidence-based and mathematical way. Scientific research hinges on proving both the reliability and validity of different findings or insights culled from data.
That means take the emotion out of decision-making and allow math and statistical analysis to decide how to scale your campaigns to reach the results and KPIs that are most important for your success.
Computers and software can handle this work. They can do it faster and more efficiently than anyone on your team. Trust technology and use it to your advantage.
Too Many Variables
There are too many variables to try to set and forget auto-optimization efforts without accurately understanding how, what, and why different actions lead to the best results. It's time to cut the bloat and transform your marketing efforts into a lean and mean conversion machine.
Let’s get to it!
How to Optimize from Top to Bottom in iGaming
To make this as crystal clear as possible, here is the definitive order in which you should be focusing your efforts with conversion rate optimization for paid ad conversion in the iGaming industry:
- Clicks: You need to know first and foremost what exact link users clicked on, where it was from (Location, platform, etc.) and any meta data associated with that click (device type, etc.)
- Conversions: Next, it's absolutely essential to know what specific offers, lines of text, and hyperlinks are creating actual sales conversions
- Paying Player/Lifetime Value: You want to attract the highest-caliber players that will have the highest lifetime value, but first you need to know what separates those provide sustained long term value and those who just like freebies and bonus offers
Optimize for Quality by Focusing on the Data
To summarize, it is essential that your iGaming organization captures real data, analyzes it in detail, and aligns conversion rate optimization efforts to attract the customers with the highest lifetime value.
To accomplish that, however, you need to follow a very straightforward game plan as outlined in the section above.
To round out your campaign success, you should also be looking to understand details about:
- Ad Networks: Not all advertising networks will create the results most relevant to the success of your specific iGaming platform
- Placements: Not all advertising placement details, such as the time an ad runs as one example, will lead to the same results
- Creative: Not all combinations of copywriting, graphic design, and web development lead to the same conversion rates
- Audiences: Not all demographics will convert at the same rates to your optimized offers
- Terms of Delivery: Not all offers were created equally and will not convert at the same rate
- Geographies: Not all geographic areas have the same numbers of users that will generate the highest lifetime value for your organization
A/B Testing
Your team needs to be testing different creative variables across different targeting variables, over the same consistent periods of time to get the most accurate insights.
Check your advertising settings frequently, especially the geographic ones, to take advantage of trends in the market you might have otherwise missed.
Test and retest everything methodically the same way a scientist or mathematician would. Rotate your ads and make sure you constantly get fresh content in front of the user demographics most likely to convert.
It's not rocket science, but it does take planning to capitalize on the opportunities of the present moment. Now get out there and make it rain!
Want more performance marketing tips? Check out our latest guide Conquering iGaming Player Acquisition: The Keys to Lucrative Performance Marketing in 2021.
More Resources
Guide to Conquering iGaming Player Acquisition
How to Help Your Affiliate Manager Achieve More
Run Better Player Acquisition Campaigns Through Cohort Analysis