Cheltenham Festival 2023: The AI technology driving customer acquisition across paid social
As the anticipation grows ahead of this year’s Cheltenham Festival, Brendan Tinnelly, head of paid social at Sportradar, discusses the current state of digital advertising in the industry as the global sports technology company expands its paid social media advertising offering to horseracing
Sportsbook operators have been using artificial intelligence-driven, paid social media advertising to optimise their marketing activity in the build up to sporting events for some time, and we’re now seeing this technology applied to horseracing.
I’ve always found that the industry has struggled with advertising for horseracing – it’s an area that’s been notably underserved by marketing functions. If advertised at all, the messaging is often generic – typically displaying a sign-up offer imposed on a horse jumping a fence. However, what we’re seeing in the lead up to this year’s Cheltenham Festival is an increased use of artificial intelligence-driven technology to optimise the performance of paid social media advertising.
Many factors and motivators influence a punter’s choice of horse – whether checking the form guide for performance over the last few races, studying the betting odds or choosing based on an individual’s favourite jockey, trainer or even colour of outfit.
Operators are building on these influences and using artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver dynamic adverts across paid social media that feature real-time betting information and form insights. This is a significant development, building on that familiarity, and providing punters with the insights they need to make an informed betting decision right up until the start of a race.
Personalisation: A game changer
The inclusion of real-time betting information elevates an operator’s content offering in an increasingly crowded marketplace while adding value to the end user’s sports betting experience. Rather than a one-sized-fits-all, offer-led approach, operators are now able to appeal to punters based on the factors that actually shape their betting behaviour.
What’s more, operators are using data collection to gain a better understanding of their customers. Using these deep insights, AI can deliver hyper-targeted creative adverts, which are personalised to the specific interests and preferences of individual bettors. In practical terms, data-driven algorithms can be employed to build the persona of the horseracing bettor, making marketing more relevant, personalised and efficient.
In a sport not known for innovative marketing methods, this combination of real-time betting data and AI-driven personalisation is a game changer. Apply that across paid social, a channel with more than three billion active users each month, and there’s clear benefit for those operators wanting to engage more bettors with their horseracing offering.
In addition to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of an operator’s marketing output, AI is being deployed to automate the production of the adverts themselves – alleviating the operational burden placed upon design teams responsible for delivering creative for the Festival’s 30+ races featuring 500 horses.
Technology like Dynamic Creative Optimisation (DCO) tools powered by the latest in AI and machine learning are being deployed to engineer data-driven personalised advert creative. By processing 525 million weekly ad impressions, DCO can generate real-time ads personalised for individual customers, which are aligned to the brand standards of individual sportsbook operators.
The tech within DCO solutions is deployed to automatically generate an unlimited supply of advert variations which are delivered at speed, helping operators to scale their marketing activities quickly and effectively. In addition to providing creative ads at scale, it’s the personalisation capabilities that improve ad relevance and increase engagement with the creative output.
This is significant for an event like Cheltenham week. It’s a huge revenue driver for operators but, historically, it’s also resource-heavy, which means there is a tendency to overlook what I’d describe as ‘business-as-usual events’.
For example, this year’s event coincides with the final weekend of the Six Nations, the start of the Formula 1 season as well as a full soccer fixture list. These are all important events to operators, and the automation technology allows for the delivery of advert creative without affecting Cheltenham activity.
As use of AI becomes more prevalent across the industry, forward-thinking marketers can unlock greater potential within horseracing and paid social media advertising.
Brendan Tinnelly heads up the paid social division at Sportradar, ultimately responsible for delivering innovative and performant campaigns for sports betting and igaming advertisers across the major social platforms. Prior to joining Sportradar, Brendan spent 7 years at Meta, working in a variety of roles within their gaming arm before ultimately leading global product strategy for the gambling vertical. Brendan is based in Dublin, Ireland.