How operators can take smart risks while scaling traffic

Online sportsbook and casino operators that want to really scale traffic to their brands must be prepared to take risks. Good traffic comes and goes, and that’s why they need to be ready to pounce on opportunities when they present themselves – even if they are risky.

Of course, those that can strike the balance between risk and reward will reap the benefits. But operators often prefer to err on the side of caution, using traditional marketing channels and tactics in their fight to secure the largest share of the market.

This is no more evident than in the US, where the majority of brands have taken an open-chequebook approach to customer acquisition via traditional channels. Billions have been spent on above-the-line campaigns, brand ambassadors, celebrity endorsers and big bonuses.

And while this approach has undoubtedly allowed operators to generate brand awareness and onboard new players at scale, it’s clearly not been as effective as had been hoped, with many now scaling back spend as they push for profitability.

Missed opportunities

At the same time, some operators are yet to fully embrace affiliates and paid media as ways of driving traffic to their brands. This is due to a myriad of reasons, including the perceived risks of paid media and the rising cost of affiliate CPAs.

This is certainly the case for new brands run by smaller, less capitalised operators. But this means they often miss opportunities to increase their share of wallet and, given the calibre of the opposition they are up against, this can prove to be fatal.

On the flip side, free-spending brands often struggle to make their affiliate programmes and paid media campaigns profitable because they are happy to burn dollars on underperforming traffic and activity.

Affiliates: Pay for what you get

The good news is that when it comes to affiliate and performance marketing, operators pay for what they get based on the CPA, revenue share and hybrid commercial models they agree with publishers. In short, operators only pay when a player starts to play.

Of course, it’s vital for brands to ensure their affiliate programme is set up properly as it is easy to burn good money on bad traffic, especially when working to a CPA model as the vast majority of US operators and affiliates are doing.

Paid media: Unlimited scale, controlled costs

When it comes to paid media, the nature of paying upfront for traffic tends to lead to more careful and controlled spend by operators and their marketing teams – unless paid media activity is mostly for the purpose of brand building and driving awareness.

This means that many operators consider paid media to be more of a risk than affiliate marketing, but to reiterate, with greater risk comes greater reward. Those that nail paid media have a channel with huge potential to scale while also being able to control costs.

So, how can operators ensure they are taking smart risks when scaling traffic?

The most effective way to scale effectively, while being able to take smart risks and reap the rewards, is to be set up in a way that allows operators to optimise traffic quickly and effectively.

This requires several key things, from a modern, agile mar-tech platform to setting well-defined goals and having clear communication between internal teams and/or external traffic partners. It’s vital to set expectations and also be transparent at all times.

Data is fundamental to success, and operators must make sure both they and their partners can access data in real-time so that they can tweak activity and campaigns to ensure they achieve the greatest ROI at all times. Data doesn’t lie, so make data-led decisions.

Operators need to collect granular data on the campaigns they run, including metadata-like device type, OS, geolocation and more, while also ensuring sources are utilising sub-ID parameters that can be optimised for.

Ultimately, they should set goals based on what they need to succeed and then track these and optimise their way towards hitting them.

The data-driven approach that can be used with affiliates and paid media really does help to mitigate the chance of landing on the wrong side of taking a risk, and this in turn allows operators to claim the greatest reward. Putting upfront effort into choosing the proper mar-tech stack, setting up campaigns in an efficient way and staying on top of optimisation is key to success.

In a market such as North America where the opportunity is significant but where big-budget campaigns have failed to achieve the return some operators have been looking for, this really does put the risk/reward balance in favour of the latter.

And all operators need to do is ensure they are prepared.

Allan Petrilli is VP of sales and growth at Intelitics, a marketing-tech and analytics services company that provides data-driven user acquisition at scale across online and mobile channels leveraging their proprietary innovative igaming-focused marketing technology stack. Allan has been in the industry since 2011, delivering tailored and proven user acquisition strategies across all igaming verticals.