Promoted feature: The casino opportunity in 2020

2020 is shaping up to be another big year in the casino space. With the calendar dominated by massive sporting events (Cheltenham, Fury versus Wilder and Euro 2020 to name a few), casino brands should look to cross-sell their products, and also for opportunities to ramp up during quieter sporting periods.

The main advantage of casino is that it is an always-on product, where iteration, experimentation and evolution over time are the determining factors of success. In this article we will explore trends and strategies which we believe will help your brand stand out from the competition in 2020.

Brand versus acquisition – The age-old question of long versus short term business planning is one that will naturally continue into the future. While casino brands need a constant influx of players at all times, adding a base layer of brand activity means they can shift share of voice over time. This helps to make themselves distinct and gives them a competitive edge. Timing is crucial in this regard – they must identify gaps in sport scheduling to upweight spends and cross-sell their casino product.

Blocklists – Age gating and applying exclusions to protect minors and at risk individuals from all forms of gambling advertising will remain one of the most significant challenges facing the industry in 2020 and beyond. We advise using first party data where feasible to apply blocklists which ensure you don’t appear on channels where at-risk individuals could be present.

Free-to-play – This is a great way to keep your brand front of mind and your players engaged during quiet casino periods. One of the latest trends across mobile gaming that we have seen infiltrating this space is user monetisation through ads. F2P does not work for everyone but we have seen that when there is a well-crafted free-to-play product with a unique feel and some great prizes, it can have an impact on business results.

Marquee events and tournaments – Well-executed marquee events and tournaments can increase the enjoyment of casino games significantly and differentiate your games from the competition. Tying bonuses and rewards around big events creates a similar effect to the seasonality we organically see with sports fixtures and creates milestone moments for your brand.

Scale and precision – Combining these two factors is key to every successful campaign we see on our platform. Getting the right mix of relevant content and delivering this in a scalable way is what will differentiate you from competition and generic bonus offer campaigns. It is crucial to understand the type of player you are addressing and to make sure you are providing valuable and relevant content to them.

Targeting – This is a key topic that will continue to drive conversation among casino brands. Conventional thinking for social strategies suggests taking a broad approach to reach new audiences, but layering on the complexity and availability of interest and competitor targeting alongside tools such as custom and lookalike audiences, and other tactics including retargeting means that there are many options for brands to consider for their optimal approach.

One additional audience trend that we believe will continue to shift in 2020 is the growth of female casino players – in some instances, women account for 50% or more of players, so brands need to ensure they’re catering adequately for the even gender split. A test and learn approach which identifies what works best for brands’ objectives is the best way to identify your highest value customer segments.

Product – In recent months, we have seen three key trends which we expect to continue in 2020. AI investment is starting to make waves in the industry with a ‘customised’ approach – understanding who the player is and offering relevant content – becoming more and more popular. Proprietary content is becoming the best way to differentiate yourself from generic casino games offered across platforms and a reason for users to sign up to your platform. As such, we believe acquisition of studios and the volume of original content will increase. Finally, third party IP licensing is on the rise with the collaboration of a popular brand or TV shows tied with a solid casino or bingo mechanism, bringing great returns to operators. We expect to see more successes (and some expensive failures) on this front.

Creative – One of the most understated (and oftentimes overlooked) factors to the success or failure of any casino promotion is the perceived strength of the creative. The ability to know what is going to grab a user’s attention is how you will unlock true value from your advertising efforts. From a digital perspective, creating thumb-stopping, mobile-first content and adhering to platform best practices is the answer to giving your campaigns the best chance of success. Making use of the mobile real estate available, particularly from a social point of view (full screen ads), gives your ads every chance of attracting the all-important eyeballs that result in brand resonance.

And from a social point of view, it has never been more imperative to land your brand as quickly as possible. The average person scrolls through 300 feet (or one Statue of Liberty) of mobile content every day. This highlights the need for distinct, memorable creative to ensure you are standing out and cutting through the industry noise.

TV advertising continues to land the brand message at different stages of an ad. But when it comes to social media, focus should be on landing the brand within three seconds for maximum recall and ROI. As our attention span diminishes and the number of messages which we are exposed to increases, those three seconds become more crucial than ever for your brand. We have seen ad recall on Brand Lift Studies suffer when these best practices are not followed.

Reach out to our RMG team

To find out more about our products and solutions and the ways in which Facebook can help you to achieve your campaign objectives, please contact us at rmg@fb.com.

Andy Weldon, Facebook Gaming

Andy Weldon is a client solutions manager on Facebook’s Real Money Gaming team. Before joining Facebook, he worked across several top media agencies where he served as a digital manager working with some of Ireland’s top brands across social, programmatic, partnerships and content.

Konstantinos Sakellariou, Facebook Gaming

Konstantinos Sakellariou is a client solutions manager on Facebook’s Real Money Gaming team for the last four years. He is focused on partnering with some of the largest casino and sports operators in the industry.