Over the past decade, the iGaming industry has become one of the fastest-growing and rapidly expanding markets, expected to hit over $100 billion in total revenue by the end of 2024. New products constantly emerge, and brands are ready to spend fortunes promoting them for high outcomes. No wonder the affiliate marketing industry finds the Gambling niche attractive and worth attention!
On the other hand, as more affiliates lean towards the promising niche, the more fierce the competition gets. It becomes a search for the most efficient ways to advertise online casinos and sports betting to bring high profits. And are there any?
With the help of RichAds, one of the biggest advertising networks that SiGMA recognized as the best iGaming traffic source, we will provide an overview of the best ways to promote online gambling offers!
Peculiarities of Gambling Traffic
To effectively promote Gambling offers, you need to be aware of the general market situation. Gambling is a sensitive topic that attracts a lot of attention and demands careful advertising.
First, the online gambling advertising campaign must avoid targeting audiences below 18 and align with a fair product presentation. That is to ensure your campaign won’t run into legal obstacles and doesn’t put online casino brands in danger. Motivated traffic is no stranger to the iGaming niche, but respected brands don’t allow it.
Many countries prohibit gambling and restrict betting within their borders. Look up the current regulations in geo, as they affect how payment systems work with brands and the audience access to the activity in the region.
Gambling is perceived differently depending on the region. For audiences from higher-tier geos like the USA, Germany, France, etc., gambling and betting are forms of entertainment. For audiences from lower-tier countries like LatAm, India, CIS, etc., such activities are viewed as a way to earn money. This must be considered when developing targeting strategies and composing creatives for ad campaigns.
What Are the Best Payout Methods for Gambling Traffic?
Due to the fast development of the iGaming field, the affiliate marketing industry responds accordingly. Apart from gambling affiliate programs launched by brands that provide direct offers for advertisers, various affiliate networks are working with this niche.
The networks that work almost exclusively with online casinos and sportsbooks offers propose different ways to collaborate with affiliates. All of them must be considered and overlooked before choosing. Ultimately, the commission rates method would define the frequency of payments and reinvestment strategies for advertising.
- CPA (Cost per Acquisition) — a model by which affiliates get paid when users are driven to the offer to perform a targeted action. The advertising results are tracked with affiliate links, and the payments are due shortly after. It’s the most common model in CPA (Cost per Action) programs.
- Revenue shares (%) — a model by which affiliates get paid a cut of the total revenue from users driven to the offers. The payment is calculated on a long-term basis, usually a year. Direct providers like brands with proprietary affiliate programs generally use this model.
- Hybrid programs (CPA + revenue) — a model that combines paying affiliates commissions from their leads performing a targeted action and a total revenue cut from those users. For example, this form is rare and might occur while working with CPA networks launching gambling and betting brands.
Best Traffic Sources for Online Gambling Advertising
Here are some popular traffic sources that are considered the best for online Gambling and Betting advertising campaigns:
Advertising via Facebook is one of the most common ways to promote online Gambling offers. It offers a wide range of targeting options and is powered by a vast global audience.
However, the platform has many restrictions on advertising content for online casinos and sportsbook resources. This becomes a pain for marketers, as they’re forced to constantly find ways to avoid moderation and prevent campaigns from being banned. The status of online Gambling ads on Facebook depends on the current platform’s policy.
Search Engine Marketing
Promoting the iGaming niche via search engine ads like Google Ads is another popular affiliate marketing funnel. Such ads appear at the top after users enter a specific query, highlighted as ‘sponsored content’. People trust such results, which enhances engagement.
Search engines apply strict restraints on showing gambling and betting advertising content. Such campaigns must be certified and targeted only to approved regions. According to the current policy change, any ad can be removed due to a violation.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Gambling advertising performed via SEO is a format that takes users’ most frequent queries and places them on resources within text materials. This approach allows blogs and articles with promotional content to appear in users’ search results. It’s very popular because you can control the targeting audience, as it’d appear for users already interested in a topic.
But SEO traffic also involves many obstacles. First, you need to have a resource that would be regularly updated to qualify as useful by search engines. Then, you’d need to analyze new queries as the competition is constantly overwhelming. Finally, promoting Gambling with SEO is a long-run strategy that demands resources and budgets and would bring conclusive results only after some time.
Push Ads
Push advertising notifications look like messenger notifications coming from platforms and applications. Users start receiving them after agreeing to a subscription form that appears on a publisher’s website, and from then on, they will receive them as soon as they are online, regardless of the website. Because of their nativity of appearance, push ads gain initial trust and avoid banner blindness.
Push ads’ content moderation depends on a particular ad network, but the advertising restrictions are usually lenient to affiliates. Promoting offers with push traffic is also easier as you only need to set basic targeting, have about 5-10 creatives by the size of notifications icons, and optionally pre-landing pages. The traffic volumes on this ad format allow your campaigns to reach audiences worldwide from Tier 1 countries to Tier 3. The minimal CPC (cost-per-click) bid on push ads starts from $0.005 at RichAds, and the average ROI on gambling offers is about 198%!
Pop Ads
Pops are an ad format that opens in a new tab when a user clicks anywhere on the publisher’s site with a special JS script. Whether it’s pop-up or popunder, the new window will open above or under the initial page. The newly opened tab presents a landing page with the offer, the only creative that needs to be promoted with pops. The landing page can be composed manually with page editors or provided by the offer affiliate network.
There are no restrictions on the landing page content on pop traffic. It might contain any photo/video/audio/text materials the affiliate needs to advertise the offer. To start testing campaigns on pop traffic, you’d only need basic targeting options and minimum budgets since the bids on this ad format are relatively cheap. The format already possesses extreme traffic volumes worldwide and high CR due to engaging online Gambling impulsive audiences. The minimal CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) bid on pop ads starts from $0.5 at RichAds, and the average ROI on gambling offers is about 210%!
Where to Buy Push and Pop Traffic?
Unlike Facebook, Google Ads, and SEO traffic sources, push and pop traffic can’t be got via a fully centralized advertising platform or a self-composed website. Of course, you might try collecting your subscriber base for push ads or negotiate directly with the publishers to place a JS script for pops, but that is tiresome and unnecessary. Instead, you can buy push and pop traffic from advertising networks like RichAds.
For example, at RichAds, you can start an ad campaign on a self-serve advertising platform, setting up targeting options, creatives, and bids. That allows you to run campaigns seamlessly as needed, adjusting parameters at any time based on the results and budgets. The minimal budget to launch push or pop ads starts at $150. Also, you can request free creatives and whitelists, the lists of the most converting sources, from RichAds managers who’ll compose them for your exact offer and geo. The managers can also assist you in setting up ad campaigns and handling optimization processes.
Also, explore if ad networks take measures to prevent low-quality traffic. For instance, RichAds filters traffic sources manually and with third-party solutions like Adscore, a bot traffic detector.
Conclusion
While many affiliates still lean toward traditional advertising, the fast growth and increasing competition within the iGaming niche demand less common but efficient formats. Such can be push and pop traffic already proving their performance in promoting online casinos and sportsbook sources.
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