We at Adsterra believe that mistakes are a way to huge breakthroughs. But if you know how to avoid the most repetitive and costly pitfalls, it’s great in all respects. Instead of laying out a long read, let’s cut the narrative down to a super-powerful checklist of iGaming marketing mistakes. If your job is to lead players to online gaming websites or apps, this post is for you.
Types of iGaming marketing mistakes
Whether you enter a new market or try to fish out new players from the existing targeting segments, you face new challenges. The most playful yet regulated sector sets its own rules. Today, we’re going to dive deeper and group all of these bitter iGaming advertising mistakes into two parts:
- Media buying: specifics of running ads
- iGaming platform’s website or landing page
Stay safe from overspending and test up to 15 creatives with Adsterra Self-Serve Platform for advertisers. Tools like Smart CPM and CPA Goal will optimize your budgets, pulling maximum conversions from CPM traffic.
To Contents ↑iGaming marketing mistakes in media buying
Our checklist will save you time and money while acquiring display traffic (Popunders, In-Page, Push, Interstitials, or Social Bar). You’ll embrace critical tactics of getting top-relevant traffic at the best price.
To Contents ↑One must-have step to complete before we start: ensure you can track conversions (read about S2S tracking). Though you can check ad placements (websites) where your ads are exposed with Adsterra stats, you will need to check how users convert into deposits on your side.
1. You’re cutting short your test campaign
You will need about 7 to 14 days of tests to make critical decisions. If you finish testing after 1 or 2 days, the results will hardly be representative.
Sports and iGaming marketers seek players, not leads or subscribers. Conversions are hard to fish out, and users don’t deposit instantly. That’s why it is vital to give them time, as well as to the traffic sources they come from.
2. Not limiting your daily spending
Enter daily and hourly limits to spending. This will help you avoid draining another $1,000 overnight, leaving you fewer opportunities to carry on testing. You can’t predict whether all these conversions you paid for will return deposits. Therefore, limits will protect you from overpaying.
We recommend setting up a minimum of $50 daily spend depending on the geo. For high-competitive countries, it may be $100 minimum.
Budget distribution was one of the strategic moves we tried while optimizing a Romania-targeting campaign for an European operator. The complex strategy led to a two-fold deposit boost.
3. Making several changes at once
Make 1 to 2 changes in your campaign settings you can easily control and compare with the previous outcomes instead of reinventing the whole campaign concept.
To Contents ↑Save or mark the date of a critical update and monitor traffic behavior with your analytics system. Use Adsterra stats for advertisers to keep all important metrics under control.
4. Edit campaigns on critical dates
Avoid significant changes before major tournaments or matches if running a Sports campaign, as this move won’t return relevant results. You may change the payout a little, but not all settings at once.
To Contents ↑It’s also not recommended to update settings on weekends since user behavior differs drastically, and you may not get valid results. Exceptions? Of course! Marketers usually increase bids for the US traffic during NFL/NHK matches, which take place on weekends.
5. Scaling right after a short test
Scaling is a tactic for squeezing more traffic from your targeting. If your campaign has been on for 3–5 days, it’s not the best time to add new ad formats or increase a payout to the maximum.
Popunder is the first-choice format when advertising on display ad networks. They offer the broadest reach, affordable prices, and the most direct way to connect to your audiences. After you start getting enough views and deposits with Pops, scale with In-Page Push or Interstitials. The latter are perfect attention grabbers; you can modify the visuals to deliver your ad offer in the most engaging way.
6. Mixing geos, traffic types, and devices in one campaign
iOS and Android users’ behavior differs; mobile and desktop traffic varies in activity, and traffic from diverse countries costs and converts differently. Adding all these traffic slices in one campaign may make your stats a mess.
To Contents ↑To avoid one of the most painful iGaming marketing mistakes, set up one campaign per geo, traffic type (desktop or mobile), and OS version. In general it will be like this: 1st campaign for US >> Mobile >> Android, 2nd campaign for US >> Mobile >> iOS. Sometimes, it’s enough to split campaigns only by geo and traffic type.
7. Setting too many limits or filters
Starting out advertising on a new ad platform, try not to add multiple filters like browser version/time range or upload your whitelists. Instead, leave default settings for ad frequency and allow maximum traffic volumes within your geo, OS, and desktop/mobile traffic type.
To Contents ↑If you have concerns about overspending, use tip No2 about limiting daily spending 😉
8. Buy CPA traffic when looking for deposits
You need conversions, you pay for conversions. What can be more obvious? Not this time. Users need time to make deposits, and you will keep paying for CPA traffic while they hesitate. It’s cheaper and more farsighted to start with CPM.
To Contents ↑If your marketing KPIs require app installs, or you offer a huge entry bonus for all players, or anything else that can ramp up conversions, try CPA.
9. Not using automatic CPM optimization
Even when buying ad impressions, you can force it to deliver conversions at a desired price (eCPA), or set up a desired number of conversions. Use Adsterra CPA Goal tool and save hundreds to thousands of dollars.
To Contents ↑Ensure your geo sends significant daily volumes to turn on CPA Goal.
10. Disregard tailored bidding and blacklisting
Custom bidding is another technique that will help you out. Decrease payouts to websites that return few conversions but cost too much. And allocate the money saved to the best-performing traffic sources. A radical move is to remove (blacklist) the poor-performing placements.
To Contents ↑Blacklisting and whitelisting is a tactic for granular perfecting your results and optimizing spending. However, apply it only after a well-run test when you have enough data to decide.
11. Forget to change a landing page
It happens quite a few times when your campaign is finished, but you still have outdated info on the landing page: sporting event dates, increased bonuses, sports teams, players’ names, etc. Although your targeting may stay the same, you need to add new visuals and messages to a lander.
To Contents ↑Incorporate a checklist for all the stuff that must be revised before a campaign launch.
iGaming marketing mistakes: landing page and offer
1. You neither hook nor retain visitors
Once you draw a user’s attention with your ad message, the next step is to complete the conversion funnel. Ensure you apply all sorts of motivating messages like offering extra bonuses or free spins. Set up triggers to make your offer appear when users are about to leave the site.
The popup below unveils the mechanic of making users change their minds if they try to close the registration form.
2. Players can’t use their fav payment systems
Nothing should stop players from putting in funds. That’s why it’s critical to provide (and list on a landing page) the most-used payment systems. For Brazil, it will be Pix. For Indonesia, these may be BRI, Dana, Manduri, and others.
3. Players don’t consider your offer credible
When users are asked to enter bank details and top up their balance, they look for a reliable partner who will pay honestly and legally. The lack of credibility is one of the saddest iGaming advertising mistakes.
Place as many licenses and acknowledgments as possible in your website footer. Add a phone number if you hold a call center. Stay accessible by providing your Support team contacts, as well.
4. Tech troubles
Before your ads start popping, it’s important to check and recheck how the landing page works. Test the registration form as if you were a player. Try to sign up from various devices and browsers. Ensure a user can easily top up their balance soon after the registration.
5. The sales funnel is too complex
Sometimes, iGaming operators want to hit several goals, like generating deposits and proceeding with lead generation. This can lead to hitting zero goals. Complex and cluttered forms cut off tons of potentially payable users. So, make sure a user’s path to a final conversion is smooth and doesn’t require significant effort.
To Contents ↑6. Ads and landing pages don’t match
All your ad messages should be consistent, and consistency comes in many roles:
- Language in creatives and on a landing page must match (and translating your copy to local languages is critical for success)
- Branding must match as well
- All bonuses and free spins offered in ad creatives should be provided on a landing page.
To Contents ↑With Pop ads, running your marketing smoothly is easier because you directly lead users to a landing or registration page. But you may need a prelander to filter out less engaged players.
iGaming marketing mistakes are not that scary
Mistakes in iGaming marketing campaigns cost money, but sometimes they reveal new opportunities or even audiences. Thankfully, you’re now far away from the most typical and sad pitfalls, so keep testing and trying out new traffic sources. Adsterra is your loyal iGaming and Sports traffic provider to lead CRs to a new level.
