Looking to boost your efforts to buy traffic for iGaming and Sports? We got this! Our industry experts are ready to share insider tactics and real-world examples to help you maximize your traffic acquisition performance in iGaming and Sports.
In this blog post, you’ll learn the experience-based optimization rules and actionable tips to apply to your ad campaigns. On top, you’ll get to know the latest global trends in iGaming and Sports 2024.
“Аha” moments for iGaming traffic acquisition guaranteed!
iGaming traffic acquisition with Garbis Tapacian and Adsterra
As a global ad network, Adsterra has accumulated profound expertise in iGaming and Sports. These are some of the leading verticals with our media buyers and advertisers.
This time on Adsterra Podcast, we spoke to Garbis Tapacian, who has 15+ years in Tech and Digital Media coupled with his expertise in programmatic and direct strategies. Together, we dig down on plug-and-play tactics in iGaming and Sports. We cover proven techniques to acquire iGaming ad traffic effectively.
Whether you’re starting out or into scaling, кeep your eyes on the ball with:
Garbis Tapacian, Senior Media Buyer at Betwinner and
Mikhail Zhukov, Head of the CPM Department at Adsterra
Trends for traffic acquisition in iGaming 2024
Top sports events and sports types
To plunge right in, Garbis reveals a few thematic events for traffic acquisition with high audience engagement. Among them are the World Cup, one of the major tournaments, as well as the European Champions League and Premier League. And of course, the World Cup, European Cup, and Copa America are to follow.
We can’t agree more that many games had unexpected outcome scores, unlike the expected steady user engagement in the events.
As for high-demand sports and geos, some of them may come as a revelation to our readers. We witness a clear trend for martial arts, mixed martial arts combat, UFC and MMA in particular. These sports are of high interest among the CIS and Asian markets, including Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. And it has been the case over the last few years.
Expert tip by Garbis Tapacian
“The best case scenario is to target sports generally. And if you see a specific trend or sub-niche, that’s where you would dial in and scale.”
Garbis also stresses that diverging trends might come across off the norm for media agencies and brand companies. Ad traffic buyers expect a certain geo to show engagements in specific sports. However, it can be the opposite. We see people interested in horse racing, volleyball matches, tennis, and basketball. These are audience interests we may not spot right off the bat.
As our expert explains, there’s a lot of potential here from a media-buying perspective. You just have to know how to tune proper targeting for your value-blasting campaigns. And we are going to explore that below!
Ad format efficiency for iGaming
With over 11 years as a preferred global network for quality traffic and the Unique Partner Care approach, we know the ever-emerging questions of our advertisers — what type of campaigns shall I start with to succeed? Naturally, our expert has a few ideas.
Pops (Popunders) and In-Page Push
As a traffic acquisition and conversion optimization specialist for iGaming, Garbis favors Pops (Popunders) and Push (check out the ultimate Push & In-Page Push advertising guide).
Garbis clarifies that it’s enjoyably easy with Pops — one link leading to your offer. On the other hand, it’s slightly more work with Push: images, display banners, messages, icons, and text to localize for multiple geos, etc. With all that, Push is rewardingly targeted and customizable, with a lot of engagement and visibility.
Advice by Adsterra
To launch your high-converting campaigns with In-Page Push, Pops, or the best formats of Social Bar Ads with a 30% higher conversion rate, jump in to prompt registration as an advertiser and use the formats that work!
Expert tip by Garbis Tapacian
“Go with Push CPC if you have a small budget. You want to gather a lot of data and see what works and what doesn’t, then optimize before you spend. Go with Pops if you want quick performance. Here, you don’t need customizing as you send users directly to your offer”.
What about native banners and videos?
Garbis highlights two challenges with native banners. Not all brands will work with banners in non-mainstream. If you overcome this, there is a task to create proper display banners that are non-intrusive, overall thematic, and of the color palette to blend with the publisher’s website. All in all, it is an avenue to be explored as a long-term branding measure rather than performance advertising.
Moving to the video ad format, the challenge here is the higher price. At the same time, a video is usually non-skippable. The audience watches it regardless, before they watch their video content. You get high engagement and visibility. Again, it is effective from the branding standpoint rather than performance marketing.
And don’t be hard on yourself. Ad formats can be something to think over during your iGaming traffic acquisition. Adsterra expert support is always here to help you with data and advice on your best ad campaign strategies. Both within the self-service platform (SSP) and managed accounts.
Advice by Adsterra
Reap the benefits of high-profiting Social Bar options with subformats such as In-Page Push, Interstitial, Custom Widget, and Icon Notifications. These lucrative Social Bar creatives work with all browsers and all OS, including iOS. No subscriptions required.
Sounds good? Register and have a go right now:
To Contents ↑Mainstream or non-mainstream
Now let’s move on from ad formats to traffic sources: Shall you start with mainstream or non-mainstream traffic?
Here, we’re on the same page with our expert. A mix of both traffic types might be a way to start. It’s a sandbox for trying and testing. Even better if you have tools like within Adsterra Advertisers’ accounts to analyze your data and enhance your performance, say with CPA Goal, Traffic Chart, S2S Tracking, Traffic Estimator, and others.
Expert Tip by Garbis Tapacian
To Contents ↑“Start with broad targeting. Then dial in and go for specifics after you’ve done some A/B testing.”
Thematic sources and GEOs for iGaming and Sports
As for thematic traffic sources, Garbis Tapacian sticks to the same rule — exclude nothing as you begin. Public forums and blog sites work well. Movies sites, file downloads websites, and streaming platforms are definitely very good sources. From his broad experience, Garbis also singles out the most effective GEOs in iGaming and Sports: the CIS, countries within Europe like Spain, and the USA.
Mobile vs. desktop traffic
Now, do you think that desktop traffic can die out? Think that — laptop traffic is desktop too and it is widely spread. Although, the major takeaway is that there’s a lot more mobile traffic. And it’s some big audience to target from a media buying perspective.
On the other hand, you’ve got this Tier system. In Tier 1 countries, almost every household has a desktop computer. In the US, UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Northern countries, desktops are still one of the primary devices.
There is more to it. Mobile traffic is the leader, and app ecosystems for iGaming are evolving alongside. It is now being noticed in Asia and might soon appear as a trend. Garbis sees a big future behind the app ecosystem that offers users everything in one place.
Expert Tip by Garbis Tapacian
To Contents ↑“Why not opt for A/B tests for mobile and desktop traffic? Go on SimilarWeb, check a certain domain and see what the traffic split between desktop and mobile is with regard to a certain GEO.”
Optimization rules for iGaming ad campaign
Does Garbis Tapacian have his secret rules for the iGaming and Sports vertical? Red flags or bingos? He surely does. Let’s spill the beans and explore how to optimize your iGaming ad campaigns and traffic acquisition efforts:
- Check the conversion funnel from the beginning to the end.
- Identify the data with drop-offs or high bounce rates in your funnel, then optimize.
- If your improvement steps lead to no result, check the traffic quality.
- Arrange distribution of your traffic well, especially with large volumes.
- Ensure you have a limited budget per campaign and daily caps.
- Go about your campaign from a user’s perspective.
- Apply S2S or other technology as a pillar of setting up campaigns.
- Make sure to measure the base metrics (CTR, signups, and conversions).
Expert Tip by Garbis Tapacian
To Contents ↑“Measure impressions to clicks, clicks to CTR, CTR to signups, and signups to conversions.”
Localization tactics for iGaming and Sports campaigns
Our expert unlocks his tactics on ad campaign localization for different GEOs, countries, languages, currencies, and cultures. The goal of traffic acquisition managers and conversion optimization specialists is not to make as many language-localized iGaming creatives as they can for the targeted geo. The approach is to test localized creatives, drill down into reports and tweak campaigns accordingly and consistently.
For example, you might need to test French and English for Cameroon ad campaigns as the country speaks both languages. For Belgium, you may consider at least two languages out of Dutch, French, and German. Some countries don’t speak English, and it has to be their local language for your ad formats.
The same goes for local currencies and cultural aspects. For example, football and sports are major in Brazil, and it’s important to know local references and the best local teams. Being aligned with your audience pays you off immensely in conversions.
iGaming traffic acquisition success: proven by the Niche Veteran
Still questioning yourself how to scale your campaign and what maneuvers to apply?
Garbis Tapacian breaks it down for everybody who wants to succeed in ad campaigns and iGaming acquisition of traffic. Let’s name the crucial points:
- Test a larger pool of data, sites, and zones, then optimize. Go with broad targeting first.
- Leave it for 3 to 5 days, stop, run a report, then boost accordingly.
- Сhoose your ad network wisely — with a policy and anti-fraud department and a well-developed security system. Ad fraud is an increasingly significant problem. You can read more on Adsterra’s security features for affiliates and advertisers.
- Always mind your budget.
- Go flexible with blacklists, whitelists, and graylists, since publishers can come and go. Retest your pool of publishers, then optimize. As for whitelists, they help not crush your restricted budget. This is especially true for specific geo traffic with tens of millions of impressions daily, like Brazil or India.
- Finally, go to your ad network manager for proven sources that convert for your offers and obtain other valuable data.
Effective acquisition of iGaming traffic: watch in full
For more insights into iGaming and Sports advertising campaigns, watch the full video with Garbis Tapacian and Mikhail Zhukov on Adsterra Podcast, Episode 1.
Make informed decisions and acquire high-quality iGaming traffic with Adsterra!
