The mass audience is now considered to be familiar with sports betting and poker, thanks to heavy advertising from operators, media coverage of betting and poker events.
According to the marketing specialists, the democratisation of gaming in continental Europe is one of the major trends as of today.
European consumers are being much more receptive to betting and gambling with other operators than just their national lottery, says John Samson, an online marketing consultant and expert in online advertising for the gaming industry, who founded Agence Snoopy in 2005.
"Gaming products are now advertised by a wider range of sites, not only specialised gaming sites and affiliates," Samson told bulletbusiness.com's Ritesh Gupta. Samson is scheduled to speak during Bullet Business' iGaming Marketing Forum 2008, to be held in London in October this year.
Commenting on ad spending patterns of clients in the gaming industry, Samson pointed out that traditional e-commerce clients' sales rely mostly on Christmas, mother/father's day and sales; gaming advertisers don't and have the advantage to be more flexible, leading to more negotiation leverage when buying advertising space.
"There are plenty of highly publicised events such as football Champion's League, local rugby leagues, tennis tournaments etc which betting operators can capitalise on during the year, allowing us to communicate several times to the same database of users for instance. Other types of gaming activities have to create reasons to communicate themselves and loose ROI quicker when advertising repetitively to the same audience," said Samson.
Samson also spoke about localisation strategy, and trends in affiliate marketing and SEO in an interview. Excerpts:
Bulletbusiness.com: Could you provide an insight into what factors an igaming marketer needs to evaluate before finalising specific communication strategies while pushing their product into new geographic locations?
John Samson: In terms of localisation, operators should really allocate more resources on the basics which are too often neglected: Unpronounceable or unmemorable brand names (for locals), bonus offers in dollars, absence of local copy-writing, are very common mistakes.
The advertising buying strategy should fit with the type of promotion used. At early stages of the purchasing process (need awareness, data collection) you would rather propose a free offer to the prospect (which locks your competitors out of consideration), during the last steps of the process (decision to purchase) a bonus offer on first deposit is more adapted. In the same way, marketing offers change according to the type of audience you are advertising to.
Bulletbusiness.com: Recently, Gala Casinos introduced live online casino and for it offered UK affiliates GBP40 CPA when players deposit a minimum of GBP10 and wager a further GBP25 or alternatively benefit from a 30 percent revenue share deal. In your opinion, what does this signify when it comes to customer acquisition via online medium on the whole?
John Samson: Varied commission models suit a broader range of affiliate tastes. However, proposing a CPA triggered on a minimum deposit and a wager is not very original and it won't appeal to many more affiliates than what revenue share does.
With the democratisation of gaming, potential of growth lies into "casual" affiliates, which are not interested in a long-term relationship with you: they want to test your campaign and measure quickly (within a week) what revenues it generates. Gaming advertisers should leave revenue share and triggered CPAs to specialised (in-house) gaming affiliates that are more likely to gauge the potential revenues of it.
Casual affiliates would rather go for what they are used to with non-gaming operators: CPM (cost per thousand impressions), CPC (per click), CPL (per registration/download) and hybrid commission models (CPC+CPA, CPL+CPA...). The financial risk is obviously higher for an advertiser, that's where our ad buy expertise play its role and decrease the risk.
Bulletbusiness.com: Talking of search engine optimisation (SEO), experts feel the best way to approach SEO is a balanced approach and understanding which keywords are leading to the desired conversion. The idea is to look at keywords in buckets by strategy, some keywords direct response focused while others are brand centric. How do you assess this approach in igaming business?
John Samson: We can identify four types of keyword phrases (KWP) to target: brand site KWP, brand product KWP, product KWP and content KWP.
- Site brand KWP: Ranking first on your brand name should be a piece of cake for most of operators really.
- Product brand KWP: That doesn't apply often to gaming operators, an example of this would be a popular game name of skill gaming operator.
- Product KWP: "betting", "poker", "casino" are the most difficult to rank for. Operators usually aim for product KWP composed by 2 or 3 words; e.g "play online poker", "bet on football", "play blackjack". The homepage and other main pages are usually used to rank on those KWP.
- Content KWP: Pages with content (betting glossary, poker tips, casino rules etc.) will allow the operator to rank for content KWP like "how to play AK", "rules of poker texas hold'em", "handicap bet definition".
The first step to SEO is setting what KWP we aim for. Popularity of the keywords (number of searchers), competition / ability of the site to rank high on it (visibility and click rate), and relevance to the site (which leads to conversion rate) are the criterions to take in account.
Bulletbusiness.com: How do you assess the usage of social media or web 2.0 by operators and agencies in online gaming arena for engaging customers? Such tools have changed the way people engage with each other — and with brands. Add to that the interactivity powered by AJAX and other rich media enhancements, so there is a whole new dimension to marketing. In your opinion, what role do you foresee for web 2.0?
John Samson: We shared a few social media experiences with other marketers: volumes or ROI were not satisfying. We prefer to leave this to affiliates or early adopters if you like.
Bulletbusiness.com: What tips or recommendations would you like to give to igaming operators when it comes to customer acquisition via online medium?
John Samson: - Do not divide your customer acquisition department into an affiliate team and a media team – this organisation is not anymore adapted to the reality and requirements of ad buy.
- Do not incentive your ad buyers on their individual results, otherwise they'll start fighting for the same partners or affiliates.
- For the google-style managers … ask and pay each of your affiliate managers to spend two days a month building their own affiliate site.
iGaming Marketing Forum 2008
Bullet Business is scheduled to conduct iGaming Marketing Forum 2008 in London in October this year.
For detailed information, click here: www.bulletbusiness.com/marketing08
Or contact Ravi Virpal at +44 (0)20 7375 7162 or email ravi@bulletbusiness.com.
