Pushing boundaries: Unleashing the potential of the betting niche

According to H2 Gambling Capital, global online betting revenue including in-play is expected to reach nearly €66bn this year, which means that any sensible marketer worth their salt and who tracks industry trends will want to grab a slice of the pie.

However, increased legislation and internet usage in many geographic marketplaces means that sports betting has become one of the most competitive and demanding niches in affiliate marketing. Looking forward it will be necessary to expand beyond traditional sports while not forgetting its core origins.

2023 niche trends

For betting marketers it is now necessary to keep up to date with local events in any chosen region to optimise market share. As Vasilii Gamov, CMO of RichAds says: “[You must] be aware of the most trending sporting events otherwise you’ll miss a great deal of target audience.”

Geographic regions have their sporting idiosyncrasies and not to pay attention is to lose demographic and potential revenue. As Gamov explains: “If you work with Tier 3 countries like India, make sure you promote cricket and any big events connected with it – the cricket world cup, ICC Championship Trophy, Indian Premier League and more.

“For a hyped region such as LatAm,” he continues, “you also need to be local-smart and pay attention to events like Formula 1 and the Pan-American Games in Chile [in October and November] this year.”

Betting marketers should certainly test this marketplace as the worldwide community of such games as League of Legends, CS:GO and Dota 2 is growing daily and tournaments are held each month. Good customer retention (CR) is always sought and Gamov agrees: “The greatest peculiarity of the niche is that despite the fact that the industry is young, the overall community is very strong, interested and bonded, so the odds of getting high CR are great.”

Beyond traditional sports, another trend that is slowly emerging is esports betting. This began to gain momentum at the outset of Covid-19 and shows no signs of slowing down. According to data by Absolute Reports, the global esports betting market in 2022 was valued at US$671.78m and is forecast to grow by 26.16% over the next five years, reaching US$2.71bn by 2028.

Beyond traditional sports betting is the rise of cryptocurrency. Gamov notes: “This simplifies the process for bettors and protects their anonymity and reduces security issues, so it’s better to find operators who do have this option already.”

Another key observation made by Gamov is the recent emergence of artificial Intelligence (AI) in betting. “Many operators now offer automatically placed bets that react to a specific action in a game,” he explains. “Then they either raise or lower the bets depending on it.”

Scaling up

“When it comes to the best countries in which to launch betting offers, there’s no single definitive answer – everything depends on your expertise,” Gamov explains. “For sure, the safest options in terms of legalisation, volumes and profit are Tier 1 countries such as the USA, Canada and Australia.”

To venture into Tier 1 countries a marketer will need deep pockets and extensive knowledge though. “If I were to choose just one Tier 1 region for betting,” says Gamov, “it would certainly be the US. If we talk stats at RichAds, the volumes are huge – it’s 50 million impressions daily.”

The US is also the country with the greatest niche potential. According to H2 Gambling Capital, revenue in North America is expected to grow by 86% to 2028.

Obviously, not all affiliates can initially afford the big outlay necessary to be a player in Tier 1, so it is worth considering starting off in Tier 2 and Tier 3 regions. After all, the betting landscape can vary significantly from one country to another due to differences in regulations, cultural attitudes towards gambling and the availability of local operators.

Asia-Pacific dominated the global betting market in 2021 and only continues to grow. Countries such as India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand and the Philippines are at the top of the most asked-for regions on RichAds’ monthly reports.

Gamov explains the reason behind this: “Both competition and the cost of such ads in Tier 3 are low. The markets are not crowded yet while opportunities for affiliates are promising. To be even more precise, the Asia-Pacific betting market is expected to reach $118bn by 2030, according to the Data Bridge Market report.”

Why are push ads so effective for betting?

Plenty of marketers are used to promoting betting via search engine optimisation (SEO), app store optimisation (ASO) and social media, but there are easier channels that have fewer (and less strict) restrictions. Those traffic sources, according to Gamov, include “pops, direct click and, most importantly, push ads”.

“The push ads format is the oldest and most successful at RichAds,” Gamov explains. “The profit that marketers can gain is notable and there are a number of reasons to use it.”

The key efficiencies of push notifications for gambling can be “explained by their simplicity”, although there are many reasons why they work so well. Some of these are as follows:

· Absence of restrictions When it comes to Facebook and Google ads, there are certain rules that limit marketers in terms of content usage, but for push ads those limits don’t exist, which means any picture or text can be used in creative.

· Affordability The cost of advertising depends on the country, naturally. Although the minimum price at RichAds starts from $0.003 per click, this applies mostly for Tier 3 countries: perfect for getting started and not requiring huge budgets, while leaving room for a campaign to scale. Push ads can be cost-effective compared to other advertising methods – with good targeting and messaging, marketers can reach a highly relevant audience without wastage.

· Easy to set up To start a push campaign an affiliate simply needs to make creative and choose the most basic settings. In the case of RichAds, all new users have the opportunity to run an automated campaign on Performance Mode, which is the algorithm that optimises the source without undue effort.

· Engaged audience Users who have opted to receive push notifications are likely to be more engaged and interested in the content being delivered. Betting marketers can leverage push ads to deliver timely and contextually relevant messages. This increased engagement can translate into higher click-through rates and conversions.

Four steps to mastering push notifications

There are a few steps to take to master betting ads promotion with the help of push ads. “Four things are the bedrock of a successful campaign,” clarifies Gamov. “They are: making the right creative; choosing the optimal working settings; choosing the optimal sources for conversion; and performing the optimisation process.”

Step 1 – Making the right creative
Creative needs to be made in advance taking into account regional peculiarities and, of course, upcoming sporting events in the target location (or worldwide, if appropriate). Professionalism matters too so make sure there are no spelling or lexicographic mistakes in the text.

Gamov notes that “there are several universal approaches that can be adapted to any push campaign in terms of a betting vertical” though.

These universal approaches have three main pillars. Firstly, designing a guessing-game creative is the best idea when it comes to event betting campaigns. To intrigue the user and motivate them to place bets, comparing and contrasting famous players from opposite teams with a “who wins” teaser is guaranteed to generate user interest.

Secondly, to attract new players, Gamov recommends using bonuses and other discounts. You must make sure to be honest with your audience, though, as sincerity is critical to retain new audience share – false promises and unrealistically large bonuses will only push people away.

Thirdly, remember that urgency always sells. The key to this lies in phraseology. Calls to action such as “Last chance to win” or ‘Grab your World Cup bonus TODAY” will encourage the user to feel the exclusivity of your offer and facilitate the strongest desire to grab the opportunity at the earliest possible moment.

Don’t forget though that bettors are more loyal to one brand than gamblers and, thus, can be harder to attract. Making creative as bright and eye-catching as possible cuts through and optimises appeal.

Step 2 – Applying the right settings
It is better to set the frequency cap for a user to see your campaign up to two or three times a day. Normally, it would be set to a single day, but in terms of upcoming events – the more times it is seen the better.

Another crucial point is to create two campaigns – one for new subscribers and another for the existing base. Doing this will double the efficiency, as you will cover two user bases at once – those who subscribed via push notifications within the week and then the ordinary user group who you must not forget.

Step 3 – Choose optimal sources for conversion
This is one of the most vital things to do in any campaign, as the result depends directly on the traffic sources you apply.

Gamov explains: “At RichAds we have divided the groups of sources into four categories depending on price and efficiency – Premium, Standard, Remnant and New. The most efficient one is Premium group, which is the best to start with, as all the sources are pre-selected and have been tested to bring the highest CR. The other groups are perfect for scaling and increasing your volumes.”

One more suggestion is to ask for a white list from a manager specifically for your region and offer. With a post-back set up, you will be able to analyse the campaign in detail and the metrics will highlight which sources are working best.

Step 4 – Optimisation and analysis
Any optimisation can be divided into two categories – manual and automated. With the application of AI features combined with a manual check-up any betting campaign can get a skyrocketing return on investment.

Gamov suggests that you get at least ten conversion prices to gather enough data for optimisation. Without this data, he says, sanguinely, “the test won’t be informative”. RichAds have a few tools to assist any marketer to automate the process. These are: · Optimizer An interface that includes all the metrics for a campaign analysis enabling all stats on the OS, devices and sources of a campaign to be evaluated without constant rechecking with a tracker. It is easy to turn off inefficient sources with a single click while you can reactivate old ones quickly.

· Performance Mode An algorithm that covers the basics when it comes to automated optimisation, creating blacklists and whitelists to enable exact targeting to boost results. With this mode an affiliate can focus elsewhere, not even needing a tracker, knowing that the algorithm will take care of everything, thereby potentially boosting customer retention by up to 250%.

· Target cost per action (CPA) Similar to Performance Mode, this algorithm however does require a tracker which can be adjusted to your desired cost per conversion. Helping to reduce costs and maximise profits with minimal effort, this algorithm creates blacklists and whitelists automatically along with Micro-bidding.

It is important to note that push ads must be used responsibly and not overused as they can quickly become annoying to users if sent too frequently or without relevance. Striking a balance between delivering valuable content and avoiding excessive messaging is essential to maintaining a positive user experience.

The effectiveness of push ads depends on various factors, including the quality of the content, the targeting capabilities of the platform used and the willingness of users to receive such notifications.

Being named the best igaming traffic source of the year for 2022 in the SiGMA Europe Awards, the RichAds network continues to share its extensive expertise in gambling and betting niches via its blog and YouTube channel as well as on the traffic formats it offers — push, pops, in-page push and direct click ads.

As Gamov concludes: “Hopefully, you have a full understanding of working with push ads and gaining profit. Boosting your revenue is easy with RichAds’ assistance – managers are always ready to provide you with ready-to-go whitelists and customised creatives.”

RichAds is where scale meets performance.