Launching Targeted Advertising: A Step-by-Step Guide for Casino Operators

Experts from Online Casino Market talk about the features and benefits of targeting, its main tools and channels for attracting solvent traffic.

You will explore the rules for publishing ads on Facebook, Instagram, VKontakte, and YouTube, the features of target pricing, and the principles of audience segmentation.

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Targeting Nuances for the iGaming Sphere

This type of advertising is a popular method of online casino promotion.

High efficiency is achieved due to the display of messages to an audience that is interested in gambling services. Before launching an advertising campaign, specialists segment users according to their wishes and preferences.

Target messages work both with ready demand and with its formation in a potentially involved audience. They help increase conversion rates (CR) and return on investment (ROI), as well as improve operator profits.

Offers can be placed on specialised and thematic sites. To achieve maximum results in attracting and retaining customers, it is most beneficial to use social networks, such as Telegram, VKontakte, and Instagram.

Key Audience Settings

Information about gamers is collected at all stages of their interaction with the resource:

1. At the time of registration. Full name, contact details, date and place of birth, country of residence, and marital status are taken into account.
2. In the process of interaction with the site. These are subscriptions, comments, reactions, and other types of activities that indicate a user's interest in a particular product or service.

Specialists classify gamblers according to many parameters, such as:

• demographic (sex and age);
• behavioural and social (education, income level, marital status);
• interests (clicks, deep links in mobile applications, participation in communities);
• geolocation;
• temporary (impressions are carried out at a specified time of the day);
• technical (type and brand of personal device, Internet connection speed).

Contextual targeting receives information about the audience using search queries in Google and other systems. If a client has previously been interested in gambling, the service will automatically offer a publication about new slots or profitable bonuses with inserted casino site links.

Benefits of Targeted Advertising

Let us consider the key advantages of such promotion:

Choosing a Targeted Campaign: Evaluation Criteria

Before launching advertising, an entrepreneur always determines planned performance metrics and calculates an approximate budget. During the campaign, an operator receives intermediate results, compares them with the plan and determines the level of success of the online casino targeting.

Key Media Indicators

The main metrics in the gambling industry are:

• CPM (Cost Per Mille) — the cost of displaying a group of ads (based on 1,000 demonstrations);
• number of impressions;
• quantity of clicks on the link, banner, pop-up window, etc.;
• CTR (Click Through Rate) — the effectiveness of the message, which is calculated as the ratio of the number of conversions to impressions;
• eCPC (Effective Cost Per Click) is the actual cost per click, defined as the price for displaying an ad group divided by the number of visits to the gambling site.

The higher the CTR parameter, the more effective the media works within the targeting campaign.

Low eCPC rates demonstrate the correct distribution of the advertising budget. The enterprise spends less money than it receives thanks to the attracted internet traffic.

Conversion Rate (CP)

The metric shows the percentage of players who take a targeted action after visiting a wagering portal. In the iGaming industry, this includes registration, making a starting deposit, and launching entertainment for real money. The higher the conversion rate, the more effective targeted advertising is.

Ideally, any marketing activity should lead to the desired action. First, a gamer gets acquainted with the promotional message, then goes to the gambling site and fills out the registration form.

Evaluation of Investments in Advertising

The operators use 2 efficiency parameters in the wagering sphere:

1. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend). This is the profitability of targeted impressions. It is calculated as advertising revenue divided by the ongoing costs of promoting the casino business. For the correctness of the calculation, data on income and expenses are taken for one reporting period. It is possible to calculate ROAS for a joint venture or each impression group.
2. ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment). This is the return on investment in advertising. To determine the metric, the manager divides the difference between income and expenses by the number of spendings for the reporting period. ROMI can be represented as a ratio or percentage. The higher the metric, the more effective the promotion of the online wagering project is.

Launching a Facebook Marketing Campaign

Targeted advertising on Facebook is based on the behavioural activities of gamers — both within the social network and on other platforms.

Promoting a wagering resource consists of several stages:

Creation of Targeted Advertising on Instagram

Setting up a marketing campaign is possible both within the platform and through interdependent programs on Facebook (promotion centre or Ads Manager business office).

The procedure for publishing posts through the Instagram app includes such stages:

Promotion Creation

The advertisers are offered 4 thematic formats:

• image;
• video;
• ring gallery;
• selection.

Each format can be presented in 2 placements — feed and stories. Ad impressions are also provided in the new sections of IGTV and Reels.

There are several requirements for advertisements, namely:

1. Technical specifications. The maximum upload file size is 30MB and the minimum width is 500px.
2. Suggestions for text content. The length of the title should not exceed 40 characters, body text — 125 characters. Instagram sets limits on hashtags — no more than 30 per post.
3. Design features. You can use JPG or PNG images in messages. The aspect ratio is 1:1 and the minimum resolution is 1080 x 1080.

Ads Launch

It is necessary to open a previously prepared publication and select the "Post promotion" option.

The entrepreneur will see 2 tabs alternately, where it is necessary to note:

1. A place to send internet traffic. The client can set up the involvement of gamers on the Instagram page, on a gambling site or in "Direct".
2. The goal of promotion. The task is directly related to the place of attracting online traffic. The system offers 2 options — "More visits to the site/profile" or "Sending more messages".

User Segmentation

An operator can filter and classify gamers by gender, country of residence, interests, age, and other parameters.

Many specialists activate the automatic collection of users who are as similar as possible to a given target audience. This option allows for expanding the geography of customers and attracting new solvent traffic to the iGaming site.

Setting the Duration of Displaying and Promotion Budget

Demonstration of ads can be configured for a day or several, a week, or a month. Payment is debited from the business account every 24 hours of displaying. There is no calculation for the number of clicks on Instagram.

The budget is formed based on the duration and frequency of advertising demonstrations, as well as audience segmentation.

Posting a Message

Before publishing information, it must be checked for errors. Then the user should click on the "Create promotion" icon, after which the post will appear in the desired section.

Data on audience coverage and the number of impressions and reactions of gamblers is collected in the statistics part. Operators can monitor promotion costs and, if necessary, make changes to the campaign.

Targeting Setup in VKontakte

Entrepreneurs can advertise groups or blogs, mobile casino applications, external gambling resources, and individual posts in the community. The ad format depends on the type of product being promoted.

The main stages of launching advertising on VKontakte:

Creating a Publication

In the "Advertising" section, a manager needs to tap the "Create ad" button, then select the format and fill in the required fields.

The system offers the following types of publications:

1. Entries in the news feed. These are posts with a button, carousels, claim collections and universal publications. For gambling, the first option is preferable: this advertising tool contains calls to action (“play”, “deposit account”, “go to the site”).
2. Announcements on the resource pages. The user can promote a community, a mobile casino app, or an autonomous wagering site. It is also necessary to insert a direct link to the gaming resource or a mobile application.

For each type of message, there are restrictions on the length of the title and body text, the minimum image resolution, and the use of animation inserts.

Setting the Target Audience

The program contains 20+ metrics for high-quality customer segmentation:

• basic characteristics (demography, country of residence);
• interests and user preferences;
• technical parameters of the devices used and much more.

Choosing a Payment Model and Calculating the Advertising Budget

Operators can post messages in the news feed or on the left side of the page. In the first case, payment is provided only for impressions (CPM scheme), in the second — CPM or CPC modules (tariffing for conversions to a gambling site).

It is important to set the display schedule and the price for one click or ad demonstration. The system will automatically calculate the advertising budget for a day, week, month or a specified amount of time.

An entrepreneur needs to choose a version of the social network to publish ads: mobile, desktop or both variants. It is also possible to add displays of online casino partner services.

After adjusting all the settings, the message is moderated and published in the system.

Running YouTube Video Ads

YouTube hosting has the second largest audience in the world after Google. This is a modern and dynamically developing platform with a huge selection of settings for high-quality user segmentation.

The launch of targeted advertising on the platform is done in several stages, namely:

Campaign Creation

Promotions are published through the business section of Google Ads, so an operator needs to create a personal Google account.

An entrepreneur launches a new campaign with the label "Video", gives it a name and specifies promotion goals. An operator can skip the column with tasks and mark "create a campaign without specifying a goal" on the last page.

This section also defines the total marketing budget and daily promotion spending limits.

It is necessary to determine the rate — the maximum amount that the entrepreneur is willing to pay for one view. This indicator will be considered during future auctions and, in case of victory, the operator can receive a profitable contract.

Video Format Selection

YouTube offers several types of ads. Let us consider the main ones:

1. TrueView In-Stream. Clips are displayed in the player window at the beginning, middle and end of the main video. The viewer can skip the ad after the first seconds of viewing — in this case, the funds will not be debited, provided that the advertiser has set a price per view, not a demonstration.
2. TrueView Video Discovery. The publication consists of a preview and a short text message. Advertising is displayed on the main page of the YouTube mobile version and attracts solvent traffic to the mobile casino.
3. Video screensavers. These are short 6-second clips that clients cannot skip. They are launched several times during the viewing process of the main video and are paid at a fixed rate for every 1000 impressions.

For TrueView In-Stream and TrueView Video Discovery publications, an operator should choose the maximum cost per view, and for video screensavers — the highest price per thousand demonstrations. The advertisement will be displayed on YouTube and in the contextual media network.

Audience Segmentation

Video hosting has 3 groups of settings, namely:

1. User orientation. It is possible to single out the target audience by demographic characteristics, geolocation, hobbies and interests, types of devices used, display times, and purchasing habits.
2. Remarketing. Advertisements are published for players from previously prepared target audience databases.
3. Site orientation. In the coverage area are gamers from among the visitors of thematic and partner web resources. The target audience is determined by key phrases in the text description of the pages.

Operators can additionally set up geotargeting and languages, and specify the types of devices for online traffic (mobile, desktop, or both).

Creating and Saving an Ad

A manager needs to upload a video, fill in the text fields (title, description), and specify the URL of the gambling site or mobile casino.

Then the ad is sent for moderation and after achieving the status “Approved”, it appears on YouTube.

The Main Things about Targeting for Online Casinos

Such advertising is a demanded way to promote an iGaming site.

• The advantages of the solution include high efficiency, quick optimisation for the current needs of customers, the durability of the results, and affordable cost.
• Segmentation of the audience is possible by demographic and geographic characteristics, marital status, interests, etc. Fine-tuning allows for determining the target audience as precisely as possible. Thanks to this, the ad has a good reach and quickly brings an increase in profit and decent conversion results.
• Targeting can be configured in social networks, search engines, and video hosting. The best platforms for the gambling industry are Facebook, Instagram, VKontakte and YouTube.

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To promote gambling resources, we use a set of effective tools (SEO, SMM, targeting, etc.), which help achieve the best results in attracting and retaining an audience.

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