"Marketing, much like a game of roulette, often feels like a gamble – you place your bet and hope for a win when the ball settles," said Softswiss Chief Marketing Officer Valentina Bagniya. "Why this comparison? In an environment where data reliability is limited and uncertainty is constant, marketers must draw on a combination of their experience, past performance, intuition, research and other insights with a goal of achieving a successful result.
"In today’s fast-evolving landscape, success requires using reliable research, predictive models, scenario planning and evaluating their probability. But the true challenge for iGaming marketers lies in managing intangible expectations, adapting strategies to context shifts, thinking outside the box, embracing greater creativity and learning new skills of being comfortable with constant changes and uncertainty." Below, Softswiss examines just a few methods of marketing success.
Influencer collaboration
The principle ‘people buy from people’ is relevant for both B2C and B2B segments. It found its way into the iGaming sector as a growing tendency towards influencer marketing, notwithstanding the unique challenges presented by the industry's regulatory environment and the sensitivities surrounding online gambling.
How can iGaming brands collaborate with influencers? The possibilities are as broad as one’s creativity and as permissible as the law allows. Traditional collaborative efforts include:
- Live streams where influencers play on the brand's gaming platforms.
- Exclusive bonuses and promotional codes are offered to the influencer's audience.
- Giveaways featuring prizes and branded merchandise, and many more.
Beyond the realm of gaming-specific streamers, the iGaming industry can also leverage the influence of different types of influencers.
The success of influencer partnerships in iGaming hinges on multiple factors. It’s not just about the brand's or influencer’s popularity – it’s about aligning values, leveraging the right opportunities, selecting the best platform and creating content that resonates with the audience. When these elements come together, influencer campaigns can become a standout feature in a brand’s marketing strategy.
TikTok and Snapchat are making cautious moves into the gambling advertising space. TikTok recently trialled ads with Sportsbet, aiming to reach a younger, more diverse audience, including women, with age-restricted and closely monitored content. Snapchat, through a collaboration with Sportradar, offers tailored gambling ads using advanced AI technology to target legal betting audiences based on age and location data, tapping into its predominantly younger male user base.
These evolving movements shed light on a key point: The iGaming industry is steadily evolving in the mainstream consciousness. This progressive integration signifies not just resilience but a strategic evolution, ensuring that iGaming brands remain visible in a competitive digital landscape.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is often hailed as the cornerstone of lead generation within the iGaming industry, a tried and true strategy that has proven its worth time and again. It serves as a multipurpose tool for businesses to achieve several objectives simultaneously:
- Accelerate player acquisition
- Market new offerings and incentives
- Penetrate emerging markets
- Enhance brand visibility
Despite its merits, there are hurdles that can diminish the efficacy of affiliate marketing, which both operators and affiliates must navigate:
Regulatory compliance: The iGaming sector is subject to stringent regulations, necessitating strict adherence to all relevant laws and standards by brands and affiliates.
Timely payments: Delays in compensating affiliates can sour relationships, jeopardising the brand's reputation in a limited affiliate market.
Fraud prevention: The risk of fraudulent activities is an ongoing concern in iGaming, calling for vigilant measures to prevent such occurrences.
The overarching trend in affiliate marketing shifts the focus squarely onto the player, where each individual becomes a potential affiliate, creating a virtuous cycle of referrals and rewards. This player-centric approach aligns perfectly with the recent unpredictable shifts in search engine algorithms, securing a stable and self-perpetuating growth trajectory for iGaming businesses.
SEO promotion
In addition to affiliate marketing, SEO proves to be a powerful tool. Surveys show that SEO delivers the highest return on investment among digital marketing activities, exceeding 29%. Promoting gaming brands comes with many restrictions, but leveraging a strong SEO strategy can significantly boost a casino website's visibility on search engines.
SEO ensures long-term growth by reducing reliance on paid advertising. Correct website optimisation improves search engine visibility. SEO is also about organic traffic growth as an element of the entire marketing strategy. Attracting traffic to a poorly optimised, unfriendly website can turn into a waste of budget.
A firm SEO basis improves the efficiency of the overall marketing effort. It also increases user trust and makes the site more accessible and user-friendly. This attracts new players and increases conversions, which is key to sustained success in the highly competitive iGaming industry.
Key steps when reviewing SEO strategy:
- Keyword check: Localise keywords to match the target audience’s language. Long-tail keywords are more likely to convert.
- On-page SEO: Optimise and structure content for both search engines and users, ensuring a user-friendly site.
- Off-page SEO: Build credibility through collaborations with review portals, affiliates and influencers, while earning quality backlinks for better rankings.
- Technical SEO: Focus on site speed, interactivity and stability for both better Google rankings and a positive user experience.
- Constant optimisation: Continuously review and improve all SEO efforts for ongoing success.
To provide operators with valuable SEO insights, Softswiss researched best practices and surveyed the company's SEO professionals. The result is an ebook focused on online casino SEO optimisation, containing a set of checklists and 'to-do' lists for conducting SEO audits, as well as proven tips for improvement.
