The single biggest mistake PPC managers make when managing PPC across online casino and sports betting campaigns is only focusing on First time depositors. Especially for sports betting but also for online casino PPC campaigns all FTDs are not equal.
The massive swing in individual customer value must be factored into how you manage campaigns. As a result, it is essential to go beyond the first deposit and into more detailed customer segmentation.
This will help drive your overall igaming marketing performance.
Import from Clicks
Approach to Optimising Player Value from Paid Search (Google Ads)
There are three key elements in successful PPC management for both igaming and online sports betting. These are:
- Identifying negative conversions – such as bonus abuse, self excludes, non-profitable customers
- Identifying VIPs
- Identifying who has played through the free bonus and continues to play/bet with real money
This can only be achieved by assessing player activity and analysing your player database. Ideally you should be able to attribute an estimated player lifetime value to each player.
Once you have done this the next step is to assess likely retention and additional promo costs.
Essentially, you want to map revenues and costs across the full duration of a players lifecycle using discount rates to calculate the Net Present Value of a player.
This can be leveraged across multiple bidding methods and campaigns depending on your specific goals. You can set a target CPA or a target ROAS (based on aggregated NPV) etc.
How to Include Player Analysis on Google Ads
There are three approaches but, they are the same. You can upload manually or use an API or refer to a Google sheet at a preset schedule. We recommend starting manually before looking at using the API or Google Sheet.
How to Tag Your Conversions on the Offline Conversion Sheet
You can set this up in a manner that matches your CRM approach. For example, use your VIP tiers and whenever a customer reaches a new tier flag this as a conversion. If you are confident in your predictive analysis, you may also add the Net Present Value (NPV) of your expected Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and use this as an anchor metric for automated bidding.
Negative Conversions – Essential in Sports Betting and iGaming
This is a core element in the success of your PPC strategy in the space. Including self-excluded customers and customers who have failed AML and KYC checks is important. On top of this trading categories can be imported including bet factored customers.
This will help optimise towards longer term lifetime value and avoid as much as possible customers who may lean toward self-exclusion. As responsible gambling should be a primary focus of your acquisition campaigns you should do all you can to identify keywords/time of day etc. that attracts a higher percentage of self-excluded customers and apply budget elsewhere.
The Key Approach to Managing Paid Search for Betting and iGaming
As we know all customers are not the same. Paid search is a VIP collection operation where a small number of customers contribute the vast majority of the revenue. As a result, your budgets and timeframe of analysis must be large enough for you to find these VIPs.
Quite often they may only be acquired once per quarter. As a result, monthly analysis of paid search ROI is for optics only. However, using micro indicators of how campaigns and keywords are performing is key to maintaining position on the terms a VIP is more likely to come through on.
Put it this way, you will lose money on your median number for CLV but make money on your mean CLV number as VIPs skew this upward.
Avoiding “bad” customers is probably the most important element of PPC management. This will shut down keywords that may be performing well from a CPA standpoint but do not have the customer indicators to show that medium or high value customers are part of that cohort.
Essentially, with Paid Search in the betting and igaming space you are a trapper and not a hunter. Having multiple conversions can help you focus on the areas where you are more likely to trap a quality customer while avoiding places where unwanted customers will be caught.
Conclusion
There are multiple criteria that can be flagged at the initial stages of a customer’s lifetime which are proxies for potential CLV. Reducing bonus abusing customers, fake accounts, AML and KYC rejected as well as reducing self-excluded is essential for the successful manager of a Paid Search campaign in this space. As a result, if you can leverage multiple early-stage conversions to refine campaigns you will be in a good position to drive ROI on your Paid Search campaigns.
