How to Identify and Recover Blocked iGaming Traffic
Traffic acquisition continues to be one of the largest investments made within the iGaming industry. Whether from organic channels or paid media and partnerships, there is always the goal of acquiring as much traffic as possible. However, not all of that traffic can successfully make it to the registration pages of an operator.
A significant percentage of traffic in the industry is often blocked before it can even reach those registration pages. For those who create traffic, such as affiliates and publishers, as well as for those who receive it, such as iGaming site operators, this is revenue that could have otherwise been earned. However, recognizing when this blocked traffic occurs and recovering it can lead to additional revenue for those businesses.
What Is Blocked Traffic?
Blocked traffic is traffic that prevents individuals from accessing the various offers, landing pages, registration pages, and gaming platforms within an organization.
While many consider traffic with low quality to be blocked, the traffic that is blocked usually originates from individuals that are interested in registering and adding funds to their accounts but are prevented from doing so.
Some of the most common reasons that individuals are blocked from accessing content within a company are their geographic location, the rules of that geo-targeting, registration checks, the operator restrictions, or any technical errors in the routing of that traffic to the content.
Why Blocked Traffic Is a Problem in the Industry?
The industry within which all of these companies exist is becoming more fragmented every year.
Operators have specific licenses and regulations that they must adhere to in order to maintain those licenses. These can include:
Regional licensing requirements
Market-specific regulations
Responsible gambling rules
KYC (know your customer) verification requirements
Payment restrictions
As a result, not all traffic can be accepted by these iGaming operators. Yet, for those who purchase and create that traffic, it can be challenging to see the outcomes of that effort when the traffic is rejected by the operator.
The more specific markets that are targeted, the more likely these issues with blocked traffic are to occur within their traffic acquisition channels.
The Hidden Cost of Traffic That Is Lost
Furthermore, as with many reporting software programs, the blocked traffic is often not seen or accounted for in these reports.
Despite the traffic being purchased and generated, the clicks may be excellent, the engagement on their websites may be high, and the number of visitors may be strong. However, the ability for users to register or convert may fail to meet expectations.
Some of the most common reasons for such dropped rates and conversion failures are due to the loss of traffic that occurs after the user clicks on the advertisement.
For instance, suppose the affiliate generates 50,000 clicks for a specific brand. In that case, 20% of those clicks may originate from individuals from restricted countries. Another 10% may be blocked at registration, and another 5% may be rejected by the operator’s compliance software. In this scenario, 65% of the users from that traffic campaign could be blocked, lost revenue, and unable to complete their registrations.
Common Sources of Blocked Traffic
Geographic Restrictions
One of the most common reasons for blocked traffic is geographic restrictions. iGaming operators can only accept traffic from specific jurisdictions. Therefore, users from restricted countries will be unable to register or access the platforms that these companies offer.
Licensing Limitations
Furthermore, some brands may only offer licenses in specific regions of the country. For instance, an operator that licenses itself as a sportsbook in region A may not be permitted to accept players from another region of the country.
Compliance Verification
All companies are required to follow specific regulations to accept players. These can range from age verification software to identity verification to the reasons why a user may be blocked from certain offers within a company.
Payment Limitations
An individual may also be blocked from adding funds to their account if their selected payment methods are not offered by the company or are not accepted in their country.
Technical Errors
Furthermore, there can be an issue with the technology that is used to route the traffic to the offers from the brand. Whether it is a redirect issue, a tracking issue, a server issue, or a landing page issue, these errors can create revenue loss for the brands.
How to Detect Blocked Traffic?
To detect blocked traffic, a business must monitor where traffic is being blocked.
Comparing clicks to the number of registrations can show whether there is a significant loss of potential players. This can help indicate whether traffic is being lost somewhere within the funnel.
Analyzing the geographic locations of the traffic that is generated can reveal the number of blocked players from specific regions. These can be prevented through proper geo-targeting of traffic.
Many companies provide reports about the number of players that are rejected from registration. Monitoring these reports can allow a company to recognize the reasons for blocked traffic.
Furthermore, the landing pages where traffic is funneled can be audited to ensure that there are no technical issues preventing potential new players from registering.
Strategies for Recovering Blocked Traffic
Once recognized, there are specific strategies to recover that blocked traffic.
Implementing smart traffic routing software will allow individuals to be automatically redirected to another operator or brand if they are restricted by the one that they attempted to register on.
Expanding the number of operators with which you work will increase the number of opportunities for traffic to be monetized.
Improving the geo-targeting that is used to purchase traffic will ensure that traffic from restricted countries cannot even click on the advertisements for these brands.
Optimizing the compliance systems that are used to verify new players will ensure that fewer players are rejected during this process.
Furthermore, the payment methods that are accepted by a brand can be improved to ensure that players from specific countries or with specific financial situations are not blocked from adding funds to their accounts.
The Role of Technology in RecoverING Blocked Traffic
Automation software is becoming prevalent in the industry to automatically monitor and recover blocked traffic.
These technologies can detect when traffic is eligible to join an operator account. Following this scan, the software will automatically match them with a brand that will accept them and automatically redirect them to that brand registration platform to claim their prizes.
Such automation will greatly increase the ability to recover the revenue that would have been lost to the blocked traffic.
Future Trends in RecoverING Blocked Traffic
Artificial intelligence will allow software to detect when an individual is eligible to join an account and allow them to be automatically redirected to an operator that will accept them.
Furthermore, in the future, the software will be able to validate these accounts and their eligibility to participate in specific games before they even enter the registration portion of the website for those brands.
Finally, traffic monetization platforms will be able to automatically adjust and improve the matching of potential players with eligible brands without human intervention.
Final Thoughts
Blocked traffic is one of the most common and hidden challenges for companies in the industry. Each of these blocked players represents revenue that never reached the iGaming brand, the affiliate, or the publisher that provided that traffic.
By finding ways to reduce blocked traffic, such as by improving the geo-targeting of traffic acquisition channels, implementing smart traffic routing software, or even finding ways to expand the number of brands with whom traffic is shared and monetized, each company can gain a significant amount of additional revenue. As the regulations of the industry continue to grow and change, finding ways to manage blocked traffic will continue to be of great importance to the growth of each company’s traffic in the industry.