Why Traffic Quality Should Guide Your Ad Budget
The iGaming industry continues to experience increased competition for players. Advertiser costs and the expected returns from their advertising budgets are increasing.
While many advertisers focus on one key performance metric for their advertising budgets, the best advertisers are focusing on traffic quality. By understanding which traffic sources bring in the highest rate of players who make a deposit and return to the iGaming sites, those advertisers can effectively allocate their marketing budget to maximize the number of players that will return a high return on that marketing spend.
What Is Traffic Quality?
Traffic quality evaluates the likelihood of a visitor becoming a player.
High-quality traffic will result in visitors who:
Register on the website
Make a deposit
Return to the site
Try a variety of products
Contribute to the website’s revenue
Quality can be evaluated by the outcomes of players who visit the advertiser’s websites rather than the number of visitors.
Why Volume Can Be Misleading?
A campaign with 50,000 clicks is more than five times as many clicks as a campaign with 10,000 clicks.
However, if the campaign with 10,000 clicks results in players who make a higher rate of deposits, are retained at a higher rate, and cost less to acquire, the advertiser is likely making more money from that campaign.
Advertisers should focus on the outcomes of their campaigns rather than the number of visitors.
Evaluate Acquisition Sources
The different sources of an advertiser’s traffic can vary in quality.
Advertiser should evaluate the quality of traffic from each of the following acquisition sources:
Affiliate marketing
Organic search
Paid search
Display advertising
Social media
Email campaigns
Budget should be allocated toward those acquiring sources that provide the highest quality of players for the cost.
Measure Beyond Registrations
The registration of a player is only one stage of the player journey for an advertiser.
An advertiser should track the number of players who:
Make their first deposit
Are retained by the advertiser
Contribute to the website’s revenue
These metrics will provide a more complete evaluation of traffic quality.
Analyze Geographic Performance
The quality of traffic from different geographical locations may vary.
An advertiser should track the quality of traffic from:
Each country
Each province or state
Each language grouping
Each device type
This may allow for adjustments in budgeting for certain markets over others.
Build Strong Affiliate Relationships
Affiliate publishers are one of the most important channels for acquiring players for most advertisers.
Instead of rewarding publishers for the number of clicks their websites receive, advertisers should reward them for the quality of the players they acquire.
Measure the quality of the traffic from each affiliate publisher by tracking the number of players who:
Make their first deposit
Are retained by the advertiser
Contribute to the website’s revenue
Reducing Wasted Traffic
Not all traffic brings players who make deposits or contribute to revenue.
Advertisers should monitor their campaigns for wasted traffic consisting of:
Bot traffic
Invalid clicks
Duplicate registrations
Players from markets not supported by the website
Players from low-intent audiences
Eliminating this type of traffic can increase the quality of an advertiser’s traffic.
Improve Landing Page Relevance
The quality of traffic can decline if not managed properly after players click on an advertisement.
Ad creators can create landing pages that contain offers that are relevant to the advertisements and features that each advertiser promotes, such as:
Bonus offers
Messaging
Mobile optimization
Loading speeds
Registration features
A better click-through experience will increase the number of players who register and contribute to revenue.
Personalize Campaigns
The best way to increase traffic quality is to recognize that different advertisements will work better for different segments of players.
Advertisements should be personalized according to each visitor’s:
Location
Device
Products of interest
Previous interactions with the advertiser
Personalization will improve both the number and quality of visitors who join an advertiser’s website.
Optimize Budget Allocation
Advertisers should not allocate their marketing budget to just one type of campaign.
Instead, by reviewing the performance of each campaign, advertisers can adjust their budgets to focus on the campaigns that bring in the most players with the highest quality and revenue contributions.
Monitor Campaigns in Real Time
Artificial intelligence tools can monitor the performance of an advertiser’s campaigns in real time.
Ad campaign dashboards should include the number of:
Conversions
Traffic quality measures
Geographic performance
Acquisitions
Revenue generated
Advertisers can respond to real-time campaign data and adjust the campaigns immediately.
AI Is Improving Traffic Evaluation
Artificial intelligence programs can monitor and evaluate the performance of an advertiser’s traffic automatically.
Ad campaigns that use artificial intelligence may use software to:
Analyze player quality
Identify fraudulent traffic
Adjust advertising budgets
Find new high-value audiences
Forecast performance metrics
Artificial intelligence tools will allow advertisers to focus their budgets on the best strategies.
Common Strategy Mistakes
Many advertisers make common mistakes that reduce their profitability.
Common mistakes include focusing on:
The number of campaign clicks instead of revenue
Player retention
Traffic volume
Geographic player performance
Generic advertising campaigns
Traffic quality monitoring
Correcting these issues will increase advertiser profitability.
Best Practices
There are several best practices for advertisers to follow to ensure the quality of the traffic they acquire for their sites.
Advisory strategies include a focus on:
Evaluating different traffic sources
Customer lifetime value
Monitoring deposit trends
Website landing pages
Audiences segmentation
Affiliate quality
Invalid traffic elimination
Budget optimization
Following these suggestions will improve advertisers’ profitability from their traffic and campaigns.
Looking Ahead
The future of advertiser strategies will focus on player quality over volume.
Artificial intelligence will allow advertisers to improve their strategies through:
AI targeting improvements
Better lifetime value software
Real-time fraud detection
Automated budget strategies
Personalized advertising campaigns
These strategies will help advertisers compete in the growing iGaming market.
Final Thoughts
For the best results, advertisers should never consider all traffic to be the same in value.
Instead, focusing on the quality of traffic and the acquisition of high-quality players will produce more profitable results than acquiring a large number of players of low quality.
By focusing on the quality of traffic that is acquired, the channels from which players are acquired, the quality of the advertiser’s affiliates, and by using software to manage and adjust advertising campaigns according to profitability, advertisers can create a more efficient marketing department and a stronger base of players for their iGaming sites. In an increasingly competitive market for players, advertisers should focus on player quality, not quantity.