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You can often find heated debates on the web about whether using push notifications for gambling offers is a good idea. Some people argue that sending push notifications to online casinos doesn't work, while others exclusively use push notifications to promote gambling offers through traffic from advertising networks. They prefer the push format because it's affordable, reaches a wide audience, and helps them easily make their campaigns profitable.
One of the affiliates who promotes gambling offers through the fully-managed advertising network MyBid recently conducted an experiment that proves it's entirely possible to generate profits in gambling campaigns using only push notifications. Below is a case study that affiliate Alex shared with us.
Campaign period: 01.06.2023 - 19.06.2023
Campaign budget: $122
Advertising network: MyBid (fully-managed format)
Offer: LeoVegas (CPA)
Payout for First Deposit: $20
Geo: Brazil
ROI (at optimization stage): -18.03%
Offer and geo
Since push notifications are characterized by the presence of large volumes of traffic, for the experiment, the affiliate chose an offer with a simple registration form and a well-known brand in the Brazil geo, where the male population is 108 million people and the online banking system is well-developed.
The offer includes two landing pages:
- One with a call to win up to 5,000 reais and 50 FS
- Another two free spins of the wheel of fortune
Alex launched the two landing pages at once, and the landing page with the wheel turned out to be the most converting one.
Creatives
The creatives were totally adapted to the Brazilian market, and they included the colors and style of the offer page.
The ad creative used standard gambling approaches with large pictures, but unlike sources like Facebook and Google, it directly informed the audience that clicking the link would take them to a real online casino site, where they can play slots, roulette, and more.
The main focus of the text placed on the big pictures was the possibility of winning RS 5,000 + 50 free spins in slots after spinning the bonus wheel, registering, and making a deposit. To avoid misleading users, some of the creatives were edited based on the recommendations of MyBid network manager. Alex removed information about the minimum deposit amount from creatives and added some fresh creatives.
Below are 8 of the 14 creatives he used:
The headlines and body of the ad creatives were centered around three key aspects: free bonuses, the international credibility of the casino (brand credibility), and the limited-time offer. He also used emojis to draw more attention.
Icons show one unread message. The core of the images features symbols that instantly trigger a direct connection with gambling. He also used multiple versions of the offer's logo.
Here are some top options with the best conversion rates:
Advertising campaign and its optimization
Initially, the affiliate had a plan to target both classic push notifications and InPage Push to reach not only Android users but also tap into a more affluent audience, including Apple device owners. However, during the testing phase, to avoid rapidly depleting the budget, the manager at MyBid advised evaluating the offer and the geo targeting. As a result, they decided to stick with the tried-and-true classic push notifications approach, placing a competitive bid of $0.0120 in the RTB auction and focusing on Android 10+ devices.
At the affiliate's request, prior to launching the advertising campaign, the manager put together a whitelist of sites that showed the best results in the gambling industry throughout the week. Creating such lists can be made simpler and faster since 90% of the premium sites, including the top-tier ones, are owned by the advertising network itself rather than third-party publishers.
During the initial days, the ads were displayed to users 24/7, and they brought in some FDs (First Deposit conversions). However, on the fourth day, after updating the creatives, the affiliate's campaign was only active from 5:00 PM to 12:00 AM local time. They also took a few days' break in the campaign to prevent audience burnout.
As a result, the advertising campaign remained active for two weeks out of the 19-day period. The manager stuck with the same rate as requested by Alex. From June 15 to 19, the affiliate decided to tweak his tactics by adding a PWA application to the campaign.
However, there were some issues with the PWA service, leading to a temporary downturn in the affiliate's statistics on those days. Nevertheless, they still managed to achieve another FD.
During the entire campaign, the MyBid manager expertly managed Alex's campaign and removed 2 to 5 sites that generated the fewest clicks and conversions. Additionally, he added new creatives for the affiliate three times and removed the ad creatives with the lowest Click-Through Rate (CTR) from the campaign.
As a result, throughout the campaign, Alex received 5 deposits totaling $100.
Afterward, Alex gathered a bunch of fresh creatives, focusing on the style of those that had the highest CTR, and decided to increase the bid in the auction. He also started using the InPage Push notifications format to get more traffic for the campaign.
Conclusion
Even though the affiliate decided to keep the creatives and results of the campaign private after the changes, judging from this small case study, one could argue that using push notifications to promote gambling offers is currently effective, and will remain effective moving forward.
In a lot of ways, the outcome relies on picking the right geo and offer, localizing the creatives to match the preferences of the local target audience, and keeping the texts, icons, and main images up-to-date. Also, following the advice from affiliate program managers and advertising networks will reduce the chances of blowing your ad budget and assist you in creating a successful campaign.
