The igaming industry has failed to keep up and is stagnated with archaic customer acquisition methods
TRAFFIC & STRATEGY
their inventory to the sell-side platforms ( SSPs ) to automate the selling of their inventory . Expensive lunches were no longer needed to attract the best advertisers and generate much greater revenue from their inventory .
Despite all of the above happening some 15 years ago , the igaming industry has failed to keep up and is stagnated with archaic customer acquisition methods that have failed to adopt modern technology . SEO and PPC remain the predominant channels for FTDs outside of brand marketing , with many still using not so ‘ clever ’ display advertising networks , as the rest of the world did in the 2000s . Which is obviously expensive for advertisers and delivers sub-par performance compared to what is possible . So , what is it going to take to invoke change ?
SEO triggers
The recent Google updates are acting as a real trigger for most , with SEO rankings falling and thus traffic , affiliates and operators are forced to seek new traffic methods to supplement the decline in SEO . I ’ m sure many people reading this will be saying “ it ’ s because of the advertising restrictions ” but , unlike Google , Meta and other channels , programmatic is relatively free of any of the restrictions you encounter with such traffic sources .
Platforms like Lift offer global traffic at a huge scale across desktop , mobile web , app , native , video and even connected TV . Regulated , unregulated or even crypto are all fair game in the world of programmatic advertising , with hundreds of millions of eyeballs available to be converted into
The igaming industry has failed to keep up and is stagnated with archaic customer acquisition methods
Nick Moutter is the acting CEO of Lift new depositors . Therefore black , grey and white hat marketers are all able to leverage this technology on either a self-serve or managed basis . I have seen igaming affiliates who have been reliant on PPC and SEO for over a decade test programmatic recently and quickly decide to pivot their whole business to this new traffic source – for all of the above reasons .
Lack of evolution
So , this again begs the question , why hasn ’ t the rest of the igaming industry evolved as a whole and embraced modern technology and traffic sources ? Especially given igaming is one of the fastest growing industries in the world ? I believe this is predominantly due to a lack of education and understanding . When the oldschool networks are still so active and generating vast revenues for themselves , they really do not want to see change . However , if they do not evolve , the industry may just do so without them , which could mean they end up in the same boat as the likes of Specific Media .
I have , however , seen some less than genius methods adopted by companies to entice people into programmatic , where big budgets are secured on day one and blown in a matter of days , burning the market before it even gets started . This is the worst thing you can do when embracing this technology – it is machine learning-based and needs time to build data and optimise , without that you are simply going to waste your money . If you are going to venture down this path , you must be working with someone who is the technology
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