Third Party Reports Blueclaw World Cup PPC Research Paper | Page 13

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Major Operators - All-out Acquisition or Laser
Targeting?
A
s was seen in 2014, the majority of volume
exists on brand searches and head terms. We
can see that “World Cup Odds” has seen much
more interest than “England Odds”.
With that in mind , not all of the big players are
showing on all these keywords. The competition on
such a finite number of head terms is massive and the
rise in click cost and other factors is enough for even
some of the largest companies to think twice.
We’re seeing a few companies repeatedly showing
in the SERP, whereas some of the others seem to be
taking more of a strategic approach.
As we outline throughout this paper, PPC should be a
highly strategic marketing channel, focused around
profitable player acquisition and ROI. That means a
lot of the clever people at major operators are opting
not to get involved in a bitter battle to the death that
wastes money through inflated bids.
Click cost remains on the up in line with competition
but while some of the biggest operators are slugging it
out, some are being hardly shown. The PPC landscape
- and your opportunity within it during major
tournaments - comes down to the internal bidding
strategies of some of the big names.
The search engine results page snapshot above shows
a mix of approaches on these head terms. Some of the
main betting market players are being selective when
it comes to copy, using generic messaging.
In the case of Bet365 they appear to run with a similar
message across most of their searches, suggesting
they are perhaps focusing more on coverage; they
likely have a large budget behind them for World Cup
activity and have made the tournament a core
strategic focus aimed at getting serious numbers of
new players.
Others like Coral and Ladbrokes are using more
dynamic, tailored and time-sensitive ads and
messaging more in line with what was seen in 2014.
It’s clear from the ads that have been in rotation so far
that some betting firms have taken a decision not to
run AdWords campaigns at all, while others are only
choosing to only spend on paid ads around the higher
volume periods and on some of the lower volume
keywords.
World Cup PPC Strategies
Blueclaw Report 2018