Industry

iGaming

Sportsbooks, casinos and affiliate networks: three segments with different regulations, different platforms and different launch timelines. They share one thing — without an operator licence most ad channels are closed, and that shapes the media plan before the budget does.

Segments

Who we buy for and what

Sportsbooks

Sports betting follows the event calendar: peak demand lasts days rather than months, and ad buying is planned around the fixture list. Google issues a gambling ad certificate per country, and the review period runs from one week to a month.

Segment page

Casino brands

Casino traffic is less seasonal but more creative-sensitive: a slot or roulette image is blocked by moderation on almost every platform. The viable path is an app or a content landing page with a category that bypasses the automatic filter.

Segment page

Affiliate networks

An affiliate network gathers traffic from dozens of channels and sells the operator the result. The main task is correct attribution: separating organic, paid and incentivised flows so you do not pay for what would have arrived on its own.

Segment page

Streaming and live content

Since October 2022, when Twitch shut down broadcasts of unlicensed slots, the streaming market divided: Kick took most casino content, YouTube Live kept sports betting. The platform is chosen by the product licence, not by audience size.

Segment page

Funnel

How we measure the path to deposit

Ad clickCTR 1,5–4%Format-dependent: search yields 3–4%, native 0.8–1.5%, push below one percent. An abnormally high CTR on push is a reason to audit the source, not to celebrate.

Registration3–12%From click to a completed form. Conversion is higher on Tier-1 where the audience is accustomed to online forms; lower on Tier-3 and strongly affected by the number of fields.

KYC / verification60–85%Share of registrants who confirm documents. A drop at this step is solved not by advertising but by verification speed and interface usability on the operator side.

First deposit8–25%Registration-to-first-top-up conversion. This is the campaign calculation anchor: everything above is acquisition cost, everything below is retention.

Repeat deposit30–55%Share who return with a top-up within 30 days. This number separates a source that brought players from one that brought bonus hunters.

Typical mistakes

Where budget gets lost

Mistake 01

Certification delays the launch

Google approves gambling ads country by country, tying each application to the operator licence. Review ranges from a week to a full month. Until the certificate is issued, search ads are unavailable, and the entire media plan recalculates from the approval date.

Mistake 02

Creatives blocked on content

A slot machine image, a promise of winnings or a bonus mention — each violation pulls the ad, and repeat offences lock the ad account. The longest-lived creative is one that does not show the product head-on.

Mistake 03

Affiliates hijack brand queries

The operator's own affiliates buy its brand keywords in search, and the operator pays for a click it would have received without ads. Without continuous auction monitoring this cost is hidden — in the report it looks like cheap converting traffic.

Mistake 04

Mobile inventory fraud

Click injection and click spam attribute organic installs to a paid channel. A source that costs three times less than the market is most often cheap for exactly that reason. Verified by comparing the organic share before launch and during the campaign, plus D1 and D7 retention.

Results

Anonymised launches

TurkeyTier 2 · Sportsbook

Paid Social · Telegram

$28 0005 weeks350 FTD$80.0 per FTD

Most volume came from Telegram betting channels: the audience had already deposited with competitors, and converting them proved faster than explaining the product from scratch.

Tier and price corridor

South AfricaTier 3 · Casino

In-App · Programmatic

$23 0004 weeks1 150 FTD$20.0 per FTD

Of 2,800 programmatic placements, 340 proved workable. The blacklist took ten days to build, after which the cost per deposit halved.

Country and sources

United KingdomTier 1 · Sportsbook

Google Ads · Influencer

$99 00010 weeks350 FTD$282.9 per FTD

Google UK certification took nine days. YouTube creators delivered a third of deposits on a fifth of the budget — the search tail kept working two months after publication.

Country and sources

PeruLATAM · Casino

Streaming · Native

$33 0006 weeks720 FTD$45.8 per FTD

Native placements on sports media gave the cheapest deposit; streams showed the best retention numbers. The budget was split between the two channels roughly evenly.

Country and sources

MoroccoMENA · Sportsbook

Influencer · Email

$42 0006 weeks310 FTD$135.5 per FTD

Sports bloggers with an Arabic-speaking audience delivered quality traffic. Email brought back those who abandoned registration halfway through.

Country and sources

RomaniaEurope · Casino

Display · Email

$29 0005 weeks260 FTD$111.5 per FTD

Display ran alongside an email campaign to a partner list. Each channel on its own performed worse; together they held a steady cost per action.

Country and sources

Coverage