Case Study: Is It Possible To Get Conversions In The Gambling Vertical Using Push Traffic In 2023?

[MyBid]

In recent years, push notifications have been used not only to promote whitehat offers but also for greyhat ones. There are many case studies and guides available that explain how to use push notifications for grayhat verticals especially online gambling.

Steve, an affiliate marketer who sends traffic for sweepstakes and dating offers, recently tried out an interesting experiment. He teamed up with MyBid, a fully-managed advertising network, to explore whether it's still possible to send traffic to gambling offers using push notifications in 2023.

Note: All the information shared here is with Steve's full consent.

Brief introduction
Steve's experiment lasted 19 days, from June 1 to June 19, 2023. He spent a total of $122 on the advertising campaign. He directed this budget from MyBid to the LeoVegas offer in Brazil, which paid a $20 payment for every first deposit made.

What promotional materials were used in the campaign
To make the experiment a success, Steve focused on creating the right promotional materials.
Landing Pages
The LeoVegas offer had two landing page options: one with a bonus wheel and another with a simple call to action offering up to 5,000 reals and 50 free spins. Steve decided to promote both options at the same time to see which one worked better.

Creating Eye-catching Creatives

Steve worked with a designer to create visuals that matched the LeoVegas Casino's style. He used images of gambling-related items like roulette, slots, and popular slot characters, along with bonuses. He even included logos of local online banking systems and pictures of people celebrating with Brazil's national symbols to make it relatable.

Since the offer's terms didn't allow for specifying the minimum deposit amount in the creatives, Steve used the potential bonus and free spins values to attract attention. For example, he highlighted "$5,000 + 50 FS" on some of the larger images.

Icons in push notifications
Steve experimented with different icons for push notifications, including the offer's logo and common casino symbols like sevens, slot machines, chips, cards, and roulette wheels. All these icons mimicked the appearance of an unread message notification.

Message texts
The message headlines and main content featured typical gambling calls to action, details about the potential bonus, and emojis. Importantly, the best conversion rates were achieved when the ads emphasized that LeoVegas online casino is international, based on recommendations from MyBid's manager.

The reason behind the higher conversion rates in messages that emphasize the casino's international status is that, since February 2022, gambling has been permitted in Brazil, but there are still no officially registered local casinos, whether online or offline. So, the target audience is more inclined to choose an international casino to avoid potential legal complications.
Primary settings
The affiliate provided his set of creatives to his personal manager on MyBid. He requested the launch of four different ads: one for each landing page and an additional one in the classic push and InPage push formats.

However, since this was just a test launch, the manager suggested starting only with standard push notifications, targeting mobile devices running Android 10 and later. Steve agreed with the manager’s suggestion and asked the manager to set the average cost per click at $0.0120.

To prevent the budget from being wasted on irrelevant websites right from the start, the manager created a list of approved sites that were best suited for promoting gambling offers, even during the early stages of the campaign. MyBid had already acquired most of these sites in various geos, and the quality of the traffic on these sites was regularly checked.

To make it easier to work with statistical data, Steve integrated his tracker.
How the campaign was optimized
At the start of the campaign, the push notifications were initially displayed without any restrictions or extra campaign optimization for several days. Some initial deposits came in, but it became evident that the budget was being used more effectively in the evenings. So a decision was made to only show ads from 7:00 PM until midnight, based on the local time of the targeted geo.

At the request of Steve, the affiliate manager maintained a consistent strategy throughout the campaign. He kept the bid size unchanged, made four updates to the creatives while leaving the text messages as they were, and removed sites that generated plenty of impressions and sign-ups but failed to attract deposits. Simultaneously, he compiled a list of creatives with the best Click-Through Rates (CTR) on relevant sites.

Experiment results
After making these adjustments and continually optimizing the campaign by changing creatives, Steve managed to almost break even. He received a total of 6 first deposits, which cost $125 but brought in $120 in revenue.

Encouraged by the results of this test campaign, Steve used ChatGPT to create fresh text and new creatives for the InPage push format to target a more financially capable audience, particularly iOS device users.

Conclusion
This small case study explains the fact that using push notifications for gambling in 2023 is not only possible but it could be worth it. With just a few more optimizations, this campaign would get a positive ROI.

This case study also shows that push notifications can bring positive results without requiring large advertising budgets even for campaigns targeting the gambling niche. Success in such campaigns depends largely on well-crafted creatives, the appeal of the offer itself, and the quality of traffic within the advertising network. For those lacking experience, it is advisable to opt for a fully managed ad network where a personal manager can assist with the campaigns.

[DimDom]

Thanks for sharing this case study. Good luck.