What to bet on in iGaming marketing in 2024: 3 great tools to use

Are you interested in discovering what technologies and strategies will shape the future of marketing in the iGaming industry? Martin Calvert, Marketing Director at ICS-digital and ICS-translate, shared insights on current trends. In this interview, you'll learn unique strategies that will help marketers stay competitive and successfully engage with their target audiences in 2024.

Read till the end to find out how a focus on SEO, content and PR can help iGaming brands attract and retain audiences in the context of rigorous regulations and increasing competition. Don't miss unique insights on how personalization and mobile marketing are changing the gambling industry today.

SLOTEGRATOR: Can you elaborate on the current trends in iGaming marketing as we move into 2024? How has the landscape evolved compared to previous years?

MARTIN CALVERT: From an SEO perspective, there’s been a lot of attention on the most recent Google algorithm updates, which will be causing stress for iGaming brands from March to May at least.

While there are always winners and losers when this happens, these updates, which are focused on site quality and what Google calls “Helpful Content,” are going to present challenges for gambling brands who traditionally might not have focused on these areas as much as others.

More generally, newly regulated and regulating markets will continue to be interesting battlegrounds not just for SEO and content, but also areas like PR, advertising and more. The biggest trend here will be towards brands measuring the effectiveness of their marketing more closely – many brands have learned from expensive mistakes in the USA and Canada, for example.

S: In your opinion, what are the top three tools or strategies that iGaming marketers should prioritize in 2024 to stay competitive and effectively reach their target audience?

MC: Information is power. I’d make full use of mainstream tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush to learn more about competitor strategies for SEO to develop ideas about where to focus – and where not to.

Definitely, keeping up to date with earning calls and industry news can give a financial perspective on whose strategies are paying off.

Finally, paying attention to your own data and learning lessons or changing your strategy when needed is key.

Putting all of this together can minimise risks while creating a great platform for opportunities. From there, it’s a matter of brands getting closer to customers and understanding their needs and how they search, as well as, where possible, differentiating themselves against competitors.

S: With the increasing regulations and scrutiny surrounding iGaming advertising, how can marketers navigate these challenges while still effectively promoting their brands?

MC: This is another area where knowledge is key – while the largest brands might be able to cope with a multi-million euro fine, that’s not the case for newer operators. Affiliates also need to understand where they stand legally in different jurisdictions.

The goal should be to focus on consistency and scale – not short-term methods that open your company up to risk.

In this sense, some very traditional forms of marketing can have a real benefit – creative PR that builds your brand, organic SEO strategies that connect audiences to the answers they actively want, and content that makes lives easier rather than more confusing.

Often, the more complex or “black hat” the marketing strategy, the worse the ROI is – especially when taking the risks into account. Keep things simple, sustainable, and scalable.

If you’re not able to compete based on quality of product, customer experience, and innovation, it’s always going to be a hard road.

S: Personalization has become a significant trend in marketing across various industries. How can iGaming marketers leverage personalization to enhance user experience and drive engagement?

MC: The main way to use personalisation is through use of first-party data — i.e., data about your customers that they’ve provided.

That can include personalised offers and messaging over email and CRM campaigns based on their interests, or more subtle differences to their product experience – sending information about new games to a dedicated sports fan can get tiring after a while.

That said, too much personalisation is a bad thing if customers start to feel like they’re being marketed too frequently, with too much data.

The goal should always be what helps the customer – as seamlessly as possible. Any marketing method where customers consciously feel like they’re being marketed to, and that you have “too much” data, is risky.

S: Could you provide some insights into effective strategies for customer retention and loyalty in the highly competitive iGaming industry?

MC: Loyalty depends on providing a differentiated product and experience – bonuses and offers won’t cut it.

If you don’t provide a better, more user-friendly way of interacting with your content and product, there’s very little for users to be loyal to – they can get the same games and odds in other places.

In this way, I think retention and loyalty is something marketing can only influence in a very shallow way – it’s all about the product, customer experience, and level of trust you’re able to create with your target audiences.

S: With the growing importance of mobile devices in consumers' lives, how can iGaming marketers optimize their strategies to cater to mobile users effectively?

MC: Mobile is everything – anyone who optimises their marketing for anything other than mobile is making a major miscalculation.

The good news is that mobile-focused marketing also lends itself to other key initiatives like SEO, UX, customer journey optimisation, ASO, and more.

A fast, easily indexed and understood site will perform well on mobile but also provide a better user experience more generally – and content that can be consumed easily, that anticipates and answers user questions on mobile, will probably, even by accident, hit a lot of the quality criteria Google looks for more generally.

With mobile marketing, the main goal is to be fast, easy to interact with, and helpful to users — all areas for differentiation in iGaming more generally.

S: Data privacy and security have become major concerns for consumers worldwide. How can iGaming marketers ensure they maintain trust and compliance with data protection regulations while still utilizing customer data for targeted marketing efforts?

MC: I think for this the main goal is to focus on the data you own, know how you obtained it, and to keep on the right side of regulations and the law more generally.

In this regard, focusing on “pull” rather than “push” marketing methods can keep you safe. For example, PR, SEO, engaging content, creative social media campaigns, and so on pull interested audiences towards you.

Push methodologies, where audiences are marketed to directly, can be risky from a data policy perspective – especially as customers and potential customers feel annoyed if interrupted or hadn’t consented (or don’t remember consenting to) marketing.

Avoid the stress and focus on more sustainable channels, is my view.

S: Looking ahead to the future of iGaming marketing, what emerging trends or developments do you anticipate will shape the industry in the coming years? Maybe you have some out-of-the-box ideas?

MC: For me, I think the main elements of iGaming marketing will stay the same – audiences will still want to find compelling offers and product experiences, and have their attention drawn by brand ambassadors, advertising, and entertaining PR.

The challenge for marketers will be to get the right cost-effective mix of methodologies for each market they target, removing risks and lowering costs where possible and using pull methods like SEO, content, and creative PR to bring audiences closer.