Last week, at the SBC Summit in Lisbon, Sportradar AG debuted the new paid search module of its ad:s marketing solution.
The ad:s paid search module combines data from Sportradar’s live feeds, real-time odds, and sports data capture to improve the efficiency, targeting, and ROI of search campaigns for betting and gaming-related queries. Sportradar’s MarTech specialist, George Powell, provided SBC with exclusive insight into ad:s paid search intelligence as Sportradar completes its coverage of all marketing disciplines for iGaming.
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SBC: Hi George, thanks for this interview. With the expansion into ‘Paid Search,‘ you’ve announced that the ad:s solution will now cover all digital marketing disciplines. How important is this addition for Sportradar and its marketing partners?
GP: The launch of paid search is an important development for operators as it means Sportradar’s ad:s marketing service now encompasses full 360-degree coverage of all major digital channels, so we’re able to support clients across all aspects of a campaign. Earlier this year, we announced audio and digital out-of-home channels, so these new additions alongside the existing paid social, programmatic display and video, affiliate and sponsorships provide end-to-end campaign efficiency.
Paid search is a vital marketing channel for betting and gaming because sports fans and casino players frequently search the internet to try and find the best odds or deals. A well-executed paid search strategy is essential to convert customers who are ready to play and searching for the best opportunity. Our ad:s service leverages Sportradar’s deep industry data and betting-specific technology to display the most relevant ads in customers’ search results, which is something the industry has historically struggled with.
SBC: Let’s drill down into ad:s paid search solution. How does it guarantee the best insights for clients on campaign benchmarks and ROI?
GP: Sportradar’s unique positioning at the intersection of sports, betting and media, and the depth of our datasets allows us to offer transparent and specialised insights, exclusively for betting. We understand the interests and behavioural patterns of bettors, and the content and search terms that resonate most with them.
Such insight has allowed our team of experts to create a keyword benchmarking tool by aggregating industry search data and categorising it by key topics, based on their knowledge of best practices, ad performance and revenue generating behaviours. This depth of understanding allows us to rate the performance of operators’ paid search campaigns against our established industry standard, allowing them to make strategic adjustments for greater ad relevance and efficiency.
SBC: What new campaign and intelligence metrics will ad:s paid search deliver to customers to help optimise campaign performance and overall ROI efficiency?
GP: We can compare any operators’ account, in any market, to our keyword benchmarking tool to help refine their paid search strategy. Having done the hard work of aggregating industry data, we can show the good and the bad of any account’s performance.
For example, one of our first alpha testing clients thought they were getting great value from their blackjack topic, but ad:s paid search immediately showed that they were bidding almost four times above the industry average. Using this information, we realised that their strategy for generic casino was not specific enough and was accidentally picking up blackjack related search traffic, which increased costs for the whole account. So, we segmented blackjack from generic casino, which boosted ad relevance and conversion rates, saving them over £10,000 per month.
And this was just the first find. We run updates every month, helping us identify new areas that we can optimise to improve performance and get clients into the “Goldilocks Zone” of paying the perfect price for a topic aligned to their business revenues.
SBC: Why are paid search campaigns becoming harder to execute and report value on?
GP: Execution wise, they are a lot easier than in the past. And despite not being new to paid search, AI introduces new challenges and means account management needs to be more strategic to keep the algorithm “appeased” and to get the most out of executional activities.
In a saturated and highly competitive industry like betting and gaming, operators need every edge that they can get, as a marginal gain can mean millions in ROI over course of a year. This is achievable through using our industry-specific technology underpinned by the deepest datasets available, and by really trying to differentiate a brand through advertising content.
SBC: Paid search accounts for 50% of operators’ marketing spend. However, does paid search still offer the best value and ROI for campaigns?
GP: It can, when done the right way. But most operators view paid search in silo, so don’t optimise the things outside of the channel that have significant impact on performance. Understanding how factors like landing pages, customers’ post-click activities or CRM interact with both paid search and your wider marketing strategy is essential to get the most out of your campaigns.
One area that is common within the iGaming industry is that operators’ websites are poorly configured to capture search engine traffic organically or maximise performance channels like paid search. This can lead to poor conversion rates, lack of market coverage and excessive spending on search words and terms that are not relevant to betting, which drives costs high and ROI low.
With ad:s, Sportradar’s data and technology allow clients to achieve greater ROI by effectively targeting the right search topics to achieve maximum acquisition efficiency. We know which search terms are likely to spike, based on historical data, industry data and current trends, to help clients stay one step ahead of the competition.
It’s also key to understand how other components of marketing activities impact paid search. Often, purchase intent is created elsewhere and incentivises customers to “Google” a certain topic. Multi-touch attribution (MTA) tools can shed visibility on how paid search interacts with different channels, helping to guide more informed decisions on marketing spend.
SBC: How will Sportradar continue to develop its ad:s solution to enhance and optimize all industry marketing disciplines?
GP: We never stand still and are always addressing client feedback and evolving our technology. One such feature we are continually developing is the integration of real-time data into our ad:s services, as we know fans love live data and insights, because they provide deeper context and understanding of the action.
For paid search, we’ve created dynamic landing pages integrating Sportradar’s live data, odds and real-time jackpots into operators’ websites. This not only addresses historical SEO challenges by ensuring search results are updated and reflect customers’ interests and content preferences, but also creates a seamless online experience. And with our betting-specific AdTech and the depth of data we have available, we’re excited to integrate even deeper data insights across our portfolio in the near future.