5 Most Common Mistakes in Betting Advertising – with Epom
The world of sports betting is no stranger to controversy, marked by frequent lawsuits, fines, and some of the strictest regulations in the gambling industry. As you can imagine, advertising in this industry can be a somewhat daunting task. But what are the most common complaints about betting ads? Just how strict are the regulations? And most importantly, how can you solve these issues (clue: with the help of the Epom ad server).
The Challenges of Betting Advertising
One of the biggest challenges regarding betting advertising concerns the safety of users. A 2020 report by the House of Lords revealed that 0.5% of UK gamblers, out of 15 million active gamblers, could be classified as “problematic.” However, while this issue is real, it’s notable that the report found no direct link between gambling advertising and addiction.
Another significant concern is over saturation of the advertising space with ads for betting products and services. For instance, two out of three Australians believe that betting ads are “too common”. This over saturation can be attributed to inaccurate targeting and inadequate data utilization, resulting in frustrating consequences for the average consumer.
“Betting advertising holds the image of the sphere as a whole, and its mistakes only enforce societal stigma, which leads to complications with the law.”
Anton Ruin, CEO at Epom
As one would expect, regulatory authorities across the globe are responding to these issues with stricter regulations. This means larger fines across the board for both licensed and unlicensed gambling businesses. So far in 2023, regulators have issued over €386 million ($411 million) in fines, up by 37% on the total issued in 2022. When we take a specific country as an example, the Netherlands’ betting industry saw a growth reduction from 33% to 8% due to 1the significant rise in fines issued across the past year.
Meanwhile, the Swedish government plans to raise gambling tax rates while the likes of Australia, Denmark, and Norway have taken steps to prohibit access to unlicensed gambling websites.
Five Common Mistakes in Betting Advertising
Now, let’s take a look at the five most common mistakes that betting brands make, with insights on how to avoid them using the Epom ad server as an example of a tech solution.
Incorrect choice of audience
The all-time classic advertising mistake is choosing the wrong audience and, consequently, wrong targeting. Whether it’s too large/narrow/young/old, this mistake could completely screw up your marketing efforts.
Surely, the target audience is the advertiser’s first focus, but there’s a lot of room for error in this particular aspect of advertising. However, you can minimize these losses with proper A/B testing — use your ad server to create a qualitative audience sampling and set proper age restrictions.
Incorrect ad timing
“UK, Australia, Italy, Spain and many other countries only allow broadcasting betting ads at night. This prohibition is rather lethargic on the web, but if you target CTV/OTT, it’s essential to keep it in mind.”
Serhiy Shchelkov, Chief Sales Executive at Epom
Failing to comply with ad timing restrictions in local markets is a very common mistake and one that can be easily avoided through the use of one of the most basic must-have ad server features. The vast majority of ad servers (Epom’s solution included) allow you to choose the schedule for showing your ads. Problem solved.
Inconsistent ad placement
Aggressive creatives following the user everywhere on the web, large static interstitials on blog sites and constant spamming with the same ad formats – if that’s your style, it’s time to change it.
The foundation of a working placement strategy is ad variety, not quantity. Serve 30+ video, HTML5, native, and more ad formats with Epom ad server and engage the user with interesting ad creatives rather than repetitive ones.
Oversaturation with the same ad
This one is a consequence of the mistake we just mentioned, but it happens so often that we feel it’s worth mentioning on its own.
Show the user the same ad over and over again and this can have a negative impact on your brand’s image. Setting smart caps to limit the frequency of ad display to a particular user can easily help avoid every marketer’s worst nightmare; banner blindness.
Compliance ignorance
Regulatory compliance is, without a doubt, the most fundamental of requirements when it comes to advertising in any field but particularly the gambling industry. However, we often see how marketers sail close to the wind with their campaigns.
The most common compliance requirements are:
- Ensuring ads are not aimed at minors
- Including messages about safe gambling
- Placing restrictions on what can be said about winning bets
There are plenty more pitfalls, like high-risk animation styles or usage of cultural icons. And with so many potential missteps it can be difficult for a marketer to keep track particularly when ads will appear in multiple markets. This is where AI tools such as those available in the Epom ad server can help come in useful to help monitor and flag potential compliance issues. That said, all ads must still be manually reviewed to ensure nothing has slipped through the net.
Conclusion
Remember, that there’s no shame in making mistakes. With the gambling industry evolving at a rapid pace, regulations surrounding ads also need to change to keep up with industry developments.
One last tip – to minimize the human error factor, use an autonomous ad-serving solution. With atomated banner weights and capping, AI monitoring and precise custom analytics provided by the Epom ad server, you can forget blunders and focus on what truly matters in your business.
The Epom ad server takes care of everything in one app, enabling you to concentrate on what’s really important.
Find out more about Epom ad server here.
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