TV or not TV?

Affiliates are leaving no stones unturned when looking for alternative ways to advertise and as a result we are seeing more branch out on to TV. As Google clamps down on those breaching its advertising code by handing out tough penalties, it’€™s time for affiliates to look further afield when it comes to advertising opportunities.

Gambling TV commercials rose 600% from 234,000 screened in 2007 to almost 1.4 million in 2012 since the Gambling Act 2005 came into force, according to Ofcom. In monetary terms, the Committees of Advertising Practice found that of total advertising spend by gambling companies (£235m in 2013), TV advertising comprised £141m.

While the TV ad space has been dominated by the gambling operators, affiliates have been beginning to test the waters in recent years. Most recently, Oddschecker returned to our screens with a brand new TV campaign to expand its reach into casino. The 30 second advert, which aired in April and May, was produced in collaboration with creative agency Fall Off The Wall and saw Oddschecker partner with NetBet, LeoVegas and Sky Casino to provide customers with exclusive bonus offers.

Meanwhile, Focus Online Management ran a TV ad campaign for its WhichBingo brand last February, which ran for three months across 60-70 Sky channels. The campaign was a huge success and has prompted the firm to re-run it later this year. The TV ad followed the launch of WhichBingo’s newly redesigned website and was also part of the firm’€™s goal to create a stronger brand.

“€œWhile it’€™s fantastic that players are finding WhichBingo via search, we actually want them to be aware of us as a source of information across all and any online bingo sites,”€ explains Phil Fraser, owner of Focus Online Management. “€œWe want them to proactively come and look for us rather than search a question or query about a brand and stumble across WhichBingo.”

Egaming marketing firm 15 Marketing has also dabbled with TV advertising in the past when it launched a campaign for OhMyBingo in 2010. Ben Starr, managing director of 15 Marketing, says the purpose of the TV campaign was to launch the OhMyBingo website in a big way. “In 2010 the majority of affiliate sites got their traffic organically in natural rankings. And then as Google has clenched its fists, it became harder to get organic traffic and people have gone to other methods such as paid search. We thought we wanted to enter the market with a bang knowing full well we were coming into the affiliate space quite late in 2010,” he explains.

The aim of the TV advert was for OhMyBingo to become a brand and for customers to know they were coming to the company specifically, rather than just happening to come across them by chance during a Google search. However, Starr admits it is incredibly difficult to track success through TV advertising and the fact the firm is still successful after their first TV campaign speaks volumes. “We’re still around six years later and other affiliate sites have received Google penalties and gone down the rankings,” he says.

Tracking success
Oddschecker admits that tracking success on TV is hard but with their recent casino advert, it was easier to gauge success through the number of new registrations responding to the “no deposit and free spins” promotion. “This advert itself is very much a direct response advert, so there’s quite a clear call to action and there are quite clear objectives for us and the bookmakers in that the whole ad is based around these exclusive offers. We’re looking at purely direct response metrics so have people signed up and have they converted to real-money players,” says Jamie Pinner, head of customer marketing at Oddschecker.

Sky and Oddschecker both use virtuous analytics where you can plug in ad slots and traffic stats, and it matches them against each other. “We look at the key metrics from our side such as traffic stats and match that to the spot plan and see how that converts. So the combination of continual market research to understand the impact as well as seeing how that translates to usage figures,” Pinner explains.

The difficulty with tracking success on TV is one of the reasons why 15 Marketing hasn’t replicated the TV campaign yet. “We haven’t done so because as affiliates we’re so driven by tracking and we hate sending traffic to operators that isn’t tracked. We hate it when customers click on one of our ads, switch off and then decide to go direct on their mobile. We hate it when they read a review and then go back to Google and carry on searching. There are loads of times when we miss out.”

Fraser also agrees that TV proves very difficult to track in terms of success. His firm carried out pre and post campaign analysis to try and glean some data but he admits it’s not an “overly scientific way of looking at”. However, he points out that having a presence on TV did boost their brand awareness. “It also had a secondary effect of raising awareness by taking us to another level, not only from people seeing it but people being aware we were doing it which then makes them think this is a major player in the industry.”

So how prohibitive are the costs to have a presence on TV? Margins play a key role here. “Back then we had startup funds rather than established funds and we didn’t lose money,” says Starr. “But I can’t tell you a CPA or ROI like if I was running an online ad. I think that’s why it hasn’t spread throughout the affiliate industry mainly because of the margins. The operators have got more margin to play with so they can afford TV campaigns.”

Starr also argues that the future of TV is now moving online so TV must form part of a wider marketing strategy. “There was a time where you could advertise on TV, not do much else and everything would fall into place,” Starr explains. “You need big budgets purely because TV isn’t the be all and end all. You absolutely must have it as part of a wider offline campaign which marries up with an online campaign. The nature of marketing has got more expensive. I doubt actual standalone TV advertising has got more expensive because ads are being viewed less and the future of TV seems to be online anyway.”

Building trust
As to whether there is a future for egaming affiliates on TV, Starr does acknowledge that being on TV adds a level of trust for consumers but going forward he is more interested to see how online TV ad opportunities develop. “With my affiliate hat on I’d definitely be interested in exploring TV advertising again in that new medium,” he remarks. “With TV in its current old-fashioned state I don’t think we’ll see many more affiliates on there, certainly not in the bingo space despite the industry becoming more mainstream. The budgets of the operators are so high, an affiliate can’t really make an impact.”

Oddschecker is hoping to repeat its TV ad success again for sports this time in August/September as part of a more brand-led advert to promote awareness of Oddschecker. “TV offers us a chance to hit the mass audience,” says Pinner. “Working with operators it can be a great opportunity for them to really identify the value we’re driving for them. If we’re going on TV and pushing the fact that we work with all these great operators, that obviously has a knock-on effect to the operators themselves.”

Fraser believes there is a future for affiliates to advertise on TV as existing avenues become more difficult. “The standard routes for affiliates to generate traffic tend to be paid-for advertising, email marketing or search,” he says. “As those become more difficult or financially prohibitive you have to go and find other ways to generate traffic to your site. If you’re going to be a big player in the market like a super affiliate then that’s what you have to do.”

With Oddschecker and WhichBingo set to grace our TV screens again later this year, TV is opening up new opportunities for affiliates to be seen as big players and to generate that much needed brand awareness and loyalty that customers trust.