With consumer expenditure on gaming and betting online expected to pass £2 billion for the first time in 2012 we've launched the findings of our latest online gambling market intelligence report.
The report, compiled by our in-house insight team, set’s out who’s who in online gambling and pulls together over 50 individual pieces of key insight and over 50 individual pieces of statistical interpretation across the main verticals of sports book, bingo, casino and poker between July – December 2011.
Utilising our proprietary products including PPC market intelligence tool, Market Defender and organic search analysis tool, Search Dash, the team has analysed the search and social media strategies of the top 100 online gambling operators to answer questions such as:
- Who are the market leaders?
- Which keywords are driving market visibility?
- What are operators doing to achieve maximum market share?
- How are operators using social media to acquire customers?
Key findings
Low social media adoption throughout the industry
Very few online gambling operators are utilising social media to develop a two way dialogue that stimulates integration and engagement. Despite their success 888 has an imbalance within their search marketing strategy. While they are investing heavily in traditional search marketing they have yet to replicate the same success within social media. However, one of the exceptions to the rule is Paddy Power who has been the most successful in finding the balance between the level of customer touch points across all the major social platforms as well as having a solid volume and quality of interaction.
Bingo market leader, Tombola, dominate neither PPC nor organic rankings for bingo
Tombola dominate neither PPC nor organic rankings for bingo however, they have the best aggregated click share of 11.90%. This can be attributed to the fact they are one of only two operators within the top 20 actively deploying significant PPC and organic strategies with the vertical bingo.
Traditional bricks and mortar operator’s William Hill and Ladbrokes are the market leaders for brand related search.
Online gambling is very dependent on brand related searches and traffic and although a well implemented generic search campaign can help brand searches it is also a factor of brand legacy and significant offline marketing activity. Over 60% of all brand volume comes from just six dominant operators - William Hill, Ladbrokes, bet365, betfair, Paddy Power and 888.
888 dominates the casino and poker markets
888 is the only operator who has successfully developed a competitive organic and paid presence within all four gaming verticals - betting, bingo, casino and poker. This has been achieved with the implementation of an aggressive strategy across both organic and paid search. This approach also underpins Cheeky Bingo and Tombola’s success within the bingo vertical, as well as explaining why Paddy Power has the leading search strategy within betting.
PPC is a key focus for William Hill, Pokerstars and Party Poker
Market leader William Hill has a search strategy that is almost entirely based on the tactical deployment of PPC, having no visible organic presence for any of the top volume keywords. Pokerstars and Party Poker also adopt the same strategy with evidence suggesting that this may be partly due to the historical impact of Google algorithm updates such as Caffeine on their organic listings.
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If you would like a free copy of the report, have any questions or would like more details on your own rankings please contact us.
