Kirk Miller, Head of Casino at PureROI and Okens Domains client sat down with Okens to talk about the role performance marketing plays in the success of igaming companies.
PureROI was born out of the success of their sister company, Purecontent, which delivers content in large volumes in multiple languages with targeted outreach. Pure ROI evolved from this, producing the same high-quality content for its websites that Purecontent has delivered to its clients for the last two decades.
Miller says the company is honing in on niches to be impactful, which adds tremendous value to their core affiliate partners. With in-country writers and editors working in more than 100 languages, they can easily launch new websites, allowing them to test a specific topic in weeks versus months.
Miller says that laser targeting specific geographies and products is a byproduct of carving out strong relationships with, as he says, industry titans that can deliver traffic that adds tangible value.
PERFORMANCE MARKETING
Regarding performance marketing, Miller says that change happens so fast that you must stay current.
“It feels like performance marketing operates on an entirely different level to where it was even just a few years ago,” said Miller. “The global pandemic certainly had an impact on this paradigm shift, and all of a sudden, as people around the globe were stuck at home, bored and with fewer of the usual outlets for their disposable income, the iGaming industry was sought out by a whole new audience.”
Miller says that new marketing channels that previously may have delivered a poor conversion rate were bringing in noticeable revenue. “Things have calmed down slightly since we’ve all returned to our offices, but it has still been an illuminating period for marketing iGaming entertainment to hitherto ignored demographics,” he adds.
CHALLENGES
When it comes to challenges, Miller says it’s competition. “With everyone and their aunt bidding on the same keywords after enrolling in an online course about how to make $10K a month in affiliate marketing from a beach, cutting through the noise is harder than ever.”
Millers says that’s why he believes PureROI’s focus on specialisation is the right solution to this new world order.
“I always say we don’t want to be bidding for ad space on poker in the US, where there is so much competition. I’d rather be hitting a Chilean audience excited about the next time Colo-Colo plays Universidad de Chile in the Chilean Primera Divisió,” says Miler.
Miller believes that if they apply the same care and attention to reaching that much more niche market, they will have a drastically more significant impact with considerably lower investment.
NEW TECHNOLOGY
Miller says Artificial Intelligence (AI) will change things, but he’s not sure those changes will be what everyone expects.
“Does it mean everyone can now create award-winning ad creatives with the push of a single button? Nope. Not yet, anyway – we’re not even close, but it will undoubtedly increase the sheer noise the consumer is bombarded with.”
Miller says that with AI, you probably won’t need to have a huge marketing budget to create 10,000-word articles for SEO or produce a million variations of CTA’s to split test, that it’s all there for anyone with access to ChatGPT. But he thinks AI will enhance the people putting proper thought into their marketing rather than drowning them out.
“The good guys will benefit from the bad guys doing more and more bad stuff, making their good stuff seem even more impressive,” said Miller.
Miller also says that lead generation will be affected by Web3 technology, and that is great for volume. “The easier we make it for people to detail their needs, the more leads we as businesses will have,” said Miller. “But also, the quality will take an almost opposite nosedive as the quantity explodes.”
We saw it when restaurants all opened up their booking platforms online. As soon as nobody had to ring up, speak to the restaurant themselves, and have an actual human interaction to make their reservations, costly no-shows skyrocketed,” added Miller. “The Same thing will happen with Web 3.0 lead-gen – the easier and more digital the process to create the lead is, the easier it is for that lead to disregard it and ignore any follow-ups.”
PERSONAL TOUCH WITH OKENS
Every domain PureROI owns is managed through Okens Domains. Miller says they were initially drawn to Okens’ service because of the ease and transparency of setting up watertight WhoIs protection.
“That’s a pretty dry, boring, technical factor, but a significant factor, for sure. It wasn’t something we excitedly discussed in meetings, but it needed to be done,” said Miller.
After working with Okens for the past 12 months, Miller says that Okens’ personal touch has the company coming back for more.
“Support tickets that are actually answered within minutes and usually resolved the very same day – you wouldn’t believe how rare this is in this field,” said Miller. “Okens has managed to make managing domains (usually a painful job we’d unload on a junior staff member!) completely hassle-free.
Miller says Okens is the best at making WhoIs protection clear and easy to set up.
“It’s usually very difficult to get a straight answer on this topic, even when working with the supposed experts,” adds Miller.
For example, Miller says that if they wanted to try out a domain in a strange TLD, Okens would tell him exactly what we needed to do to protect our privacy.
“Even some of the biggest operators out there have asked me to check with Okens on certain WhoIs setups,” said Miller
“The behind-the-scenes techy stuff, anyone can pretty much do, but what Okens does is layer over the top of that basic stuff, a genuine, family-run business feeling where you feel valued as a customer,” said Miller. “It’s much more of an ongoing conversation working with you than just the transactional, faceless queue system we’ve had before.”