Gold Rush

Paid Social Marketing

Goldrush is an online gaming and sports betting platform offering a wide range of premium games and betting options. With over 25 years of experience, they provide slots, live games, virtual games, e-sports, and sports betting across popular sports such as football, rugby, horse racing, and tennis. They also offer fixed-odds betting on weekly Lucky Numbers lottery draws. Goldrush prioritises security and is licensed by the Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board, holding bookmaker licenses in six South African provinces and operating in Lesotho, Tanzania, and Mozambique.

188%

increase in ROAS

34.4%

increase in registrations attributed to Meta

213.9%

increase in conversion rate

Gold Rush

Paid Social Marketing

Goldrush is an online gaming and sports betting platform offering a wide range of premium games and betting options. With over 25 years of experience, they provide slots, live games, virtual games, e-sports, and sports betting across popular sports such as football, rugby, horse racing, and tennis. They also offer fixed-odds betting on weekly Lucky Numbers lottery draws. Goldrush prioritises security and is licensed by the Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board, holding bookmaker licenses in six South African provinces and operating in Lesotho, Tanzania, and Mozambique.

188%

increase in ROAS

34.4%

increase in registrations attributed to Meta

213.9%

increase in conversion rate

Brief & Objectives

The primary goal of this campaign is to drive exponential growth in registrations on the Goldrush website through targeted Meta (Facebook & Instagram) advertising. The focus is on improving customer retention by building brand credibility and trust within the sports betting and online gaming community.

By enhancing trust and credibility, we aim to not only attract new users but also encourage existing platform users to engage with the platform and bet. This will lead to increased lead generation and improved long-term customer retention.

Challenges

When it comes to running iGaming ads on Meta (Facebook & Instagram) in South Africa, we faced significant challenges due to strict advertising regulations. One major obstacle is that you cannot run iGaming ads, including sports betting, without the correct licensing or written approval from Meta.

We underwent a lengthy 4-month process to secure Meta’s advertising approval for our sports betting campaigns. This approval required a carefully structured website, including subdomains and specific content configurations tailored to meet Meta’s guidelines. Every solution was uniquely crafted to overcome the advertising permission hurdles.

Once we obtained approval, we began running traffic-optimised ads. However, the next challenge we faced was setting up effective conversion tracking. It was crucial to track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as deposits, revenue, and registrations. Without tracking these KPIs, we would be unable to gauge the success of our campaigns or know where registrations were coming from. More importantly, without this data feeding back into Meta’s algorithm, the platform would be unable to identify and optimise for quality conversions—like registrations—leading to inefficient ad performance.

Setting up conversion tracking posed additional difficulties, especially since the solution varies between different content management systems (CMS). iGaming platforms, in particular, presented unique challenges in integrating with Meta. After successfully configuring the tracking and giving Meta enough time to learn from the data, we were able to activate conversion optimisation. Once in place, our campaign results began to improve significantly.

Our Solution

Our campaign strategy centred on driving user registrations through a focused approach on sports betting ads. We implemented a combination of generic sports betting content and key promotional offers to engage potential platform users and encourage sign-ups. Before this strategy was able to be implemented, we underwent a 4-month process to secure Meta’s advertising approval, ensuring full compliance with regulations. Once approved, this enabled us to launch traffic-optimised ads.

To ensure we could measure success and optimise effectively, we integrated robust conversion tracking for critical KPIs such as deposits, revenue, and registrations, overcoming the unique challenges of tracking within sports betting CMS platforms. Once enough data was collected, we enabled conversion optimisation within Meta’s algorithm, allowing the platform to prioritise high-quality leads, more specifically platform registrations. Our long-term campaign structure allowed ample time for Meta to learn and adapt, improving performance consistently. This strategy of combining sports betting generic ads with promotional content, alongside precise tracking and optimisation, resulted in sustainable growth in registrations and deposits.

Results

During the course of 6 Months (March’24 vs Aug’24) we went from not being able to advertise to receiving Meta advertising permission alongside being able to track conversions, which also allowed for campaign optimisation for quality conversions (registrations and deposits).

Overall, these events allowed for results to skyrocket:

Primary Goal – Registrations:
Over the span of 6 months of accurate tracking we were able to move from 0% of platform registrations coming from Meta to 34.4% of total registrations being attributed to Meta advertising efforts. This was a 235% increase from March to August 2024.
The conversion rate also saw a significant 214% improvement in this time – This tells us that we saw an increase in the number of landing page views that were successfully converted to registrations.
Secondary Goal – Deposits: on a 6-month comparison, ROAS for deposit focused campaigns saw a 188% increase from March to August 2024. Conversion value also increased by a significant 152%.
Supporting Metrics – Landing Page Views (traffic): Increased by 42.5% from March’24 vs August’24.