Brand vs performance in iGaming: what the evidence says

Licensed operators live and die by acquisition numbers, so it is no surprise that budgets drift towards whatever can be attributed tomorrow morning. Most marketers are heading the same way: in Nielsen's 2024 survey of nearly 2,000 global marketers, 70% said they plan to prioritise performance marketing over brand building ^[4]. The research published since 2021 points the other way. Brands that combine brand building with activation earn more from the same budget, and the gap grows the longer you measure.

This article sets out what that evidence says, what it does and does not prove for gambling brands, and a practical starting point for an operator's media plan.

The performance trap

Performance media is easy to defend. It is close to the deposit, it reports quickly and it fits a weekly acquisition target. The risk is in what it leaves out. Nielsen warns that a shift to performance without brand-building support "could limit long-term ROI and may cause brand decay" ^[4].

In iGaming that decay shows up in familiar places. Cost per first deposit creeps up as the same audiences are retargeted. Search costs rise as competitors bid on generic terms. Affiliate commissions climb because the brand is not strong enough to pull players directly. None of these is visible in a last-click report, which is exactly why they are easy to miss.

What mixing brand and performance does to returns

The clearest recent evidence comes from The Multiplier Effect, published by WARC with Analytic Partners, BERA.ai, Prophet and System1. It finds that moving from a performance-only strategy to a mixed one can lift revenue returns by between 25% and 100%, with a median uplift of 90% ^[1]. Over-investing in performance has the opposite effect, reducing revenue returns by between 20% and 50% ^[1].

Drawing on Analytic Partners' ROI Genome data from more than 1,000 brands, the same report finds that equity-led advertising beats performance advertising 80% of the time once the full purchase cycle is counted ^[1]. Its practical recommendation is to allocate at least 30% of spend to equity-driving advertising, with 40% to 60% a typical best-practice range ^[1].

The UK's Profit Ability 2 study shows why short measurement windows understate this. Across 141 brands, £1.8 billion of media spend and 10 channels from 2021 to 2023, advertising returned an average short-term profit of £1.87 per pound invested. Counting the sustained effects from week 14 to 24 months raises that to £4.11 ^[2]. More than half of the profit arrives after a typical campaign report has been filed.

Why strong brands activate better

Brand building does not replace activation; it makes activation cheaper. Kantar's Blueprint for Brand Growth, built on more than 6.5 billion attitudinal and shopper data points from the past decade, links stronger predisposition to nine times higher volume share, two times higher average selling price and four times the likelihood of growing share in the future ^[3]. Brands with strong equity that also activate well grow at 2.5 times the rate of those with weaker activation ^[3].

For an operator, predisposition is the player who already has your brand in mind when the match starts, who types your name instead of a generic term, and who is less sensitive to a competitor's welcome offer. Every one of those behaviours lowers the cost of the next deposit.

What gambling brands show so far

Published effectiveness data from betting and casino brands is still thin, and most of the large studies above are cross-category. There are, however, signals that the same logic holds in gambling.

• The National Lottery won Bronze at the 2024 IPA Effectiveness Awards with a paper crediting advertising with an extra £689 million for Good Causes. Lottery is a gambling category, though not iGaming ^[5].
• System1 tested a UK bet365 ad by Drummond Central with men aged 25–54 who bet on sport. It scored 5 stars, the top rating possible, while the general public rated it only slightly above the category average ^[6]. Brand creative built for the right adult audience can land hard with that audience, which is a strong argument for targeting brand media precisely rather than broadly.

The bet365 result also shows something specific to regulated gambling. Brand advertising has to reach adults who are interested in the category without spilling into audiences it must not reach. That makes the targeting and placement controls around brand media as important as the creative.

What this means for your plan

• Ring-fence brand spend. Start at 30% of media for equity-building advertising, the minimum the WARC report recommends, and test towards 40% to 60% where your market allows it ^[1].
• Use brand channels that can be targeted to adults. Programmatic video, CTV and digital out-of-home build reach and memory, and can be restricted by age data, context, geography and licence scope.
• Measure beyond the campaign window. Track branded search, direct traffic, brand lift and cost per first deposit over months, not weeks. Profit Ability 2 suggests more than half the return arrives later ^[2].
• Keep activation close to the brand. Use the same distinctive assets in performance creative so that brand work makes every activation impression more effective ^[3].
• Check the rules first. Brand advertising for gambling is restricted differently in every market. Our market regulation briefs set out what is allowed where.

The evidence does not say performance media is wasted. It says that performance alone leaves money on the table, and that the operators who build their brand with the right adult audiences will pay less for every player they acquire.