Oleksandr Dovzhenko, CEO and Co-Founder of ENTER ESPORT and the expert on Twitch and YouTube services as the streaming platforms for promotion, shared his thoughts on the advantages of streaming marketing in the gambling industry.
How does marketing on streaming platforms differ from other types of marketing? And how does streaming promotion influence audience growth in the gambling industry?
Streaming is a completely different type of marketing, which has different final results, as well.
Promotion on the streaming platforms is more resultative because of the public opinion leaders – Twitch streamers, for example. The content makers can lead their fans to any website and platform, because of the authoritative status.
However, not all of the users immediately follow the link that was promoted by the streamer. There was research, which has shown that around 50% of the users find the casino site of bookmaker later by memory because they heard about it earlier on the stream.
At what stage the operator should start streaming for promotion?
I would say it all depends on the marketing budget of the operator. And the best way to promote a website or any product is to mix streaming with another marketing type. I think streaming promotion should take 30%-50% of the whole marketing budget. And another half of the budget should go to the affiliate, for example. When it’s mixed, it works better.
Talking about statistics, for what gambling sector promotion on the streaming platforms does fit more perfectly?
Looking at the most popular categories on Twitch, such as esports, it’s obvious that bookmaker, which has a cybersport betting option will get significant visitors growth on the website. Moreover, a large part of content makers on Twitch are esports-related. It means that they can predict the outcomes of the events, advise the sportsbooks and it will be based on the professional experience in this sector. And users will follow the streamer’s advice because the streamer is trusted.
Is it possible for YouTube to become more competitive with Twitch? What YouTube should launch to become another leading streaming service in the gambling industry?
I think it’s not about the good or bad format of the platform or any tools. I guess the main issue is the legislation sector and platform policy. If people want to stream gambling on YouTube, they need to bypass all the restrictions and be very careful. For instance, pinning the bookmaker link on the comments section but not in the video description, so YouTube couldn’t identify this as rules breaking.
At the same time, there’s Twitch, where “casino” is an officially approved and allowed category, where streamers create content freely. This platform is adapted to the gambling sector in the most successful way.
What can you say about the recent gambling ban on Twitch that was officially announced by the main office?
The Vice President of Twitch tweeted about this, but after this announcement, nothing has changed. We have streamers in different countries, and they haven’t faced any ban on the gambling streams anywhere. And gambling streams are still among the most popular to watch on Twitch.
How do streamers talk about gambling on the live broadcasts, so the audience wouldn’t rate it as something dangerous for people, as it’s generally taken in society?
In general, we conduct briefings for streamers and bloggers to discuss the constant restrictions and rules that must be followed by them. The main thing to understand is that gambling is just a type of entertainment. Gambling is not the way to earn money, it’s the way to spend time while playing casino games or watching favorite sports.
Of course, it must be responsible and controlled by the users. And streamers always have to remind users about the importance of self-control while gambling.
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