On October 8 kicks off The International - the largest annual esports competition. On the eve of such a large-scale event, representatives of Alfaleads and PARI met to discuss eSports betting and the work of affiliates with e-betting. Spoiler: make esports sites in RU (Russia) segment, there is almost no competition in this niche.
Konstantin, Head of Marketing Alfaleads: Greetings Alexander! Today I would like to talk about eSports, because The International is ahead. For our webmasters, this event shows excellent results. For example, one of our partners said that during this tournament his "reg2dep" conversion (% from registration to deposit) was more than 50%, and the ROI was about 250-300%, for comparison, usually, it is 150-180%. And you, as a product, what results do you observe during such media events?
Alexander, Head of Affiliate PARI: Hello! In eSports, just like in football, everything really depends on events. During major esports months (Blast CS:GO, The International, Major, ESL), reg2dep can exceed 40% on separate streams. If we talk about affiliate traffic volumes, I can tell you about the case of one of our ASO (App Store Optimization) webmasters: during The International 2021, he brought us more than 3,000 FTD (First-time deposit) per month. He had a grid of applications built in, and it showed excellent results.
Konstantin, Alfaleads: From your point of view, what is the difference between running traffic in eSports and classic sports (football, MMA)?
Alexander, PARI: All in all, there is no differnece. The same situational story, "warm up" the audience before the match. The main feature is the search for an audience, because the football community is everywhere, and you still need to look for the eSports community. It is never a bad idea to operate characters from famous games such as Dota, CS in creatives. It is also important to understand that you cannot make creatives without eSports background, otherwise the audience will not respect you. The customer has to see that you understand how eSports works and looks. It is worth targeting residents of big cities from 18 to 35 years old who are interested in high technologies and video games.
Konstantin, Alfaleads: Compared to the same casino, where the core target audience is people aged 35 to 60+, then in eSports, the age of the main pool of players is up to 35 years. What about solvency?
Alexander, PARI: The solvency of the audience depends more on the affiliate traffic source than on preferences in sports: in descending order, these are SEO, ASO and PPC. There are very wealthy people among eSports fans.
Konstantin, Alfaleads: What games do you bet on principally?
Alexander, PARI: For donkey's years, we play two games in the CIS - these are CS:GO and Dota 2, and all new disciplines are not so popular or are not "beloved" by the community. Therefore, CS and Dota 2 accumulate for 98%.
Konstantin, Alfaleads: We figured out the portrait of eSports fans, share what mechanics you use to attract and retain such players!
Alexander, PARI: We make a full set of creative materials for major esports events so that the audience can easily read them and understand what it is about. For example, there is a regular landing where Pudge hooks (1st spell of this hero in Dota) Monkey King.
Inside the product, we create contests that activate users. For example, for one of the Majors (seasonal tournament inDota) we had a landing page with a character from Dota 2, and by performing certain actions, the player developed his character. The winner of the contest, who was the first to upgrade his personage to the last level, received free bets for 100,000 RUB.
In general, we do not have a separation, whether a player bets on eSports or football. We perceive cyberdisciplines as another sport, it has long been an independent adult direction. Therefore, all promotions that are valid for fans of classic sports also apply to eSports.
Konstantin, Alfaleads: Do you rate cyber traffic in a special way?
Oleksandr, PARI: We analyze all the same parameters as for any sports betting: average bill, re-deposits, players' activity and loss rate.
Konstantin, Alfaleads: I won't elaborate on the best sources. Obviously, the most desirable affiliate traffic for a bookmaker is ASO, SEO, and contextual advertising. But here's the point I want to discuss: I track a few sites that are dedicated specifically to cybersport (as examples, cybersport.ru, cybersport.metaratings.ru and cq.ru in the CIS, and abroad - egamersworld.com and cq- esports.com). There are countless sites for betting and gambling, and esports in SEO somehow remains on the sidelines. What do you think, what is the reason?
Alexander, PARI: I think that this is a kind of narrow-mindedness, numerous still do not estimate eSports seriously. It seems to people that they will not be able to catch a “whale” that will give a good revenue share. Even top products do not always, from my point of view, pay special attention to eSports. Last year, The International was widely highlighted by only three bookmakers. And this year, betting companies have a completely different attitude towards eSports.
So, esports SEO sites are a "virgin field" in the Russian Internet segment. I can only mention Cybersport.ru and the Metaratings esports project. Most of the popular sites are foreign. It would be great if local webmasters turned their attention to this direction. Perhaps this situation has developed since the cyber audience has a different format for content absorption - few people read it.
Konstantin, Alfaleads: What approaches in SEO are you most interested in? That is, what is better for a webmaster to create: a fan team/game site, a news site, a review site, or something else?
Oleksandr, PARI: OWhen a site is built around news coverage, lifeless affiliate traffic comes from it for a bookmaker. After all, people who just want to observe the news drop in there, they do not become our regular readers. For example, we bought media on the same portal with Dota 2 news, however, we left there rather quickly, as it performed poorly even in terms of media indicators, including coverage and contact cost.
It’s more interesting to work with platforms that don’t just transfer a player to us, but with projects that have a development plan and creating a community within themselves, when a webmaster is going to invest in his project in the long term if he has plans for a year or two ahead. Examples of sites with their own formed community are bookmaker-ratings.ru and betonmobile.ru. Such platforms become the entry point to the product, their visitors return to us again and again. Accordingly, the cost of a deposit from such sites will be 7-8 times lower than that of eSports news sites, due to a more conversion and interested audience.
Konstantin, Alfaleads: Well, let's outline and summarize what pros and cons await webmasters who want to work with cyberbetting.
To my mind, I can note the following: eSports is extremely underestimated nowadays. It is definitely worth paying attention to those webmasters who work with classic sports, it will be the easiest way for them to make money in this niche.
Audience: 18-35 years old with a predominant percentage of men. According to sources: ASO, PPC and pay attention to the almost completely free direction - SEO. And if we take the last source, then try to create not just an information resource, but build our own community. Do not forget that we work with event traffic, so we keep in mind and prepare for major esports tournaments: The International, Major, Blast, and so on.
Alexander, PARI: I’ll add that the eventfulness here has both a pros&cons, since you can make decent money in the "hot months", but if the publisher focuses exclusively on eSports, then you can’t count on cool results in the “quiet” months.
We are actively developing esports: we support local teams, arrange our own leagues (we recently held two tournaments, accepted bets on them and were extremely pleased with the results), and in the future we plan to become partners with international tournaments, platforms and clubs. For example, recently PARI became a partner of Entity and also organized CS:GO tournaments PARI Patriki Vibe LAN and PARI White Night.
Konstantin, Alfaleads: In conclusion, I would like to note that Alfaleads webmasters are waiting for exclusives from PARI (4400 RUB for minimal deposit and 5600 RUB for baseline (sum that user deposits to be rated as an active player)), so write to your manager or me, find out the details and start working with cyber and classic betting - now for this best time. Alexander, thank you very much for the conversation, it was productive!
Alexander, PARI: Mutually, I am sure that our readers will learn something new for themselves. Get in touch!
