Continuing to catch up with our sponsors ahead of Betting on Sports, we spoke to Dan Saunders, Senior Solutions Manager at Blueclaw.
Dan told SBC that this year is all about player acquisition technology, as well as the US market, South American market and brand new opportunities in Africa and Asia.
What are you looking forward to at Betting on Sports?
We’re most looking forward to being put to the test at our Search Marketing Clinic, which we’ll be running at Stand J16 for the entire event.
We’ve been working with operators and affiliates for over 14 years, and we decided that BOS2019 would be a great opportunity to give back to the industry with free one-on-one consultancy on any aspect of search marketing – we’re looking forward to some very challenging questions!
What are you promoting at Betting on Sports?
Our team has been developing some highly effective approaches for PPC advertising that we’d love to introduce to more betting brands. Of course, our team will be happy to talk about our other services too, from SEO, content marketing and digital PR through to conversion rate optimisation, UX and paid social.
The betting industry has been very good to us, as we’ve won all of our major awards with betting brands – we’re looking forward to giving back to the industry with our Search Marketing Clinic.
What industry innovation will capture the most attention in 2019?
It’s got to be all about player acquisition technology and strategies that allow brands to scale up in more cost-effective ways.
Everyone is talking about the US market, South American market and opportunities in Africa and Asia – but the betting brands who will be able to capitalise on these opportunities are the ones using innovation to acquire players at a sensible cost.
That’s why we’ve been developing approaches to advertising that will help FTDs at a great CPA, expanding our SEO services and building our team of data specialists to take advantage of innovation in advertising, programmatic targeting, customer journey optimisation, user testing and new ways to innovate in organic search to make SEO more profitable.
We can’t wait to talk to BOS attendees about our fresh and innovative approaches for player acquisition!
Which sports betting operator has impressed you the most in 2019?
We regularly contribute to the industry press and judge industry awards, so we do pay close attention to the activities of operators. It has to be said that some operators really aren’t being as creative as they could be (naming no names!) so there is a lot of scope for the larger players to differentiate themselves.
We particularly like what Betway have been doing with ambassadors like Kevin Pieterson, giving a positive focus on sports like cricket, while also having a more meaningful partnership. In the case of Betway they’ll be supporting SORAI (Save our Rhinos Africa & India) which is clearly a major focus of Pieterson. It’s good to see betting operators picking a sensible partner and competing based on insight, content and building their brand through charitable initiatives all at the same time.
Of course, there are a bunch of highly ambitious operators pushing into the US and you can’t help but respect the pace of William Hill in that regard.
What sports betting partnership has stood out in the past 12 months?
Being based in Yorkshire, the buzz around Paddy Power’s sponsorship of Huddersfield has been impossible to ignore – a great, creative approach that has the humour we’ve all come to expect from Paddy, while also making a point about the role of sponsorship in the game. Perfect.
If you could attend one sporting event, what would it be?
We live and breathe sport at Blueclaw but I’m one of the few that has a massive passion for motorsport! For me it’d have to be the Monaco Grand Prix..what an experience that would be.
Which parts of the conference agenda have caught your eye?
The agenda is stacked. We’ll be paying close attention to the Digital Marketing Forum and of course US-focused sessions like ‘International Stars vs Local Heroes’ at 11:20 on the 18th – it’ll be more relaxing to be an attendee rather than a speaker for a change!
