We’ve got some breaking news that’s going to have a major impact on acquisition for social casino brands! From March, Google is allowing social casino operators to run pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns on AdWords and other platforms.Much like when Google opened their doors to allow Europe-facing real-money iGaming operators to bid on keywords, speed to market is of extreme importance. We expect that the first social casino clients to start using the PPC channel will enjoy the most success. This is because they’ll likely enjoy lower keyword costs and competition.The real-money gaming (RMG) sector in the UK market offers a good indication of how social casino will play out in the PPC sphere. With RMG, we’ve seen firsthand how prices went from approximately £5 a click for competitive, broad terms like “casino” to paying more than £100 for that same click just a few years later.

Prior to rolling this out to all social casino operators, a beta test will be taking place for several months for a select few. When you submit your application to Google to run social casino PPC campaigns, there are a handful of requirements you need to fulfill:

You need to be either a social casino operator or a marketing agency working on their behalf. Unfortunately, affiliates are not yet allowed to run campaigns.
You are an existing AdWords customer and your account in good standing.
Your landing pages, apps and in-game ads must not promote or link to any real-money gaming offering.
Connected to this, your website must clearly be a social casino brand and not offer real-money gaming.
You need to explicitly and clearly identify to potential players that your site is a social casino and, as such, there’s no chance of winning real money or prizes. You also need to point out that winning in the game does not mean that it can be replicated with real money.

This is an excellent opportunity for social casino brands to reach traffic in the US, Western Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Players on smart phones and tablets can be targeted as well as desktop users. In addition to AdWords Search and Display Networks, Google is also giving operators access to YouTube and AdMob.

If you need support with using the PPC channel for your social casino brands, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our social gaming acquisition team to find out more about the incredible opportunity of running paid search campaigns.