Branded traffic is the organic traffic that appears due to the marketing and PR activities of a specific brand. This definition is what most affiliate marketing media outlets stick to, leaving readers to their own guesses about how to acquire and monetize this traffic.

To address the situation, Marlerino Group will explain what branded traffic is, how brands and external media buyers generate it. We’ll also share some case studies and offer a few tips to boost your ROI.

What is branded traffic?

Branded traffic refers to users who are interested in a specific brand, whether it’s an online casino or a bookmaker. Companies value this type of traffic because if a user is already familiar with the brand, they are more likely to take the desired action, such as registration and first-time deposit (FTD).

Imagine this situation: On the eve of a Champions League playoff match, a fan decides to back up their interest in the game with a bet on their favorite team. Remembering how ads for a certain brand  «5LooseBet» popped up on every other website, they go to Google and type in the search query:  «5loosebet bookmaker».

At the moment they click on the link in the search results with the bookmaker's name, the user becomes branded traffic.

Here lies the key: most searchers won’t type vague queries like «bookmaker» or «place a bet» into the search bar. Most likely, people will search for the specific brand of a bookmaker or casino that is well-known to them.

How do companies generate branded traffic?

Generating branded traffic is a systematic process that can take years of work. Budget, time, and patience are the ingredients companies need for generating branded traffic. To ensure users search for a specific brand, the brand must saturate the information space with advertising.

To avoid vague generalizations, let's briefly go over each method companies use to generate branded traffic.

Influence marketing. The company hires ambassadors who:

• Mention the brand on social media: Reels, pre-rolls, etc.
• Appear in branded merchandise in videos and at themed events.
• Display branded attributes.

Online streaming platforms. Most readers probably remember the intro ad for Azino777. These videos sparked a lot of memes, and the cringe-worthy catchphrase «How to make money?» stuck in the memory of every other visitor to online streaming platforms.

Cringe or not, the marketers succeeded in their task — the brand's popularity skyrocketed in the moment.

In addition to intro clips, banner and teaser ads are in high demand from brands, including on adult websites.

Outdoor advertising. If the legislation of the geo allows, brands purchase offline advertising:

• Billboards
• Hoardings
• Signage

This is one of the tools that works for a very broad audience, and its effectiveness is nearly impossible to measure at the moment.

Television. The more lenient the legislation in a particular country, the fewer restrictions advertisers face.

For example, one well-known brand with roots in the CIS broadcasted its ads on African TV channels for a long time.

Go, Africa! | Fonce, Afrique!
One example is a music video by an African rapper featuring 1XBet advertising before the World Cup in Qatar.

In simpler terms, brands launch as much advertising as possible in places where their target audience resides.

The generation of branded traffic doesn’t end there — after PR activities, the internal media buying department takes over, pushing users further through:

• PPC;
• SEO;
• ASO.

In simple terms, internal media buyers ensure that users familiar with the brand land directly on the right website.

At the same time, there’s the concept of unauthorized branding — when external webmasters redirect branded traffic under the guise of traffic acquired without using branded keywords. This way, they sell users to the brand who should have naturally arrived via organic search, i.e., without any additional payment.

Some advertisers closely monitor these methods of «acquisition», while others turn a blind eye. But usually, at some point, the truth comes out, and advertisers stop working with webmasters caught in such manipulations.

Why do advertisers protect branded traffic and what does cross-branding have to do with it?

Generating branded traffic is half the battle. But if you don't maintain activity, competitors will intercept the initiative (and your traffic): this is called cross-branding.

Imagine a situation: a user wants to play a game about a pilot called «samoletix» and Googles «5LooseBet play samoletix».

After clicking, the user lands on a website that ranks at the top of the search results for the query «5LooseBet», but ends up on a similar game from the competing brand PinDown — and it turns out that this brand intercepted the branded traffic from 5LooseBet.

In addition to SEO, this also applies to ASO and PPC. There is also a tool for tracking branded traffic, which allows you to monitor where this traffic is being redirected. The name of this tool is Bluepeer.

To prevent giving branded traffic to competitors, advertisers protect their ad placements.

How it works:

SEO. To prevent competitors from taking the top spots in search results, the brand occupies all available spaces for its branded queries.

For example, for the query «1xbet casino», a branded mirror site is located at the bottom of the first page — but this is only at first glance.

At the moment the user clicks on the site, a redirect is triggered — users are sent to Gizbo.

If a competitor finds a «loophole» and jumps to the top, the advertiser looks for:

• Cloned websites;
• Doorways;
• Illegal mirrors.

To push competitors out, the brand files complaints with hosting providers, domain registrars, and search engine support.

As a result, most of these sites get banned, but they reappear on the horizon in the near future. To avoid giving SEO traffic to competitors, it’s essential to continuously monitor and remove «thieves» from the search results.

PPC. The advertiser, just like in the case of SEO, looks for competitors who are running paid search ads on branded queries.

Branded ads in the search results for the Kazakhstan geo.

The algorithm for pushing out «thieves» is identical:

• Launching contextual ads on branded queries: the higher the volumes, the fewer «loopholes» will remain for competitors;
• Complaints to the support of the ad network upon detecting violations.

You need to constantly monitor competitors' ads — after some time, the ads will resurface.

ASO. The algorithm for protecting branded traffic is similar here — the ads occupy the maximum advertising space through:

• Using branded keywords in meta tags, reviews, and responses to them;
• Buying branded queries in Google Play and the App Store.

Branded keywords «1xbet», «SportyBet» and «22bet» in the description of the Android app for the bookmaker BetCode.

You can also consider a few examples from the German AppStore ↓

Example 1. Some lapalingo used ASA to rank above the official app of the brand Wunderino by targeting a branded keyword.

Example 2. In a similar manner, the large bookmaker bet365 cross-branded the keyword for bookmaker Tipico.

Example 3. The bookmaker Betano, on the other hand, defended themselves — they not only rank first for their own keyword but also buy branded ASA results.

If a competitor breaks through the defense, the advertiser files a complaint — this algorithm works for all traffic sources.

Why companies turn to external buyers for branded traffic

While trying to protect traffic, some advertisers prohibit external media buyers from bidding on branded queries.

But the problem is that in-house buying doesn't always cover the search results. Here are a couple of situations when advertisers turn to external contractors for branded traffic acquisition↓

Expansion into an unknown geo. For example, the brand enters the Indian market, but the results of in-house buying in this geo leave much to be desired.

To avoid losing to competitors, it's easier, faster, and cheaper to find an external team that knows how to work with a specific geo.

Lack of expertise in in-house buying. For example, in-house media buyers are good at ASO and SEO, but lack experience in PPC.

While the in-house team is improving its skills, competitors «eat up» the PPC traffic.

How to drive branded traffic

To begin with, you need to understand how people search for the brand: what queries they enter in the search engine, how often they do it, and from which regions. The teams within Marlerino Group use four main tools ↓

To extract the maximum amount of information, these tools should be used together, not separately. It is also worth noting that Blask is useful when working with any traffic sources in iGaming, as it can help not only analyze competitors but also identify current and future trends, popular products, and much more.

Once the semantic core is gathered, the queries need to be filtered. Typically, media buyers classify a batch of queries into 5 categories.

This is necessary to align with the user's «wants» — the more needs you can fulfill, the higher the likelihood of conversion.

If you have already learned how to collect branded traffic, the further actions of an media buyer look like this ↓

• We align branded queries: which ones can be used and which ones cannot;
• We launch PPC or work on ASO/SEO;
• We direct traffic and don't worry about sanctions from advertising.

It is likely that advertisers will set certain conditions — for example, directing traffic only to a conditionally white link or not entering a GEO where the in-house buying team operates.

The key is to find an advertiser who is willing to accept brand traffic from external sources. Such deals are becoming increasingly rare, and it's very difficult to secure them. If advertisers do allow brand traffic, they usually grant this opportunity to large and established partners, such as our holding company.

Marlerino Group's cases

Theory is the foundation, but profit is earned through actions. Below are a couple of cases.

When working with 1win in PPC, competition in the auction was particularly high. Despite this, we were able to achieve the following figures ↓

Period: January-December 2023

Number of registrations: 129,236

Number of FTDs: 53,472

Total number of deposits: 557,487

Deposit amount: $8,093,273

Product GGR: $2,942,466

Our expenses: $752,357

Our CPA revenue: $1,192,979

Our ROI: 58%

What we see from these figures: the traffic converts well into the first deposit with a Reg2Dep rate of 41%, and then continues to perform remarkably — each player, on average, made 10 deposits, which collectively brought the product $8 million in deposits. Deposits that could have been taken by anyone, but were ultimately retained by the brand with our help.

The second part of the case concerns ASO traffic.

Number of registrations: 178,218

Number of FDs: 63,797

Total number of deposits: 931,825

Deposit amount: $23,173,087

Product's GGR: $9,510,279

Our revenue by CPA: $2,404,047

36% Reg2Dep, 14 deposits on average per player, and $7 million profit for 1win.

The second case is with Mostbet Partners, again in PPC. The traffic was poured a couple of years ago — according to our information, the advertiser is currently addressing the needs of brand traffic protection on their own.

Dates: February to December 2023
Number of FTDs: 17,726
Total number of deposits: 428,000
Total deposits amount: $9,293,676
Our costs: $422,878
Our revenue: $685,625

Our ROI: 62%

CPA for the acquired player — $40, the average deposit amount per player is 13 times higher — $529. The brand effectively protected its traffic and earned a significant amount, greatly exceeding its costs.

Conclusion

Brand traffic is a unique type of traffic generated by the marketing departments of products, which has many particularities when attempting monetization and is often a point of contention between advertisers and media buyers. Despite this, in certain circumstances, external media buying becomes not a competitor to the brand, but a partner that boosts profits.

If in-house buying, for various reasons, cannot ensure full protection, selecting an experienced contractor for working with brand traffic is a great way to make money, rather than giving your traffic to competitors.

Therefore, if you work on the advertiser's side and have faced issues with «traffic theft», or if you're looking for ways to extract extra profit and want to get more out of your brand's recognition, reach out to us to discuss potential collaboration.

And if you're an experienced buyer or team owner and want to make money on exclusive deals with advertisers, tell us about yourself in our HR bot and join Marlerino Group. Tell us about yourself