Conversion Rate Optimisation

[Aidan90]

I'm getting decent traffic numbers for betting tips related keywords. I know typically tipping related traffic is hard to convert but I feel like I could get more from my traffic.

My competitors are using quite aggressive tactics with pop-ups and banners and offers all over their pages.

I want to maintain integrity and quality and get a lot of returning visitors by being quite straight to the point with my tips.

Currently I'm just recommending the site with the best odds but conversions aren't great.

I was just wondering if anyone in a similar position wanted to share what works for them and what doesn't. Open to speaking via PM if you don't want to make discussions public.

TL : DR - How do you optimise for conversions with betting tips traffic?

[Jokerman99]

I'm getting decent traffic numbers for betting tips related keywords. I know typically tipping related traffic is hard to convert but I feel like I could get more from my traffic.

My competitors are using quite aggressive tactics with pop-ups and banners and offers all over their pages.

I want to maintain integrity and quality and get a lot of returning visitors by being quite straight to the point with my tips.

Currently I'm just recommending the site with the best odds but conversions aren't great.

I was just wondering if anyone in a similar position wanted to share what works for them and what doesn't. Open to speaking via PM if you don't want to make discussions public.

TL : DR - How do you optimise for conversions with betting tips traffic?

If you're going to write off the tactics used by your competitors, then your options become more limited. If you're not going to use popups or banners then you will need to try things like call to action copy, panels that showcase a featured bookie for the tip, an odds comparison table that shows the best place to make the bet on the tip etc.

You can also capture emails and start marketing that way. GL

[Aidan90]

It's not so much writing off the tactics that they use. I'm looking at it from an SEO perspective where banner heavy sites and pop-ups are discouraged by Google and are likely to lead to lower rankings in the future. Doing it my way has allowed me to rank for some high volume betting keywords alongside and often above sites with considerably bigger budgets and resources. e.g. Footy Accumulators.

I've tried using pop-ups and have some banners on my pages but don't find that these convert well as people aren't actively looking for a new site - they just want tips.

My main tactic is the call to action copy with an encouragement to use get the best odds for each bet. I have an email list of 2,500 subscribers to my tips but don't find that these bring much value unfortunately.

[Jokerman99]

I have an email list of 2,500 subscribers to my tips but don't find that these bring much value unfortunately.

Is that because email marketing doesn't work or because your funnels aren't well done?

[Aidan90]

I think it's in part due to the type of subscriber I have but also due to the fact I'm not utilising email marketing as well as I could.

I started this thread because I realised I'm very good at getting traffic but not so good at making money from it.

What I'm looking for is to work with someone in the opposite scenario who can help me get more from my traffic and I can share my strategy of bringing in traffic.

At the moment we get 40,000 + visitors a month from football betting tips related keywords so if anyone wants to share info just let me know.

[Malikbhai]

I think it's in part due to the type of subscriber I have but also due to the fact I'm not utilising email marketing as well as I could.

I started this thread because I realised I'm very good at getting traffic but not so good at making money from it.

What I'm looking for is to work with someone in the opposite scenario who can help me get more from my traffic and I can share my strategy of bringing in traffic.

At the moment we get 40,000 + visitors a month from football betting tips related keywords so if anyone wants to share info just let me know.

Are you having serious conversion problems or is it an improvement you would want because 40k per uniques in the betting niche is a very decent traffic and not easy to get for most affiliates.

[Aidan90]

It's hard to say really because I don't have a benchmark to judge my conversions by.

I certainly think I can get more from my traffic but I'm also aware that tipping traffic is usually hard to convert.

What sort of conversions and revenue would you reasonably expect from 40,000 sessions a month?

[wonderpunter]

First.. are you getting the CTR? that should be where to start, if not try various buttons, links.. even banners.. if you are then look at the brands.. I have some that convert 1 in 5.. some 1 in 100... needless to say I have tweaked everything for conversions

[Aidan90]

CTR is good, at an average of 10% clicking through to a bookmaker.

Conversion rates aren't great because of the saturation of U.K. brands. Experimented with a few lesser known sites but hard to find any with good customer retention.

I'd be over the moon with 1 in 100 converting.

[wonderpunter]

CTR is good, at an average of 10% clicking through to a bookmaker.

Conversion rates aren't great because of the saturation of U.K. brands. Experimented with a few lesser known sites but hard to find any with good customer retention.

I'd be over the moon with 1 in 100 converting.

For US, typically anything from an average of 1 in 25 to 1 in 60 on the direct tips pages. I would hold a consistent figure of 1 in 40... I know from other similar sites to yours 40-60 is the norm so if you can get it down then you would effectively double your rate, you do seem to be promoting the most common books there.. I would try something new you might surprise yourself .. perhaps leovegas sportsbook? or something else launched recently?

[Aidan90]

I stick to sites like Betfair and Bet Victor as they are easily marketable to my visitors as the places to go to get the best odds.

I don't want to promote a bookmaker just because I can make money off them - want the product to be of value to my visitors.

I have been considering pushing Unibet as they seem popular in Europe but less so in the UK - also heard good things about their aff program.

How are Leovegas? Any features worth promoting on sportsbook? And most importantly, can I trust their aff program?

[wonderpunter]

I stick to sites like Betfair and Bet Victor as they are easily marketable to my visitors as the places to go to get the best odds.

I don't want to promote a bookmaker just because I can make money off them - want the product to be of value to my visitors.

I have been considering pushing Unibet as they seem popular in Europe but less so in the UK - also heard good things about their aff program.

How are Leovegas? Any features worth promoting on sportsbook? And most importantly, can I trust their aff program?

They have a big name in Casino, are all over the TV so you should be able to do well with them, Unibet would also be another option. I would do some testing to check sign ups, FTD's and also retention, whats good for one affiliate is not always good for another.

[Aidan90]

So leovegas are a trustworthy affiliate program? Hard to know who you can trust these days!

Feel free to shoot over a subaff link if you have one and I'll use it if I do give them a try.

[petimi]

I stick to sites like Betfair and Bet Victor as they are easily marketable to my visitors as the places to go to get the best odds.


I don't want to promote a bookmaker just because I can make money off them - want the product to be of value to my visitors.

I totally agree about not pushing low-quality operators, however, I also know from experience that you just simply can't do decent conversion rates in a super-saturated market promoting the main street brands like WH, Betfair etc where 9 out of 10 people will already have registered accounts with these brands.


Suggestion: offer more (mid-tier quality) or less known brands and let your visitors decide if they want to give them try or not. You will soon see if they keep betting a specific operator and they become a loyal customer or not. If they bail quickly and don't spend much, you can draw the conclusion on quality pretty quickly.

[Aidan90]

Thanks for the advice, I will certainly look at promoting a few different brands and see how they get on!

[Broadway_Simon]

Do you have Google Analytics events setup to analyse conversions?

Can you setup a "ClickOut" as a conversion?

You can then see which Sources/Pages/Articles/devices (if not all organic make sure you use UTM Tagging) are resulting in clickouts. You should be able to build a report for the full funnel.

Visits to Your Site
Click Outs to operator
Operator click to reg
operator click to deposit
operator reg to deposit.

You may find that certain sources will click through to certain sites and other sources may click through to other sites etc etc.

Before changing operators that you push make sure you have full visibility on what is happening on your sites and your partner sites.

There is some good website abandonment tools know.

Conversion Bet is pretty good as is VE Interactive.. It costs money but will definitely assist with monetising your inventory.

[Aidan90]

Thanks for the advice. I am currently tracking outbound links in analytics so I can see which links were clicked on which page.

What I really need to do is to set up more link profiles for each bookmaker so I can see where the actual conversions are coming from.

[LukeC]

I wouldn't go down the route of adding more banners - I think your site has more than enough already and they push suitable products. Typically I don't think anyone really clicks banners any more, so any uplift in conversion would be negligible.

Your site doesn't render properly if users have adblock on so I would fix that - looking at http://www.footballbetprofit.com/bot...to-score-tips/ as an example:
The BetVictor banner doesn't show (though not sure that's a bad thing)
bet365 banner doesn't show (I'd host this yourself given it doesn't show an offer so unlikely you're reliant on it updating on their end to stay compliant);
The Coral logo doesn't show (host this yourself)
The Coral button doesn't show (you should cloak all your affiliate links so its http://www.footballbetprofit.com/go/coral/ or similar which redirects to your aff link - also helps you if you ever need to update your links as if you set up in a sensible way, you only need to change in one place rather than go through your entire site looking for outdated links);
The William Hill / Betfair / Ladbrokes banners don't show.

In terms of changing things up to help conversion, I'd look at adding a grid of your top 5/10 bookies and highlight the sign-up offer and potentially why they are good for football (or if possible something relevant to the specific page e.g. why they are good for BTTS if it's on that page). There is a reason that everyone uses them on traffic that has a higher propensity to convert. The caveat is I would agree that you're ranking well because the page is actually useful rather than a sales pitch though. But if this was added as "Top 5 bookies for BTTS" then I think that's a natural addition.

[Aidan90]

Thanks for taking the time to respond in detail!

I agree that banners are rarely clicked and am actually considering removing the above the fold banners I currently have.

I have noticed some problems with images not showing for visitors using adblock but I don't know if there's any way around this?

Cloaking links is something that's been discussed in great detail on these forums and everyone has a different opinion of it. I personally don't like the idea of cloaking, firstly because as a web user I will hover over a link to make sure it's taking my where I want to go and also because of the implications of cloaking with Google. I see the benefits, but prefer to keep them natural.

I like the idea of highlighting some top bookies and giving a few options as to why they'd be good for each type of bet. I'm going to take a look at this and make a few changes.

[LukeC]

I have noticed some problems with images not showing for visitors using adblock but I don't know if there's any way around this?

Save the image, upload it to your site's server, and then use <a href="http://TRACKINGLINK><img src="IMAGELINK"></a> in place of the current banner code.